EDITOR—Interested in an “unapologetic Black, leftist, working-class” perspective on current sociopolitical events? If so, join us as we speak with Nick Cruse, citizen journalist and co-founder of Revolutionary Blackout Network (@RevBlackNetwork on Twitter and “Revolutionary Blackout” here on YouTube). We discuss a variety of topics, including the importance of independent Black, working-class commentary in an age of corporatized journalism, the leftist failures of electoral politics in the US, the absence of an established leftist perspective in mainstream media, the challenges of social media activism (particularly the “BreadTube” effect), as well as the potential to change the current status quo through ground-up, working class solidarity.
BOURGEOIS VALUES
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BRUCE LERRO—People’s identity can be made sense of as existing in the cross-fire between our biological, psychological and social lives. This helps us to understand the differences between someone’s temperament, personality and self. Among social psychologists such as George Herbert Mead, the species homo sapiens is not fully human until we have been socialized. What are the skills necessary to build this social identity? Why is it that some skills have to be built before others? As adults we assume that our inner psychology and the objective world are separate. But research shows that it probably takes the child seven or eight years to develop both a subjective and objective self.
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FLUNKISM WRIT LARGE: Russia’s ‘Sputnik’ on the succession of Western leaders visiting Israel for photo ops
120 Mins readGILBERT DOCTOROW—This flurry of shuttle diplomacy [to Israel now] cannot but call to mind the eagerness with which all these Western leaders have been making forays to Kiev. As they made a bee-line for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, the aforementioned politicians have offered him successive vast weapons packages that have failed to impact the stuttering counteroffensive, while only further fanning the flames of the ongoing NATO proxy war against Russia. The same Western leaders have made no bones about being ready to prop up Kiev “to the last Ukrainian.”
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BRUCE LERRO—In Part I of this 2-part article, I began by listing the typical superstitious behavior college students engage in before taking a test. I identified the conditions of superstition, what superstition is and then added the range of its scope. My piece is about socially shared and personal superstitions rather than about paranormal or spiritual beliefs. From there I probed the demography of superstition including occupations, social class and gender. Next, I talked about the importance of Pavlov’s theory of associations as well of Skinner’s consequential reinforcement in the acquiring of superstitions.
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Garland expertly (and effortlessly) tears apart the thick tissue of lies and specious arguments used by the US empire’s mouthpieces like Antony Blinken or Victoria Nuland to justify its existence. There’s nothing natural about this “rules-based order,” says Garland, it’s just another euphemism for the rotting, deeply anti-democratic and criminal US empire. The US empire is worse than a mafia, he adds. It’s even more predatory. It does not deserve the respect or allegiance of anyone, except those in the 0.001% who directly benefit from its eternal depredations.