Prices are going to rise, probably exponentially, over the next few decades. The reason for that's simple: everything, more or less, has been artificially cheap. The costs of everything from carbon to fascism to ecological collapse to social fracture haven't been factored in — ever, from the beginning of the industrial age....
Technology
This is the sixth set of notes for a reading group on Marx’s Capital, and includes a Volume I refresher for further reading of Volume II. There are links to earlier posts and texts that may be useful. Marx is probably too taken with a kind of scientism by proposing...
There’s no time to lose. The new research led by the French team confirms that whether we like it or not, human civilisation is in the midst of the most rapid transformation of the global energy system we’ve ever experienced. And hanging on for dear life to the old, dying...
Bernie says it must be $3.5 Trillion. Big Pharma secret mRNA formula revealed. Jen Psaki laid waste to insurrectionist Republican politicians in answer. Big Pharma may get neutered on the mRNA vaccines. x YouTube Video Chat – Join Politics Done Right Live weekdays @ 3:00 PM Central Video Zoom: LINK...
Arizona still is a paradigm case in attempts to overthrow governments. Apparently elections are now auctions and any idiot with money and a legislature in their pocket can demand election audits. Lawfare will ensue as democracy and information will become more rather than less opaque. The politicized “audit” of Maricopa County, Arizona’s...
Because Hawley’s whines about Big Tech while promoting sales of his book on Amazon, the epitome of …. Big Tech. “Democrats are eyeing a comeback in Missouri, believing the Capitol riot hurt Republicans in the state, not least because of Josh Hawley’s prominent role.” “Don’t try to censor, cancel, and silence...
There is a capitalist propaganda battle at work, with the Wall Street Journal claiming that “ Biden has sent a signal around the world that nobody’s intellectual property is safe in America.”. The National Review now claims that “Profit Margins Save Lives”. “The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service...
Whether it’s soccer teams or sandwich shops, financialization was there before the pandemic, only making some of its supply-chain hijacking yet another example of an impending capitalist disaster. Re-regulation must remain important as crises loom in the post-pandemic recovery. A 2017 interview with UMass’s Gerald Epstein points to the need to...
Francisco Franco is still in Madrid waiting for his COVID shot, but previous guy seems full of the usual disinformation. He’s drawing attention away from his failure in Georgia and trying the same scam in Arizona, only this time, it’s “a group of conspiracy theorists running a sham audit.” Apparently election audits can be...
Received this e-mail today from Finance Committee Chairman, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden’s (D. OR) re-election campaign: x It’s past time to end the federal prohibition of cannabis. @SenBooker @SenSchumer and I are working hard to get it done this year.— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) April 21, 2021 I've been asked a...
“Today, a jury did the right thing. But true justice requires much more.“ x Opinion | Caught on camera Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is found guilty of all three counts of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.https://t.co/Wi66rRx6iO pic.twitter.com/alUPrS7W4u— Ann Telnaes (@AnnTelnaes) April 20, 2021 The...
The problem with having Christmas every day, as the folks behind these weird Christmas-themed attractions surely know by now, is that when Dec. 25 actually comes around, Christmas doesn’t seem that special. That’s a bit how I feel on 4/20. What am I gonna do? Get higher? I’m not sure...
Here’s some big news today out of Pennsylvania: .@JohnFetterman announces he raised $3.9 million in the first quarter for his Pennsylvania U.S. Senate run, through 140,000 contributions. A big haul of 💰 at an early stage. — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) April 1, 2021 Lt. Gov. John Fetterman said he raised...
Change as a rising tide seems to be falling short as history’s stream is not as mighty. Apparently slavery is still “ordained by God for ultimate good” at Baylor University, as a RW campus group wants to accuse the University of canceling its “Christian identity”. No mention of its athletic team’s...
I am watching the murder trial and I am flabbergasted as what I am witnessing as a former police dispatcher. Witness #1 KNEW there was something terribly wrong when she observed the suspect being pulled from the squad car after being apprehended. This is just something you know. It is...
Like Martin Luther objecting to Pope Leo X selling indulgences to raise money for a variety of excesses, the environmental costs of carbon markets far exceed the benefits. Austerity would have denied us Renaissance art which is less at risk in an age of non-fungible tokens. Today the consequences for the planet...
The stuck ship does tell us something about the fragility of global trade and the flow of capital. Fungible Space Logistics, that concept popularized by United Parcel Service is also about the spatial problems of concrete versus abstract global networks. x Everyone is talking about the big ship getting stuck...
If you are surprised by this headline, you haven’t been watching Donald J. Trump close enough. Donald Trump is Coriolanus Snow, the authoritarian president of Panem in the Hunger Games. According to Politico: Donald Trump was headlining a fundraiser on Wednesday night at his golf club in West Palm Beach,...
We remain weary about the callow stupidity of the GOP/GQP but we must not patronize or condescend about how superfluous their grievances have been and continue to be. Now that we know more about Trump’s sexual practices, fascist fantasizing seems altogether rote and boring, but certainly redolent of a banality...
Twitter is dragging Jonathan Turley because of attributing a Rousseau quote to the Reign of Terror, but more likely because they mistook him for Jeffrey Toobin. That’s the nature of conservative culture war, making class warfare a struggle more transcendent and less applicable in times of right-wing insurrection. x Since philosopher Jean...
As with emissions controls, California leads the nation. This is another BFD, just like federal fleets, etc. And can’t come soon enough, if only to eliminate the continuing snafu of gig workers in Uber/Lyft. Gonna need an infrastructure year rather than a week, because that is more important than more vehicles....
The sparse number of actual carbon capture and sequestration projects plus weak carbon markets amplify the problems of the climate crisis yet to be revisited, post-Trump. Two heartland examples in North Dakota and Texas show how there are several interlocking problems addressing the climate crisis that must be included in future environmental policy. More specifically...
