Cultural Detritus, Reviews, and Commentary
Link to an article by Jerry White:
“Teachers Unions Intensify Efforts to Suppress Growing Class Struggle in the US”
Bonus link: Poor People’s Movements and “Making Greater Possibilities Inconceivable: Another Thought or Two on the Logic of Lesser Evilism”
Link to an article by Matt Bruenig:
“How Did Private Property Start?”
Bonus quotes:
“The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: ‘Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!’”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men” (1755)
“The illegitimate violence by which law sustains itself must be concealed at any price, because this concealment is the positive condition of the functioning of law. Law functions only insofar as its subjects are fooled, insofar as they experience the authority of law as ‘authentic and eternal’ and do not realize ‘the truth about the usurpation’. That is why Kant is forced, in his Metaphysics of Morals, to forbid any question concerning the origins of legal power: it is by means of precisely such questioning that the stain of this illegitimate violence appears which always soils, like original sin, the purity of the reign of law.”
Slavoj Žižek, “The Limits of the Semiotic Approach to Psychoanalysis,” from Psychoanalysis and… (Feldstein and Sussman, eds., Routledge 1990).
Link to an interview with Carey Gillam, author of Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science (2017), conducted by Tracy Frisch:
“Monsanto’s Toxic Legacy: An Investigative Reporter Talks Glyphosate”
Bonus links: “Historic Ruling Against Monsanto Finds Company Acted with ‘Malice’ Against Groundskeeper with Cancer” and “‘Monsanto Has Worked Very Hard to Discredit Me and My Work’: CounterSpin Interview With Carey Gillam on Monsanto’s Attack on Journalism” and “Extensive Chemical Safety Fraud Uncovered at German Testing Laboratory” and “RETRACTED: Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans”
Link to an article by Maura Ewing:
“Philadelphia’s New Top Prosecutor Is Rolling Out Wild, Unprecedented Criminal Justice Reforms”
Bonus links: “Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner Promised a Criminal Justice Revolution. He’s Exceeding Expectations.” and “Meet Larry Krasner” and “Ending Civil Forfeiture In Philadelphia” and …And the Poor Get Prison
No doubt about it, Krasner is one of the most heroic public servants in office in the U.S. today. Nothing about Krasner’s policies is “wild” though, and it is quite sad that in this day and age they are “unprecedented” — his policies should probably be the norm not the exception. It is, however, important to note that a key factor in Krasner winning office was substantial funding from out-of-towner George Soros.
Link to an article by Judge Lynn Adelman:
Bonus links: …And the Poor Get Prison and The Condemnation of Little B
Link to an article by Rob Urie:
“Democrats and the Crisis of Legitimacy”
Bonus links: “No Box For That” and “Malcolm X and the Democrats: Excerpts from Peter Camejo’s Autobiography, North Star“ and Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-driven Political Systems and “Fake News on Russia and Other Official Enemies”
Link to an article by Joan Roelofs:
“How Effective are International Human Rights Treaties?”
Bonus links: “Military-Industrial Complex Introduction” and “America’s Permanent-War Complex”
Link to an article by Sarah Bruch & Joe Soss:
Bonus links: “Red Diaper Babies” and Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Richard Shaull Quote (“There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes ‘the practice of freedom,’ the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”) and Deschooling Society and The Struggle for the Meaning of Society As Such and “Elite Universities Are Turning Our Kids Into Corporate Stooges”
Link to an article by James Pinnock: