this is very important. For 10 years now we've been fed a lie that "capitalism" is causing massive reductions in global poverty. In fact global poverty has been getting worse. Now COVID is making the debacle precipitous .@jasonhickel

https://twitter.com/PhilipGAlston/status/1280008856014336000

on a personal note, I might add I've got incessant attacks, personal targeting, & abuse when I once asked who was out there countering the triumphalist narrative - by people who said I had fallaciously presumed my conclusions 2/

The first major activist movement in the US after independence were the Abolitionists & I wonder sometimes if they set the tone for US activism - it's peculiar characteristic puritanism - in ways we rarely acknowledge 1/ Most Abolitionists were puritans of some sort; I still remember a quote from a newly enslaved African when he first met a bunch of them - "they were all singing, which suggested a festivity, but none of them seemed to be having any fun. Actually they seemed rather depressed." 2/

trying to figure out if I'm just old or there's a real cultural transformation. The '60s on seem to have produced an endless stream of tunes: movies, TV shows, pop music of endless varieties, that people still remember & hum to themselves. Do we now? 1/. even advertising jingles, which were evil & designed to get caught in your head, seem to have been abandoned: I think in the '90s they started just recycling Classic Rock tunes that were already caught in your head & tried to piggyback 2/

for purposes of clarification, I didn't say the cop solidarity gestures were sincere (certainly all of them weren't), I just think it doesn't matter much since either way, this kind of thing is so unusual it's a sign of a system starting to break down. 1/ I've been facing off vs cops for more than 20 years now, & know 1. cops personally HATE anti-cop protests, 2. cops are almost never ordered to express solidarity with protests they despise, if that's what's happening, someone must be worried about total loss of control 2/

what precisely do people mean by "getting the economy up again"? If the economy is how you keep people alive, fed, clothed, housed, etc, the economy was still running during lockdown. So in what sense is "the economy" coming back when lockdown is lifted? 1/ it can only conclude this is the voice of those people whose work has been revealed to be largely or completely useless who have become impatient that the veil is lifted, or worried if it is too long, they won't be able to put it back 2/

I think if I start writing something it will focus on what was shaping up before the pandemic, & how it might influence what will happen after. I mean, aside from obvious stuff like the breakneck destruction of the planet 1/ first of all, all economists agreed that some sort of economic blow-out was coming, based on unsupportable levels of personal debt & the normal workings of the business cycle. A crash was due & Central Banks were pumping money furiously to slow or soften it 2/

we're starting to recognize that the more directly your work benefits others, the less you're paid & worse you're treated. With the pandemic, some also these 'essential' or "front-line' workers are also those expected and willing to risk their lives for the sake of others 1/ what is less often remarked is how much this is the case even in ordinary circumstances. Not only is work which most benefits others less compensated, it's almost always more dangerous. 2/

so Trump is calling on his followers in Democratic led states to rise up & demand an end to lockdowns. This confirms my suspicious that Trump was basically elected as a last fuck-you to the governing class by Americans already in the process of committing mass suicide 1/ after all, who were his core supporters? Old people. Rural people. Middle aged small town working class males. The very profile of the people who were so determined to kill themselves with opiates that the death rate for males in the US was approaching post-Soviet Russia 2/

this is just utterly shocking: after we discover that Labour Party staff were actively trying to lose elections, actively refusing to act on antisemitism claims to damage the party... who's going to get fired? The whistleblower, of course!

huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/labour-s… one of the surest signs of creeping authoritarianism in our media & culture more generally is the total normalisation of going after whistleblowers. It's a peculiarly PMC form of authoritarianism, but just as toxic for that reason. 2/

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Corporate bureaucracies can't organise space exploration. Big state bureaucracies could because they were willing to put up with weirdos 1/

theregister.co.uk/2020/04/03/spa… the Silicon valleys think they're weirdo mavericks but they're flattering themselves. No. They're really bland & corporate & it takes a literal mad scientist to do this stuff. I was thinking of writing a movie script about the space race 2/

global online survey discovers 56% of the global public thinks actually-existing capitalism is a bad system. Especially interesting considering the incessant propaganda being put out by Pinker types insisting capitalism's making things better for everyone

edelman.com/sites/g/files/… obviously it's also a sample of people who are online - why am I guessing that Ecuadorian peasants or Indonesian factory workers with no online presence are likely to be even less satisfied with capitalism? 2/

