Playing the national anthem in professional sports is a political act

The protests during the playing of the national anthem before professional sports events has caused some controversy with Donald Trump, as usual, inflaming the situation. In an earlier post, I asked why this practice even existed since it seemed to me to be so silly. Many people have criticized the protesting players for injecting politics into sports but as Justin Levin, the author of a “history thesis on sports as instruments of domestic mobilization during the Vietnam War”, writes, it was the introduction of the national anthem into these events that was an overtly political act to serve an overtly political purpose, to stifle dissent that was erupting during the Vietnam war.
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Trump’s failures in Puerto Rico

As the humanitarian situation in Puerto Rico continues to worse, Donald Trump has as usual tried to have it multiple ways, blaming the lack of quick response on Puerto Rico being an island, then saying that his administration has done a wonderful job in relief efforts, and when it is pointed out that it has not done so, blaming lazy Hispanic people and their shiftless leaders, because he knows that attacking people of color plays well with his supporters.
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The neoliberal policing of the left

Jonathan Chait is a columnist in New York magazine. Friends sometimes send me links to his article because they think he presents a sensible, liberal, perspective. I have never been impressed by him, just as I have never been impressed by Nicholas Kristoff, another columnist much favored by liberals. Alex Pareene captures well what I don’t like about Chait’s work. He says that the goal of neoliberal Democrats like Chait is to prevent the Democratic party from moving further to the left than the boundaries set by (say) the Clintons.
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We need more people like this in positions of authority

Listen to this short speech given by Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria, head of the US Air Force Academy, to all 4,000 cadets and faculty and staff at the institution, after words got out that racial slurs had been found written on message boards at the academy’s preparatory school. Donald Trump could learn something from him.

Cue the white nationalists and neo-Nazis whining about how Silveria is a big old meanie who is infringing on their free speech rights.

We should stop treating the Republicans as strategic geniuses

The Republicans have developed a good con game, acting as if they are strategic whizzes, and the media tend to play along with them, keeping Democrats off-balance and on the defensive. What is worse is that the neoliberals within the Democratic party ranks also play along with this charade since it enables them to prevent the party from adopting more progressive stances
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The criminal waste in the US health care system

Pete Dolack estimates that about $1.4 trillion dollars are siphoned out of the US health care system each year because of its private, for-profit nature, more than enough to pay for a single-payer system. How does he arrive at this figure? He calculates the average per-capita expenditure on health care for Britain, Canada, France, and Germany for the years 2011 to 2016 and arrives at $4,392 per year. For the US the figure is more than twice that at $8,924. If you take the difference and multiply that by the US population of 317 million, the excess comes out to $1.44 trillion.
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Moore, Trump, and the Republican party are all the same

Now that Roy Moore has won the Republican senate primary in Alabama, the chances of the Democratic candidate Doug Jones of winning the election on December 12 have gone up slightly, though they are still not great given that we are talking about Alabama where religious extremism thrives. The question is whether the Democratic party establishment throws its weight and resources behind Jones. Jones has been quietly raising money for his campaign.

Jones has some good credentials but the party has not as yet enthusiastically embraced him.
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ProPublica and John Oliver on monopolies

One of the features of capitalism is the growth of monopolies. As a result of their emergence either because of mergers or by the purchase of smaller companies, we end up having less competition and that results in higher prices and less innovation, leading to inferior products and services. The government’s anti-trust division is supposed to prevent monopolies but that long ago became a toothless tiger.
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