Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – May 14, 2023
by Tony Wikrent
Strategic Political Economy
Population Decline Will Change the World for the Better
Stephanie Feldstein, May 4, 2023 [Scientific American, via Naked Capitalism 5-7-2023]
Reading
Words to the wise: I can’t help but feel like a chapter in the evolution of social media is drawing to a close. Now, surely some of this feeling is a product of my changing perspective. I got my first social media account when I was 19 years old and signed up for MySpace in college; I turn 41 later this month, and it’d be foolish to pretend that more than two decades of maturation hasn’t altered my relationship with social media. Still, there’s no denying that something has shifted. Between the haphazard-yet-thorough disassembly of Twitter at the hands of Elon Musk, the driftless and flailing “metaverse” obsessions of Facebook, and the can’t-put-my-finger-on-it-but-something’s-not-right-here vibe of Instagram these days, it’s hard not to feel like we’re at the end of an era. Social media will evolve and persist, but the monoculture days of everyone hanging out in the same few places are winding down. Like many, I feel a pang of loss for these spaces, spaces from which I’ve taken a lot in the past two decades. But I’m not here to throw a funeral. Instead, I view this as a sort of graduation.
As President Joe Biden swaps one asylum crackdown for another, the border’s lethality endures.
The post Desperate Families and Gun-Toting Vigilantes Converge in Arizona After Title 42 Ends appeared first on The Intercept.
Just I and me They are still out there. Moose Lodge #whatever, or the Elks, relics of a 19th century, white- male America that survive somehow in the 21st. Like Mother’s Day that way, another quaint 19th century tradition that holds on in a time when Americans in increasing numbers harbor suspicions about one another and mutual mistrust is more persistent than inflation. Ian Ward writes at Politico: “National divorce” — a term that frames America’s current political crises as symptoms of a deeper social breakup — is suddenly a well-worn phrase. Over a quarter of Americans believe that it might soon be necessary to take up arms against their government. It would be a shocking number if not for the violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Ward explores the national mood with Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam (“Bowling Alone,” 2000). Putnam examined the meaning behind the decline of civic organizations like the Moose and the Elks. Social capital in decline.
Every Sunday, I blog about the geek-friendly radio shows the BBC are putting out in the forthcoming week! All of the following can be either listened to live or downloaded afterwards for free on the BBC Sounds app, no matter where you are in the world. Please note: I don’t include later episodes of most drama […]
NC’s Democratic governor rallies support behind a veto North Carolina rallied on Saturday to sustain Gov. Roy Cooper’s public veto of Republicans’ recently passed 12-week abortion ban. Politico: The Democrat decried the legislation, which he vetoed at a rally in downtown Raleigh, as a “complicated and confusing monster bill” that makes patients “navigate a wicked obstacle course just to get care.” “Standing in the way of progress right now is this Republican supermajority legislature that only took 48 hours to turn the clock back 50 years on women’s health,” Cooper said. “Let’s be clear: This bill has nothing to do with making women safer and everything to do with banning abortion.” With the GOP holding veto-proof margins in both legislative chambers, Democrats (if even they can maintain a unified front) will need the defection of at least one Republican in either chamber to sustain Cooper’s veto. The blowback on that member would be fierce.
In debt standoff, the president resurrects his old arguments that he and his media allies tried to erase.
In his new book, the senator from Missouri unsuccessfully addresses a genuine problem.
The post Josh Hawley Won’t Let Go of His Manhood appeared first on The Intercept.
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: True Detective, Two and a Half Men, Justified, Titans, Doctor Who, Night Court, Ghosts, Community, and more!
In many ways, Claude was lucky. He had a job, a place to live, the support of loved ones. But incarceration exacts a heavy toll.
The post Claude Garrett Was Wrongfully Imprisoned for Decades. He Died After Five Months of Freedom. appeared first on The Intercept.
This is why food in the US and Britain will never be quite good enough.
The 2023 Seattle International Film Festival is running now through May 21st, featuring 264 shorts, docs, and narrative films from 74 countries. I’ve been bingeing all week, and thought I’d take a breather and share a few reviews. Hopefully, some will be coming soon to a theater (or a streaming service) near you! A Disturbance in the Force (USA) *** – I missed “The Star Wars Christmas Special” in 1978…but after seeing Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak’s documentary, perhaps that’s for the best. Leaving viewers and TV critics aghast, the unintentionally kitschy one-off has since garnered cult status (George Lucas initially OK’d the project but disowned it following the broadcast). The backstory is recounted in a cheeky and entertaining fashion. Warning: this film may trigger nightmares about Bea Arthur tending bar at the Mos Eisley Cantina. Chile ’76 (Chile/Argentine/Qatar) *** – Echoes of Graham Greene’s The Honorary Consul permeate this examination of the moral, ethical, and political dilemmas presented by life in a totalitarian society.
