Our dangerous new McCarthyism: Russia, Noam Chomsky and what the media’s not telling you about the new Cold War

It is time to attempt that hardest of things—to see ourselves for who we are, to see what it is we are doing and what is being done to us.

 Two things prompt the thought. We have the latest news on Washington’s confrontation with Russia, and we have a newly precipitous decline in the national conversation on this crisis. In my estimation, we reach dangerous new lows in both respects.

…Two, there can be no Cold War II because the Cold War as we knew it never ended.

Patrick Smith is the author of “Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century.” He was the International Herald Tribune’s bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992.

Where Are Muckraking Journalists Today?

In its heyday, between 1903 and 1906, muckraking journalism was ubiquitous, urgent, influential. The “interests” (what we call today “special interests”) threatened the commonweal; the press attacked the interests. Even in the wake of TR’s tongue-lashing, investigative journalism continued to power Progressive reforms.

Where have all the muckrakers gone?

Jessica Dorman, a former president of The Harvard Crimson, is an assistant professor of American Studies at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg.