Mammon category archive
The Diddle, Reprise 0
Hegemony Now authors Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams discuss how financialization took over our economy and turned it into a casino for the uber-rich.
The Privatization Scam 0
The Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell reports on the difficulties reporters encounter in trying to find out what Florida is getting in return for its school voucher money. A snippet; details at the link:
The Crypto Con 0
At Above the Law, Jonathan Wolf delivers a (Taylor) Swift blow to those who could not (or would not) see through the hype.
Excerpt or summary will not do his piece justice. Just go read it.
Misdirection Play, War on Woke Dept. 0
Thom explains the con.
Aside:
I had not heard the term “diversionary warfare” before, but I think I’ll stick with “misdirection play.”
This New Gilded Age 0
Michael in Norfolk minces no words in discussing Republicans’ efforts to return our society to a Dickensian dystopia. An excerpt:
The Privatization Scam, Establishmentarian Dept. 0
At the Portland Press-Herald, Victoria Hugo-Vidal argues forcefully against public funding of religious schools. Some snips:
I went to private Catholic schools from kindergarten all the way up through high school . . . .
But it was often a financial struggle. . . .
That being said, I absolutely, positively, utterly, completely and steadfastly oppose using taxpayer money for private religious schools.
Follow the link for her reasoning.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Hardly. 0
At The Roanoke Times, Dan Casey offers a case study in real stupid.
Doubting Thomas 2
At AL.com, Frances Coleman looks at Justice Clarence Thomas’s acceptance of largess (actually, multiple largesses over multiple decades) from a politically active right-wing moneybags and reminds us that can appearances matter. A snippet:
A judge breaks the rule even if he (or she) does things that don’t affect his decisions, but where a reasonable and well-informed person would believe that his conduct would affect his decisions.
If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0
Robert Kuttner describes the disparity.
Stemming the Red Tide, Reprise
0
To figure out why (mostly Republican) elected politicians refuse to take action against the flood of guns and gun violence, the Arizona Republic’s E. J. Montini follows the money.
It’s a weapon elected officials refuse to ban, because they love the money and the support provided by the gun lobby more than they love innocent civilians.
Or police officers.
Follow the link for his reasoning.
The Climates They Are a-Changing 0
At the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kevin McDermott runs the numbers–and calls out the misdirection plays. A snipped snippet:
(snip)
For a while, a favorite strategy of the pro-industrial climate-change-denial crowd was to point at every cold snap as if it was incontrovertible proof of the “global-warming hoax,” as they called it. This is as idiotic as, say, showing footage of people milling around peacefully during lulls in the violence of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and citing it as proof that there was no riot. Yet they got away with that skewed logic for a long time.
I fear for my grandchildren.
