The Digital Dispatch

From NOEBIE.net

Curated Links

Marx and America

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Here are some words of wisdom from James Patrick Cannon’s essay, written for July 4th, 1951. He says that if you go to Marx, you find America.

It is wrong to confuse internationalism with anti-Americanism; to relinquish the revolutionary traditions of our country to the reactionaries; to let the modern workers’ revolutionary movement, the legitimate heir of the men of 1776, appear as something foreign to our country.

Read it at the Northern Worker: James Cannon on the 4th of July.

Happy Independence Day!

The Corporate Court in Context

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Peter Montgomery from People for the American Way puts this week’s Supreme Court decisions in historical context.

Samuel Alito is the single most pro-corporate Justice on the most pro-business Court since the New Deal. Still, Alito’s one-two punch was another extraordinary milestone for the strategists who have been working for the past 40 years to put business firmly in the driver’s seat of American politics.

Many would suggest that the modern right-wing movement began with the failed presidential bid of Barry Goldwater. But there’s a strong case to be made that it begins in earnest with a 1971 memo by Lewis Powell, who argued that American businesses were losing public support and called for a massive, continuing campaign to wage war on leftist academics, progressive nonprofit groups, and politicians. The memo by Powell, who was later appointed to the Supreme Court via a nomination by Richard Nixon, inspired a few very wealthy men like Adolph Coors, John M. Olin, and Richard Mellon Scaife, who set about creating and funding a massive infrastructure of think tanks, endowed academic chairs, law schools and right-wing legal groups, including the Federalist Society, which has nurtured Alito’s career.

Read the full article: Samuel Alito: A Movement Man Makes Good on Right-Wing Investments | Peter Montgomery.

To The Unknown Deserter

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Bill Ayers considers the Bergdahl controversy.

A few years ago a group of German radicals and peace activists created a huge depiction of a soldier in profile, running hard as his helmet and rifle are flying away from him, and called it The Monument to the Unknown Deserter. They displayed their monument from town to town and city to city all over the country. We need that kind of sentiment—that monument—here, now more than ever.

 

Read More: Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl | Bill Ayers.

Glenn Greenwald Interview

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I’m looking forward to hearing Glenn Greenwald speak in Chicago at the Socialism 2014 conference next week. His presentation via Skype last year was one of the highlights of the conference. He recently spoke with Nicole Colson and Eric Ruder about the startling revelations of the past year, the mainstream media’s reaction and what’s still to come.

There’s a human shame that comes from doing things that people are willing to do only when they think people can’t watch them. And yet this is exactly the realm in which all forms of dissent, creativity and exploration of what it means to be a free individual reside in–when we have a private realm.

That’s why human beings instinctively seek out a private realm, a place where they can go and think and be and do without other people watching. That’s the reason why tyrannies always want to turn to surveillance–because they know that creating the perception one is always being watched is the most powerful instrument for keeping people in line and forcing people to comply with the wishes of authority.

 

Read the full interview: Unmasking Big Brother | SocialistWorker.org.

What’s Really Going On In Iraq?

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The mainstream media would have us believe that it’s a war between a terrorist group called ISIS, and the U.S. installed government of Iraq, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki – but is it really just a sectarian battle between the Sunni terrorists and the Shiite-dominated government, with the people of Iraq caught in the middle?

Not according to Michael Schwartz.

For the last couple of years, local folks in the Sunni areas of Iraq–many of whom are now involved in this insurgency–have been organizing protests, nonviolent and violent, against the government, based on numerous justified grievances.

As the government has escalated its repression of these protests, what is essentially a guerrilla war has developed (or rather a large number of uncoordinated local guerrilla-type insurgencies) in the various cities and towns in Anbar, Nineveh and other northwest provinces. ISIS–with a multi-local presence in many, but not all, of the local areas–is an (often vicious) element in the mix. It sometimes takes leadership, but most often, it is not the dominant force in any locality.

Read On: Understanding the crisis in Iraq | SocialistWorker.org.

The Militarization of Police in America

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From the WSWS:

Increasingly, the methods of imperialist war and military occupation, practiced by the United States with such bloody and disastrous results overseas, are now to be employed in the US. Whether in Iraq and Afghanistan or Los Angeles and Detroit, the purpose is the same.

Read More: Militarization of police in America – World Socialist Web Site.

Anne Thériault: Tired of Talking to Men About Feminism

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It is difficult to overcome a lifetime of conditioning. The best we grey headed white guys can do is work to become more conscious.

So I read this essay from Anne Thériault. Here’s a snippet.

“Rape culture is something that men should care about not because it might affect them, but because it affects anyone at all. Men should care about women’s safety, full stop, without having the concept somehow relate back to them. Everyone should care about everyone else’s well-being – that’s what good people are supposed to do.”

Please read the full essay. Tired Of Talking To Men | Thought Catalog.

The Real Face of Welfare

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Just ran across this on the Book of Faces and had to share.

Breaking Brown notes that “blacks comprise 22 percent of the poor, but blacks only take in 14 percent of government benefits. Conversely, whites make up 42 percent of the poor, but take in a disproportionate 69 percent of government benefits.”

Read more: This One Fact About Welfare Makes White People Look Lazy | breakingbrown.com.

David Cay Johnston on Inequality’s Looming Disaster

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From an interview with economics journalist David Cay Johnston:

We will either, through peaceful, rational means, go back to a system that does not take from the many to give to the few in all these subtle ways, or we will end up like 18th century France. And if we end up in that awful condition, it will be the bloodiest thing the world has even seen. So I think it’s really important to get a handle on this inequality.

Read the full interview. “Bloodiest thing the world has seen”: David Cay Johnston on inequality’s looming disaster – Salon.com.