Why Karl Polanyi Still Matters (tags)
In The Great Transformation (1944), Karl Polanyi explains why the economy must be embedded in society and society must not be embedded in the economy. He describes land, labor and money as "fictitious commodities" since they cannot be multiplied and created on the market.
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.
A Pretty Good Election, but the Right Still Rules (tags)
The November 6, 2012 election turned out fairly well for progressives — from Barack Obama retaining the presidency to a true Left-wing Democrat like Bob Filner winning for Mayor of San Diego — but the Right is still strong. The issue agendas and terms of discussion continue to be dictated by an increasingly militant Right wing and America's pathetic, ill-organized remnant of a Left no longer has the power to put pressure on the political system for progressive reforms the way it did in the 1890's, 1930's and 1960's.
Enter Karl Rove—Need One Say More? (tags)
The hate machine, and lie machine, and the money machine is on full blast with intent to kill any chance liberals have standing—especially Obama. The President had better find a fighter within himself because he is being challenged in a awfully big way. Americans are angry across the divide. “Many” republicans are angry as well. They know that Mitt Romney did not truly win the nomination. Rather they well realize he was foisted on the party by the sophisticated propaganda machine, the mainstream media and people like Karl Rove and billionaire donors like Sheldon Adelson. We Americans need to be reminded, again and again, in loud and bold terms, of Karl Rove’s last protégé. Another disaster in the making, with Rove’s knack for choosing people who don’t understand moral ethics, despite rhetoric to the contrary. “Karl Rove Is Back With HIS New Choice*!*!*” ought be the clarion call for today’s Paul Revere. Which brings us to an important question, if lying to the public like a psychopath, were the criteria to judge those who work in the capital who would be left standing? Certainly not Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan?
Will Rodriguez-Kennedy: Queer Republican Leader Becomes Democrat (tags)
In a dramatic scene at the February 23 meeting of San Diego Democrats for Equality, former San Diego County Log Cabin Republican Club president Will Rodriguez-Kennedy re-enacted his decision to switch parties and become a Democrat. His reason: he's not only tired of Republican Queer-bashing, he's put off by the hypocrisy of openly Queer San Diego Mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio, who has pandered to anti-Queer prejudices to get endorsements from the San Diego County Republican Central Committee and has taken money from donors to the anti-Queer Proposition 8.
Tea Party America and How to Fight It (tags)
The recent debate in Washington, D.C. over raising the debt ceiling has underscored just how totally the radical Right in general and the "Tea Party" in particular have taken over America's political debate and the economic and social consciousness of a majority of Americans. The remnant of a Left that still survives in America can only fight back if it first realizes, like a rehab patient, that we've "hit bottom" and then musters the kind of internal and external discipline it will take to mount an effective counter-attack. Instead of critiquing ourselves in public, we need to settle our differences behind closed doors, present an image of rock-solid unity to the outside world and get rid once and for all of the insanity of "consensus decision-making."
Parker Jaques: Bisexual, Binary and Proud! (tags)
Parker Jaques isn't the usual sort of interviewee who gets featured in a Queer publication. That's why I wanted to interview him for the cover story in the September 2011 Zenger's Newsmagazine. He doesn't have a traumatic, breast-beating coming-out story to tell. He wasn't Queer-bashed in school because his mother encouraged him to fight back if anyone tried it. He's proud of his identity not only as a Bisexual but as a gender-identified male, and he has such withering contempt for people (like the August 2011 Zenger's cover person, Red) who call themselves "non-binary" -- neither male nor female -- that once we started discussing that subject it was hard to get him to talk about anything else. That's why I call him "Bisexual, Binary and Proud!"
We're All Egyptians Now! (tags)
liberation
PLAN SANTA BARBARA: Is It Really Adapting In Today’s Fast Changing Environment? (tags)
Some Thoughts Regarding Item 8. For Agenda of August 10, 2010
R.I.P. Ted Kennedy: The Senate’s Last Liberal (tags)
The mainstream media’s eulogies for the late Senator Ted Kennedy predictably focused on his success as a deal-maker, pushing a liberal agenda but in ways that compromised and often won the support of Republicans and conservatives. But Kennedy’s deals were based on the existence of a Republican party that, despite its different priorities from the Democrats, still believed in government as a force for the public good. Today’s nihilistic, Right-wing dominated Republican Party no longer believes in government as anything but a repressive instrument for benefiting the rich and enforcing the discipline of “the Market” on working people both domestically and abroad who dare to challenge the imperatives of lassiez-faire capitalism. What the times call for are tough, no-nonsense progressive resistance to the bipartisan Market agenda, not support of capitalist politicians promoted as “pragmatists” in the corporate media.
