The US intervened in the Philippines to uplift and christianize the backward people, killing a couple of hundred thousand of them and destroying the place. The same thing happened in Haiti, the same thing happened with other countries.

In the early 50s in the US, there was what was called McCarthyism and the only reason it succeeded was that there was no resistance to it. When they tried the same thing in the 60s it instantly collapsed because people simply laughed at it so they couldn't do it. Even a dictatorship can't do everything it wants. It's got to have some degree of popular support.

In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom - along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.

Since James Madison day (and long before), there have been constant struggles over "democratic governance".

The entire socioeconomic system is based on production for profit and a growth imperative that cannot be sustained.

[ Republican Party] is correctly described as a "radical insurgency" by one of the leading conservative commentators, Norman Ornstein.

It is quite possible--overwhelmingly probable, one might guess--that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology