What's new

NEW 11/25/2013: Noam Chomsky

An important enemy of the right wing, who have long denounced him with the persistence of Scientologists. Chomsky provides important viewpoints that are suppressed in the media. [more...]

NEW 11/25/2013: Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Introduced the propaganda model of the media, arguing that the mass media of the United States "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion" [more...]

NEW 11/25/2013: Defying Hitler: A Memoir

"This fascinating personal history elucidates how the average German grappled with a rapidly changing society, while chronicling day-to-day changes in attitudes, beliefs, politics, and prejudices." [more...]

NEW 11/25/2013: Healing Our World: The Other Piece of the Puzzle

(1993) Libertarianism repackaged for the new-agey. Pseudoscientific, pollyanna claptrap. Revised as Healing Our World: In an Age of Aggression. [more...]

NEW 11/24/2013: Socialism Is Slavery

Randian black-and-white nonsense based on the lie that tyrannical rule by Communist Parties is exactly socialism and exactly what's going on in all those Scandinavian nations. Slavery is a capitalist phenomenon, for profit. Profit to capitalist slaveowners or to tyrants. [more...]

NEW 11/23/2013: Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future [More...]

"After 85 years, antibiotics are growing impotent. So what will medicine, agriculture and everyday life look like if we lose these drugs entirely?" Bad. [more...]

NEW 11/23/2013: The Genetic Commons

Unregulated markets in antibiotics and pesticides select strongly for resistant genes, resulting in widespread resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. This is a classic tragedy of the commons, requiring regulation. Examples include DDT, MRSA, and resistance to RoundUp. [more...]

NEW 11/23/2013: My Take on the Seven Things We Need to Focus on for Equitable Growth in America [More...]

Brad DeLong presents seven progressive ideas that promote growth and simultaneously reduce inequality. [more...]

NEW 11/21/2013: Big Sugars Sweet Little Lies [More...]

How the industry kept scientists from asking: Does sugar kill? "This decades-long effort to stack the scientific deck is why, today, the USDA's dietary guidelines only speak of sugar in vague generalities." [more...]

NEW 11/21/2013: The Sugar Industry

The sugar industry has engaged in a decades-long public relations effort to stack the scientific deck to prevent government regulation of sugar (including corn sweeteners, honey and syrups.) [more...]

NEW 11/21/2013: The King of MOOCs Abdicates the Throne

Sebastian Thrun and Udacity’s “pivot” toward corporate training, away from the MOOCs they originally promoted. "[...] on the heels of the embarrassing failure of a loudly hyped partnership with San Jose State University, the 'lousiness' of the product seems to have become apparent." [more...]

NEW 11/21/2013: Massive Open Online Courses

MOOCs are the latest technotarian educational fad. They are hyped by libertarians such as Tyler Cowan as the great disruptive game changers for higher education. They are proving massively unsuccessful, with completion rates of less than 10%. [more...]

NEW 11/19/2013: My Faith-Based Retirement [More...]

401k plans have resulted in spectacular losses for many Americans, and record low readiness for retirement. [more...]

NEW 11/19/2013: Retirement Privatization

Privatization of retirement has failed to benefit retirees everywhere it has been tried. Programs such as 401k savings plans have been colossal failures that fleece investors to benefit the financial industry. [more...]

NEW 11/12/2013: The Free-Market Al-Qaeda: Neoliberal Think Tanks and the Harm They Do [More...]

How a a small group of “free-market” ideologues consciously set out 40 years ago to marketize everything public. Includes a list of 12 right-wing philanthropic foundations that set out in the 1960’s to overturn a century’s accumulation of progressive public policy. [more...]

NEW 11/12/2013: Political Research Associates [More...]

"Political Research Associates is a progressive think tank devoted to supporting movements that are building a more just and inclusive democratic society. We expose movements, institutions, and ideologies that undermine human rights." [more...]

NEW 11/12/2013: Politically Incorrect

A sneering badge of honor among many libertarians who revel in their ideological freedom to ignore and despise the unfortunate. [more...]

NEW 11/12/2013: Theocracy and White Supremacy:Behind the Culture War to Restore Traditional Values [More...]

"The goal of many leaders of this ultraconservative religious movement is imposing a narrow theological agenda on secular society. The predominantly Christian leadership envisions a religiously-based authoritarian society; therefore we prefer to describe this movement as the 'theocratic right.'" [more...]

NEW 11/12/2013: Vast, Right-Wing Conspiracy

A term used by Hillary Clinton, which like politically Incorrect is sneered at by libertarians. Hillary was wrong: there are several vast, right-wing conspiracies, aimed at corporatism, conservatism, plutocracy, and theocracy, each with their respective billionaire sponsors. The Kochtopus is probably foremost among them. Libertarians are mong the cats paws of these conspiracies. [more...]

NEW 11/12/2013: Liberals, you must reclaim Adam Smith [More...]

David Brin denounces modern libertarians and their selective citation of Adam Smith. Brin calls for progressive reforms to bring capitalism back to Smithian competition.[more...]

NEW 11/12/2013: Monopoly and Oligopoly

Capitalists unendingly seek monopoly and oligopoly as routes to the highest possible profits. Both are inefficient according to ordinary microeconomics. This is a huge, measurable cost. Capitalists cannot self-regulate this problem away: government must. See also Market Power. [more...]

NEW 11/12/2013: Class War and the Lessons of History [More...]

David Brin points out that class war has always been occurring according to Adam Smith, and that the founders of the US were levelers, creating institutions that broke up concentrations of wealth. Progressive leveling can work again. [more...]

NEW 11/10/2013: PRWatch [More...]

"Original reporting, investigations, and analysis on corporate policies, products, and PR spin." One of the Center for Media and Democracy projects. [more...]

NEW 11/10/2013: The Legislative Attack on American Wages and Labor Standards, 2011–2012 [More...]

There has been a huge, nationwide, state-level attack on workers led by ALEC and others. "This policy agenda undercuts the ability of low- and middle-wage workers, both union and non-union, to earn a decent wage." [more...]

NEW 11/10/2013: ALEC Exposed [More...]

The Center For Media And Democracy's wiki on the enormous and corrupt reach of the American Legislative Exchange Council into our democratic governments. How ALEC is reshaping the law and democracy for the benefit of the wealthy. Who funds, controls, and works for ALEC. [more...]

NEW 11/10/2013: The Koch Brothers, ALEC and the Savage Assault on Democracy [More...]

“We are in the midst of the greatest coordinated legislative attack on voting rights since the dawn of Jim Crow,” [more...]

NEW 11/10/2013: Countervailing Power

Stability and productivity are often a product of countervailing powers. For example, the three branches of US government checking and balancing each other. Market competition preventing monopoly is also an example. Important countervailing powers frequently opposed by libertarians include democracy, unionization and government regulation. [more...]

NEW 11/10/2013: ALEC

The American Legislative Exchange Council, founded, led, and funded in part by the Koch brothers, is leading the class war by corporatists and plutocrats to disenfranchise ordinary people. ALEC opposes unions, voting rights, regulation, environmental law and other democratic countervailing power. ALEC relies on corrupt direct access to legislators, handing them already-written bills. [more...]

NEW 11/08/2013: Nullification (U.S. Constitution)

State nullification of US law is a crackpot theory that has never been upheld in courts. Nullification arguments have long been the political tools of slaveowners and their successor racists. There is a strong overlap between conservative racists and libertarianism. [more...]

NEW 11/02/2013: People Have Rights. States Have Powers.

An incorrect statement based on an erroneous Constitutional interpretation. People, US states, and the US federal government all have both rights and powers. [more...]