Links

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.”

Bruce Lerro – Big Brother Facebook

Link to an article by Bruce Lerro:

“Big Brother Facebook: Drawing Down the Iron Curtain on Yankeedom”

 

Bonus links: “RYM Shitheads” (describes how another, less popular web site has taken a very similar approach) and “The Limits of the Web in an Age of Communicative Capitalism” and “Why ‘Russian Meddling” Is a Trojan Horse” Quote and “Democrats and the Crisis of Legitimacy” and “Technology Giants Hold Censorship Meeting With US Intelligence Agencies” and “Facebook’s New Propaganda Partners”

Erwin Chemerinsky – Arbitration Agreements Ruling Is a Significant Loss for Workers

Link to an article by Erwin Chemerinsky:

“Arbitration Agreements Ruling Is a Significant Loss for Workers”

 

Chemerinsky’s article is well-reasoned, though it should be emphasized that all judges on the U.S. supreme court are pro-capitalist and pro-business, differing only in degree about how many restrictions can be imposed on business.

 

Bonus links: “Stop Calling It an Arbitration Agreement—Employers Are Forcing Workers to Give Up Their Rights” and “Grand Theft Paycheck: The Large Corporations Shortchanging Their Workers’ Wages” and …And the Poor Get Prison

Tom Secker & Matthew Alford – Documents Expose How Hollywood Promotes War on Behalf of the Pentagon, CIA and NSA

Link to an article by Tom Secker & Matthew Alford:

“Documents Expose How Hollywood Promotes War on Behalf of the Pentagon, CIA and NSA”

Bonus links: Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies and National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood and “National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood—How the US Military and CIA Go About Their Propaganda Operations” and Hollywood and the CIA: Cinema, Defense and Subversion and Guts and Glory: The Making of the American Military Image in Film and “Modern Art Was CIA ‘Weapon'” and “Washington DC’s Role Behind the Scenes in Hollywood Goes Deeper Than You Think” and “Hollywood’s Cave to China on Censorship” and “Booting a Tramp: Charlie Chaplin, the FBI and the Construction of the Subversive Image in Red Scare America” and “Theaters of War: Hollywood in Bed with the Pentagon and the CIA”