Reading

Created
Tue, 09/07/2024 - 09:00
Anat Shenker-Osorio is a political communications expert and she has some excellent advice for America’s center-left: We have a lot more time than they did. And we’re confronting a crisis within the coalition that may or may not be resolved quickly. But this offensive is happening here and needs to ramp up considerably. Trump and the Republicans are furiously trying to disavow Project 2025 and the job of all of us to make sure they cannot.
Created
Tue, 09/07/2024 - 08:00
The NY Times reports that the Biden administration has pulled off an amazing success in some places that will never reward him for it: America’s so-called “left behind” counties — the once-great manufacturing centers and other distressed places that struggled mightily at the start of this century — have staged a remarkable comeback. In the last three years, they added jobs and new businesses at their fastest pace since Bill Clinton was president. The turnaround has shocked experts. “This is the kind of thing that we couldn’t have even dreamed about five or six years ago,” said John Lettieri, the president of the Economic Innovation Group, a think tank that studies economic distress in the U.S. His group is releasing a report today that details the recovery of left-behind counties. Those counties span the nation but are largely concentrated in the Southeast and Midwest. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how they defied recent trends — including a particularly grim stretch under Donald Trump — to rebound so strongly from the pandemic recession.
Created
Tue, 09/07/2024 - 06:30
Following my posts below, I thought I’d post Timothy Snyder’s recent post on this: Mainstream media have treated President Biden with prejudice and arrogance. Quite a few Democrats, reacting to this, treat any mention of President Biden’s fitness as disloyalty. This is mistaken, if understandable. One source of the negative energy is Trump’s fascism. Focusing on it will not answer the question of what Democrats do, but will help us to understand the context in which the discussion is taking place. By fascism I just have in mind (1) the cult of personality of a Leader: (2) the party that becomes a single party; (3) the threat and use of violence; and (4) the big lie that must be accepted and used to reshape reality: in this case, that Trump can never lose an election. Much more could be said (as I have done elsewhere), but it is the official big lie and the threats of violence that are dangerous to those whose job is to report truth. Trump is on the record as regarding reporters as enemies of the people. What should I make — a journalist might ask — of Trump’s talk of arresting journalists?
Created
Tue, 09/07/2024 - 06:00

My new book Dependency and Crisis in Brazil and Argentina analyses three decades of development discourses in both countries, mapping the political impasse generated by the impoverished political economy debate between neoliberals and neodevelopmentalists.

The post Dependency and Crisis in Brazil and Argentina appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

Created
Tue, 09/07/2024 - 05:00
Judd Legum has put together a definitive primer on Trump’s connections to Project 2025. These are his people and this is his plan, don’t allow him to pretend otherwise. If the press lets him get away with that it will be the worst dereliction of duty in the US media’s history. On July 5, Trump posted on Truth Social that he knows “nothing about Project 2025,” has “no idea who is behind it,” and has “nothing to do with them.”  This is false.  The co-editors of Project 2025, Paul Dans and Steven Groves, both held high-ranking positions in the Trump administration. Under Trump, Dans served as Chief of Staff at the Office of Personnel Management, the agency responsible for staffing the federal government, and was a senior advisor at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Groves served Trump in the White House as Deputy Press Secretary and Assistant Special Counsel.  Project 2025’s two associate directors, Spencer Chretien and Troup Hemenway, are also tightly connected with Trump. Chretien was Special Assistant to President Donald J.
Created
Tue, 09/07/2024 - 04:58
The world’s geopolitical system is not delivering what we want or need. Sustainable development is our declared goal, meaning economic prosperity, social justice, environmental sustainability, and peace. Yet our reality is continued poverty amidst plenty, widening inequalities, deepening environmental crises, and war. To get back on track, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has wisely called Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 09/07/2024 - 04:57
From air strikes to field executions, Fault Lines investigates the killings of civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the role of the United States in the war. As Israel’s bombing campaign continues in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis deepens to catastrophic levels, the Biden administration has not wavered in its support for Israel. Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 09/07/2024 - 04:56
When I asked Jocelyn Chey about her experience at the lunch in Parliament House in honour of Chinese Premier Li Qiang, she said, “I thought the best part of the lunch was Dutton’s speech through gritted teeth about how everyone wants relations with China to improve.” Also, speaking to 2GB, Dutton said, “I’m pro-China and Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 09/07/2024 - 04:55
With former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Varghese undertaking a review of taxpayer dollars spent on strategic policy work, Australia’s China hawks have argued a Canberra-based thinktank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), cannot be touched. After an employee of the Chinese embassy included funding an “anti-China thinktank” in a Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 09/07/2024 - 04:54
The strategic and tactical geniuses inside the prime minister’s office and the man they serve may take time to appreciate how comprehensively they have mismanaged popular discontent about Labor’s passive support for Israel during the war against the Palestinians of the past eight months. Instead, they are deluding themselves about being politically outplayed by a Continue reading »