CORPORATE CRIMES

TONY SUTTON–I’m walking to the shopping mall. Halfway along the route, detouring down a narrow path, I spot an elderly woman walking, head down, towards me. A few metres before we meet, she looks up, sees me, and dashes to one side, her back against the fence. Stunned by her reaction, I spin around. Zombie attack? Big dog with dripping fangs? Nope. Then I realise, it’s me she’s scared of. Well, perhaps not me  – just my breath! . . .

PATRICE GREANVILLE—In this episode The Finnish Bolshevik provides an excellent overview of the liberal mentality, its good points and bad points; essentially its dangerous limitations grounded in bourgeois delusions, opportunism, and plain political cowardice, all of which make most liberals de facto collaborators with the imperialist status quo. He also notes Jimmy Dore’s brave struggle against the “synthetic left”, and his own evolution toward more radical positions consistent with genuine socialism.  

Personally I find his critique of liberals and their mythologies refreshing in an ideological field deliberately brimming with confusion to the point of incoherence. His dismantlement of the notion that America has devolved into the oligarchic tyranny we witness today, rather than it having been an oligarchic tyranny all along, the inevitable outcome of the natural dynamics of a capitalist order, is especially welcome.

ERIC SCHECHTER—A 26-minute video explaining feedback loops, exponential growth, etc. in nontechnical terms. Transcript (and links) at author’s main blog A 26-minute video explaining feedback loops, exponential growth, etc. in nontechnical terms. Transcript (and links) at http://leftymathprof.wordpress.com/

DAVE LINDORFF—Sanders is correct in saying, as he did at NBC’s Nevada candidates’ debate, when asked about the cost of his Medicare-for-All proposal, the it is ridiculous to claim that when Canada, Britain, the Scandinavian countries, Germany, France and Italy can all operate a government-funded health care system at half the per person, and half the GNP share of the US’s corporate-run for-profit-based system, the US somehow could not do the same thing.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The word “conspire” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or an act which becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement”. No sane person would deny that this is a thing that happens, nor that this is likely a thing that happens to some extent among the powerful in their own nation. This by itself is a theory about conspiracy per definition, and it accurately applies to pretty much everyone. Since it applies to pretty much everyone, the label is essentially meaningless, either as a pejorative or as anything else.