If you’ve had anything to eat in the last few years, surely you’ve experienced sticker shock. I knew there was something up when I couldn’t do a modest grocery run without my pocketbook being lightened by over two hundred bucks. As for restaurant food, even proletarian chow like burgers and fried chicken is starting to become rare indulgences for anyone without a comfortably bougie income. What’s up with that? (more…)
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John Ganz
When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024
With the inspiration of the death of the Soviet Union before us, we now know that it can be done. We shall break the clock of social democracy. We shall break the clock of the Great Society. We shall break the clock of the welfare state. (more…)
Ross Perot (photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)
Ross Perot (photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)
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The Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Soviet Union suffered a catastrophic meltdown in April 1986. The disaster was too big to ignore, and it shattered the prestige upon which the Evil Empire was built. Thereafter the entirety of the Communist bloc in Europe started to collapse. (more…)
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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
The Rise of Saddam Hussein
In 1968, the Ba’athists returned to power in Iraq after a relatively bloodless coup. President Arif was deposed and exiled along with his family to London. The fact that the coup was bloodless shows that Ba’athism had won Iraqi hearts and minds and was widely seen as legitimate. Saddam Hussein was still in the background at this time, and like Stalin, he focused on creating a security and intelligence service that was loyal to him. (more…)
Saddam Hussein was captured on December 13, 2003. Things have not gone well for Americans in the two decades since.
Saddam Hussein was captured on December 13, 2003. Things have not gone well for Americans in the two decades since.
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Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
It’s been 20 years since the United States military captured Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi dictator was captured by the American 4th Infantry Division along with commandos from a special forces unit, Task Force 121, at the end of a nationwide manhunt that lasted for eight months after his regime had been toppled. (more…)
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This is the savagery of, that we only remember from the Nazi crimes in the Holocaust. — Benjamin Netanyahu
Some people are larger than life. Hitler is larger than death. — Don DeLillo, White Noise (more…)
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The following essay originally appeared in the January 1992 issue of George P. Dietz’s Liberty Bell magazine, and is reprinted from the Revilo P. Oliver online archive. (more…)
Phyllis Schlafly’s critique of the Republican Party changed its focus and direction.
Phyllis Schlafly’s critique of the Republican Party changed its focus and direction.
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Phyllis Schlafly
A Choice Not an Echo
Alton, Ill.: Pere Marquette Press, 1964
Many of the greatest pioneers of Right-wing political thought in the United States are women. Right-leaning men are often too busy with their jobs and putting out the fires to be prophets. Female activists, for their part, have a remarkable ability to challenge and change the direction of institutions. One such woman was Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016). (more…)
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John Podhoretz
Hell of a Ride: Backstage at the White House Follies, 1989-1993
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993
Hell of a Ride is a witty, funny, insider view of a White House whose chief occupant was confused about “the vision thing.” Whose speeches and actions were contradictory and tepid. A Yale graduate who far too many times sounded inarticulate, once saying, in a moment predating Bidenesque boo-boos, “Message: I care” — speaking not from the heart, but from his teleprompter. (more…)