This was an especially well-informed discussion of American politics, which isn't common these days. There is also a bit of discussion about international politics: Ukraine, the Middle East, Spain. Some of it was great, other parts not so great. Long having been a watcher of the two Alexes, I was wondering about their take on American politics. I guess they let this guy Barnes speak for them. It is long: 2.5 hours. Below are some critical notes.

Italy's political crisis has everyone's attention, as well it should.
But there are other crises building in Europe that shouldn't be ignored, such as Italy's banking system.

This will be a really short Essay, but I think it's a question which needs to be answered.

Has anyone else around here noticed that every time the clause "The State is Indivisible" or equivalent appears in any country's Constitution, that country has a chunk of its land and people who emphatically do NOT want to be part of it?

For far too long Iceland has been alone in prosecuting their banksters.
Spain, very belatedly, is finally joining this extremely small club.

If a war resulting in tens of millions of casualties can be described as such, over the years World War II came to be known as the "Good War" for much of the Western world. It is often said that the victors of a war, any war, write its history. This is almost always true with perhaps one major exception.

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Sunday February 11, 1906
Greensboro, North Carolina - Mother Jones Speaks on Child Labor

From the Greensboro Daily Industrial News of February 9th:

"MOTHER JONES" ON CHILD LABOR
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Socialist Declares That Factories Are Responsible
for Mental Degenerates
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LABOR AND CAPITAL ARE DULY COMPARED
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Laboring Man's Champion Speaks to a Small Audience
in Labor Union Hall But Holds Her
Hearers' Interest to the End.
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Mother Jones talked in Labor Union Hall last night to an audience made unfortunately small by the inclemency of the weather. But the few people who were there were profoundly interested and were besides very greatly taken with the "spunky" little woman who tried to stir up in them the revolutionary spirit and to implant in them a firm purpose to benefit their brothers and help them forward to a higher civilization.

Mother Jones related first the history of the tool, told how it had become a machine, and how its change, and its ownership by the few had brought about the present economic conditions. She told about how young men used to go West to escape the servitude of labor, but now, she said, the conditions were the same everywhere.

Cuba appealed for relief from Spain, said she, and could have had it without war, but in the interests of capital war was brought about. Then capital went on to the Philippines, to work up that country. In the Far East, before the gates of Pekin, Militarism and Capitalism for the first time in history, joined their interests and worked together. The whole thing means that we are face to face with a competition as the world has never known it before.

Calls Child Labor Murder.