|
Eric Hobsbawm passed away. I remember reading some of his work in University. Timothy Snyder wrote a eulogy at CNN which had a clear regard for the power of the narrative of communism for the subject of history. He puts an interesting spin on it by comparing it to a contemporary capitalist narrative: Private property must stay, not be abolished. The state must . . . → Read More: Eric Hobsbawn – RIP Greed is good Gordon Gekko is alive and well. His paean to greed is being echoed in the values and narratives of the people and the politicians and the economists that support a particular class in the US. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’re not here to indulge in fantasy, but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its . . . → Read More: Greed and power narratives The poisoning of the political discourse continues apace in America. Arguments are shouted down, Red-baiting is back. This from the Guardian: Cheryl and her co-workers learned that the Honeywell division they had been working for had been sold to Sensata Technologies. They researched Sensata. she said: “We found out this summer that it was owned by Bain [Capital]. Then we found the connection . . . → Read More: Poisoning the discourse If one arrogates something to oneself one takes it as a right, and claims it over and above the claims of others. Arrogance is a claim for precedence. Putting oneself ahead of others, or as its defenders might say ahead of the pack. It is interesting etymologically that rogation comes from the act of stretching one’s hand out, or, in today’s parlance, panhandling. The beggar is asking for something the arrogant one is taking it for themselves. It is my worry that the world I am bequeathing to my children is a world in which they will need to confront and resist a new rise of this type of thinking. . . . → Read More: History and Arrogance New Deal 2.0 One of the critiques that comes out of these arguments is that the picture of property rights as a vertical relationship between a person and an object, one where the issue at play is whether the person’s right over the object is “deserved all the way down,” is flawed, or at least insufficient. Property is really a horizontal set of . . . → Read More: Thinking more deeply about property rights I have been mulling over writing a new manifesto for today, something that will capture my thoughts as a political platform. This piece by Thorten Parker called What do you want for America opens with a good statement of the background of the case for a new American manifesto thusly: People who understand how this country’s financial system works know the American dream . . . → Read More: Towards an new American Manifesto Our societies are descending into a mire in which hope vanishes, prospects are annihilated, life is cheapened, and where the only winners are the misanthropes, the ‘haters’, the seekers of scapegoats in the form of the ‘alien’, the Jew, the ‘different’, the ‘other’. As the lights are literally going out, with families ‘choosing’ to have their electricity supply discontinued in order to put food on the dinner table, thugs ‘patrol’ the streets in search of the ‘enemy’. Nazi ideology is getting another chance, like hunger and dispossession, to infect, once again, our social fabric. And as our institutions, our trades unions, our cultural norms and organisations are turning into empty shells, little, if anything, stands in the way of the bigots, the racists, the exploiters of generalized pain and helplessness. Alas, the serpent’s egg is hatching again in Europe, and for the same reasons it did back then. . . . → Read More: Greek tragedy The government is up to some really weird things in mortgage land as Mandleman Matters tells us in this post on Hamp 2 is here – Some say it’s the best HAMP yet, and they’re probably right about that. Put your irony filter on wide band receiving about now… . . . → Read More: HAMP 2 – New Boss same as the old boss In America we are witnessing as never before the swift dismantling of the liberal democratic principles that we have had in place for the past 70 or so years. The rhetoric is strong. The people who want to have your pension, your pay raises and your health care money directed to them are coming for you. . . . → Read More: The votes we can’t afford Drone manufacturers are considering offering police the option of arming remote-controlled aircraft with (nonlethal for now) weapons like rubber bullets, Tasers, and tear gas… . . . → Read More: Weapons for US based drones coming soon to a sky near you |
|
