Curated Links

Capitalism Threatens Democracy – NYT Op Ed

Brian K. Noe · January 31, 2014 ·

From Thomas Edsall:

Thomas Piketty’s new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” described by one French newspaper as a “a political and theoretical bulldozer,” defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism. Piketty, a professor at the Paris School of Economics, does not stop there. He contends that capitalism’s inherent dynamic propels powerful forces that threaten democratic societies.

Reich on Why There’s No Outcry

Brian K. Noe · January 31, 2014 ·

“In earlier decades, the working class fomented reform. The labor movement led the charge for a minimum wage, 40-hour workweek, unemployment insurance, and Social Security. No longer. Working people don’t dare.”

Read the full essay: Robert Reich (Why There’s No Outcry).

Pete Seeger’s HUAC Testimony

Brian K. Noe · January 28, 2014 ·

Pete Seeger was heroic in his testimony before the House Unamerican Activities Committee in 1955.

“I decline to discuss, under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else has sung with me, and the people I have known. I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent this implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, or I might be a vegetarian, make me any less of an American. I will tell you about my songs, but I am not interested in telling you who wrote them, and I will tell you about my songs, and I am not interested in who listened to them.”

Read Pete’s full testimony: House Un-American Activities Committee, August 18, 1955 – PeteSeeger.net.

Rest in Peace, Pete Seeger

Brian K. Noe · January 28, 2014 ·

It is sad to learn of the passing of Pete Seeger, who has been a personal hero of mine most of my life.

I’d like to share this excellent retrospective that Sam Anderson wrote on the occasion of Seeger’s 90th birthday in April of 2009.

“Seeger is, quite literally, a folk hero—in the sense that he collected, wrote, and popularized many of America’s essential songs. But he is also a folk hero in the sense that Paul Bunyan is a folk hero.”

Read the full essay here: Pete Seeger Celebrates His 90th Birthday — New York Magazine.

New World Murder

Brian K. Noe · January 24, 2014 ·

Five years ago, on January 23 2009, a CIA drone flattened a house in Pakistan’s tribal regions. It was the third day of Barack Obama’s presidency, and this was the new commander-in-chief’s first covert drone strike.

Across Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the Obama administration has launched more than 390 drone strikes in the five years since the first attack – eight times as many as were launched in the entire Bush presidency. These strikes have killed more than 2,400 people, at least 273 of them reportedly civilians.

The Charter Scam in Chicago

Brian K. Noe · January 22, 2014 ·

Kevin Moore and Rachel Cohen hack through the lies being used to promote charter schools in Chicago.

One of the biggest misconceptions about charters is that the funds to run them come from private sources. While charters do receive donations and some private grants, 75 percent of their total funding comes from public resources.

Another lie that charter school opponents are unmasking is the claim that charters perform better than neighborhood schools. In reality, according to researchers on the forum panel, 80 percent of charter students showed no improvement or a worse performance in reading, compared to students in traditional public schools. For math, the figure was 63 percent.

Reich on Brooks

Brian K. Noe · January 22, 2014 ·

When I first read David Brooks’ opinion piece on inequality, I thought “I can’t wait for Professor Reich to weigh in.”

I didn’t have to wait very long.

Occasionally David Brooks, who personifies the oxymoron “conservative thinker” better than anyone I know, displays such profound ignorance that a rejoinder is necessary lest his illogic permanently pollute public debate. Such is the case with his New York Times column last Friday, arguing that we should be focusing on the “interrelated social problems of the poor” rather than on inequality, and that the two are fundamentally distinct.

Baloney.

Read his full response: Robert Reich (David Brooks’ Utter Ignorance About Inequality).

Here’s the Brooks column.

What MLK Actually Did

Brian K. Noe · January 20, 2014 ·

Here’s something every White person in America ought to read today.

I was kind of sarcastic and asked something like, so what did Martin Luther King accomplish other than giving his “I have a dream speech.”

My father told me with a sort of cold fury, “Dr. King ended the terror of living in the south.”

Read the full essay: Daily Kos: Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did.

10 NSA Myths Debunked

Brian K. Noe · January 17, 2014 ·

Peter Van Buren unpacks ten myths about NSA surveillance that need debunking.

Read here: You Can’t Opt Out: 10 NSA Myths Debunked | The Dissenter.

Remembering MLK

Brian K. Noe · January 15, 2014 ·

From Gar Alperovitz:

Martin Luther King Jr. was a great civil rights leader, but to remember him only in this way is to diminish what he was about and what we can learn from him. What stands out—as lessons for our own day and to each of us now—is his growing understanding of the importance of confronting ever-more-fundamental issues, even in the face of challenges from the press, the establishment, and his own religious constituency, to say nothing of those on the Right.