politics
-
Beyond Savage Politics and Dystopian Nightmares
What kind of society emerges when it is governed by the market-driven assumption that the only value that matters is exchange value, when the common good is denigrated to the status of a mall, and social order is composed only… Continue reading
-
The Myth of Welfare Queens and the Reality of Racism
Fiscal conservative politicians including some Democrats like Bill Clinton have presided over a massive and systematic redistribution of wealth into the 1 percent since the 1980s. For African-Americans this means that we lost over half of our collective and meager… Continue reading
-
“Democracy”, Crisis, and Control
Ted Asregadoo speaks with U.C. Santa Barbara sociology professor, William I. Robinson, about the crisis of global capitalism and social democratic ways to address the financial, ecological, and social crises wrought by this system. Related articles Society of Control (keithwaynebrown.com)… Continue reading
-
Daodejing 71
#71* To know your ignorance is most upright. [1] Not knowing but pretending to know is illness. [2] Just consider shortcomings only as shortcomings: thus, no shortcomings. The Sage has no shortcomings because he considers shortcomings as shortcomings: hence, no shortcomings. *Translation… Continue reading
-
Poverty does bad things to your brain | Futurity
Poverty and the worry that goes with it uses up so much mental energy that the poor have little room in their brains for anything else. As a result, people of limited means are more likely to make mistakes and… Continue reading
-
The Confidential Memo at the Heart of the Global Financial Crisis | VICE United Kingdom
The whole sorry thing is both depressing and infuriating… When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn’t believe it. The Memo confirmed every… Continue reading
-
8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance
My good sister, Stephanie E., with whom I am reading Paulo Freire‘s Pedagogy of the Oppressed sent me this article yesterday on FB. It details what the situation that Henry Giroux has been talking about in such texts as Youth… Continue reading
-
Freelance Nation: How to Become a Part-Time Worker Without Really Trying | The Nation
This originally appeared as a Tomgram over at Tomdispatch and was picked up by the Nation… …what a weird economic downturn and recovery this has been. From the end of an “average” American recession, it ordinarily takes slightly less than… Continue reading
-
Ripping Off of Young America: The College Loan Scandal
Good investigative piece from Matt Taibbi and well worth your time. If you are not sure, just read these few paragraphs and decide if you can afford to not read the whole article. …How is this happening? It’s complicated. But… Continue reading
-
Ayn Rand – Funny Lady
John Hodgman over at the New Yorker has a grand old time sending up that dreadful pseudo-philosopher Ayn Rand. Sit back and enjoy how much you will laugh out loud… My moral philosophy is founded on the idea that there… Continue reading
-
Corporate sell-outs exploit a secret new gimmick – Salon.com
With more and more operations of the executive and judiciary branches happening behind closed doors and out of public view, the legislative branch was bound to join Washington’s secrecy-fest at some point. That point apparently is now. As The Hill… Continue reading
-
Madness and (American) Civilization
In “The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?” (New York Review of Books, 2011), Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, discusses over-diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, pathologizing of normal behaviors, Big Pharma corruption of psychiatry, and the adverse effects… Continue reading
-
“You look like a cocaine dealer” | YouTube
Bill O’Reilly to Prof. Marc Lamont Hill… egads. At least Dr. Hill gets O’Reilly to admit to being a coke head. 🙂 Related articles The Sad Reality of White-on-White Violence (keithwaynebrown.com) Racial Profiling, Racial Stereotypes, and the Irrationality Of White Supremacy… Continue reading
-
Libertarian Populism Isn’t Populist | Business Insider
…a slash-the-federal-entitlement-state view also just isn’t populist. Federal entitlements protect the masses against problems like unemployment, retirement insecurity, and poverty. Seeking to dismantle them is the opposite of defending mass interests against elites. You can frame your desire to shrink… Continue reading
-
A Brief Outbreak Of Draconian Sanity | Esquire
A conviction on this charge [“aiding the enemy”] literally would have criminalized the dissemination of information, which is the central purpose of the First Amendment, as long as one of our many purported enemies had access to a computer, or… Continue reading
-
Robert Scheer: Gag Me With Lawrence Summers – Robert Scheer’s Columns – Truthdig
The idea that Barack Obama would still consider appointing Lawrence Summers to head the Federal Reserve rather than order an investigation into this former White House official’s Wall Street payments, reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal, mocks the president’s… Continue reading
-
The Sad Reality of White-on-White Violence
A frightening and violent mob swept through the normally quiet seaside community of Huntington Beach last night following a surfing competition in the area. Businesses were vandalized and looted, portable toilets overturned, and brutal fistfights waged right out in the… Continue reading
-
Interview with Matt Bors: Drawing Terrible Things Without Causing Despair | Truthout
Truthout has been publishing Matt Bors‘ cartoons for more than a year now, and we’re not the only ones who have taken notice of him. Bors has won awards for his editorial cartooning including the Herblock Prize and the Society… Continue reading
CALL ME MAGGIE 