Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): November 21, 2019 Ryan Grim, author of We’ve Got People, on the long fight between insurgents and establishment in the Democratic party • Jenny Brown, author of Without Apology, on the history and politics of abortion in the US (check out National Women’s Liberation and Redstockings)
Warren’s cagey health plan
People on the left have been debating Elizabeth Warren’s health plan since it was released a couple of weeks ago—“realistic” or a ruse? I vote ruse, but I don’t want to make that argument myself right now. Instead, I’ll allow a research note from Barclay’s, which found its way into my inbox, do that work. Here’s the opening paragraph of the report, by Barclay’s analyst Steve Valiquette: Compared to her previous hardline stance on M4A, the new plan represents a significant change in tone, in our view. Not only does the transition plan… Read More
Taxing the rich is only a start, though it’s a good one
It’s become near-consensus on the social democratic left that you can fund a decent welfare state by taxing the rich and shrinking the military. Sad to say that isn’t true. Those are good things in themselves, and you could pay for some excellent things with that agenda, but it would still be well short of actual social democracy. I’m defining social democracy as a large and robust welfare state that socializes a lot of consumption through taxation and spending, compressing the income distribution, reducing poverty sharply, capping the political power of the… Read More
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): October 10, 2019 Corey Robin, author of The Enigma of Clarence Thomas, on the life and thought of a conservative black nationalist
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): September 26, 2019 Joel Schalit, co-founder and editor of The Battleground, on the Israeli election • Martin Lukacs, author of The Trudeau Formula, on that slippery Canadian PM
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): September 19, 2019 Sam Gindin on the UAW’s strike against GM, and the possibilities for the green repurposing of a plant GM is abandoning • Robin Einhorn on the role of slavery in shaping tax politics in the early US (article here)
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): September 12, 2019 Margaret Corvid, city councilor in Plymouth, England, on BoJo and the Brexit madness • John Clegg, author of this article, on slavery’s profound effects on the US political structure
Rasmus on the attack again
The irrepressible Jack Rasmus, who has never demonstrated any real understanding of how economic statistics are constructed, has a new post claiming that the “real” unemployment rate is more like 10–12% than the officially reported 3.7%. He has a point, even if it’s somewhat overstated. The government’s own broad unemployment rate, U-6, was 7.2% in August, nearly twice the headline rate, though short of the Rasmus rate. (See table A-15 here.) One of the ways the government undercounts the unemployed, says Rasmus, is that the monthly survey “misses a lot of workers… Read More
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): August 29, 2019 Yasha Levine on the “democracy” demos in Moscow: for a flossier neoliberalism • Maria Luisa Mendonça on the Amazon fires: who’s setting them, why, and what can be done
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): August 22, 2019 Brian Hioe updates us on the Hong Kong protests • Kavita Krishnan on India’s crackdown in Kashmir
Fresh audio product
Just posted to my radio archive (click on date for link): November 22, 2018 Kelly Happe, author of The Material Gene, on the uses and misuses of genetics • Mark Dery, author of Born To Be Posthumous, on the art and life of Edward Gorey
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): August 16, 2018 Christina Gerhardt, author of Screening the Red Army Faction, on the RAF’s history and artistic reception in the context of the German 1960s and 1970s
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): June 28, 2018 Leo Panitch on Doug Ford, Ontario’s Trump • Cordelia Fine, author of Testosterone Rex, dispenses with all the nonsense about biological differences between the sexes (back after two-week hiatus because of a major writing deadline)
LBO News from Doug Henwood 
Posted on October 8, 2018 by Doug Henwood
Expropriate Yale
Here’s what I said before and after my interview with Shamus Khan about elite schools on my October 4 radio show. Someone on Twitter asked me to post the comments, and here they are. First, elite schools. I have some personal experience with them. I grew up in a mediocre suburb in northern New Jersey and went to mediocre public schools. But since I did all the things you’re supposed to do, I got admitted to Yale in 1971 and spent four years there. It was quite a shock to me to… Read More