Cultural Detritus, Reviews, and Commentary
Link to an article by Russell Mokhiber:
“Mark Worth on Corporate Compliance Fatigue and Being Fed up with the Monitor”
Bonus links: The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives and …And the Poor Get Prison and Trouble in Paradise and The State and Revolution
Link to an article by Laurie Macfarlane:
“Why the Distribution of Wealth Has More to do with Power than Productivity”
Link to an article by Paul Street:
“Shameless Hypocrisy: Lessons of the Great Khashoggi Kill Story”
Street (following Herman and Chomsky) is wrong to suggest that this kind of journalism is hypocritical. Rather, Domenico Losurdo has explained how this disavowed politics of exclusion is central to the kind of liberalism that these sorts of journalists adhere to. See Liberalism: A Counter-History (“The political criticism that Losurdo directs towards liberalism is based upon a precise philosophical analysis: he exposes the lack of universalism in this train of thought: its inability to go beyond representing the special interests of the strongest classes.”).
Link to an interview with Slavoj Žižek, and an except from his book Like a Thief in Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-Humanity (2018):
“Are Liberals and Populists Just Searching for a New Master?”
Link to a review by Liza Featherstone of Kristen Ghodsee’s book Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (2018):
But Ghodsee is open to criticism of the same sort Jodi Dean leveled at Naomi Klein: why is “unregulated capitalism” the problem rather than just “capitalism”? Isn’t Ghodsee just making typically vague (left) populist claims? We can critique that position by saying that “populism is simply a new way to imagine capitalism without its harder edges; a capitalism without its socially disruptive effects. Populism is one of today’s two opiums of the people: one is the people, and the other is opium itself. *** What remains of the passionate public engagement in the West is mostly the populist hatred, and this brings us to the other second opium of the people, the people itself, the fuzzy populist dream destined to obfuscate our own antagonisms.”
Link to an interview with Kristen R. Ghodsee conducted by Meagan Day:
Link to a review by Meagan Day of the book k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2004-2016):
“The Gospel According to Mark Fisher”
Bonus links: “What’s Wrong With Identity Politics (and Intersectionality Theory)? A Response to Mark Fisher’s “Exiting the Vampire Castle” (And Its Critics)” and “How to Begin from the Beginning” (endorsing Samuel Beckett’s line from Worstward Ho: “Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better.”)
Link to an article by Ginger Jentzen:
“Minneapolis’ Housing Plan Rewards Developers, Punishes Working People”
Bonus links: “‘Poor Door’ Tenants of Luxury Tower Reveal the Financial Apartheid Within” and “The Corporate Steamroller of Gentrification is a Deliberate Process” and “Turning Libraries Into Condos” and “Capitalism Can’t Give Us Affordable Housing” and “We Can Have Beautiful Public Housing”
Link to an article by Daniel Zamora:
“Should We Care About Inequality?”
This is really an article about historical battles for ideological hegemony.
Bonus links: Slavoj Žižek On Political Struggle and Trouble in Paradise and Making Money and The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives
Link to an article by Max Blumenthal & Jeb Sprague:
“Facebook Censorship of Alternative Media ‘Just the Beginning,’ Says Top Neocon Insider”
Bonus links: “Fake News on Russia and Other Official Enemies” and “Russiagate and the Men with Glass Eyes” and “Untying PropOrNot: Who They Are” and “Clinging to Collusion” and “Three Variations on Trump Quote”