Barack Obama: The Obama rhetoric about standing up for working people against “special interests” is as profuse as ever. Would you care for a spot of Kool-Aid at the Mad Hatter’s tea party?
About Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon is co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign organized by Progressive Democrats of America. His books include "War Made Easy" and "Made Love, Got War." For more information, go to: www.normansolomon.com
Don’t Vent, Organize — And “Primary” a Democrat Near You
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Norman Solomon: If there’s a defining issue that now separates the Obama party leadership from social decency, it is the president’s push to cut Social Security benefits.
The Orwellian Warfare State of Carnage and Doublethink
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Norman Solomon: After the bombings that killed and maimed so horribly at the Boston Marathon, our country’s politics and mass media are awash in heartfelt compassion — and reflexive “doublethink.”
Time to Bell the Obama Cat?
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Norman Solomon: Whether or not Obama’s vicious assault on Social Security is successful, it has already jolted an unprecedented number of longtime supporters. It should be the last straw, suffused with illumination.
Ten Years Ago and Today: A Warfare State of Mind
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Norman Solomon: The resulting tragedies have been so horrific and large-scale that the overall reporting by U.S. mass media scarcely provides a clue. In real time and in retrospect, the dominant cliches about this war have stayed in circular motion, self-referential, within American bubbles.
Which Members of Congress Are Standing Up for Economic Decency – And Which “Progressives” Aren’t
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Norman Solomon: As battles over key issues of economic fairness intensify on Capitol Hill, we’re very likely to see a lot of Democrats — led by President Obama — preening themselves as virtuously non-dogmatic while they rebuff the minimal humanistic demands of progressive constituencies.
Why Is Three-Quarters of Progressive Caucus Not Taking a Stand Against Cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?
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Norman Solomon: As of now, 54 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have taken a historic dive. We should take note — and not forget who they are.
Congress: End Endless War and Stop Becoming “the Evil That We Deplore”
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Norman Solomon: But unlike the horrific war in Southeast Asia, the ongoing and open-ended “war on terror” is not confined by geography or, apparently, by calendar. The search for enemies to smite (and create) is availing itself of a bottomless pit, while bottom-feeding military contractors keep making a killing.
Washington War-Makers in a Bunker, Not a Bubble
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Norman Solomon: Without an honest reckoning of what did and didn’t happen in the lead-up to the Iraq war, a pernicious message comes across: of course we stuck it out and followed orders, we had private doubts but fulfilled our responsibilities to maintain public support for the war.
Verbal Tics and Political Routines
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Norman Solomon: We don’t object to “defense” — what we do oppose, vehemently, is military spending that has nothing to do with real defense and everything to do with killing people, enforcing geopolitical control and making vast profits for military contractors.
King: I Have a Dream. Obama: I Have a Drone.
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Norman Solomon: After his Inaugural speech in January 2009, Obama has pursued policies that epitomize King’s grim warning in 1967: “When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.”
Norman Solomon: What Makes a Healthy Progressive Ecosystem
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Norman Solomon: Paul Wellstone talked about representing and fighting for what he called the democratic wing of the Democratic Party and I would like to fight for the progressive wing of our social movements in Congress.
Uncle Sam Making Wrong Choices
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Norman Solomon: Only government has the capacity to provide economic remedies for social distress of this magnitude. But government is failing.
Democrats Must Push Back
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Norman Solomon: Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in the vital lessons of the New Deal. Many millions of good jobs must be created — and that will require well-funded federal jobs programs on a large scale.
The Search for War
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Norman Solomon: In times of war, U.S. presidents have often talked about yearning for peace. But the last decade has brought a gradual shift in the rhetorical zeitgeist while a tacit assumption has taken hold — war must go on, one way or another.
Nuclear Power Madness
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Norman Solomon: Like every other president since the 1940s, Barack Obama has promoted nuclear power. Now, with reactors melting down in Japan, the official stance is more disconnected from reality than ever.
When “Good” Dictators Go Bad
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Norman Solomon: And so, the secretary of state condemns awful Iran, invoking “our sense of human dignity, the rights that flow from it and the principles that ground it.” But don’t hold your breath for any such condemnation of, say, Saudi Arabia — surely an “awful” government that “routinely violates the rights of its people.”
Why I May Run for Congress
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Norman Solomon: Across the country, alarm is rising as corporate power escalates at the intersection of Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
A Time for Action — Not Servility
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Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen: While Washington pundits are talking up a new civility, many progressives are bracing for the old servility — a bipartisanship that is servile to a corporate elite that is unquenchably greedy and more powerful than ever.
What’s at Stake in Tax-Cut Deal
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Norman Solomon: More than two weeks after President Barack Obama announced his decision to make a tax-cut deal with Republican leaders, the shock waves continue to buffet many Democrats and others who are stunned by the grim implications.
A Hollow Bomber Jacket
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Norman Solomon: Evidence of the Obama administration’s “moral collapse” is profuse; the pattern is clear, the consequences already terrible. During the weeks and months ahead, progressives will need to engage in fresh strategic discussions. Public candor may be insufficient, but it is necessary.
Obama Wooing Economic Royalists
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Norman Solomon: The best way to defeat right-wing xenophobic “populism” is to build genuine progressive populism. In the process, we can draw on the spirit of the New Deal.
The Tragedy of Under-Reaching
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Norman Solomon: We need to build a grassroots progressive movement — wide, deep and strong enough to fight the right and challenge the corporate center of the Democratic Party.
Top “Tossup” House Race for Progressives: Raul Grijalva
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Norman Solomon: Demagogues in the Republican Party, and their Democratic allies, will say this is about amnesty and open borders. No matter how many times they repeat it, it won’t be true.
Progressive Canaries in a Political Mine
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Norman Solomon: After more than 20 months of White House insistence that the only useful role for progressive canaries is to keep singing the president’s tune, the electoral coal mine is filled with the political equivalent of carbon monoxide and methane.
No, Higher Consciousness Won’t Save Us
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Norman Solomon: When social movements seem to be no match for a destructive status quo, people are apt to look around for alternative strategies. One of the big ones involves pursuing individual transformations as keys to social change.
General Petraeus Goes to Media War
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Norman Solomon: It’s already history. In mid-August 2010, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan launched a huge media campaign to prevent any substantial withdrawal of military forces the next summer.
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Digital Grab: Corporate Power Has Seized the Internet
Norman Solomon: The huge imbalance of digital power now afflicting the Internet is a crucial subset of what afflicts the entirety of economic relations and political power in the United States. We have a profound, far-reaching fight on our hands, at a crossroads leading toward democracy or corporate monopoly. The future of humanity is at stake..