I visited the website of the 5th largest political party in the US, ranked by ballot access, a communist one -- not, however, the Communist Party USA -- and saw "For the planet to live, capitalism must end."I like that they're environmentally aware, but I disagree. I don't think that environmentalism and capitalism are fundamentally opposed. I ( Read more... )

"If I ask myself what would today be the most radical demand to make upon our own system-that demand which could not be fulfilled or satisfied without transforming the system beyond recognition, and which would at once usher in a society structurally distinct from this one in every conceivable way, from the psychological to the sociological, from ( Read more... )

"I’m not a socialist; I believe in capital markets."

--Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI)

I try to remember that socialism and capitalism are best used as tools rather than as belief systems. Sometimes market forces are helpful. Sometimes public ownership is helpful. Sometimes we need to regulate markets, sometimes regulations are counterproductive ( Read more... )

I'll forever have fits with the term "degrowth" because in general I prefer to be for something than against something.  Like, I'm pro universal suffrage.  I'm also anti-authoritarian, but I'd rather say I'm pro universal suffrage and pro civil liberties because those are more specific.  I'm also pro republican democracy.  You could be an anti- ( Read more... )

Recently I joined an anarchism subreddit and I've enjoyed debating anarchist concepts with folks from a pro-anarchism perspective. Way more interesting than trying to debate Libertarians, who seem to be mostly assholes on the Internet nowadays ( Read more... )

The amount of cash thrown at politics in the US has grown by so much during my lifetime, way faster than GDP, inflation, population, or even wealth accumulation ( Read more... )

Maryland's COVID reporting database had been knocked offline for weeks because of a ransomware attack. They came back online today, all caught up ( Read more... )

the neoliberal ideology
wound me up
to find
the most profitable
career
that still fit
within my then-moral
compass

Reading science fiction written during the early 1940s, I'm struck by the extreme faith in nuclear power expressed at that time ( Read more... )

I wrote this on 2/29/2020, as the pandemic started to sink its teeth into the United States:

I think this pandemic is going to rip the mask off. Capitalism is going to face death.

What's more important, your precious 401(k), or taking care of each other?

-----

Well, as it turned out, an estimated 860,000 excess US deaths later, that our ( Read more... )