All Hail Ron! No, the other one...

I'm really impressed with the Unz Review; pretty cool that he's publishing Cockburn, Shamir and others from the "left". I used to slum at CounterPunch a lot to see what the "other side" was up to, and darned if they didn't almost re-convert me to progressivism. [I tend to be squishy in my convictions when presented by good arguments. human frailty.] I'm really hoping, but not hopeful, that a majority can get beyond this false right/left division. It would seem that divide_and_conquer* is the oldest and most effective political technique. It really seems like the work of the devil, except that would imply the existence of god, and I'm still not ready to go there. The only thing I can conclude is that humans are just slightly more attractive baboons with free will. no devil; it is we who suck. evidently.

We need to constantly talk about what economists call the opportunity costs of imperialism and war, what we could have purchased instead of destruction and misery. This is almost never mentioned directly; we say we will bear any burden and pay any price, but we don't share equally. I forget who spoke of "the forgotten man" but he's always there just offstage. Who, whom, as they say. Americans have been lucky to avoid karma. So far...

*"And if you think you can tailor your work to fit the “general culture,” there’s no such thing left to appeal to. As Bernstein says, “Books are following the general trend of other types of media; audiences are shunted into silos where they basically don’t see content that is meant for a different demographic. Liberals and conservatives don’t see the same news, or read the same books; Millennials and Boomers don’t watch the same TV shows, or even the same channels; black audiences and white audiences don’t even go to see the same movies. … There is no longer a common shared language through which we can all talk about American culture. It makes understanding between groups very difficult.”