Daily Clips: September 24th, 2015
Noam Chomsky: The GOP is a radical insurgency; it’s not a political party: In a recent interview, Chomsky identifies how the modern Republican Party have well and truly left the confines of political reality. Here is his most provocative, but compelling description of this phenomena:
It is important to bear in mind that the Republicans have long abandoned the pretense of functioning as a normal parliamentary party… Since Ronald Reagan, the leadership has plunged so far into the pockets of the very rich and the corporate sector that they can attract votes only by mobilizing sectors of the population that have not previously been an organized political force, among them extremist evangelical Christians, now probably the majority of Republican voters; remnants of the former slave-holding States; nativists who are terrified that “they” are taking our white Christian Anglo-Saxon country away from us; and others who turn the Republican primaries into spectacles remote from the mainstream of modern society—though not the mainstream of the most powerful country in world history.
Pope Francis’ full address to Congress: I don’t want to get caught up in the hysteria of Pope Francis’ visit, but his speech to Congress this morning is certainly worth a listen (or a read). He hits on major themes which America struggles with today: income inequality, hatred towards the “other”, and a basic failure to follow Christ’s Golden Rule. The best part about the address may be watching John Boehner’s face.
Pope Francis and the economic order: While George Will freaks out about the Pope criticizing capitalism and warns that “Americans cannot simultaneously honor him and celebrate their nation’s premises,” the rest of us know that the Pope actually speaks the truth when it comes to economics (and isn’t against our “nation’s premises”). As Harold Meyerson writes,
In place of our current system, Francis has recommended giving workers more power — in particular, promoting worker-owned and -run cooperatives. Speaking to delegates from Italian cooperatives, he extolled “an authentic, true cooperative . . . where capital does not have command over men, but men over capital.
This kind of advocacy dooms you to labels of “socialist” in the US, but that isn’t left-wing – that’s common sense.
