Link to an article by Russell Mokhiber:
“Laurent Cohen-Tanugi on Scapegoating in Corporate Crime Cases”
Bonus link: The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives
Links
Joshua Sperber – Yelp and the Myth of Consumer Power
Link to an article by Joshua Sperber:
“Yelp and the Myth of Consumer Power”
Bonus links: C.T. Kurien, “The Market Economy: Theory, Ideology and Reality” and “Why the Western Media is Afraid of Julian Assange”
John Bellamy Foster – Absolute Capitalism
John Bellamy Foster:
It is possible to disagree with his formulation of “neoliberalism” (drawn from the unreliable Michel Foucault) and still gain insights for this analysis, including the historical overview. Though a bit more Gramsci would boost this analysis, plus maybe a dose of Bourdieu.
Iishana Artra – Is 5G Worth the Risks?
Link to an article by Iishana Artra:
Bonus links: “Controlling 5G: A Course in Obstacles” and “Group Calls on Citizens to Blow the Whistle on Motorola Cell Phone Safety Studies” and “How Big Wireless Lobbied Governments to Build 5G For Citizen Data Collection and Surveillance”
Kent Allen Halliburton – The American Civil War, 1854–1876
Link to an article by Kent Allen Halliburton:
Geoffrey Dutton – Talking Trash
Link to an article by Geoffrey Dutton:
“Talking Trash: Recycling Inches Up, But Problems Remain”
Curiously absent from this otherwise excellent discussion of the present-day facts about recycling practices in the USA is why municipalities are expected to submit to a “market” rather than intervening directly in it or circumventing/modifying it (as governments often do). Why shouldn’t municipalities create their own recycling entities and manufacturing facilities to bypass markets, or engage in more far-reaching bans (like an upstream ban on all materials that are not provably and practically recyclable)? The article simply tacitly accepts that municipal governments should look to private businesses and markets in significant ways, or simply treat private profitability as the uncrossable horizon of municipal politics, as if this is self-evident, which is precisely the goal of all political propaganda—“to annihilate an unnoticed possibility of the situation“.
Bonus links: “Recycling Crisis is Capitalist Business as Usual” and “It’s Time to Break Up Capitalism’s Love Affair With Plastic” and “Humanity Is Drowning in Plastic”
Kristina Betinis – Chicago Symphony Musicians Strike Defies Aristocratic Principle
Link to an article by Kristina Betinis:
“Chicago Symphony Musicians Strike Defies Aristocratic Principle”
Selected Quote:
“A right-wing pressure campaign has been launched to press the musicians into accepting what is declared by the ruling elite to be an incontrovertible social fact: that no worker should receive a decent pension. This idea is advanced as though it were self-evident.”
Bonus links: “How the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Won Higher Wages By Playing For Free” and “Ballet Against Austerity”
Derek Nystrom – Thirteen Ways of Looking at “High Flying Bird”
Link to a review of High Flying Bird by Derek Nystrom:
Victor Pickard – The Strange Life and Death of the Fairness Doctrine
Link to an article by Victor Pickard:
Robert Pfaller – The Ideology of Postmodernism is to Present All Existing Injustice as an Effect of Discrimination
Link to an interview with Robert Pfaller:
“The Ideology of Postmodernism is to Present All Existing Injustice as an Effect of Discrimination”
In this brief interview Pfaller does understate the problem of discrimination, in that even in a situation of complete economic equality, there can be inequalities in terms of access, prestige, or other forms of capital — Ursula Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed even has a plot point to this effect where a stupid physicist tries to distort and suppress the work of another in order to maintain and enhance his own prestige and power (even though the two are economically equal). Still, Pfaller’s analysis is remarkably astute for being so direct and easy to understand!
Bonus links: The Trouble with Diversity and “The Politics of Identity” and “Can We Really Measure Implicit Bias? Maybe Not”