A Way Out: An activist with an ulcer asks, “Why do nonprofits exist?”
The generous answer is that society is imperfect: people have needs that the government cannot meet (and that corporations refuse to meet). But the cynical answer is that there’s money to be made in nonprofits. Not for the people actually working at them, of course; they make very little. But for their extremely wealthy patrons, the rich people who want to protect their capital from being taxed and expropriated by the government, nonprofits are not only lucrative—they’re an effective way to provide legitimacy to the ruling class.
[…]
How can you sit there and tell me the working class isn’t interested in wonky economic policies, you might ask, and then shove a 150-year-old book in my face? But Marxism gives you the tools to pry the system apart and see how it works.
The author’s podcast, Trillbilly Worker’s Party, has my highest recommendation.
i have a backlog of single link draft posts that i haven’t gotten around to fleshing out to a state that is publishable by my minimal standards. you would think i was busy. hah.
i’m going to go ahead and post this video though because what it describes is very close to my own philosophy, if only i would make good on it.
https://youtu.be/sg3h3gy2IE4
Saturday, November 23, 2019
This economist has a plan to fix capitalism. It’s time we all listened
“It wasn’t just early research, it was also applied research, early stage finance, strategic procurement,” she says. “The more I looked, the more I realised: state investment is everywhere.”
Why I’m A Squishy Leftie
This isn’t scary socialism. This is self-protection by protecting the social contract within which we live, and just giving a damn about people.
just read Harry August this summer and it was very good.
Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction Into High Art
On April 14, 2019, at the age of 87, Gene Wolfe dies of heart disease at his house in Peoria, Illinois. The obituaries are appropriately admiring. But there’s an undertone in some of them similar to the undertone that sometimes creeps into reviews of his books. His books are so singular, so challenging, and so out of sync with any conceivable mainstream that critics sometimes seem to be asking “What kind of great book is this?” His life is so quiet, so meandering, and so far removed from literary grandeur or drama that eulogists sometimes seem to be asking “What kind of life is this for a great writer?”
I know the answer to both questions. It is this kind.
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Creating While Clean
Anastasio: I had a sort of different situation than most people, in that I was facing felony charges, based orn what was in my car when I was pulled over. So I did end up going to a felony-drug-treatment court, which was the greatest thing that ever could’ve happened to me. I had to move within half an hour of the jail, which was in Fort Edward, New York, because they call you in for random urine tests and stuff. So I basically had to stop my life for 14 months. I did 250 or something hours of community service—cleaning the bathrooms and toilets at the Washington County fairgrounds, putting up fences, parking cars, breaking rocks—and court-ordered outpatient [treatment], and drug-court meetings. I just had to move up there and spent 14 months just getting sober and complying with the rules. They’re very strict. If you miss a meeting, they put you in jail for 48 hours. Which happened to me—I had to go to jail a couple of times. This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
Filed in Uncategorized
|
|