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Posts published in “Essays”

The Greatest Radical Journalist Of His Age

Monday, April 12, 2004, was the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Claud Cockburn, father of other Cockburns — the brothers Alexander, Andrew and Patrick — familiar to readers of the AVA and the CounterPunch…

Imperialism: Conrad, Lenin And Heart Of Darkness

Imperialism was a loaded word, a most unsavory word, in academia in the U.S. in the 1960s when I wrote a Ph.D. thesis about Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad titled “The Mythology of Imperialism.” I…

The Great Divide

There’s much hand-wringing these days about the political polarization of our country. This angst is real and empirically provable in evolving individual state and community laws and regulations and, of course, in the very existence…

I So Affirm

That's what freethinkers say when asked to swear to God, as I was asked in a Chicago courtroom in December 1969. I testified that Tom Hayden told me one night during the 1968 Democratic Convention…

Once More To The Coliseum

A few days from now son Lucas and I will take our seats at the Oakland Coliseum, cheer on the A’s, have a long, last sentimental look around and go home. The stadium is maybe…

My Willits Adventure

They wheeled me into the extremely bright and white operating room early in the morning. “Where’s the robot?” I asked. “That’s the first thing everyone asks,” a nurse said with a laugh. “It’s not here…

How Tim Buckner Ruined My Summer

Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the street’ —Martha and the Vandellas, 1964 ‘Summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the streets’ —Rolling Stones, 1968 ‘Summer’s here and…

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