Obama’s decision to radically escalate the wars he was ostensibly elected to terminate is a measure of U.S. imperialism's desperation. It’s not just that our erstwhile peace candidate and future Nobel peace laureate is withdrawing exhausted U.S. troops from the frying pan of Iraq only to transfer them into the fire of Afghanistan, although that itself was an act of desperation. Many of these “volunteer” soldiers and reservists, shattered after several devastating tours of duty in Iraq, are being forced to remain in the service years beyond their contracts.

Here’s how Gloria Steinem  announced her support of Bloomberg’s designation of Cathleen Black as NYC Schools Chancellor: “I’ve known Cathie Black for more than three decades, and I know she turns the impossible into success. In the beginning of New York Magazine and Ms.

The critique of “Waiting for Superman,” available mostly in the blogosphere, indicates that a backlash against the neoliberal project in education is developing. No doubt you’ve seen the barrage of propaganda for this ersatz documentary,  which touts charter schools as the solution to poverty and inequality and teachers unions as the enemy. But if you haven’t read the critiques by teachers and advocacy groups, be sure to look at the Rethinking Schools  webpage that refutes the film’s premises and conclusions.

In our previous articles, we emphasized the ideological nature of today’s problematic Islamic “threat.” Historically this “threat” fits into an established tradition of hysterical propaganda campaigns – whether against “Indians,” “Negroes” or “Reds” — which distort and exaggerate real and potential challenges to U.S. capitalism /imperialism so as to justify violence, state terror and wars of plunder. If the truth is “the first casualty” in war, then democracy is the second. Although framed by the U.S.

[Editor’s note: This is the second in a series by Richard Greeman.] To understand the lunacy of the problematic Islamic “threat” currently being hyped in mainstream U.S. political discourse, we need to place the concept in the historical context of Western, particularly U.S. imperialism’s collective self-image. White American identity has from the beginning defined itself in opposition a dangerous, threatening, darker “other” who had to be conquered, subdued, and/or exterminated : in the first instance the “savages” native to the Americas.

Note: This article begins a series by Richard Greeman. Longtime socialist and international activist Richard Greeman is best know for his studies and translations of Victor Serge, the Franco-Russian novelist and revolutionary.

Christina Romer, the former chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, argues in today’s (October 24) New York Times that “Now Isn’t the Time to Cut the Deficit.” Her argument, which is unexceptional among liberal economists, is simply that “tax cuts and spending increases stimulate demand and raise output and employment; tax increases and spending cuts have the opposite effect.” This, she reassures her readership, is a “basic message of macroeconomics.”

New Politics readers and friends are invited to sign the Campaign for Peace and Democracy statement “End the War Threats and Sanctions Program Against Iran – Support the Struggle for Democracy Inside Iran.” The statement is being circulated widely in the United States and internationally. To sign on or see the evolving list of signers go to http://www.cpdweb.org/stmts/1015/stmt.shtml.

Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison, Co-Directors, CPD, cpd@igc.org. The statement along with a selected list of signers is below:

Tomorrow, Oct. 2, I will be marching in the Socialist Contingent at the big march in Washington, DC.

We will gather at 10am at 12th and Constitution and march with the Peace Table. Join us if you can!

Jason Schulman replies

To the Editors of New Politics:

     I read with keen interest 2 recent articles on the New Politics website: “Card Check: Labor’s Charlie Brown Moment?” by Robert Fitch, and “Does ‘Union Democracy’ Undermine ‘Solidarity?” by Herman Benson.