AMERICAN STUDIES

PATRICK LAWRENCE—The war, the de-oligarchization law, and public discontent have oligarchs on the run, The Post reports, but I couldn’t find a single oligarch on the run in this story. Ihor Kolomoisky doesn’t live in Ukraine anymore and comes over as indifferent to the allegations against him in reports I have read. Of the other oligarchs mentioned, Serhiy Taruta co-founded and runs a metals-industry group based on privatized state assets, has held several political offices, has had a seat in the Rada since 2014, and seems to entertain presidential ambitions. Not exactly a man on the run.

PATRICE GREANVILLE—Overproduction is a Marxist term that confuses many people. Why is it that when society produces “too much of something”—say too many houses, cars, food, etc.,— it is a bad thing? And what about when the problem is general, when society produces too much of just about everything? Why is such abundance to be feared and regretted? Why does it portend a serious crisis?  For brains long accustomed to thinking that the central economic problem for human beings is deficient production methods, famines, seasonal shortages, and thereby scarcity, the whole thing is mysterious and plainly irrational.

After what must have been particularly heated negotiations, House and Senate negotiators have – no doubt grudgingly – agreed to balloon the United States defense budget by an additional $45 billion beyond the $800+ billion the Biden administration had asked for. Politico calls the increase a “rebuke” of the President, which seems a curious way of describing politicians predictably delivering for their donors. Jimmy and America’s Comedian Kurt Metzger can only admire the sheer rapacity of the military-industrial complex and its complete capture of the United States government.

This episode is especially illuminating in what it says about the news-obstructive work of corporatised drones, deadwood like NBC’s David Gregory, a man who, as Gleen Greenwald notes, never broke a story in his entire life (he is effectively a glorified “news reader” or “presenter”), yet who relies on “credentialism” to denigrate the right of independent media voices such as Greenwald to report on ruling class felonies.

In this episode of a new program, System Update, Glenn focuses on the abuses of the WOKE Democrats and their media shills, who wasted no time in assuming the identity of a gay bar shooter was a Fox News-watching rightwing wacko. He also denounces the endless betrayals of Bernie Sanders, a warmongering corporatist Democrat sheepdog still billing himself as an anti-corporatist independent.