By Arizona Slim, a documentary photographer, writer and sometime Naked Capitalism meetup organizer who lives in Tucson
It’s the anguished cry that’s oft heard around the Arizona Slim Ranch.
It happens when I’ve had enough with whatever the corporate media is trying to pass off as news, when the two-party duopoly pushes candidates who offer no solutions to the problems most Americans are facing, and when I’m fed up with neoliberalism and late-stage capitalism.
Whew! This place is a refuge.
If you’re new to Naked Capitalism, this is a blog that offers a wide variety of viewpoints. You’ll find links to the World Socialist Web Site on the left and American Conservative on the right, plus numerous stops in between. The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist – they’re all here.
More important than the wide variety of viewpoints is the purpose of Naked Capitalism. This blog will help you develop a black belt in critical thinking. It’s the kind of thinking that goes well beyond comprehending words on a page or screen. You’ll start asking why the information was presented in a certain way. Who was quoted? And who was omitted? Why this story? And why now?
You’ll find that a critical thinker is always reading. Through Naked Capitalism and its world-class commentariat, I have been introduced to books like Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal, John Patrick Leary’s Keywords, and Anu Partenen’s Nordic Theory of Everything (hat tip reader DJG), which makes a convincing case for Scandinavian-style, state-supported education, health care, pensions, and elder care in the United States.
In addition to making excellent book recommendations, our commentariat offers on-the-ground reports from around the globe. Every day, they’re sharing insights from the tinder-dry forests of California, rural Texas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, New York City, New England, old England, Ireland, France, the Czech Republic, South Africa, Mauritius, Australia, and I could keep going, but you get the point.
I’d like to conclude by thanking Yves for asking me to write this love letter to Naked Capitalism. I’ve made my gift to the annual fundraiser, and I encourage you to do the same via the Tip Jar. No more crying when you can help protect and expand this oasis of sanity.
Every donation helps, $5, $50, or $5,000. If you are having a difficult year, even a small contribution is a statement that you want a better society and a better dialogue. And if you are flourishing, dig deep on behalf of the people you’ve come to know here and the ones you know are lurking.
7 comments
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Agree with what you say here. And always worth the while reading any of your comments, Slim.
+1. I always love your comments, Slim.
I discovered this site through links to it posted at Daily Kos during the Great Recession. I had voted for and donated to Obama, but soon became disillusioned. Naked Capitalism was a source of solace and conceptual framing that helped me to better understand and give coherent voice to my disappointment. Now, I make a habit of posting over at Daily Kos, things I find here. I like to think that by doing so, I am introducing a note of sanity to those in the grip of TDS, TINA, hypocritical hyper-partisanship, and other moral and mental defects. Plus, AZ slim gave me a tip that fixed my sciatica.
Thank you, Arizonska Slimskaya.
What also is perspective-twisting about reading Naked Capitalism, as you indicate, is that the World Socialist Web Site and the beleaguered paleos at The American Conservative often are not all that far apart in their views.
What we have learned here is that the mainstream liberals of the Aqua Party and the right-winger true believers of the Mauve Party accentuate their minor differences to herd people into fan clubs. It takes some time to rearrange one’s own mindset accordingly to filter out their endless propaganda.
– There are liberals, then libtards, then commie-pinko-fagot-tree-hugger-radical-anarchists.
– Then there are centrists (people who can never make up their mind).
– Then there are conservatives, ultra-conservative/alt-rightists, then fascist-white-supremacist-NRA-gun-toting-anarchists, then libertarians (people who embrace anarchy as a political philosophy).
Most pundits/essayists/journalists linearize political worldviews as if they are a left-to-right continuum even though a circle probably makes more sense. To add to label confusion, some of us hold views that incorporate several labels at once. You might call such people “true liberals” as the term liberal really just means being open to new information and skeptical of consensus. Or you might call them NakedCapitalism subscribers.
Thank you for this and all your contributions in the comments Arizona Slim! You and all the great commenters on this site are greatly appreciated. I learn so much from everyone here.
Thank you, everyone! And don’t forget that Tip Jar.