CAPITALIST TENTACLES & FRONTS

HIRAM LEE–De Havilland was among the liberal anticommunists who shifted significantly to the right. She joined with another member of the ICCASP—future US President Ronald Regan, who was then preparing to spill his guts as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee—to oppose the Stalinist elements within the organization. She later testified about the experience in a private session before HUAC.

MoA—The number of new cases in U.S. have somewhat peaked for now as the sunbelt states have taken some measures to decrease new infections. But I am afraid that the trend down will (again) be very slow and that we will see another rise as some other states – Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana and Kentucky – show upticks in new infections. They may be the next ones who will get into trouble. The curve of new deaths from Covid-19 follows the new cases curve by three to four weeks. Deaths will probably peak at the end of August. The economic damage the pandemic has caused in the U.S. is extreme.

CALEB MAUPIN—In this episode Caleb discusses the importance of understanding the truths underscored by Dialectical Materialism, among which the fact that everything changes all the time, that NOTHING stays the same, not even from one second to the next, is central.  This means anything is possible, that the past, even the immediate past, does not need to rigidly determine the future. That A ≠ A. The chat also dwells on how people’s “high” events, highly romantic things they participated in—Vietnam war, the Great Depression,  the McCarthy period and the fight against anti-communism—seem to freeze their perception of what is possible, providing them with a single lens to view history.

GLEN FORD—What makes the U.S. “chattering classes” so worthless is their refusal to talk about anything except those subjects that are approved for public discourse by the Lords of Capital, as certified by the high priests of corporate media. If the chattering classes were permitted to discuss truly important subjects – such as, Who Rules? — their yammering might hold some social value. However, the obvious fact of corporate dictatorship is also the great taboo. When the overarching reality of our times – the Dictatorship of (White) Capital, from which all of the planet’s existential crises flow — is verboten, haram, unspeakable, most of what’s left to busy the lips is mindless, meaningless chatter that is utterly useless to the task of fixing what ails society. 

MoA—Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had promised that his organization would take revenge for each of its soldiers killed in Israeli attacks in Syria. Knowing that some hit will come the Israeli army was put on high alert and additional forces were moved towards the border area. But the long nervous guarding of the border while waiting for Hezbollah’s hit must have induced some hallucinations.