Our leading scholars are disciples of post-structuralism; our best college graduates are recruited by the CIA; our best newspapers blur the line between reporting and opinion; our most influential political actors are the spin doctors whose job is to bend the facts this way and that.
Pandemic leads to massive concentration in the marketplace (tags)
“We need a much more democratic system, we need to democratize all bits of the state – we need collective power" https://theface.com/culture/the-corona-crash-grace-blakeley-interview-coronavirus-economy-uk?token=44
Privilege versus equality. "The central issue in the conflict between the government and doctors in Saskatchewan is not health insurance, but democracy," noted the Globe and Mail after the strike began. "The experts, no matter what their specialty, must always ultimately be subordinate to the laity."
The Populist Makers and Dangerous Optimism (tags)
The people vote and capital decides. Another capitalism appears that is marked by an anti-liberal and intolerant culture. The goal of the new capitalists is the same as the old capitalists: to make the rich even richer. The governing elites gamble away the future of coming generations.
Video: Thomas Frank: Rendezvous with Oblivion, 58 min (tags)
Grin.com offers us reading samples for 202K eBooks and dissertations. Happy reading and happy research!
"Too Smart to Fail" by Thomas Frank (tags)
The “sound” banker, alas! is not one who sees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows so that no one can really blame him. –John Maynard Keynes
America's Right-Wing Reinterprets the Crisis (tags)
A state is not a hardware store. It must contract debts in crisis times. Four years after the collapse of the US economy, the republicans send a former investment banker into the race who stands for a policy that got us into the real messThe right-wing was very successful in changing the discourse.
Will Johnson: Occupy Activist Says Movement's Alive & Well (tags)
According to Occupy San Diego activist Will Johnson, the movement is alive and well. It may no longer be running law-defying occupations in prominent public places, but it's still working out ways to challenge the vast and increasing inequality in the distribution of wealth and income in the U.S.
The November 2 midterm elections were not only a decisive rejection not only of the Obama administration but a full-scale endorsement of free-market economic policies and lassiez-faire capitalism — albeit by a much smaller segment of the American electorate than voted Obama and the Democrats into power in 2008. Millions of Americans voted against the party under whose watch unemployment has risen from 6.2 to 9.5 percent, and bought into the Republicans' critique that the reason for Obama's failure is he's been too much of a progressive, unduly burdening the private sector with regulation and taxation. Thanks to talk radio and Fox News, millions of Americans profoundly believe that Obama and the Democrats are far more radical than they are — and as long as they remain on the air and have their current level of influence, U.S. politics will continue to move even further Right.
Enhanced Airport Screening Controversy (tags)
violating civil liberties
Community Centers as a New Beginning (tags)
With $1 billion, the US could build 4000 community centers at a quarter-million dollars each. The network of community centers in Vancouver Canada could be our model. Public spirit could arise to counter the exploding inequality.
Fight for the Dream: Whoever has a vision can be a physician (tags)
Brave New Films presents "War on Greed" starring Larry the Loophole
Defaulting In The War Of Ideas - (Goebbels Does DC) (tags)
No Summary
This Land Is Your Land documnetary screening (tags)
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND shows that every person can make a difference, even when pitted against the enormous powers of big business. This funny and moving documentary criss-crosses the United States, interviewing experts and individuals about corporate influence on everyday life, hears how people feel their own lives have been affected, and looks at some of the brave, compelling and sometime hilarious ways in which individuals and communities are reacting.
9-11 Commission Covers Up Bush Family Ties (tags)
You expect maybe to find suck revelations in the New Yuk Times? Yeah, right. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
The Hyper-Power (book review) (tags)
Noam Chomsky speaks of a completely de-politicized society that has left the monopoly of decisions to an anonymous leadership caste..The war against Iraq should be considered as a kind of domestic political necessity. Translated from the German