Sep 2nd, 2009 9:09 PM Despite the sweeping Democratic victories in the elections of 2006 and 2008, the Republican party in general and the radical Right in particular have reasserted themselves with a vengeance, especially regarding the health insurance reform proposals of the Obama administration and Congress. They’ve been able to tap into the same reflexive anti-government sentiment that has powered American politics at least since Ronald Reagan’s election (and arguably earlier) to block the reform proposals and set the stage for a Republican return to power that will render Obama as irrelevant historically as Carter and Clinton -- and without a mass progressive movement to push Obama and the Democrats back to the Left, the Right will succeed and triumph.
Is Hillary Clinton a Feminist Candidate? A Revolutionary Feminist Meeting (tags)
Is Hillary Clinton a feminist candidate? An LA socialist feminist meeting discusses this hot topic.
Zenger's Newsmagazine endorses Dennis Kucinich for President (as we did in 2004) over the so-called 'top-tier" Democrats, each of whom has serious liabilities but all of whom would make a better President than any of the Republican candidates. This editorial from the January 2008 Zenger's also contains recommendations on the seven state propositions on the February 5, 2008 ballot.
"Capitalism and Freedom" Unmasked (tags)
The dark side of Milton Friedman's economics.
Cindy Sheehan too cowardly yet again to address war for Israel agenda on MSNBC 'Hardball' (tags)
Cindy Sheehan too cowardly yet again to address war for Israel agenda on MSNBC 'Hardball' moments ago (repeats at 4 PM on west coast and at 7 PM on east coast)
Quicksilver Times: a study in the infiltration and manipulation of alternative media (tags)
Some things change, some don't.
Economist Milton Friedman dies at 94 (tags)
Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three U.S. presidents, died Thursday at age 94.
Minuteman leader has troubled past (tags)
Minuteman leader Chris Simcox paints himself as a heroic guardian of national security. Those close to him see him differently.
We need another "DAISY GIRL" advertisement to STOP BUSH (tags)
President Bush's Pentagon is now calling for the use of nuclear weapons to attack terrorists. What could be done with a few bullets the Bush administration wants to use nuclear weapons which could kill millions of innocent human beings.
A Mom's FYI: George W. Bush Unfurls Christianity (tags)
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Barry Goldwater, Social Security & My Mother (tags)
Goldwater's stand on Social Security became a turning point in my life
RALPH NADER, UN CANDIDAT BAILLONE DANS UNE ELECTION SANS ENJEUX (tags)
En combattant la candidature de Ralph Nader, qui porte les idées progressistes depuis plusieurs décennies, pour donner un blanc-seing au clone démocrate de G.W. Bush, les notables du mouvement « N’importe Qui Sauf Bush » ont ruiné cinq années de mobilisation croissante depuis la naissance du mouvement alter-mondialiste en 1999 à Seattle, jusqu’au mouvement anti-guerre qui a rassemblé des millions de personnes dans le monde en 2003, et qui exige aujourd’hui la fin de l’occupation étrangère en Irak et en Palestine. Au moment où la prétendue "guerre contre le terrorisme" s'intensifie, le mouvement pacifiste reste à reconstruire.
Quincy, Massachusetts Goldwater Campaign was Run by Nazi! (tags)
Zionists in their zeal to defend Israel and Zionism will go to extremes to discredit anyone who has the courage to criticize Israel in even the slightest fashion. The reason I wrote this article was that someone had left a comment at the Austin Indymedia site after having read my article, entitled Zionist Myth: There Never Was A Nation Of Palestine. They said: "Harrington is a run of the mill Nazi slug." I knew that my defence of the Palestinian people would place me in the sites of the Zionist's before I wrote this article and I wasn't deterred then nor shall I be in the future!
SIZE DOES MATTER, Kerry to Win Easily (tags)
Polls, pundits and politics. Had enough? Well, folks, you can forget all of political rhetoric you have been hearing from both sides of the political spectrum. Toss it. Chunk it. It is no longer relevant.
Ronald Reagan, 93, dies at California home (tags)
Ronald Reagan, the one-time movie actor who became one of the nation's most important 20th-century presidents, died today at his California home. He was 93.
