Thursday, December 24, 2020

Do Billionaires Destroy Democracy and Capitalism?

 Just 11 percent of books published by large presses in 2018 were written by people of color. Why is publishing  so white? 



Afterpay ... Ripple Claims Bitcoin Is ‘Chinese-Controlled’ While Announcing New Lawsuit From SEC


Australian ‘super seaweed’ supplement to reduce cattle gas emissions wins $1m international prizeThe Hill



Do Billionaires Destroy Democracy and Capitalism?

The US can draw on its Gilded Age to bring its billionaires to heel.



The heirs of the French, English, and American revolutions had partly believed in their own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality before the law, and the like, and had even allowed their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian. The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the moment when it became realizable. Every new political theory, by whatever name it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about 1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years — imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations — not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened liberals.

The Twin Engines of Misrule

Sometimes my tireless staff of thousands looks back and sees a blogpost that demands to be reposted. This one from Dec. 17, 2004 — 18 years ago next week, imagine that — called out to them: When 1984 came around smack in the middle of the rose-tinted Reagan era, many... Read more