The Assistant (2020)
Led by a powerhouse performance from Julia Garner, The Assistant offers a withering critique of workplace harassment and systemic oppression.
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The Daily — New York Times podcast
The End of Privacy As We Know It?
Soon consumers from the general public may have access to this software. A stranger could photograph you on the street and then get your name, address, and contact info.
Ezra Klein on “the Machine”: An Interview
“…all of these institutions are in a relationship with their audience…. I’m trying to build an idea of a machine with different pieces all working together.”
How Trump Wins Again
Are Democrats going to give this election away?
By David Brooks
“…This is the year to run a values campaign, one that champions policies to make America more socially mobile, caring and interdependent….”
The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate
Story by Caitlin Flanagan
The Atlantic
On September 19, 1983, during Lebanon’s long civil war, the Reagan Administration ordered Marine PEACEKEEPERS in Beirut to open fire on Muslim militias in the mountains overlooking the city. The marines had been deployed for more than a year, after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, to help hold together one of the world’s most fractured states. Colonel Tim Geraghty, their commander, warned that an attack would cost the United States its NEUTRALITY and its mission; nevertheless, U.S. ships fired more than three hundred rounds of seventy-pound shells. Geraghty later wrote, “As the sun set at the end of a tumultuous day, I remarked to members of my staff that my gut instinct tells me the Corps is going to pay in blood for this decision.”…(emphases added)
DONALD TRUMP’S IRAN PROBLEM
By Robin Wright
January 12, 2020
The New Yorker
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Gil Scott-Heron’s Legacy Is a Work in Progress
By Giovanni Russonello
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If Bernie Wins, Where Will He Take the Democratic Party?
By Thomas B. Edsall
By Wade Lee Hudson
The impeachment has been both necessary and diversionary. The battle may help defeat Trump in November. And it’s exposed the growing power of the Imperial Presidency. But the impeachment battle has also obscured that trend. The centralization of power preceded Trump. He’s merely a symptom.
Both Democrats and Republicans have contributed to the centralization of power, and most Americans embrace it. Like Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, we would like to be able to say “I’m King here.” We worship celebrities, the rich and famous, the powerful. We believe some one person must always be in charge. We climb one social ladder or another, look down on those below, and envy or resent those above.
When we learn how to be democratic with each other, we’ll be better able to use people power to establish democracy in Washington.