David and Jeanne Heidler If you’re looking for strange juxtapositions, you had a whopper this weekend. On January 16, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. In case you’re a bit fuzzy on the amendment numbers, that was the one prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage…
Jacek Popiel Americans live in a perpetual now, and the now of 2016 is looking decidedly grim. A quick summary of our current situation: U.S. finances are shaky, with an exploding national debt, two economic crises since the year 2000, and the next one possibly around the corner. The once superb U.S. economic machine has…
W.J. Astore Continuing our election coverage, I thought I’d try to sum up each major candidate with a single word (excluding profanities). I encourage readers to submit your own words for each candidate in the comments section below. The Democrats Clinton: Compromised. No candidate is more beholden to special interests and the establishment than…
W.J. Astore I watched last night’s Republican debate so you wouldn’t have to. Leaving aside the usual mugging by Donald Trump, the usual jousting over side issues like whether Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen, I thought I’d take an impressionistic approach to the debate. You can read the debate transcript here (if you…
b. traven, Greg Laxer, and Mike Murry Editor’s note: We wanted to share with our readers an off-line conversation some of our regulars had regarding protest songs and the Vietnam War. Back then, songs really meant something. We encourage you to write about your own favorite protest songs in the “comments” section below. Thanks. b.…
U.S. Cops Have Already Killed More People since Christmas than UK Cops Have Killed in Five Years Peter Van Buren I love my readers, and want you all to have a safe 2016. So here’s some advice, assuming you don’t want to be murdered by your police: move to the UK. Or China. Or Australia.…
Originally posted on Pox Amerikana:
‘Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.’ ‘Guantanamo will be closed no later than one year from now.’ ‘Washington is broken. My whole campaign has been premised…
W.J. Astore When I was a kid, I was a stamp collector. My dad, in contrast, saved old coins. He was not a collector; he didn’t file them away in special folders. He just tossed old silver coins into a cigar box. My favorite coin of his was also the oldest one he had: a…
Don Rose. Introduction by b. traven. Don Rose, TCP’s insider on Chicago politics has written a biting assessment of how corrupt politics dominated by an Obama-endorsed mayor, Rahm Emanuel, is perpetuating police misconduct. Emanuel, abetted by a compliant city council, has refused to hold the Chicago police force accountable for its discriminatory use of deadly…
For interested readers, here’s a summary of our blog, The Contrary Perspective, for 2015. We’d especially like to thank our frequent contributors, people like Greg Laxer and Michael Murry, for all of your comments. We’re really pleased to have reached roughly 200,000 “hits” in 2015. Together we’ve built a community of contrarians who are always…
The Contrary Perspective 