Egypt, and Doing Something
The problem with what passes for public discourse on foreign policy in mainstream media and much of the blogosphere is that it is centered on the United States. Other societies, it seems, exist in the...
View ArticleIndigenous People, Dualistic Thinking, and Revolution
I was going over my various newsfeeds, and this article came up on the Angry Indian's site: By any political estimate, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act commonly known as the Akaka...
View ArticleThe Problem with Gaddafi
UPDATED 2/27 below. Without question, Moammar Gaddafi is a relic of a different age, in this case the immediate post-colonial world. One cannot understand his career without bearing this context in...
View ArticleChina and Economic Planning
With all the goings-on in Africa and Southwest Asia, Al Jazeera has become my newspaper of choice (though it's not a newspaper...) much like the Financial Times did in the run-up to the current Iraq...
View ArticleVine Deloria, Custer Died for Your Sins
Vine Deloria, in Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, had two intended audiences: Indians and white people. His project, throughout his whole career, was to undermine the intellectual...
View ArticleGovernment Shutdown and the Spontaneity-Consciousness Debate
I recently participated in an exchange in a comments thread. I responded to: My understanding is the public is already ready to blame the GOP and not Obama for a shutdown, although congressional...
View ArticleJohn Bellamy Foster, The Vulnerable Planet
I subscribed to the Monthly Review for years and only let my subscription lapse this past year because I allowed myself to become overwhelmed with other things in my life, much to the detriment of my...
View ArticleLibya, Embracing Decline, Presidents, and Wallerstein
There's been a lot of talk about the role of the US role in Libya, unsurprisingly, but almost a shock to me has been to see some discussion of the longue duree in the press, if only at its margins.
View ArticleFolkways Anthology #2, Fatal Flower Garden/White Fear
I've been blogging the Smithsonian Folkways Anthology of American Folk Music recently, tune by tune, on my music blog. This is the second installment, and, thematically, it fits with the issues at...
View ArticleBook: Ishmael Reed, Juice!
I'm pretty sure that Ishmael Reed is my favorite living novelist from the United States. I won't dwell on whatever controversy Reed has engendered, above all accusations of misogyny or a tendency to...
View ArticleBook: Victor Pelevin, Buddha's Little Finger
I was spending a lot of time at the San Francisco Zen Center a few months back, and I met a Muscovite who was staying there who was pleased that I knew a little Russian. In fact, he told me that I...
View ArticleThe Function of the Federal Debt
Minor edit w/strikethrough indicating original text on 6/25 AM. In no way do I think that the role the Federal Debt plays in our economy is a good thing. Increasing debt benefits creditors, and that...
View ArticleOur Idiot Media at Work, CNN Edition
Originally posted at palaverer.com. Wondering if our idiot government had come to some debt ceiling conclusion, I popped onto CNN's website. I intended a quick glance before doing a little research...
View ArticleReading the Grundrisse, pt. 1: Introduction
Originally posted at palaverer.com. One of my correspondents in the Anti-Capitalist Meetup read the series of posts I am engaged in on my own blog, and suggested I post them here on DKos. The series...
View ArticleReading the Grundrisse, pt. 2: History, Art
Originally posted at http://www.palaverer.com/ This refers to pp. 100-111. I finished Marx's Introduction to the Grundrisse this morning, reading the third section, a methodological critique of...
View ArticleAmy Whitehouse Tolls for White America
Originally posted at palaverer.com. We of course regret that News of the World is the source of this video, but we all remember this episode. I have yet to read an obituary that mentions it. Amy...
View ArticleBook Review: Richard Cook, Blue Note Records: the Biography
Originally posted to palaverer.com. Richard Cook, in his Blue Note Records: the Biography, doesn't consider the most important question about his subject: why did what was surely the best label in...
View ArticleOut
A quick note about why I'm participating in the boycott. Community is important, but as far as websites go no particular site is particularly important if the goal is to actually get things done. I...
View Article
