- by Molly MacMillan
Reading
- by Tom O’Shea
Since 1960, the gap in GDP per capita between rich and poor countries has remained wide. Yet the gap in death rates has practically vanished during that period.
Why do we put up with daily assaults on our health? It has everything to do with corporate power. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 22nd September 2023 There are some things we rightly find intolerable, such as the possession of poorly trained, aggressive dogs. There are other things, whose impacts are many thousands […]
In May 2023, when the British Office of National Statistics (ONS) released the March-quarter national accounts data (first estimate), which showed that real GDP grew by only 0.1 per cent in the first quarter and a rate equal to the December-quarter 2022, the critics were out in force. Brexit this. Brexit that. Graphs were created…
Chris Rufo and his allies make it clear that there are no enemies on the right: Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who is a close ally of Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, hosted a social media debate in which one participant argued that conservatives should cooperate with a hypothetical white nationalist dictator “in order to destroy the power of the left”. Rufo, a Manhattan Institute fellow who has been a hugely influential figure in DeSantis’ culture war policies in Florida, did not disagree with the sentiments. Instead he commended speakers for their “thoughtful points” and presenting the discussion as a model for engagement with “the dissident right”. Rufo is a high-profile conservative activist who in books, columns, media appearances and a Substack newsletter has encouraged conservatives to oppose “wokeness”. He has been credited with mobilizing conservatives against communities of color, first with a distorted version of critical race theory; then by linking LGBTQ-inclusive education practices to pedophilic “grooming”.
I've been reading Leonardo Sciascia's The Moro Affair, for the second time, and finding it just as disturbing as the first time, though perhaps for new reasons.
I first read Sciascia's work when I heard about The Day of the Owl, a crime novel. A police-procedural, in fact, that knocked the usual police-procedural into a cocked hat. When published in 1961, I gather, it had some impact in Italy because it dramatised the connection between the Mafia and the Christian-Democrat (DC) government. Sciascia, a Sicilian who became one of Italy's major public intellectuals, wrote several other superb crime novels with a philosophical and political edge, a range of other books, plays, and a lot of political journalism. In the 1970s he was elected to the Italian parliament on the Communist (PCI) ticket, but left the party in disgust when its leaders proposed their 'historic compromise' with the corrupt Christian Democrat regime.
Tell me, what planet are we actually on? All these decades later, are we really involved in a “second” or “new” Cold War? It’s certainly true that, as late as the 1980s, the superpowers (or so they then liked to think of themselves), the United States and the Soviet Union, were still engaged in just such a Cold War, something that might have seemed almost positive at the time. After all, a “hot” one could have involved the use of the planet’s two great nuclear arsenals and the potential obliteration of just about everything. But today? In case you haven’t noticed, the phrase “new Cold War” or “second Cold War” has indeed crept into our media vocabulary. (Check it out... Read more
I’m sure you’res sick of seeing all these demented Trump clips but I wanted to post this just so that we could have it on record for when the right wingers try to claim Joe Biden is senile. Please… Montage of 33 clips of the stupidest, most vile, insane, weirdest, addled dementia-ridden, psychotic statements made by Trump over the past two weeks. pic.twitter.com/iCbt5PtzBX — Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 30, 2023
Australia’s prosperity and success is no longer defined solely by GDP, but also by the health and wellbeing of our population. In this article we explore how our ability to access ‘high quality health...Sarah Huckasanders honors her mentor with some idiotic corruption Photo of the $19,029.25 lectern purchased by the Sanders administration in June. The expense was reimbursed by the Republican Party of Arkansas, according to records. #arpx #Arkansas #ARNews pic.twitter.com/mERP6QvHHP — AR Democrat-Gazette (@ArkansasOnline) September 26, 2023 Here’s some good-old Arkansas gothic politics. I hadn’t allowed myself to hope that Sarah might find herself in the middle of one of these but it looks like she’s going to: An anonymous former state employee came forward Friday claiming to have evidence that the Arkansas governor’s office doctored documents and unlawfully withheld financial records that should have been made public under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. Attorney Tom Mars, who is representing the whistleblower, sent a letter today to Sen.