I meet a lot of economists who take issue with my criticisms, & insist economics has changed since the days of Chicago hegemony. Of course in one sense that is true. But this is my problem. 1/ if someone like me writes an essay casting doubt on Neoclassical orthodoxy, or the idea of the maximising individual, the result is always the same: 1. a wolfpack of angry economists descend saying this is outrageous & completely untrue 2. they'll try to delegitimate you 2/

I would like to warn my twitter followers: never, ever bank with #HSBC. When I was in NYC in summer I opened an HSBC account because it was possible to have an international account, unlike my existing bank, transferred some money in. They were supposed to send me checks & bank card etc.

so it's official: Ronald Reagan became President of the United States by committing the crime of high treason. To offer to pay a declared enemy not to release American officials they hold hostage is about as clear an example of treason as you can get 1/

https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/1219938256411774978

speaking as someone who was following these events in the '80s, the "Iran-Contra scandal" was in all the news continually, but that was acceptable, because it was about the administration illegally bribing the other side to release US hostages. It was an acceptable narrative. 2/

“In many ways, I feel that elements of the cultural studies movement and postmodernism, in emphasising human agency vis a vis the media, have obscured the extent to which the media influences people.” Indeed. morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/its-… This is actually an important point. I was introduced to social theory in the '80s when there was no worse accusation than of engaging in a "Frankfurt School" style analysis which assumes consumers, voters etc are dupes of media, advertising etc 2/

rant for the day:
it is becoming apparent to me that liberals actually enjoy talking about or even defending to far right much more than they do the far left, presumably, because it heightens rathe than threatening their sense of moral superiority 1/ I keenly remember meeting an old acquaintance of my wife, an (Israeli?) leftie at an art fair in '17 & he immediately asked all about the current state of Brexit. I said I was bored of Brexit, it was a sideshow anyway, & started listing proposals in the Labour manifesto ... 2/

leaked from Meltwater (corporate media monitoring tool). Mentions of phrases in press:

2015
Labour Anti-Semitism
1 result
Conservative Anti-Semitism
0 results
Tory Anti-Semitism
0 results:

2016
Labour Anti-Semitism
2.52k results
Conservative Anti-Semitism
0 results

1/ 2017
Labour Anti-Semitism
93 results
Conservative Anti-Semitism
0 results

2018
Labour Anti-Semitism
6.79k results
Conservative Anti-Semitism
0 results

2019
Labour Anti-Semitism
3.82k results
Conservative Anti-Semitism
0 results
Tory Anti-Semitism
1 result

2/

it seems to me there is a massive shift in class structures and class identities, & one reason right wing populism works is because they're exploiting it more effectively - but I don't have the real data & I'm curious what's out there 1/ "working class" no longer means factory work, but largely construction, & above all maintenance, and care work. "Middle class" means administrative & professional (including a lot of bullshit job territory.) So class resentment is increasingly vs professional-managerial 2/

what's about to happen next week could be seen as a test of the fundamental decency of the British public. The idea of "rightwing populism" (21st century fascism) is that you know the Leader is lying, but don't care, because you want to be part of the winning team 1/ Faced with Corbyn, a man of almost unique integrity, at least among politicians, the establishment found put forward his dialectical opposite: a pathological liar & bigot, narcissistic egomaniac with no discernible principles of any kind 2/

To make clear what's happening in N. Syria: men who believe women belong in the kitchen are killing, torturing, & blowing apart women who are trying to create a women's revolution in the Middle East. The US, and now even the UN are actively helping them do so. #riseupforrojava 1/ this is important. People don't understand what Rojava is. It's a project largely created by & largely maintained by women. An attempt to begin to undo patriarchy in the very lands where it originated in its most pernicious forms. It is being attacked IN THE NAME OF PATRIARCHY 2/

You have to ask yourself, why would so many in the US and EU establishment shrug their shoulders at a NATO army using "former" Al Qaeda & ISIS warriors to invade part of Syria? Or the prospect of ISIS commanders being handed over to Turkish secret police who'll release them? my theory is it's just the weird form racism against Middle Eastern people takes: basically, most Euro-Americans consider them a bunch of savages, violent Islamists by nature, & can't imagine anything better. It's the leftists like the SDF who they see as dangerous & confusing 2/