This Is What Democracies Do

                                                     Chile updates its Constitution.

The Pox Americana

With Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, the Right-wing Revanchement in the U.S. began to chip away at the political gains made not only in the 1960s and '70s, but going all the way back to the New Deal. The Clinton Era was the Great Capitulation by the Democratic Party. For three decades now, the majority party has allowed the minority party to rule indirectly through the majority (Clinton, Obama, Biden) or directly (Bush and Trump). This effective duopoly serves the interests not of the American people as a whole but of the militarized corporatocracy which runs the government through its civilian proxies in Congress and the White House. Anyone who still imagines that we can change this situation by "voting the bums out" is living a political fantasy. Nothing short of mass demonstrations and general strikes will even make a dent in the regressive policies of the political class. And nothing even remotely like that kind of popular revolt is anywhere on the horizon in the United States today or in the foreseeable future. In short, we are not the free citizens of a democratic republic we imagine ourselves to be but the subjects of an empire. Over the past half century, we sold our political birthright for a mess of consumer-goods and virtual reality gadgets that keep us intellectually distracted and politically impotent. We have the government we deserve. And that is tragic enough, but compounding the tragedy is the fact that the Empire, being an Empire, isn't content to rule only those subjects who happen to reside within its internationally recognized legal borders, but extends its (mis)rule to the rest of the world through its nation state proxies (Israel, NATO, all the complicit governments in Arab, African, and South American countries). In the latest edition of the Orwellian Newspeak dictionary, this state of affairs is called the "pax Americana" but it is, in fact, a vortex of violence, immiseration, and despair.

This Modern World

 

Religion of the Market

                                                                     Book review.

A Sensible Government Policy

                                                         Will wonders never cease?

The Nazification of American Education

                                                                 Henry Giroux.

When Karl Marx Wrote for a NY Daily

                                                             Articles archived here.

How the Game is Played

                Let us not forget that George H. W. Bush called Saddam Hussein Hitler, too.

Against Professional Philosophy

                                             A Co-Authored Anarcho-Philosophical Diary.

Fetterman

 If Fetterman makes it to the Senate, it would be an exciting development for the Left — and not just because he’d be an extra vote in favor of many progressive policy initiatives. Given his straightforward left populism, a Senator John Fetterman would be the first major “Berniecrat” to closely resemble Bernie himself as a political communicator.

Lumumba!

                                                             Now more than ever.

The [Still Pretty] New Global Politics of Religion

 

                                                            Review by Noah Salomon.

 

Now Go Storm A Prison!

 

National (In)Security

 

                                                         The Insatiable Warfare State.
 

Ho Chi Minh

 

An Economist Worth Reading

                                                         Stiglitz on inflation.

NATO is a Rogue "Coalition of the Billing."

Once the Wall fell, NATO had no reason to exist, so it was and continues to be clear that a military organisation’s existence must be justified by positioning itself as a strong defence against... an enemy, a threat, an other to fight.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Read books, ride bikes, eat only when you're hungry, buy your clothes in thrift shops, oppose war in any form, use the phone only in emergencies, and form associations where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

Trotsky and the Wild Orchids

                                                             Happy Independence Day!

Public Safety Without the Cops

                                                         Denver's STAR Program.

"If I Wanted The Gov't in My Womb, I'd F*** a Senator"