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 1, 2023
by Tony Wikrent
80 Years Ago Denmark Miraculously Saved 8,000 Jews From Nazi Murder
Harvey Wasserman, September 25, 2023 [downwithtyranny.com]
Strategic Political Economy
The GOP is actually devolving After a day of campaigning, this is the message waiting for me outside my hotel room…#PrettyPatheticTryAgain#YouJustMadeMyCaseForMe pic.twitter.com/htbSumo58r — Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) October 1, 2023 We’ve often noted that the GOP (and in some respects out culture in general) is suffering from a massive case of arrested development: Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign early Sunday left a birdcage and bird food in front of GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley’s hotel room door in Des Moines in reference to his new nickname for her, “Birdbrain,” per a photo shared with The Messenger. The Trump campaign shared the photo early Sunday with The Messenger and later posted the picture on Twitter. Trump debuted the moniker prior to Wednesday’s debate on his social media platform Truth Social. It’s unclear why he came up with that nickname in particular. “MAGA, or I, will never go for Birdbrain Nikki Haley,” Trump wrote in the post. “Birdbrain doesn’t have the TALENT or TEMPERAMENT to do the job.
Today, we live in an era of high tension between China, our largest trading partner and the US, our closest ally. We risk being goaded into war by the Australian and American hawks and their Chinese equivalents in reaction. Of seeing our sovereignty eroded and becoming the “USS Terra Australis” the largest aircraft carrier in Continue reading »
The ten years of the Belt and Road Initiative has proven that the rise of China has not brought colonialism, disaster, war, refugees, and crises. Instead, it brought the world trade, commodities, tourists, infrastructure, economic growth and civilisation. No matter how Western politicians, media, and think tanks vilify the BRI, they cannot cover up a Continue reading »
A campaign of ethnic cleansing, or what the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, has warned may qualify as ‘Genocide’, is currently taking place against the 120,000 indigenous Christian Armenian population of Artsakh (aka Nagorno Karabakh). A historic Christian Armenian enclave within the borders of today’s Azerbaijan, its Armenian population Continue reading »
On October 14, we can change our Constitution to recognise the original inhabitants – now one of the most disadvantaged groups in Australia. Their suffering stems from the autocratic decisions made about and for them by Colonial and Australian governments. But how can we decide which way to vote? Here is a decision-making model that Continue reading »
There are twice as many international students from Singapore than there are from Indonesia studying in Australian universities, although Singapore has a population of 6 million and Indonesia has a population of 277 million. In 2019 (before Covid) more students in Australian universities came from Nepal than from any SE Asian country. There are many Continue reading »
I don’t mention it often but I actually have a degree in journalism. I graduated with distinction from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2003, and while it would be another 13 years before I’d ever put my degree to any use, the experience played a massive role in forming my opinions about the Continue reading »
International law of the sea is set to be subverted as America seeks to exercise extraterritorial defence claims over foreign exclusive economic zones beyond those of three Pacific island states. The United States is about to upend the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the basis of international law with regard Continue reading »
Αυτό που, τελικά, σκότωσε τον καπιταλισμό είναι το ίδιο το κεφάλαιο, όχι αυτό που γνωρίζαμε από την αυγή της βιομηχανικής εποχής, αλλά μια μετάλλαξή του που εμφανίστηκε τις τελευταίες δύο δεκαετίες. Κάποτε είχα παρακολουθήσει διάλεξη του Φρίντριχ φον Χάγιεκ στο LSE στην οποία, όπως συνήθιζε, καταφέρθηκε κατά του σοσιαλιστικού σχεδιασμού με μια χαριτωμένη προσωπική ιστορία. […]
The post Ο καπιταλισμός πέθανε. Καλώς ήλθατε σε κάτι ακόμα χειρότερο, στην τεχνοφεουδαρχία – NEWS24|7 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.