Some of my commentary about politics is presented in the form of “advice” to the ruling classes. Please understand: I don’t really expect them to take my advice. My advice is not really directed toward them. It is a theoretical exercise. I am really speaking to you, the people. My goal is to set a […]
Columns
My Dead French Grandfather Helped Me with COVID-19
March 25, 2020After my mother died on February 7th I gathered her valuables and photo albums and drove home to New York. But there wasn’t enough room in the car for everything I wanted to keep. There were tchotchkes like a silly white ceramic salt and pepper shaker in the shape of Arab kings. It wasn’t my […]
3 Things the Government Must Do to Avoid Economic and Social Collapse
March 23, 2020Americans don’t expect much from their government. But even by the standards of a nation with one of the flimsiest social safety nets in the Western world, the inability and unwillingness of both major political parties to manage and solve the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic is shocking. President Trump’s lack of leadership is […]
Think, Don’t Hoard: How to Survive the End Times
March 18, 2020It feels like the end times. A mysterious invisible killer stocks the land. Wild rumors abound. The government is useless. There’s no sense that anyone knows anything, much less is in charge. Could America become a failed state? Yes, but not yet. Yes, but not because of coronavirus. Late-stage capitalism will ultimately destroy the current […]
We Should Attach Strings to Corporate Bailouts
March 17, 2020It’s the end of the world as we know it and the banks and airlines feel fine because even in the midst of economic collapse CEOs can sleep soundly at night, secure in the knowledge that the American taxpayer will bail them out. Again. All they have to do is wait a respectable 6 to […]
A Premature Postmortem of the Bernie Sanders Campaign
March 11, 2020Establishment media is ridiculing Bernie Sanders for stating some simple truths: establishment media was out to get him, the DNC was out to get him and young voters who support him haven’t been good about showing up at the polls. But that doesn’t mean that Bernie Sanders didn’t make mistakes. So let’s take a look […]
Joe Biden Obviously Has Dementia and Should Withdraw
March 9, 2020You Democrats ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You spent the last four years criticizing Donald Trump in no small part for his mental state, and rightly so. The founding fathers included an impeachment provision in the Constitution in large part as a contingency to remove a president exactly like him, whose temperament […]
Trump’s Second Term: Not Worth Freaking Out About.
March 1, 2020You’ve heard it so often that you may well believe it’s true: Trump’s second term would be a disaster. For the Democratic Party. For the United States. For democracy itself. “The reelection of Donald Trump,” warns Nancy Pelosi, “would do irreparable damage to the United States.” But would it really? Exceptions are […]
Don’t Worry, Centrists. Bernie Isn’t Radical.
February 24, 2020Watching panicky corporate-owned Democrats twist on the devil’s fork of Bernie Sanders’ “political revolution” is almost as much fun as it must have been for my mom and her fellow villagers to watch Vichy collaborators and Nazi sympathizers being executed by the resistance at the end of World War II. (That, Chris Matthews, is […]
Bernie Should Own the Socialist Label
February 17, 2020Bernie Sanders is currently the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. He and everyone else knows exactly how the Republicans will attack him if and when he becomes the nominee: old-fashioned redbaiting. China became communist in name only during the 1980s, the Soviet Union shut its doors in 1991, the Cold War is […]
