Politics – Page 64 – Rock Salted

W.T. Whitney, Jr. – Child Health Care and the Class Divide

Link to an article by W.T. Whitney, Jr.:

“Child Health Care and the Class Divide: The Case of Florida”

Bonus link: “Ukrainian Healthcare and the Inept Reforms of New Ukrainian Westernizers”

Slavoj Žižek – In the Grey Zone

Link to an article by Slavoj Žižek on the Charlie Hebdo incident:

Bonus links: “Laughter in the Dark” (“And here we confront Charlie Hebdo’s greatest failing, not that its cartoonists mocked the Prophet or skewered the Mullahs, but that the magazine became a tool of the ruling order, aiming its most savage work at the most vulnerable citizens of France: the weak, the marginalized and the dispossessed. In the end, Charlie Hebdo, like much of the French intelligentsia, became an agent of orthodoxy, a persecutor of the poor and the powerless, deaf to their desperation.”) and “The Red Flag and the Tricolore”

Rob Urie – Wall Street and the Crisis in Greece

Link to an article by Rob Urie:

“Wall Street and the Crisis in Greece: When Only Bad Choices Remain”

Bonus link: “Putin: U.S. Hegemony at Root of Ukraine Crisis”

Johann Hari – The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered

Link to an article by Johann Hari:

“The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think”

Eva Golinger – Venezuela: Coup in Real Time

Link to an article by Eva Golinger:

“Venezuela: Coup in Real Time”

Bonus links: “John Pilger Interviewed by Michael Albert”

Isaac William Martin – Rich People’s Movements

Isaac William Martin – Rich People’s Movements: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent (Oxford University Press 2013)

A sociological history of the co-option of progressive protest tactics (originally developed to advance the interests of the poor) in support of tax policies that favor the rich. The title references the classic by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (1977). The premise sounds almost ridiculous, but Isaac Martin makes an interesting case. His account seems fairly balanced, and for the most part seems reliably complete. If there is a weak spot, it falls on the more recent efforts. Martin doesn’t seem to provide enough context for why politicians suddenly capitulated to the same sorts of demands that had been made for decades, and he doesn’t necessarily treat all political parties equally. It is a small quibble in an otherwise interesting and well-researched book. This is a more thoroughly-researched and neutral academic treatment of a topic that has been addressed in other books like Thomas Frank‘s Pity the Billionaire (2012) and Paul Street and Anthony DiMaggio‘s Crashing the Tea Party (2011).

Andrey Manchuk – Ukraine’s Lower Class Military

Link to a translation of an article by Andrey Manchuk:

“Ukraine’s Lower Class Military”

Neil Demaus – The Case for Buying Sports Teams, Not Stadiums

Link to an article by Neil Demaus:

“The Case for Buying Sports Teams, Not Stadiums”

Bonus link: “The NFL’s Anarchist Success Story”

James O’Neill – Why the Secrecy on the Mh17 Investigation

Link to an article by James O’Neill:

“Why the Secrecy on the Mh17 Investigation: A Wider Geopolitical Agenda”

Miya Tokumitsu – In the Name of Love

Link to an article by Miya Tokumitsu:

“In the Name of Love”

This reminded me of Slavoj Žižek’s observation that it was an obscenity for the Nazis to place “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes you free”) on or above the gates to concentration camps like Dachau and Auschwitz.