2:00PM Water Cooler 7/8/2024
~ Today’s Water Cooler: Open Thread ~
Read more...Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.
~ Today’s Water Cooler: Open Thread ~
Read more...Permaculture is a sustainable alternative to conventional agriculture.
Read more...~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, syndemics: First post-debate RCP polling averages; forthcoming Biden interview; our famously free press; CDC flipflops on vax only (over the Fourth of July weekend); consciousness: we know nothing. ~
Read more...~ Today’s Water Cooler: Open Thread ~
Read more...~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, syndemis; Jill Biden, Vogue cover girl; Stevie Nicks and Taylor Swift; Great Barrington grifters.~
Read more...The aftermath of Biden’s debate with Trump critiqued as drama.
Read more...~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, syndemics; stay safe, new Covid charts; Trump holds his own, pre-debate; Presidential immunity after Trump v. United States ~
Read more...~ Today’s Water Cooler: Supreme Court decision on Presidential immunity and Open Thread ~
Read more...Investors from outside the EU control a significant share of the capital of global listed companies involved in the mining of cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, and rare earths, underscoring the need to enhance the EU’s strategic autonomy and devise a metal-specific strategy going forward.
Read more...Long, slow erosion of the US dollar’s dominance. China’s renminbi keeps losing ground, many other currencies gain, as does gold
Read more...Today’s Water Cooler: Biden v. Trump and the Democrat succession crisis
Read more...