StephenKMackSD's Blog

In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they’ve earned. Continue reading →

Let me just tell you a slice of the incredible story of why he accepted the position as President Obama’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan—and why he soldiered on in the face of poor treatment by the White House and the virtual impossibility of the task itself. Continue reading →

Evincing no Christmas spirit whatsoever, in late December Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, and various law enforcement officials proclaimed their intention to prosecute the leaders of the Green Movement, the loosely organized opposition forces that challenged President Ahmadinejad in the June 2009, elections. Presumably, those to be arrested and hauled into court would be Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, both of whom ran for president in 2009, and possibly many others, including Ayatollah Rafsanjani, the billionaire mullah who backed the greens. Continue reading →

Here, in all its salacious detail, is the latest scandal to hit the pages of Vanity Fair regarding this generation’s Clair Booth Luce and all her powerful friends, associates and their alliances and, most definitely, their falling outs. It a tale loaded with what V.F. does so very well, the current and past business and personal entanglements of the progressive branch of the American Elite. Movie stars, prominent Hollywood bigwigs, and of course the pseudo-intellectuals and political hacks and pretenders that now lay claim to the territory of the ‘progressive blogusphere’. All done in up in the rhetorical puffery made famous by V.F., under the able and always fawning courtier Mr. Carter.

This tale is all about taking credit for ‘inventing’ the Huffington Post and it is filled with big names, in fact, name dropping is the most necessary part of the story. Every proper noun is followed by some quick sketch of personal qualification, such as school attended or business owned,operated or some relationship with a name in Politics or Business or Entertainment. Very inside stuff: told in the breathless style of a bodice ripper.This is Melodrama garnished with Celebrities and Big Names and all in Capital Letters.

The necessary and indispensable Andrew Bacevich: always worthy of our time and attention!