How Murdoch’s Empire Influences the World
From the April 4, 2019 New York Times: Part 1: Imperial Reach Part 2: Internal Divisions Part 3: The New Fox Weapon
Racism
The Fake-News Fallacy
In the September 14, 2017 New Yorker, Adrian Chen wrote an essay on fake news. They use the byline ” Old fights about radio have lessons for new fights about the Internet”. Naturally, this containing some radio history, I was interested in the points made. “The greatest organizers of mass hysterias and the mass delusions … [Read more…]
Narcissistic personality disorder Also called: NPD
After the State of the Union address by Trump, this popped up in a search for something not related to the President, but it seemed so right and timely that I had to make note for later reference. Definition The hallmarks of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people, … [Read more…]
We’ve dug ourselves a really deep hole’ – David Neiwert on the rise of the far right
A good interview in the Guardian: We’ve dug ourselves a really deep hole’ – David Neiwert on the rise of the far right – it holds up well: “The current conservative movement has decided it no longer wishes to be part of a liberal democracy.” The principal reason, he thinks, is greed. “By the time … [Read more…]
24 ways to lead an anti-capitalist life – Guardian News
24 ways to lead an anti-capitalist life
The night thousands of Nazis packed Madison Square Garden for a rally
Lest we forget … The night thousands of Nazis packed Madison Square Garden for a rally — and violence erupted from the Washington Post Retropolis column, December 9, 2018. On Feb. 20, 1939, 22,000 members of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi group, took over the venue that stars still consider a peak achievement if … [Read more…]
How Trump Fuels the Fascist Right
In a very scary posting, Bernard E. Harcourt writes in the New York Review of Books Daily: President Trump makes constant use of the language and logic of the “new right,” a toxic blend of antebellum white supremacy, twentieth-century fascism, European far-right movements of the 1970s, and today’s self-identified “alt-right.” And his words and deeds … [Read more…]
The Suffocation of Democracy – Christopher R. Browning
From The Suffocation of Democracy – Christopher R. Browning If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in … [Read more…]
Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, one of the Last Poets and earliest rappers, dies at 74
Washington Post Obituary for Jalal Mansur Nuriddin
Trump’s Debt to Ron Paul’s Paranoid Style
A post in the New York Review of Books by James Kirchick sums up Trump’s penchant for the weird (conspiracy theories) and his far-right beliefs. We can read it here.