By Kingsley Clarke Adel, Iowa 1986 Frankly, I cannot recall whether or not I have actually had a Bud Light. In 1986 I went back to Adel, Iowa, for my twenty-fifth high school class reunion. Adel was what they call a farm industry town of about 2,000. My mother was anxious to please me and my Chicago […]
Time for a global anthem
by Julia Ward Howe and the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment (forwarded by Noel Ignatiev) In Counterpunch of Oct. 3, Ishmael Reed suggests it is time for a new national anthem, perhaps one written by Stevie Wonder. I am sure the result would be better than the slaveholder’s anthem (which millions now honor by going for a beer […]
The Revolutionary Moment
by Noel Ignatiev What brings the revolutionary moment? I am not referring to the political struggle that takes place within every mass movement—unions or workers’ councils, soviets or provisional government, abolition or free-soil, black power or civil rights, etc.—but the moment when subordinated individuals whom no exhortation, not even free beer, can lure out of […]
Escalator to Heaven: The Continuing Padre Pio Boondoggle
by Mike Morgan “Well you’ll never get to heaven In a Chevrolet Cos a Chevrolet Don’t Go That Way” – Boy Scout & Girl Guide Campfire Song On September 18, 2017, The New York Times reported that a large crowd of devout Catholics descended upon St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York […]
Rainbow Coalition or Class War?
by Noel Ignatiev In 1892 Thomas E. Watson ran for Congress on the People’s Party ticket (also known as the Populist Party) in Georgia’s tenth district. Watson himself was a native Georgian, son of a Confederate veteran. He had served in the State Legislature since 1882, and had been elected to Congress in 1890 as […]
People Simply Empty Out
In 1969, publisher John Martin offered to pay Charles Bukowski $100 each and every month for the rest of his life, on one condition: that he quit his job at the post office and become a full-time writer. 49-year-old Bukowski did exactly that, and just weeks after leaving work finished writing his first book, Post Office, a semi-autobiographical story in […]