A Swiss Navy Knife. A new article in Forbes about the failure of the F-35 aircraft system in terms of building a Ferrari points us toward the problem of seeking nails for hammers. Another failed weapons system signifies how national security could remain intact without waste and still save the economy...
No, not by the US but by that jolly benevolent Empire of the British. Of course, it was started by a corporation. But something changed in 1765, shortly after the East India Company took control of the subcontinent and established a monopoly over Indian trade. They arranged a sweetheart deal....
NASA needed to test its Rover programming and terrain around the same time as the trend for movies about street racing and making doughnuts on pavement. Happy science. https://twitter.com/OhOEvie/status/1364008082552934400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Nasa’s $800m Mars Exploration Rovers have accidentally drawn a penis. The twin exploration vehicles Spirit and Opportunity were launched nine years ago,...
Scientists have successfully cloned an endangered black-footed ferret from the genes of an animal named Willa that had died over thirty years ago. After Willa died, her remains were frozen and sent from Wyoming to San Diego Zoo Global that maintains a bank of frozen tissues for over 1,100 endangered and...
Texas is the coalmine canary of failures in the GQP’s industrial policy. The “clusterfuzzle” appears to be only in Texas: perhaps they skimmed on costs and failed in winterizing their plants. The structural failure comes from the anti-federal, deregulatory policy of the Texas grid which reveals itself in the disinformation...
Wow: Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) was caught on tape making cracks about physical violence against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who last year was the target of a kidnapping plot by right-wing militia extremists. He was also recorded spreading lies about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S....
Justice? Did someone say there’s still some justice in the world? I was really starting to wonder. The New York Times: Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation and three of its popular anchors are the targets of a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed on Thursday by a company that became a prominent...
As Climate Crisis returns to the new US administration agenda, negative emissions technologies (NETs) may find their implementation hindered by neoliberal financialization. An earlier ACM story showed how Steve Keen’s critique of Nordhaus’s use of discounting climate change demonstrates that orthodox economics is incapable of accelerating innovation especially in...
Hello, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was Twitter-suspended because of the “borderline monopolistic stranglehold of Big Tech”. Whatever that is. “The radicalization of the Republican Party has altered the world of conservative media, which is, in turn, accelerating that radicalization.” x Marjorie Taylor Greene – one of the most...
Elevating (the science adviser) role to member in the President's Cabinet clearly signals the administration's intent to involve scientific expertise in every policy discussion. Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Our next president is a science geek, how cool is that? The dark days of science...
Elevating (the science adviser) role to member in the President’s Cabinet clearly signals the administration’s intent to involve scientific expertise in every policy discussion. Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Our next president is a science geek, how cool is that? The dark days of science...
Banning Trump from Twitter has had a starkly noticeable and beneficial impact. It has been a refreshing break, to say the least, generally. And Just now, I heard a news anchor talking about how helpful it has been that Trump cannot attack Republicans debating impeachment in real time. This also made...
As reported by Politico, the incoming Biden administration will find itself with an existing, untapped $40 billion “stash” for the Department of Energy to use creatively in funding plans for green energy and the like: And Biden, who oversaw the Obama administration’s stimulus work as vice president, unknowingly left himself...
The neoliberals’ “free market” is not going to sequester enough carbon to save the environment. Even Warren Buffett isn’t willing to take a bet on surviving an impending climate crisis catastrophe, because “the rents are too high”. Existential threats have a critical reality, about which ruthless criticism is entailed. Even...
This continues the diary of two days ago. Nostalgia is a coping mechanism at the place known for its association with William Faulkner. Oxford Mississippi is a place where the nostalgia for a lost cause remains a kind of delusion. When injuries are imagined and retribution seems easy, this happens where...
Even as he puts his White House cronies on the board of the Kennedy Center, Trump criticizes its funding in the latest COVID relief bill. Pam Bondi, who took an illegal $25,000 donation from Trump to drop prosecution in the Trump University suit, gets a Board seat at the Kennedy...
This post in the Anticapitalist Chat supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx. Outline of Marx’s Analysis Chapter 16 The Historical Relation Between Absolute and Relative Surplus Value – in capitalism, social labor produces surplus-value – early on: formal subsumption of labor produces absolute surplus-value by extending the working...
I recently came across a typical Twitter argument about the CIA promoting modern art as propaganda. The usual distorting tweet-discourse occurred but what remained are somewhat paranoid discussions of whether the CIA supported Modern Art. They really didn’t, as much as they supported US propaganda in general. The argument about CIA and Art evolved...
With the ever-climbing coronavirus death rate, families reliant on technology to say goodbye to loved ones, and most of America shopping in disguise, yesterday was hard for me. I spent my formative teen years in southeast Washington, D.C. My neighbors across the street, cattycorner as my great-granny would say, were tight-knit....
Men argue. Nature acts. Voltaire Climate change does not respect any international borders. Disaster is coming for us all at some point, regardless of the color of our skin. People should insist on the government's actions and not worry about our beautiful minds. It’s not all about you, America. Only wealthy...
Throughout the Democratic primaries, the dueling campaigns, and finally the day of November 3rd, I feared the United States would let me down. I have blown the horn of warning to anyone who would listen that this election was not a referendum on Donald Trump it was a referendum on...
In 2019 John Kerry was awarded and accepted the Arctic Circle Prize in a speech to an assembly of climate scientists and other Arctic stakeholders in Reykjavik, Iceland. In his dramatic speech, Kerry, who has been nominated by President-Elect Joe Biden, to be the first ‘Climate Tsar’ in a cabinet-level position, declared a world...