-37% of Americans entitled to vote did not do so. That compares with 31.4% who voted for Biden and 29.6% who voted for Trump. So once again, the No Vote party polled the highest national vote
- Less than half — just 43.4% — of eligible Americans under 30 voted in the 2016 presidential election. This was much less than the 71.4% of over-60s who voted. It was even lower in this election.
- in the Republican-run states, there has been significant gerrymandering of the voting boundaries, deliberate blocking of voter registration and in this election a desperate attempt to foil massive postal balloting during the COVID pandemic. US ‘democracy’ is a joke. According to the Economist, it is at the bottom of the pile as a ‘liberal democracy’, with only Albania scoring lower!
Biden had the backing of the majority of workers, ethnic minorities, young people and city dwellers. They voted to get rid of Trump: but they may not expect much from Biden and they will be right.
bit.ly/3no98hc
- Less than half — just 43.4% — of eligible Americans under 30 voted in the 2016 presidential election. This was much less than the 71.4% of over-60s who voted. It was even lower in this election.
- in the Republican-run states, there has been significant gerrymandering of the voting boundaries, deliberate blocking of voter registration and in this election a desperate attempt to foil massive postal balloting during the COVID pandemic. US ‘democracy’ is a joke. According to the Economist, it is at the bottom of the pile as a ‘liberal democracy’, with only Albania scoring lower!
Biden had the backing of the majority of workers, ethnic minorities, young people and city dwellers. They voted to get rid of Trump: but they may not expect much from Biden and they will be right.
bit.ly/3no98hc
"conservatives have developed the presentation of bullshit as Just Facts And Logic into a fine art.
Perhaps this wouldn’t be so worrisome if we had a media that could be relied upon to expose this for what it is. But as the “New Beck” episode showed us, the supposed “liberal” media will often utterly fail to display the most basic skepticism, and they will help Beck pose as an “independent” who is “not partisan” even as he pushes a hard-right agenda. Within this book, there are arguments that having a basic social safety net will produce totalitarian misery, that climate change, while real, should not concern us enough to do anything about it, and that Basic Economics means we should leave corporate power almost completely unchecked. It’s all wrapped up in fun cartoons and creative graphic design, and the “I’m just giving you the facts” and “please, think for yourself” tricks are good at implying Beck is not an ideologue, just Someone Who Cares. Books like this should frighten us, because if their conclusion were widely accepted, we would live in a crueler and more dysfunctional society, but they have the power to convince. We need to argue back and we need to argue better."
currentaffairs.org/2020/11/arguing-with-glenn-beck
Perhaps this wouldn’t be so worrisome if we had a media that could be relied upon to expose this for what it is. But as the “New Beck” episode showed us, the supposed “liberal” media will often utterly fail to display the most basic skepticism, and they will help Beck pose as an “independent” who is “not partisan” even as he pushes a hard-right agenda. Within this book, there are arguments that having a basic social safety net will produce totalitarian misery, that climate change, while real, should not concern us enough to do anything about it, and that Basic Economics means we should leave corporate power almost completely unchecked. It’s all wrapped up in fun cartoons and creative graphic design, and the “I’m just giving you the facts” and “please, think for yourself” tricks are good at implying Beck is not an ideologue, just Someone Who Cares. Books like this should frighten us, because if their conclusion were widely accepted, we would live in a crueler and more dysfunctional society, but they have the power to convince. We need to argue back and we need to argue better."
currentaffairs.org/2020/11/arguing-with-glenn-beck
www.currentaffairs.org
Arguing with Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck’s minions have produced a visually impressive but intellectually barren guide to socialism.
"Socialists must be under no illusions that liberal sections of these center-left political parties would like to destroy them. On a post-election conference call in the United States, former CIA agent and current congresswoman Abigail Spanberger even demanded that the Democrats never say the word “socialism” ever again."
"Arguing with the political center will never be enough — and as long as the role of socialists in British and American politics is limited to fighting with centrist blue-ticks on Twitter, we’ll be consigned to permanent irrelevance. They don’t care about facts, they don’t care about accountability, and they don’t care about democracy. They only care about one thing: beating the Left into oblivion.
Socialists could learn a thing or two from this attitude. We need to build real institutional power if we’re going to withstand the onslaught of the coming years and reverse it in the years after that. Healthy reflection on the Left’s recent focus on electoralism is one thing, but leaving the battlefield of party politics altogether is quite another. We need to be in the game, if only to ensure that anti-socialists on both sides of the Atlantic don’t succeed in permanently destroying those fighting against austerity, corporate power, and racism.
Trade unions, combined with the Democratic Socialists of America in the United States and Momentum in the UK, provide a base for socialists in both countries. But much of the time the leaders of left-wing movements seem more focused on fighting each other than they do with building left power."
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/extreme-center-war-on-the-left-socialism-organize-us-uk/
"Arguing with the political center will never be enough — and as long as the role of socialists in British and American politics is limited to fighting with centrist blue-ticks on Twitter, we’ll be consigned to permanent irrelevance. They don’t care about facts, they don’t care about accountability, and they don’t care about democracy. They only care about one thing: beating the Left into oblivion.
Socialists could learn a thing or two from this attitude. We need to build real institutional power if we’re going to withstand the onslaught of the coming years and reverse it in the years after that. Healthy reflection on the Left’s recent focus on electoralism is one thing, but leaving the battlefield of party politics altogether is quite another. We need to be in the game, if only to ensure that anti-socialists on both sides of the Atlantic don’t succeed in permanently destroying those fighting against austerity, corporate power, and racism.
Trade unions, combined with the Democratic Socialists of America in the United States and Momentum in the UK, provide a base for socialists in both countries. But much of the time the leaders of left-wing movements seem more focused on fighting each other than they do with building left power."
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/extreme-center-war-on-the-left-socialism-organize-us-uk/
Jacobinmag
The Extreme Center Is Waging War on the Left
In both Britain and the United States, a resurgent political center has declared war on the Left. But establishment politics and pro-corporate measures will only deepen the present crisis.
Forwarded from /r/latestagecapitalism
Entrepreneurs don't have a special gene for risk—they're rich kids with safety nets
https://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/
https://redd.it/jvm55m
@r_latestagecapitalism
https://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/
https://redd.it/jvm55m
@r_latestagecapitalism
Quartz
Entrepreneurs don’t have a special gene for risk—they come from families with money
We’re in an era of the cult of the entrepreneur. We analyze the Tory Burches and Evan Spiegels of the world looking for a magic formula or set of personality traits that lead to success. Entrepreneurship is on the rise, and more students coming out of business…