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Created
Sun, 17/12/2023 - 04:53
The Atlas Network’s main goal has been to spot and train global talent in the ultra free-market libertarian field and connect it to the free-flowing money that the alliance functions to assist. They now have at least 515 partner organisations in over 100 nations. Secrecy is key for the corporations and plutocrats funding this model, Continue reading »
Created
Sun, 17/12/2023 - 04:52
The results from the OECD’s PISA tests released last week showed that in Australia demography is destiny, revealing that by the time young people reach Year 9 a staggering five years of learning separates students from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds. This week, a major report advanced a compelling explanation for our educational woes – and Continue reading »
Created
Sun, 17/12/2023 - 04:30
Moms For Liberty, flash in the pan It looks like another vaunted group of culture warriors bites the dust: Moms for Liberty, a national right-wing advocacy group, was born in Florida as a response to Covid-19 school closures and mask mandates. But it quickly became just as well known for pushing policies branded as anti-L.G.B.T.Q. by opponents. So when one of its founders, Bridget Ziegler, recently told the police that she and her husband, who is under criminal investigation for sexual assault, had a consensual sexual encounter with another woman, the perceived disconnect between her public stances and private life fueled intense pressure for her to resign from the Sarasota County School Board. “Most of our community could not care less what you do in the privacy of your own home, but your hypocrisy takes center stage,” said Sally Sells, a Sarasota resident and the mother of a fifth-grader, told Ms. Ziegler during a tense school board meeting this week. Ms. Ziegler, whose husband has denied wrongdoing, said little and did not resign. Ms. Sells was one of dozens of speakers who criticized Ms.
Created
Sun, 17/12/2023 - 02:34
I know many Crooked Timber readers will want to mark the passing of Harry’s father, Tim Brighouse. Harry has sometimes written here about his father’s pedagogy and influence, and more obliquely at his singularity and sheer loveliness. Today’s Guardian newspaper carries an obituary: “Teachers and education experts this weekend paid tribute to Sir Tim Brighouse, […]
Created
Sun, 17/12/2023 - 02:30
Can we “match the level of in-the-streetsness”? Moonstruck Cher GIFfrom Moonstruck GIFs “I can’t seem to get out of my own way,” my best friend from college used to complain. By that he meant that all his smarts and cleverness were stumbling blocks to getting what he wanted out of life. Which was another way of saying he thought too much. Democrats and lefty allies have the same problem: stubbornly insisting this is a survival-of-the-smartest world when it isn’t. Anand Giridharadas the other night issued a warning about that. First he notes that while lefty anger is dialed up to 11, our actions do not reflect it. Are we serious about stopping fascism or what? Do our actions “really match the level of in-the-streetsness” we saw in the 1960s, Giridharadas asks. Just as I’ve argued before: Winning in your head is like bringing sports visualization training to the Olympics and thinking you’ll be competitive when you show up with no conditioning and no skills. At some point, you have to play the game for real. At some point, you have to run the election and count the votes.
Created
Sun, 17/12/2023 - 01:00
On Democrats fighting the last war Trying to teach Yellow Dogs new tricks sometimes seems pointless. With few exceptions, Democrats always seem to be fighting the last war because that’s the one they learned on. Brian Beutler sees it too. Beutler perceives that social media has fundamentally shifted our political ground: When Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 on the strength of a media feeding frenzy over emails, it dawned on me that either my intuitions about partisan politics had been wrong, or something fundamental had changed. With the benefit of hindsight, I soon came to see the 2014 midterm campaign as a precursor. Republicans back then turned a closely fought election into a blowout in the final stretch by fanning a different media feeding frenzy—this one over a far-off outbreak of Ebola. […] All of this happened because Republicans situated themselves to win an information war in 2014, then situated themselves to win another information war in 2016. I had simply been underestimating the effectiveness of their antics.
Created
Sat, 16/12/2023 - 21:17

In this decade, left-wing publishing is awash with works on technology. With ease, you can find a wide array of discussions over technology, how socialists should approach the platforms which govern our digital lives, and the dizzying potential of tech workers to build utopias of the future and transform existence as we know it. Life […]