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Bernard Weiner - Latest News [Page 1]
Trump and Authoritarianism - Bernard Weiner
Monday, 8 August 2016, 9:17 am | Bernard Weiner
All over the globe, including here in the U.S., there is a resurgence of muscular authoritarian politics. How that trend unfolds and is enforced varies country by country, but the core is recognizably neo-fascist, to a lesser or greater degree, ... More >>
The Momentous Confrontation in Turkey
Monday, 17 June 2013, 5:33 pm | Bernard Weiner
The current political situation in Turkey is explosive and how it plays out will alter that region of the world and beyond for many years. One of the reasons I wanted to travel to that country last year was precisely because of Turkey's having been ... More >>
Whirlpool of Crazy: A Letter to European Friends
Friday, 29 July 2011, 12:20 pm | Bernard Weiner
So what the f--- is going on? American politics is always a bit weird, but these days it seems even more bi-polar and demented. It's more like a mad video game, points being given for especially ruthless, ignorant, and violent denunciations directed ... More >>
The Sounds of Silence: Reactions to Political Despair
Thursday, 9 December 2010, 4:33 pm | Bernard Weiner
By nature, I'm usually an optimist. I've experienced and studied enough history to understand its cyclical nature and its ability to house enormous positive/negative contradictions. The worst of times can also lead to the best of times. What goes ... More >>
A Letter to Appalled, Puzzled European Friends
Thursday, 21 October 2010, 3:47 pm | Bernard Weiner
Dear Wolfgang and Jacqueline: Your recent email, wondering "what the f--- is going on" these days, questioning whether we Americans have taken "more than your usual amount of stupid pills," is well deserving of a considered response. How is it possible, ... More >>
Come the Revolution: Are We There Yet?
Wednesday, 4 August 2010, 8:28 pm | Bernard Weiner
It may well be time for a kind of revolution. For those too young to remember, or for those who believe history still has much to teach us, here's a primer before we get to our shared 2010 reality. More >>
The Danger of Unchecked Power: Bibi as Bullyboy
Tuesday, 15 June 2010, 1:30 pm | Bernard Weiner
Take a large dose of hubris, combine it with Lord Acton's famous dictum ("power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely"), and you emerge with an explosive, reckless abuse of authority on a number of fronts. We could talk in this regard about ... More >>
Mr. Obama: Tear Down This War!
Thursday, 13 May 2010, 11:05 am | Bernard Weiner
Many of us progressives now in our 60s and 70s spent years of our young lives in "The Sixties" trying to stop the U.S. war in Vietnam. Many in this cohort were beaten, jailed, lost jobs, suffered discrimination. We were, after all, considered "unpatriotic" ... More >>
What Happens When We Don't See the Tipping Points
Wednesday, 7 April 2010, 12:23 pm | Bernard Weiner
Often in our busy daily lives, we miss the significance of a piece of news. Sometimes it's not until years later that we realize how very important that news event was in shifting the paradigm. For example: In 1981, President Reagan fired all 11,000 ... More >>
"Shallow Throat": Obama, the GOP & "Potomac Fever"
Thursday, 25 March 2010, 6:06 pm | Bernard Weiner
With the Democrats running the show, the Republican mole "Shallow Throat,"** now a high-priced political consultant, is no longer positioned inside the government, but still has a wide network of administration and party contacts, especially in ... More >>
The Hurt Locker: When Art Meets Lousy Politics
Wednesday, 10 March 2010, 11:08 am | Bernard Weiner
I despise the implicit pro-Iraq War politics of "The Hurt Locker": There is no examination or even mention in the film of why the U.S. might be fighting there, no look at the neo-conservative ideology that sent our troops there, no questioning of the aggressive ... More >>
Entering the Scary "Lacuna" of American Politics
Thursday, 4 March 2010, 3:54 pm | Bernard Weiner
I finally finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's latest brilliant novel, "The Lacuna," and it's the kind of book that engenders discussion on a wide variety of important topics. More >>
Can the Ticking Middle East Conflict Be Defused?
Thursday, 18 February 2010, 2:19 pm | Bernard Weiner
I had a fascinating email conversation over the weekend on the Middle East conflict, and it seems worthy of reproducing here. Not just because of the issues raised but because they encapsulate the difficulty of even agreeing on what the central questions ... More >>
Drifting Toward Catastrophe: A Seven-Headed Beast
Thursday, 28 January 2010, 10:52 am | Bernard Weiner
The temptation is great to stick to the minor, more gossipy items in the political news. The Larger Issues (here are seven) are damn difficult to deal with. Are there political leaders ready to take them seriously? Or do we continue slouching toward ... More >>
Behind the Veils of Power: Hope for Progressives
Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 12:41 pm | Bernard Weiner
Pundits of all stripes are calling this past decade a thoroughgoing disaster, one of the worst in our nation's history. True, but there's another way of evaluating the CheneyBush era. More >>
B Weiner: The Self-Destruction of Barack Obama
Wednesday, 16 December 2009, 11:40 am | Bernard Weiner
He has made key decisions in three areas that, unless he alters his approach (not likely), could well guarantee a Republican victory: an embarrassingly rolled-out, badly-compromised health-care reform bill; his continuing slavish subservience to ... More >>
"Shallow Throat": Is Obama Turning Into Bush Lite?
Thursday, 21 May 2009, 4:55 pm | Bernard Weiner
Maybe this happens to you, too. You go away on vacation for a few months, come back and sort through your snail/email and back copies of magazines and 'net stories, only to find that a good share of the mail is third-class junk/spam and not all that ... More >>
"Angler": The Rise and (Finally!) Fall of Cheney
Thursday, 12 March 2009, 2:53 pm | Bernard Weiner
Reading Barton Gellman's "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency" (Penguin Press, 2008) is yet another reminder that all too often those who were right early on about the massive dangers facing American society under the CheneyBush Administration were ... More >>
Why the GOP Is Going Down While Seeming to Go Up
Wednesday, 11 February 2009, 12:56 pm | Bernard Weiner
It's like watching someone being sucked down into quicksand. I'm referring to the sad, desperate struggle of the Republican Party to try to resurrect its electoral fortunes by championing the exact same policies that took them to embarrassing defeat ... More >>
"Shallow Throat" On Obama and GOP Obstructionism
Wednesday, 28 January 2009, 9:12 am | Bernard Weiner
I was shocked. For six years, I had been meeting secretly with the GOP mole I called "Shallow Throat"** -- a high-ranking official in the Bush Administration -- and each time, ST made sure to wear different wigs and scarves and dark glasses. Now, here ... More >>
