financialization

How does one fight in an Internet-infested, money-dominated political system?

The old politics is dead. Citizens United granted unlimited, anonymous political bribery to the transnational billionaire class. The legacy media has been conglomerated down to six companies, while the platform media companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter) have instituted censorship and banning. Sock puppets, trolls, doxers, and other slime have demolished the promise of honest intellectual internet debate.

The coming crash - Is it stupidity, arrogance, or another unwritten, deniable "final solution"?

Its time for me to discuss my pessimism for the future. In various threads, people respond to my pessimism with the classic "so what's your solution?". My answer is that there is no solution that preserves anything like a decent life for the vast majority of Americans. When I am called a "Debbie Downer" for this attitude, its very hard to resist shooting back with "Pollyanna". But I do resist that impulse.

All I'm asking of respondents to this essay is to engage with the pessimism, to follow the big picture logic.

Yet another autopsy on our democracy

Summary: 150 years ago, capitalists needed to construct the nation-state in order to demolish aristocratic rule and create the literate, regimented workforce needed for industrial capitalism... Like free markets, nation-states are not natural; they must be constructed. The Victorian-era bourgeoisie created the nation-state to enforce the free market and the horrendous conditions of the new working class.