A new trailer for the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials was released at the end of Eurovision tonight & we have some questions about it.
It’s not pretty Most congressional Republicans seem to have shrugged off Donald Trump’s wildly irresponsible suggestion, at Wednesday night’s CNN town hall, that a U.S. debt default would be an acceptable (if not desirable) outcome of the fraught negotiations underway between Kevin McCarthy and the White House. But that doesn’t mean Trump’s comments won’t have an impact. House GOP leaders continue to pretend that it’s Biden and his Democrats who are risking a default and the baleful economic consequences… But congressional Republicans varied in how annoyed they sounded in brushing off Trump’s “political advice” (as his close Senate ally J.D. Vance chose to put it). Even some House Freedom Caucus members were clearly irritated, according to Axios: Here’s the problem: With McCarthy white-knuckling it over his narrow control of the House (his own debt-limit/spending-cut proposal only passed by two votes), it wouldn’t take much of a rebellion by hard-core HFC types to blow up his negotiating position and/or to threaten his slippery grip on the Speaker’s gavel.
This long article about Jack Texeira, the Air Force airman who shared classified material to an online group friends is just chilling. (I have included a gift link for those who don’t have the Washington Post sub. so you can read it.) This guy was far more than just an innocent little Christian boy who liked to chat online. He fits the profile of most mass shooters with white supremacist views. Here’s the opener: Jack Teixeira, dressed in camouflage fatigues, his finger wrapped around the trigger of a semiautomatic rifle, faced the camera and spoke as though reciting an oath. “Jews scam, n—–s rape, and I mag dump.” Teixeira raised his weapon, aimed at an unseen target and fired 10 times in rapid succession, emptying the magazine of bullets. The six-second video, taken at a gun range near Teixeira’s home in Massachusetts, affords a brief but illuminating glimpse into the offline world of the 21-year-old National Guard member, who stands accused of leaking a trove of classified military intelligence on the group-chat platform Discord.
Scary stuff happening in Florida schools DeSantis has the nerve to accuse these people of “grooming” and “indoctrination:” Adam Tritt, a high school English teacher in Palm Bay, Florida, was shocked when his school’s librarian – eager to comply with Florida’s new law restricting “inappropriate” books in schools – removed one-third of the books on his classroom shelves, including a collection of Emily Dickinson’s poetry that was not on her list of approved books. Vivian Taylor, a seventh-grade teacher in Miami, says she was told to hardly discuss Emmett Till – the 14-year-old victim of one of the US’s most notorious lynchings – in her civics classes because under Florida’s year-old “stop woke” law, “people say you’re not supposed to talk about that because it will make children uncomfortable”.
Here's a look at the official trailer/episode title reveal video released by the BBC today for the Doctor Who 60th-Anniversary special event.
Greenhouse gas emissions continued to increase in 2022, as did the effects on Earth’s climate and the consequences for humans. Pet trading within Australia needs to be more strictly monitored and regulated. Global Climate Report 2022 The World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) 2022 update continues to tell the same sad story of political neglect: Emissions of Continue reading »
It is a big week for ‘but’ and ‘however’, delivered with some vehemence in responses to the Federal Budget. It is also a timely reminder that simple things matter, like our tone of voice in private and public conversations. We may all be happier and more grateful if we were carefully attentive to how we Continue reading »
Alexander Csergo, accused of ‘reckless foreign interference’, is being held in a top-security jail cell in Australia. His case is a ‘show trial’, his lawyer says, which reflects ‘an absolute hypocrisy in our approach to doing business with China’. The Australian businessman arrested in Sydney last month on the criminal charge of “reckless foreign interference” Continue reading »
Lines composed on Budget Day as Australia starts saving up for our new nuclear-powered fleet. The ocean is restless tonight. Is that the boom from cliffs at Dover Heights, With their surf unheeding? Or melancholy, long, withdrawing roar Of empire, receding? Once, a fleeing General came ashore; Took charge, returned as pledged, but then hove Continue reading »