Link to an article by David Walsh:
“The Guardian’s Marina Hyde Accuses Actress Susan Sarandon of Being Trump’s ‘Asset’”
Category: Uncategorized
Benjamin Fong – Inventing the Weekend
Link to an article by Benjamin Fong:
One quibble with this article: reference to “a cultural trajectory that would eventually bring us the three-minute pop song” seems off, when taking into account the history of music recording technology recounted in Michael Denning’s book Noise Uprising.
Angie Schmitt – Self-Driving Cars Are Coming
Link to an article by Angie Schmitt:
“Self-Driving Cars Are Coming. Will They Serve Profit or the Public?”
Don Fitz – Birth of the Cuban Polyclinic
Link to an article by Don Fitz:
“Birth of the Cuban Polyclinic”
Bonus links: Cuban Health Care: The ongoing Revolution and “Dossier No. 25: People’s Polyclinics: The Initiative of the Telugu Communist Movement”
Vijay Prashad – Mexico Elected a Left-Wing President
Kalundi Serumaga – On Reinventing Europe: An Open Letter to Mr George Soros
Link to an article/letter by Kalundi Serumaga:
“On Reinventing Europe: An Open Letter to Mr George Soros”
This pieces raises many excellent points. But it is also worth pointing out some questionable aspects of its theoretical framework and recommendations. First, while the article characterizes the essence of Europe as Bonapartism, it does so by applying philosophical standards that originated in Europe, or at least drew from European precedents. While it may well be fair to call the current hegemonic ideology of Europe (and elsewhere) Bonapartist, to treat all of Europe as monolithic and without counter-currents seems rather reductionist. Second, the “tasks for EU civil society” include “2. Find out what your countries truly owe, and make them pay it back” This is basically both a politics of victimhood and an expression of ressentiment. Frantz Fanon once wrote, “The colonized man is an envious man.” That seems accurate in this context, but as a statement of limitation of vision. The last chapter of Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks explicitly rejected Serumaga’s approach, and that is a big part of why Fanon is a stronger theoretical reference point than what is expressed in Serumaga’s article. Lastly, the article concludes by saying, “It is time for the North to (once again, after Ancient Egypt) learn from the South.” This is a dubious offhand assertion of identity politics, yet again in the service of the valorization of victimhood status and ressentiment. It is problematic mainly because, in a cynical way, “[w]e thus enter a cruel world of brutal power games masked as a noble struggle of victims against oppression.”
Yanis Varoufakis – How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails
Link to a video of a speech by Yanis Varoufakis:
“How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails”
Bonus Link: Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism
Georg Lukács Quote
“It is an old truth of Marxism that every human activity should be judged according to the objective meaning in the total context, and not according to what the agent believes the importance of his activity to be.”
Georg Lukács, “Realism in the Balance” (1938) (reprinted in Aesthetics and Politics)
Note also Lucius Cassius’ legal principle, recorded by Cicero in Pro Roscio Amerino, “Cui bono?”.
For the exact opposite position, see The Fountainhead
John Berger – The Primitive and the Professional Quote
“The distinction between profession and craft is at first difficult to make, yet it is of great importance. The craftsman survives so long as the standards for judging his work are shared by different classes. The professional appears when it is necessary for the craftsman to leave his class and ’emigrate’ to the ruling class, whose standards of judgement [sic] are different.”
John Berger, “The Primitive and the Professional,” New Society 1976 (reprinted in About Looking).
Alyssa Battistoni – Jobs Guarantee or Universal Basic Income? Why Not Both?
Link to an article by Alyssa Battistoni: