in many relatively free countries we have something close to a corporate-plutocratic-oligarchic stranglehold on the state. This needs to be broken, by democratic means, or else the electoral procedures of democracy will continue to be exploited to subvert liberalism, as populists (sometimes themselves plutocrats) stir up unhappy majorities.. Faced with creeping authoritarianism, liberals need… Read More Timothy Garton Ash: The future of liberalism
Nearly forty years ago, political scientist James Q Wilson and criminologist George Kelling observed that a broken window left unattended in a community signals that no one cares if windows are broken there. The broken window is thereby an invitation to throw more stones and break more windows. The message: do whatever you want here… Read More Robert Reich on America's broken windows
NB: An excellent analysis by one of America’s most forthright journalists. Hedges is also an upholder of human conscience: here’s a review of one of his books on war; and here are titles of two other books (among others) written with courage and of relevance to our times: American Fascists – The Christian Right and… Read More Chris Hedges – We've lost control: The real lessons of the Trump regime and the pandemic
We live in strange and interesting times. There are now not just three different groups of people in this country but three different realities. That’s scary in and of itself, but what’s even scarier is that most people in power have no idea this is happening or how to react to it. What are the… Read More Not two, but three Americas: We can't agree on anything. By CENK UYGUR
Der Spiegel, roughly the German journalistic equivalent of TIME – which, coincidentally, just named President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris its vaunted “Person of the Year” – on Thursday published an article entitled “Der Verlierer des Jahres,” or “Loser of the Year” in English. While the piece lacks the shock value of some… Read More Without Decency and Without Dignity: German Newsweekly Der Spiegel Names Trump 'Loser of the Year'
The pandemic has illuminated deprivation, inequalities and political unrest, while reminding us of the power and beauty of nature and humanity.. A fitting symbol of this global pandemic would be a magnifying glass. For while the virus ended and upended so many lives, and spawned a whole new vocabulary – social distancing, furlough, herd immunity,… Read More Jonathan Freedland – The magnifying glass: how Covid revealed the truth about our world
As in Election Campaign 2016, Donald Trump isn’t the cause but a symptom (though what a symptom!) of an American world going down. Then as now, he somehow gathered into his one-and-only self so many of the worst impulses of a country that, in this century, found itself eternally at war not just with Afghans… Read More Tom Engelhardt: The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire Or What It Means to Fall on a Failing Planet
They’re Italian citizens but simply don’t feel Italian. Bolzano’s local authorities estimate that German is spoken by 75% of the 510,000 inhabitants of the Alto Adige region. Locals, however, call it by its original name – South Tyrol – and many wish it were independent. Eva Klotz is a co-founder of the separatist party Süd-Tiroler Freiheit (South… Read More Silvia Marchetti – South Tyrol identity crisis: to live in Italy, but feel Austrian
Life is going to return to normal,” Joe Biden promised on Thursday in a Thanksgiving address to the nation. He was talking about life after Covid-19, but you could be forgiven if you thought he was also making a promise about life after Trump. It is almost impossible to separate the two. To the extent voters gave… Read More Robert B Reich : Beware going 'back to normal' thoughts – normal gave us Trump
Amanda Marcotte: Trump leaves a lasting legacy: The right’s open embrace of terrorism In any sensible society, Kyle Rittenhouse would be shunned across the political spectrum. The 17-year-old Illinois resident stands accused of shooting three people, killing two of them, during an August Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Whatever the specific facts of that incident, the… Read More Amanda Marcotte: Trump's lasting legacy: The right's open embrace of terrorism / Epidemiologist warns of “contagion” of violent speech coming “from the White House” / Damon Linker: America is buckling
After the truth-shower 