American Delusions

Video Post – Trump’s Pandemic

August 7, 2020 Comments Off

Trump and his Republican enablers – the Trumplicans – are responsible for the pandemic in the US and the nearly 200k deaths that have occurred to date. Comparing the US response with the rest of the world makes it clear that this catastrophe is the direct result of Trumplican policies. --->> read more -->>

Structural White Supremacy In Action – the real estate market

July 2, 2020 Comments Off

Wondering What White Supremacy Looks Like? The Boston Globe reported on July 1, 2020 on the results of a study by Suffolk University Law School, “Qualified Renters Need Not Apply” (link downloads the PDF of the study) from the Globe report: An undercover investigation released Wednesday found that Black people --->> read more -->>

The Trumplican Pandemic

June 30, 2020 Comments Off

It is absolutely clear that Trump and Republicans (Trumplicans) are to blame for the state we find ourselves in. Trump and Republicans can talk all they want about “Wuhan virus” and other racist slurs. There is no other explanation for the tremendous surge in COVID-19 cases across the southern belt --->> read more -->>

Reparations and the System of White Supremacy

June 25, 2020 Comments Off

The recent upheavals around the killing of George Floyd and police violence more broadly has been surprising in its breadth and scope. In the midst of this, new discussion of reparations has surfaced. I have not actively thought about this topic since the widely read and cited article The Case --->> read more -->>

End Anonymity

June 15, 2020 Comments Off

Anonymity is a plague in our lives, public and private. The web is filled with anonymous material authored by anonymous creators. Facebook is filled with millions of anonymous fake people who are really, it frequently turns out, paid actors for various political and economic actors. Our local web-based social platforms --->> read more -->>

“How Structural Racism Works” – Tricia Rose and Samuel Rosen – recently noted

June 7, 2020 Comments Off

If you are struggling to get your head around how racism works you will probably find it helpful to have a general framework as a guide. This one hour lecture from 2017 features an overview by Brown University Professor Tricia Rose of the structure of racism and how it works --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – Eric Foner on the Electoral College, presidential elections…..

May 21, 2020 Comments Off

The May 21, 2020 Issue of the London Review of Books contains a review article, “The Corrupt Bargain” by Columbia U. Professor Eric Foner. It is a wonderful review of the history of this peculiar institution, The Electoral College. In the midst of his survey of the history of the --->> read more -->>

Tightrope – Americans reaching for hope by Kristof and WuDunn – book review

May 1, 2020 Comments Off

Kristof and WuDunn’s book, Tightrope – Americans Reaching for Hope, spent some weeks on bestseller lists. Kristof is a well known reporter and writer for the NYTimes. It centers around the town of Yamhill OR and the people that Kristof grew up among. The stories of industrial decline, increasing inequality, --->> read more -->>

How the Rich and Big Corporations Feed Off Us During the Pandemic

May 1, 2020 1

[1]When Congress passed the second pandemic stimulus bill, the CARES Act, in late March, a key feature was the Paycheck Protection Program(PPP). This was $349 billion described as targeted to small businesses (in the world of the Federal government small businesses have long been defined as having fewer than 500 --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – the chemical industry, government, and personal connections to TCE

March 1, 2020 Comments Off

Back in the early and mid ‘70s both Karen and I worked in various machine shops and other industrial locations. Trichloroethylene (TCE) was used on a daily basis to clean metals parts and other materials. I remember a large tank of slowly roiling hot TCE at Stevens Arnold, Inc. in --->> read more -->>

The Coming End of Branding and Logos….. the shutdown

February 14, 2020 Comments Off

Human beings have always been attracted to images. From early cave paintings to traveling displays of giant canvases by the Hudson River school of painters to TV and on now into the ubiquity of images in the digital era, we pay attention. Marketers have known this and exploited it to --->> read more -->>

Recently Noted – “Across America, working-class people are dying of despair”

January 17, 2020 Comments Off

“Who Killed the Knapp Family?” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn appeared in the Sunday 1/12/2020 NYTimes. This essay which is adapted from a newly published book by the same authors, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, explores the grim reality of life in one small corner of America, Yamhill, OR --->> read more -->>

Real Estate Development – a local story –

December 16, 2019 Comments Off

We generally don’t report or comment on local affairs here at AmericanDelusions. But, the craziness of real estate development in Greenport, the town that surrounds our hometown of Hudson, illustrates a downside of our market centered economy working in an environment where whatever the market wants it gets. The Greenport Planning --->> read more -->>

How America Tortures – a new report with drawings and a movie

December 13, 2019 Comments Off

How America Tortures by M. P. Denbeaux, & Seton Hall University. (2019) This report includes eight drawings by Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo detainee, illustrating his experiences during torture sessions. Abu Zubaydah is also a figure in the movie discussed below. This report is really a short book, some 95 pages --->> read more -->>