It’s not a uniquely US phenomenon: vicious conditions induce viciousness in people. It’s eye-opening to hear a journalist and social critic such as Ulrike Hermann, from another country, one like Germany, tell it. Even a country with comparatively generous social welfare benefits, such as Germany, is subject to much the same pressures under global capitalism as the United States.

Biden’s “Build Back Better” (BBB) is now DOA. Dems can still talk about it aspirationally, but it’s now more of an embarrassment than anything else, given that they have spent a whole year on it, without actually passing anything. They need a strategy that salvages this disaster, while serving multiple goals at once, as they stare down the barrel of a GOP tsunami that combines organic dissatisfaction with their leadership together with a concerted Republican program to maximally weaponize every existing legal tool at their disposal to gerrymander, voter suppress, and outright nullify elections whose results displease them.

Under capitalism, by default, industrially processed food manufacturers are most financially rewarded by optimizing for food products that simultaneously use the cheapest possible input ingredients while also maximizing the addictive/compulsive qualities of the product (the technical term in modern health science for the latter quality being “food reward”). Likewise, under capitalism, for-profit mass media firms are most financially rewarded by producing or curating content that costs as little to produce as possible while also maximizing its tendencies for “engagement” (ie, plays, views, clicks, etc).

When it comes to education, at least at the childhood and adolescent levels, our society has long since recognized that an educated population is a basic, shared social good that we all have to pay for. When it comes to higher education, we USED to tacitly recognize this to a greater degree than now. The US established the system of land grant public colleges and universities in just such a spirit.

If there’s one recurring, money line that sticks with me whenever I hear anythng from his fans about Donald Trump, it’s the one: “he’s a fighter!” The precise contents of what he’s “fighting” over are purely secondary, although everybody has a rough idea of a few of the outlines, of course. But the very fact that he is somehow raw, and “authentic” (even if only about as much as a pro-wrestler – another spectacularly popular corporate media spectacle, obviously!

Donald Trump is a reality tv show star. Donald Trump is a perennial presidential candidate. And then, all of a sudden, Donald Trump is actually elected president. Many are surprised. Most are shocked. Donald Trump enjoys being president. Donald Trump decides he wants to stay put, election or no. Donald Trump decides any election that would remove him is fraudulent. Donald Trump persistently makes allegations of fraud even before the elections happen.

Cenk Uygur, the progressive media impresario and sometime congressional candidate, made a promo awhile ago for his popular online franchise, “The Young Turks”, in which he infamously referred to the Democratic Party as a “ghost ship” ripe for takeover by an insurgent leftist faction. Of course, we all see how that has turned out so far. No sooner did the pirates attempt to board the seemingly abandoned ship than, in a thrice, its ferocious defenders emerged seemingly out of nowhere, and thoroughly repelled and thwarted the attempted hijacking with great prejudice.

Curators of the newish leftist, collaborative political blog, “Money on the Left”, and an associated podcast, “Superstructure” (https://moneyontheleft.org/ ), have been putting out some genuinely engaging and thought provoking content recently, in my opinion. A notable case in point is their recent dissection of far right media gadfly Tucker Carlson. Carlson is, in their estimation, a uniquely dangerous character in contemporary public life to have emerged out of the ultrareactionary Murdoch media empire in the past two decades.

“The true treasure is the one you pass by believing it not worth the trouble of your trip, or that your life’s too short to take a detour and visit, on your way to that shiny one you’re aiming for just beyond it.” - B. Traven, Treasure of Sierra Madre That great art can carry meanings that surprise even its creators is a truism. But when singer-songwriter John Mellencamp wrote his hit song, “Pink Houses”, he could not have been surprised that some missed his barely hidden irony.

“I don’t negotiate in public”, said Arizona Senator Kirsten Sinema. Who else says that? Union-busting bosses say it during contract negotiations, that’s who. Of course the bosses (and their proxies) “don’t negotiate in public”. They want to apply maximum pressure, psychological and otherwise, to their counterparts in any negotiations, by cutting them off from their bases of support, the mass of people whom the latter are standing in for, the same way that bosses and rulers have always done, to break the solidarity of the many they seek to divide and rule.