Today, John Sidney McCain III has died. The Republican Senator from Arizona held office for thirty one years before succumbing to glioblastoma, a rare and extremely aggressive form of brain cancer. He leaves behind a legacy of bloodshed, bigotry, and ruination which overshadows any sympathy he may have otherwise received.
Category: Opinion
Maoism has been around, at least in name, since the mid-1940s. Numerous attempts were made to elevate Mao Zedong Thought to the level of an “-ism,” much to Mao’s displeasure. In 1948, in a correspondence with Wu Yuzhang, then president of North China University, he refused to allow his name to be listed alongside Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, writing, “there is no Maoism”. In 1955, at a conference, again it was suggested that Mao Zedong Thought be elevated to Maoism. Mao replied simply, “Marxism-Leninism is the trunk of the tree; I am just a twig.” This was not mere modesty, this was dialectical.
J. Moufawad-Paul describes cultural revolution thusly: “Whereas Leninism was that stage that established the necessity of revolution up to the dictatorship of the proletariat, Maoism is that stage which claims that revolution must continue within the dictatorship of the proletariat … in order to struggle against the counter-revolutionary ideology that is often preserved in the [ideological] superstructure.” It is precisely here where Leninism ends and revisionism begins.
The 2016 presidential election was one of the biggest political upsets in American history. Everyone, even Trump supporters, were shocked when Hillary Clinton was defeated by Donald Trump. At the time, I was floored. I still remember sitting in front of my computer watching Google’s real-time election map, my jaw dropping with every new state turning red. Looking back, I’m surprised Clinton did as well as she did. So I’m calling it right now, Trump will be reelected in 2020. Here’s why:
With an ongoing trade war, tensions rising in the South China Sea, and the growing esteem of President Xi Jinping, China has been the subject of a significant amount of our twenty four hour news cycle. If, like me, you’ve subjected yourself to any of it then let me be the first to say: I’m sorry. Also, you’ve been lied to.
With the utterly unsurprising reelection of Vladimir Putin and the ever plummeting approval rating of alleged Kremlin puppet Donald Trump, Russia has been put in the cross hairs of western politicians and media outlets yet again. Not since the McCarthy era have Americans been so worried about Russians meddling in American affairs. Let’s not mince words, Russiagate is birtherism for liberals. It was ridiculous to suggest that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. It’s ridiculous to suggest that, as Huffington Post columnist Robert Kuttner put it, “Trump literally became president in a Russia-sponsored coup d’etat.”
