The Trump administration has dug in its heels, declaring that the 90-day (for now) Muslim ban on refugees, from seven predominantly Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia), enshrined in a January 27th executive order, is just “extreme vetting” and that the media is engaging in “false reporting.” In contrast,
The basic principle of the post-industrial, post-modern theory of value and surplus value is that the human species produces surpluses of all types and kinds, regardless of his or her situation and/or social position. As a result, for the post-industrial, post-modern theory of value and surplus value, the human species by definition is constantly immersed in an existential process of value and surplus value production, wherever he or she is stationed in the capitalist socio-economic hierarchy.
Bloodletting as a medical practice flourished for thousands of years before finally yielding to more “enlightened” medicine except in special circumstances. One of history’s ironies is that America’s first president, George Washington, a bloodthirsty warrior before and during his presidency, died arguably from bloodletters called in to his bedside to let out one-fourth of his blood.
The Financial Times’ Special Report (2/16/2017) published a four-page spread on the ‘use and possible dangers of artificial intelligence (AI)’. Unlike the usual trash journalists who serve as Washington’s megaphones on the editorial pages and political columns, the Special Report is a thoughtful essay that raises many important issues, even as it is fundamentally flawed.
The Trump Gang, hardly two weeks in the White House, is giving strong, petulant signals that it is hijacking the checks and balances of our democratic institutions. Coupling the Boss’s easily brusiable ego, marinated in infinite megalomania, with ideologues harboring objectives that would have frightened Nixonites and Reaganites alike, a runaway train is leaving the station.
In his latest piece, Paul Craig Roberts poses and answers his rhetorical question: What became of the left? His answer is that “the European and American left, which traditionally stood for the working class and peace (bread and peace) no longer exists.”
Canadian capitalism is in crisis, with household debt reaching a record high 166.9 per cent of disposable income and about 208 per cent of GDP, and wage stagnation is a primary cause.
Richard Vague told the Globe and Mail “any country whose private-debt-to-GDP ratio goes beyond 150 per cent and that has a five-year growth rate of 18 per cent or greater in that ratio experiences a financial crisis at some point.” The Globe says Canada has already passed both benchmarks in its ongoing borrowing binge.
Amazing how crass this culture is. I know, the whole slavery DNA and before, expropriation of not just the land and culture, but the body whole of Original Peoples, and all the massacres, the lynchings, the endless firing squads against strikers, workers, the murders by the law, and worse, structural homicide of this land, granted, all pretty disgusting.
