David Masciotra

2 weeks ago | counterpunch.org | David Masciotra

Two songs have brought me to tears since the death of my friend, Alanna Ford. The first was a new song from Warren Haynes called “Real, Real Love.” Haynes took a partially composed lyric that his late friend, Gregg Allman, wrote, and crafted a beautiful and soulful full-length exploration of the purpose, meaning, and sadness that love ushers into our lives.

1 month ago | washingtonmonthly.com | David Masciotra

Donald Trump’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions; doctors who offer reproductive health services to women could go to prison; Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters; rogue police could break down citizens’ doors and bust into college dormitories in midnight raids; schoolchildren could not be taught evolution, Black history, or gay rights; writers, artists, and journalists would be censored at the whim of government; and the doors of the federal...

1 month ago | counterpunch.org | David Masciotra

One of the late Jacques Derrida’s most useful exercises in linguistic play was to hyphenate “represent.” The word that appears after the alteration, “re-present,” offers transformed definition and application. To re-present something, especially a memory, is to present it anew, but also to mark, mangle, and manufacture a different present.

1 month ago | unherd.com | David Masciotra

ExtremismLiberalismPoliticsTrumpUS Donald Trump is a great uniter, bringing together the most delusional elements of American life. Attacks on his administration’s reactionary turn are, of course, accurate. But it is far wiser to see his cabinet as a crackpot coalition. Served by representatives from the extremist Left and Right, the President appears to reward any idea, no matter its absurdity or origin, as long as it breaks with the exhausted liberal consensus.

2 months ago | salon.com | David Masciotra

Most Democratic elected officials are behaving with stunning timidity, at the exact moment that the crisis facing American democracy demands strength and aggression. Combining the neuroses of insecure teenagers and the poll-monitoring reticence of politicians fit for parody, they appear both weak and bashful. They are acting like losers, but their constituents will suffer the gravest losses. Chief among those endangered constituents are transgender and nonbinary people.