Countering Chaos
Alexander Cockburn, A Colossal Wreck: A Road Trip through Political Scandal, Corruption, and American Culture Verso, 2013 Daisy Cockburn: When I was a teenager my father used to suggest I read the dictionary when I…
Category: Power and Ideology
Act Two by Andrew Wimmer
My friend Andrew Wimmer emailed the following to some of us, and gave me permission to share here… In May 2016, Adam Gopnik wrote in The New Yorker: “There is a simple formula for descriptions…
The Power of Footnotes
1. My idea of the ideal text is still the Talmud. I love the idea of parallel texts, with long, discursive footnotes and marginal commentary, texts commenting on texts. –Noam Chomsky, Mother Jones interview, 1987…
The Goal Is Justice, the Method Is Transparency
For those who would like to know a little more about the issues surrounding Julian Assange and Wikileaks, please take two minutes to read and ponder the following passages from Tariq Ali and Margaret Kunstler’s…
For So They Treated the Prophets…
Here’s Noam Chomsky–True prophets like Amos — “dissident intellectuals,” in modern terminology — offered both elevated moral lessons, which the people in power weren’t fond of, and geopolitical analyses that usually turned out to be…
What a Joy to Run the World!
When corporate-endowed foundations first made their appearance in the United States, there was a fierce debate about their provenance, legality, and lack of accountability. People suggested that if companies had so much surplus money, they…
Remembering Alexander Cockburn
Dear Andrew, You and I make frequent reference these delirious days to Alexander Cockburn, who published us in his Counterpunch website back during both the Bush and Obama administrations. A while ago I reread his…
Morality 101
See, I focus my efforts against the terror and violence of my own state for really two main reasons. First of all, in my case the actions of my state happen to make up the…
Marxism Is Dead; Long Live Marx
Marxism is a curious notion like Freudianism. These are, in my opinion, forms of organized religion, which treat individuals as gods, or maybe idols. In disciplines that have passed beyond the most primitive stage, there…
The Political Economy of Memory
Alan S. Rosenbaum, ed., Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide I read this book for my treatment of Wiesel and it gave me plenty of perspectives, arguments and insights. The question of the…