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser-Evilism (tags)
There is no question that the Bush administration's policies are "cruel and savage", but John Kerry (along with the majority of Democrats in the Senate) supported most of them, including the war on Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, the war on Iraq, and the "No Child Left Behind" education act. As Marjorie Williams pointed out in the Washington Post recently, "Kerry voted for so many of Bush's major initiatives that in order to disown them now he can only argue that they were wrongly or dishonestly 'implemented.' This amounts to a confession that his opponent made a chump of him for the past three years. In fact, one might argue that Kerry is a poster boy for all the ways in which congressional Democrats have allowed themselves to be rolled by the Bush administration."
Delivering the NO! to Bush and All That He Stands For (tags)
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The Democratic Party is not a vehicle for ending corporate control of our lives. It is an obstacle to building a new society.
Are you Afraid of Bush? (tags)
This is simply a must read...
JFK remembered by one who was there (tags)
This writer was in the press corps. accompanying President Kennedy on the day he was shot in Dallas.
8 Simple Rules for Schwarzenegger to follow, or else get 'Clubbed' (tags)
A driving force behind the Conservative storm front in America will quite likely be the Governor\'s mentor -- and in the course, steer the socially-liberal Arnold toward a starkly Conservative agenda.
The old Republican conservatism, like that of Barry Goldwater, was essentially libertarian. But a new pack Republicans, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, are exuberant about issues the old gaurd deplored, like abortion and gay rights.
Rockets, Napalm, Torpedoes & Lies Israel's Attack on the Liberty, Revisited (tags)
After more than two hours of unremitting assault, the Israelis finally halted their attack. One of the torpedo boats approached the Liberty. An officer asked in English over a bullhorn: "Do you need any help?" The wounded commander of the Liberty, Lt. William McGonagle, instructed the quartermaster to respond emphatically: "Fuck you."
How to defeat the fascists (tags)
Marching in the streets is important work, but wouldn't we have greater success if we also took control of the United States government?
GOP = Goldwater's Old Party? (tags)
Antiwar libertarian bloggers and Internet columnists often link to left-of-center websites like Indymedia, Common Dreams, Alternet.org and CounterPunch while others consider voting for Democratic candidate Howard Dean.
Swindled by the Great Republican Deception (tags)
The modern American Libertarian is very different from European-variety libertarians (anarchist-socialists) like Noam Chomsky, they are instead direct descendants of Republicans Barry Goldwater & Ronald Reagan. And they are battling for your body and soul.
"The media is kind of weird these days on politics," former Vice President Al Gore is quoted as saying in the June 30, 2003 issue of Time Magazine. "There are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party." "Fox News Network, The Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh -- there's a bunch of them," Gore continued, "and some of them are financed by wealthy ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media."
Free-Market Conservatives push anti-tax agenda at almost any cost (tags)
Stephen Moore, board member of American Conservative Union (ACU), was the former director of fiscal policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. He now runs "The Club for Growth," which backs candidates that are friendly to big business.
Weep the demise of a Leader of Men (tags)
Mourn the passing of a brilliant leader of men. Strom Thurmond is gone. It's a sad day. We will hang our flags at half-mast.
Democratic Party History: a Revealing Rap Sheet (tags)
A history of the Democratic Party's role in co-opting and diverting independent political movements, while advancing the agenda of the global capitalist police state. This and similar pieces can be found at
Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, triumphantly predicts the result of the Bush tax cuts; "local towns or cities are going to say: 'Hell, no! You're not going to raise my taxes. Get rid of the welfare programs!' ''
A PNAC Primer: How We Got Into This Mess (tags)
In the early-1990s, there was a group of ideologues and power-politicians on the fringe of the Republican Party's far-right. The members of this group in 1997 would found The Project for the New American Century (PNAC); their aim was to prepare for the day when the Republicans regained control of the White House -- and, it was hoped, the other two branches of government as well -- so that their vision of how the U.S. should move in the world would be in place and ready to go, straight off-the-shelf into official policy.
How the Reformists attempt to liquidate the anti-war movement (tags)
Recent New York Times article outlines a well-organized, massive and concerted effort by the reformist wing of the antiwar movement to derail the antiwar movement and turn activists into election fodder for the Democratic Party.
The Peace Movement is Being Hijacked by the Liberals? (tags)
It's very easy after all hard work has been done for those that have without any democracy involved to take the reins of the peace movement and steer it nose first into the ground.
"Young Americans for Freedom" hold anti-French protest (tags)
The NEO-FASCIST "Young Americans for Freedom" (YAF) organized an anti-French protest in Westwood, March 7th 2003. Here's a brief history of the jackbooted frat boy fascists.