Stuart Lyle Was America ever really “great?” There are many blotches on our history going back to the days before the Articles of the Confederacy: the wanton destruction of Native American communities slavery of African’s on American soil the post-Civil War poll taxes the Monroe Doctrine of subjugation of Latin America dropping an atomic bomb…
W.J. Astore Investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, physicist Richard Feynman reached a famous conclusion: “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” The COVID-19 virus is not going to be fooled with lies. It’s not going to be fooled by a denial of medical science. You…
Alex Dunn I have a long-standing fascination with the extreme political polarisation that I perceive exists in the USA. As an Englishman, I am no stranger to the tribalism that pits Tory and Labour supporters against on another (let’s set aside for now the spent force that is the Liberal Democrats). These are two sides…
Stuart Lyle In the era of information overload, it is essential to distinguish between what is misleadingly called “fake news,” and a downright lie. They sound related, but they are not synonymous. In fact, the relationship between the two is more complex, since calling valid reporting, i.e. “news,” fake is a lie itself. A lie…
Don Rose With impeachment proceedings about to begin there are more significant things to discuss than the media-inflated battle between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders over whether he told her privately back in 2018 that a woman could not be elected president. Unfortunately it’s causing much consternation in progressive circles and much glee among their…
Stuart Lyle A Constitutional crisis has come… and gone – but few have noticed. Americans have great confidence in their form of government. From an early age they are taught – and, of course, they come to believe – that the Constitution forms the unbreakable backbone of an exceptional democratic system, unmatched in the world.…
Richard Silverstein Fresh off his anti-Semitic barnstorming spree in Florida, in which he called his Israeli-American audience “brutal killers,” Pres. Trump is trying to make it up to us. He’s tied up a nice holiday package in bows and ribbons and left it on the doorstep of Kenneth Marcus, head of the Education Department’s civil…
Stuart Lyle The denouement of a week of public testimony in the US House of Representatives Impeachment Inquiry was Adam Schiff’s closing statement. He alternated between sneering at the Republicans and getting furious with their character assassinations and stonewalling. In contrast with Devin Nunes’ obscurantist approach, Schiff quoted the Republican Ranking Member of a different…
Gregory Laxer For some time now, a towering irony has tickled my brain, though at root the topic is not at all amusing. This is the paradox that the regions of the United States that are suffering the most devastating effects of the climate crisis appear to be home to the greatest concentrations of those…
Stuart Lyle Mainstream news media have worked hard, if unwittingly, to undermine one of the foundations of democracy: a free and critical free press. It may sound contradictory, but it is the press itself that has failed to grasp the White House strategy that is intended to make the news media redundant. While conscientiously laboring…
The Contrary Perspective 