I've tried and failed to write this post for a while, since it is the most sinister thing I seriously believe. Since there's no simple way to say this, I'll say it bluntly: democracy is on the very cusp of complete failure. We are in the beginning phases of a serious and perhaps sustained crisis in what is the government form of most of the world ( Read more... )

This is going to be a long one. Shock Doctrine is a complex and fairly personal book for me. I'll give you the short version: it's great. Read it. Put down whatever else you are reading and read it. Now comes the epic long ass version. Be prepared for many diversions.

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I really hate reading The World Socialist Website's arts reviews. Most recently, David Walsh - their go-to guy for most of their media reporting - reviewed Sonderbergh's "A Girlfriend Experience". First off, he doesn't actually like anything unless it's done by non-Americans or is an unwatchable art house movie, which disturbs me because those ( Read more... )

Obama's administration turned down requests from auto parts makers for $10 billion in loans. Obama's administration favors factor closings, work force reduction and pressing low wages on workers. This is the exact opposite of the $15 trillion in loans that have been given to the financial sector because the worst offenders are "too big to fail ( Read more... )

I'm pretty red and sometimes a socialist (other times a consensualist, which might be more or less left of socialism, or maybe orthogonal to the whole business, I dunno). I'm also not a terribly quick thinker in the sense that it can take me to really long time to understand things that are set out right in front of me ( Read more... )

The chief crisis in international socialism and communism is rather than creating, or even beginning to create, a classless and stateless society a hero of the revolution takes over and turns the gig into a monarchy. Latest example: Hugo Chavez, who seems to be angling for President-for-Life ( Read more... )