Link to an interview (with transcript) conducted by Russell Mokhiber:
Links
Nicholas Freudenberg – The Capitalist Diet
Link to a review by Nicholas Freudenberg of Gerardo Otero’s book The Neoliberal Diet: Healthy Profits, Unhealthy People (2018):
“The Capitalist Diet: Energy-dense and Profitable”
Bonus link: “Nick Freudenberg on the Corporation the Individual and Public Health” – though his invocation of liberal pluralism along the lines of the FCC’s old “fairness doctrine” is subject to criticism and probably still isn’t sufficient.
Blair Fix, Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler – Real GDP
Link to an article by Blair Fix, Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler:
“Real GDP: The Flawed Metric at the Heart of Macroeconomics”
Real-World Economics Review, Issue 88, P. 51 (July 10, 2019)
Like everything in the Real-World Economics Review, this article really is an attack on the hegemony of neoclassical (i.e., anti-classical) economics. The main points this article makes therefore tacitly draw from classical economics, such as the distinction between use value and exchange value that was explained by Karl Marx in Das Kapital. Of course, these authors make no mention of Marx. They also suggest energy units as one alternative to GDP, similar to a concept promoted by R. Buckminster Fuller three or four decades ago but no such precedents are acknowledged in the article. They also normatively accept a “growth” model. There is a degree of self-promotion in this article, and it only briefly explains the ideological battle driving their critique. But the narrow technical points it makes are mostly sound.
See also “The GDP Illusion: Value Added versus Value Capture”
Maggie Levantovskaya – Identity Shaping on Social Media
Link to a review by Maggie Levantovskaya of Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion (2019):
“Identity Shaping on Social Media: On Jia Tolentino’s ‘Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion'”
Bonus links: Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age and “The Programs of Neoliberal Feminism” and “‘If Only There Were More Female Billionaires!’— New York Times” and Organs Without Bodies and “Capitalism and Female Labor”
David McAllister – BBC Panorama Hatchet Job on Labour Antisemitism is a Farce
Link to an article by David McAllister:
“BBC Panorama Hatchet Job on Labour Antisemitism is a Farce”
Bonus links: “For the First Time in My Life, I’m Frightened to be Jewish” and gaslighting and concern trolling
Articles About USA-Iran Provocations
Selected links to articles about military provocations between the USA (and its allies) and Iran:
“Eve of Destruction: Iran Strikes Back”
“What Right Has Britain to Seize an Iranian Tanker Off Spain?”
“Why the World is Watching the Fate of an Iranian Tanker in the Mediterranean”
Rob Urie – Toward an Eco-Socialist Revolution
Link to an article by Rob Urie:
“Toward an Eco-Socialist Revolution”
There are many reasons to question the proffered solution here, which would be unpopular and prone to the all the problems that have historically accompanied peasant societies (rigid social hierarchies, etc.). Still, this article thinks seriously about real issues and the necessary scope of solutions, and actually ventures to offer a solution.
Alenka Zupančič – The Apocalypse is (Still) Disappointing
Link to an article by Alenka Zupančič:
Alenka Zupančič, “The Apocalypse is (Still) Disappointing,” S: Journal of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique, Vol. 11, 16-30 (2018)
This article discusses the essay “The Apocalypse is Disappointing” by Maurice Blanchot, available in Friendship.
Ted Rall – The Difference Between Liberals and Leftists
Link to an article by Ted Rall:
“The Difference Between Liberals and Leftists”
Bonus links: “‘Far Left’? There’s No Such Thing in This Democratic Party” and Virtue and Terror and Review of Domenico Losurdo’s Liberalism: A Counter-History and Non-violence: A History Beyond the Myth and War and Revolution: Rethinking the Twentieth Century and Violence and Slavoj Žižek On Political Struggle and Trouble in Paradise and Revolution at the Gates and The State and Revolution and “The Guardian’s Populism Panic” and “Left is the New Right, or Why Marx Matters” and “Oregon’s Republican ‘Walkout’ Was a Serious Defeat For the Left” and “Democracy Is the Enemy” and “Don’t Mourn, Repoliticize!”
John Molyneux – The Dialectics of Art
Link to an article by John Molyneux: