economy
Recently Noted – “Across America, working-class people are dying of despair”
Essay explores the grim reality of life in one small corner of America within the broader landscape of the bottom 90%. —>> read more –>>
NYTimes
empire
Thanksgiving – a bit of a corrective history telling and turkey adaptation
Corrective History The NYTimes posted a bit of Turkey Day corrective history: “Most Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong” By MAYA SALAM Adaptive Turkeys The Trump pardoned two turkeys yesterday at the White House. But, no —>> read more –>>
politics
Recently Noted – “What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings? International Comparisons Suggest an Answer”
The NY Times published an interesting article by Max Fisher and Josh Keller, “What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings? International Comparisons Suggest an Answer” on 11/7/2017. The analysis shows that there is a strong correlation between —>> read more –>>
racism
Recently Noted – “Making Affirmative Action White Again”
Ira Katznelson (see my earlier post “Affirmative Action for Whites – began in the 1930s”) wrote a brief opinion piece in the 8/13/2017 NYTimes, “Making Affirmative Action White Again” that encapsulates the real history of affirmative action for whites. —>> read more –>>
justice/jails
Justice in America – Not
A central dogma of American politics and culture is the rule of law. The ever present blind scales of justice are trotted out with such regularity that the briefest glimpse serves to remind us that —>> read more –>>
security state
Dangers of the US Security State
There are those, in response to the recent revelations of the US government vacuum cleaning our lives through the NSA and other secret programs, who take the line that the innocent have nothing to fear —>> read more –>>
economy
Thomas Friedman’s It’s a 401(k) World – facile, misleading
Reading this op ed leaves one with the notion that these changes have arisen through some immutable forces of nature.
He fails to mention that in parallel with the individual being more and more alone in the world, big corporations and governments are becoming ever more well integrated, feeding at each others’ troughs. —>> read more –>>
inequality
Economic Inequality – Does It Matter?
It is fairly widely known that income and wealth inequality in the US is as high or higher than at any time except perhaps the Robber Baron period at the end of the 19th century. —>> read more –>>
justice/jails
America’s Longest War – a socio-political-military disaster – indicted by Global Commission on Drug Policy
Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy Last week this commission released its report, “War on Drugs“. This once again brings into focus our longest war, Nixon’s War on Drugs. Here are the first —>> read more –>>
economy
Corporations as Persons – Freedom of Speech, now Right to Privacy – Bring on Three Strikes!
The case of the Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T [1]See the NYTimes, “Court Weighs Whether Corporations Have Personal Privacy Rights” By ADAM LIPTAK Published: January 19, 201 now being heard before the US Supreme Court —>> read more –>>