BOURGEOIS LEFT

MARGO STILES—When you talk decadence in a world overrun by morally indifferent humans, Bravo’s shows, (an NBC property) nurtured by Andy Cohen, especially the Real Housewives franchises, take the cake. I admit watching them often: they CAN be entertaining. But what bothers me no end is how this bunch of mostly well-off people WASTE their celebrityhood in endless petty bickering punctuated by bouts of outrageous self-pampering. Their egos are so fragile, their vision of life so myopic, that the slightest real or imagined slight is cause for a feud that can last ages.

RAINER SHEA—The DPRK has a multi-party system that’s tremendously more democratic than what we have in the United States, and that’s delivered the country’s people universal healthcare, free food and housing, and guaranteed employment. China’s anti-poverty programs of recent decades have been so successful that poverty is coming close to no longer existing in China, with the country’s current extreme poverty rate hovering below 1%. After both of these countries overcome the economic war that the capitalist world is waging against them, as well as complete their efforts towards transitioning to green energy, they’ll stand as paragons of Marxist social development…

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The primary reason individualism cannot save us is that it depends upon competition. If everyone is an individual whom the collective will neither help nor hinder, we’re all going to have to compete for opportunities and resources on a shrinking world of limited opportunities and resources. A society that is pouring all of its energy and creativity into the drive of the individual to get ahead of the other individuals will never be able to overcome the fundamental problem of looming ecosystemic collapse, setting us instead on a massive rat race to be the first to destroy the environment for profit before someone else does.

JONATHAN COOK—While the witchfinders claim to have unearthed a “pattern of behaviour” in Williamson’s efforts to expose their smears, in fact the real pattern of behaviour is there for all to see: a concerted McCarthyite campaign to destroy Corbyn before he can reach No 10.Corbyn’s allies are being picked off one by one, from grassroots activists like Walker and Wadsworth to higher-placed supporters like Williamson and Milne. Soon Corbyn will stand alone, exposed before the inquisition that has been prepared for him.