As a young man, toward the end of the Cold War, I realized something was fundamentally amiss. We were told we were fighting for Democracy and against Communism. But one of these is an economic system and the other is a system of government. The USSR at the time was a democracy, in that they held elections. So why this switcheroo? I figured people really didn’t have a great interest in fighting a long expensive war for Capitalism, so “Democracy” was quietly substituted. And so somehow everyone went along with this very inaccurate description of this very important subject.

Of course when the USSR collapsed, they got Milton Friedman-style Free Market Capitalist economics (and kept their Democracy, relatively unchanged). What resulted was the situation today, with a country ruled by oligarchs. The US seems to have been following the same path, led by the exact same economists. The Hartmann Report discusses money and democracy in America today.

America Must Choose Between Great Wealth or Democracy

Was googling myself (ok, Duck Duck Going myself) testing something out when it offered a grid of photos that I suppose are of me. The first is my (deceased) dog and my cat. Close. One resembles me enough that I did a double take, but it isn’t me. Then others are strangely varied. A baseball pitcher action shot, people of all ages, races and even genders. Not sure what to make of this past my initial amusement.

A good article from the Atlantic on our post-Social Media world. A good quote that might just explain lots of things. Of course this was probably true in other social groups before the internet:

“Across eight studies, Bor and Petersen found that being online did not make most people more aggressive or hostile; rather, it allowed a small number of aggressive people to attack a much larger set of victims.”

WHY THE PAST 10 YEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE HAVE BEEN UNIQUELY STUPID

i used to watch this show as a kid. Didn’t everyone? From CBS Sunday Morning. I have to add that this may not be what you think it is. It starts out as a puff nostalgia piece, but goes somewhere else, perhaps in ways not intended by the film makers.