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Climate Armageddon Revisited
Climate Armageddon Revisited It was only five years ago that Scientific American published this article: Climate Armageddon: How the World’s Weather Could Quickly Run Amok, d/d May 25, 2012. The subheading to that article read: “Climate scientists think a perfect storm of climate ‘flip’ could cause massive upheavals in a matter of years.” Well now…. […]
Presidential Bomb Threats at the UN
Presidential Bomb Threats at the UN Photo by Nathaniel St. Clair Donald Trump denounced North Korea and its president Kim Jong-un as “depraved” before the United Nations Sept. 19, saying the nation “threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of life.” Of course, North Korea can barely feed itself, and yet has to defend itself […]
Condemned to Repeat It History as Rerun
Condemned to Repeat It History as Rerun European essayist George Santayana famously wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This is repeated, as it just has been, ad nauseum as various persons (like yours truly) attempt to claim the mantle of wisdom. But the past is being deliberately repeated by […]
On the Road to Extinction: Maybe it’s Not All About Us
On the Road to Extinction: Maybe it’s Not All About Us Photo by Nathaniel St. Clair It is crystal clear—unlike the smoky skies where I live–to most of us who are willing to consider the facts: this summer’s ‘natural’ disasters have been seeded anthropogenically. Wildfires in the northwestern United States and Canada, in Greenland, and […]
100 Percent Wishful Thinking: the Green-Energy Cornucopia
100 Percent Wishful Thinking: the Green-Energy Cornucopia At the People’s Climate March back last spring, all along that vast river of people, the atmosphere was electric. But electricity was also the focus of too many of the signs and banners. Yes, here and there were solid “System Change, Not Climate Change” – themed signs and […]
No Gas in Florida: Give Truth a Chance
No Gas in Florida: Give Truth a Chance Photo by el-toro | CC BY 2.0 As I heard Florida’s governor demanding gas, I wondered why they don’t learn from Cuba, and send buses. Cuba was there in the CBC newscasts about Florida. It was the country under the satellite image, under the “lingering” eye of […]
I Was an Exxon-Funded Climate Scientist
I Was an Exxon-Funded Climate Scientist Photo by Mike Mozart | CC BY 2.0 ExxonMobil’s deliberate attempts to sow doubt on the reality and urgency of climate change and their donations to front groups to disseminate false information about climate change have been public knowledge for a long time, now. Investigative reports in 2015 revealed […]
Taking Aim at Wikileaks
Taking Aim at Wikileaks Various scribbles have started to pepper the conversation started by the adventurous Mike Pompeo after he branded WikiLeaks a hostile intelligence agency before the Center for Strategic and International Studies. (This would have generated a wry smile of content from Julian Assange.) The words of the Central Intelligence Agency chief are […]
Capitalism, the State and the Drowning of America
Capitalism, the State and the Drowning of America Photograph Nathaniel St. Clair As Hurricane Harvey lashed Texas, Naomi Klein wasted no time in diagnosing the “real root causes” behind the disaster, indicting “climate pollution, systemic racism, underfunding of social services, and overfunding of police.” A day after her essay appeared, George Monbiot argued that no […]
Kafka Warned Us
Kafka Warned Us Photo by Sébastien Bertrand | CC BY 2.0 Kafka’s The Trial can be read in retrospect as a prelude to the Twentieth/Twenty-First century. Although probably not written as prophecy, Kafka’s short unfinished book nevertheless provides a road map to the terrors of the current Surveillance State. As readers of CounterPunch are all too familiar, modern man, […]
The Strange (and Tortured) Legacy of “Free Speech”
The Strange (and Tortured) Legacy of “Free Speech” Photo by Charlie Nguyen | CC BY 2.0 It has recently come to my attention that new Chancellor Carol Christ at the University of California, Berkeley, my alma mater, has unveiled ambitious plans for a “Free Speech Year” — a magnanimous gesture toward the Free Speech Movement […]
Hurricane Harvey and the Dialectics of Nature
Hurricane Harvey and the Dialectics of Nature Between 1872 and 1882, Frederick Engels worked on a book titled “The Dialectics of Nature” that sought to apply Marxist dialectics to the natural world. Although it was never completed and is filled with dated ideas about science, it is a work that has earned the respect of […]
Is Hurricane Harvey a Harbinger for America’s Future?
Is Hurricane Harvey a Harbinger for America’s Future? Over the past week we have seen two major tropical storms devastate different parts of the world. First Typhoon Hato struck Hong Kong and Southern China killing at least a dozen people. And over the weekend Hurricane Harvey made landfall from the Gulf of Mexico, bringing extremely […]
How Capitalist Central Banks Have Been Creating the Next Financial Crisis
How Capitalist Central Banks Have Been Creating the Next Financial Crisis As central bankers, finance ministers, and government policy makers head off to their annual gathering at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this August, 24-26, 2017, the key topic is whether the leading central banks in North America and Europe will continue to raise interest rates this […]
