The layers of the mask keep peeling away

Capitalism has been incredibly successful in producing advances in technology and quality of life for many people, especially in the developed world. But the system is also inherently exploitative, and nowhere is this more in evidence than in the US where it has spawned an incredible level of economic inequality and greater insecurity for the vast majority of the population even as a tiny segment of the population get obscenely richer.
[Read more…]

Government-supported religious nutters indoctrinating children

In America we are used to having religion-based educational institutions that teach an anti-science, anti-gay, anti-sex, and anti-women curriculum. It is appalling that these schools, because they shelter under the mantle of religion, benefit from tax-exempt status which means that all of us are essentially subsidizing the propagation of odious viewpoints. But apparently there are also schools in Great Britain that have tax-exempt status that promote the most appalling views.
[Read more…]

The myth of decisive technological advantage in warfare

Andrew Cockburn is very good journalist who has covered a whole range of activities but his specialty is analyses of the military-political connection. He is now the Washington editor for Harper’s magazine and was interviewed on The Daily Show about his new book titled Kill Chain that discusses the illusion that warmongers in the US have that their technological superiority will enable them to overcome their enemies, a myth that has been retained despite its repeated failures going back at least as far as the Vietnam war.
[Read more…]

More undermining of the judicial system by the Obama administration

Glenn Greenwald writes about a troubling legal case in which the US government intervened in a private civil suit and persuaded the judge that the case should be dismissed because having a trial would compromise national security. What made it unusual was that this was on the surface a run-of-the-mill case between two parties that ostensibly had no connection to the government
[Read more…]

When the new normal is better than the old normal

Recently my daughter told me that her friend from high school, whom I also know and happens to be the daughter of a colleague, had got married and was pregnant. She is in a same-sex marriage. Another colleague of mine, also in a same-sex marriage, just had a baby too. What struck me was how ordinary this news seemed to me. Just a decade ago, same-sex couples getting married and giving birth to children would have been big news. Now I find myself responding pretty much the way I would to news of an opposite-sex marriage and pregnancy of people I know, happy for the couple, wishing them well, and then moving on to other things.
[Read more…]

We’re really #1!

American exceptionalists are always claiming that the US is the greatest nation in the world and the best at practically anything that matters. Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not see it in the same way and marvel at how deficient we are in areas like health care, social and economic mobility, infrastructure, public services, and other quality of life measures.
[Read more…]