Easter is a time for dreaming dreams and for hoping against hope. Pragmatists, even if they be religious believers, are unlikely to expend too much energy doing so. But with the state of our troubled world in Ukraine, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Somalia, and Myanmar, it behoves us to take a breather and contemplate what peace Continue reading »
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Historically, it used to be clear when one country was at war with another. Not so today. Indeed, that is one of the Department of Defence’s objections to war powers reform, where it stated in its submission to the Armed Overseas Conflict Inquiry that “the growth of grey-zone activities and offensive operations in the space Continue reading »
In another echo of early 2003, the twentieth anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie on 16 March went largely unreported. As the world’s attention was concentrated on an imminent attack on Iraq in March 2003, it is not surprising that media did not dwell too long or deeply on one young woman’s death. Unfortunately, Continue reading »
In the wake of the Aston by-election and, more importantly, last year’s federal election, the Liberal Party could easily be misled into dismissing the “teals” as a sneaky Labor/Greens front. In December last year, the Australian National University published its Australian Election Study, reporting on a survey of how 2508 people had voted at the Continue reading »
Over the past two years, there has been an increasing global interest in Central Asia, which encompasses Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. This attention can be attributed to various factors, including the president of China’s official visit to these countries in late 2022, the growing relationship between Turkey and Central Asia, as demonstrated by Continue reading »
It’s not enough for socialists to point out capitalism’s many faults — we need to explain our positive vision of the future and how it lives up to our ideals of justice. After decades on the margins of political life, the last few years have seen socialism make a comeback as a topic for serious Continue reading »
For the past decade or so, the Western media has been critical of the Chinese state, the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party. This criticism has been made in the context of a small number of issues, such as human rights in Xinjiang, political dissent in Hong Kong and Western citizens detained in China. Continue reading »
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – April 9, 2023
by Tony Wikrent
Assange: Ithaka, Revisited
Scott Ritter [via Naked Capitalism 4-5-2023] Important.
Strategic Political Economy
Michelle Goldberg on the rebirth of the Comstock Act: Anthony Comstock, the mutton-chopped anti-vice crusader for whom the Comstock Act is named, is back from the dead. Comstock died in 1915, and the Comstock Act, the notorious anti-obscenity law used to indict the Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, ban books by D.H. Lawrence and arrest people by the thousands, turned 150 last month. Had this anniversary fallen five or 10 years ago, it barely would have been worth noting, except perhaps to marvel at how far we’d come from an era when a fanatical censor like Comstock wielded national political power. “The Comstock Act represented, in its day, the pinnacle of Victorian prudery, the high-water mark of a strict and rigid formal code,” wrote the law professors Joanna Grossman and Lawrence Friedman. Until very recently, it seemed a relic. Yet suddenly, the prurient sanctimony that George Bernard Shaw called “Comstockery” is running rampant in America. As if inspired by Comstock’s horror of “literary poison” and “evil reading,” states are outdoing one another in draconian censorship.
The law is what they say it is Remember when conservatives accused the left of having no morals, of situational ethics?Remember when conservatives pretended to believe in “a transcendant moral order“? As Archie and Edith sang in the post-1960s, “Those were the days.” Now nullification is back. Election denialism is in vogue. (Kari Lake still insists she is the rightful governor of Arizona.) Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch over the last five years “felt obliged to disclose his receipt of a fishing rod, a watercolor painting, and cowboy boots” in his financial disclosures. Justice Samuel Alito disclosed the gift of a “bronze cast of hand,” tweets Mark Joseph Stern. Yet Justice Clarence Thomas “refused to disclose trips on a billionaire’s private jet for his own personal pleasure.” The Thomas expose from Pro Publica would be beyond belief except for not being. Ruth Marcus is aghast at the ruling in Texas on Friday to strip FDA approval of a pharmaceutical abortion pill available and proven safe for over 20 years: Congratulations are in order for Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.
I’ve written a blog post about what Canada’s recent federal budget did for housing and homelessness (which wasn’t very much). Here’s my analysis: https://nickfalvo.ca/canadas-2023-federal-budget/
Brandon Johnson’s mayoral victory in Chicago proves that sometimes, passion and organizing can beat heaps of plutocrat cash.
Somewhere, John C. Calhoun is smiling Haughtiness is a bad look for anyone. Worse still for the insecure who spend a lifetime propping up their self-esteem — for the entitled rich, with conspicuous consumption; for the less “endowed” (materially or intellectually), with boasting and false bravado; for a certain indicted ex-president, with both. For example, Tennessee GOP state Rep. Andrew Farmer’s dressing-down of fellow Rep. Justin J. Pearson last week before the body’s vote to expel him. Farmer didn’t utter the word “boy” in his speech. His tone spoke it loudly enough for the entire world to hear. Then the GOP majority in the Tennessee House voted to void the elections won by Black Democrats in two of the state’s districts. In Texas on Saturday. GOP Gov. Greg Abbott declared he would with all haste work to pardon Daniel S.
A look at how composers Murray Gold & Segun Akinola enhanced some epic Doctor Who moments for more than a decade since its return in 2005.
The US empire does not care about press freedoms, it cares about power and domination.
The post Washington Says “Journalism Is Not A Crime” While Working To Criminalize Journalism appeared first on scheerpost.com.
A federal judge in Texas blocked the FDA's approval of mifepristone. Another in Washington state issued a conflicting ruling. The matter now seems poised to head for the Supreme Court.
The post Federal Judges Issue Conflicting Rulings in a Pill Used for Medication Abortion appeared first on scheerpost.com.
The Fed’s objective is asymmetric, with inflation overshoots being more costly than undershoots. Using data from the Summary of Economic Projections it shows that the Bernanke Fed was too hawkish, the Yellen Fed was too dovish, and the Fed under Jerome Powell has at times been too hawkish and too dovish.
From the School of the Americas to Cop City, the U.S. has long been complicit in the death of environmental activists.
The post Why Tortuguita’s Murder is Only the Tip of the Iceberg appeared first on scheerpost.com.
The deficiencies in the American character have rotted the world.
The post Human Destiny in Ukraine appeared first on scheerpost.com.
Policing is neither reformable nor redeemable.
The post Policing Does Not Have Problems — It Is the Problem appeared first on scheerpost.com.
For those that are too young to remember, the legendary English comedy show Monty Python had a famous sketch about a disgruntled customer of a pet shop, who realised he had been sold a dead Parrot. The shopkeeper steadfastly refused to admit that the Parrot was dead: CUSTOMER: I wish to complain about this parrot … Continue reading "The Dead Parrot of Mainstream Economics"
No, Elon, Japan is not a “leading indicator” just because of your billionaire vibes.
The post Elon Musk Wants to Cut Your Social Security Because He Doesn’t Understand Math appeared first on The Intercept.