wall fall

11-09-09--In a crazy double reversal, capitalism won over Communism, but the price paid for this victory is that Communists are now beating capitalism in its own terrain.
This is why today’s China is so unsettling: capitalism has always seemed inextricably linked to democracy, and faced with the explosion of capitalism in the People’s Republic, many analysts still assume that political democracy will inevitably assert itself.
But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment? ... When people protested Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the large majority of them did not ask for capitalism. They wanted the freedom to live their lives outside state control, to come together and talk as they pleased; they wanted a life of simplicity and sincerity, liberated from the primitive ideological indoctrination and the prevailing cynical hypocrisy.
As many commentators observed, the ideals that led the protesters were to a large extent taken from the ruling Socialist ideology itself — people aspired to something that can most appropriately be designated as “Socialism with a human face.” Perhaps this attitude deserves a second chance. –Slavoj Zizek NYT A21

weekend update

11-08-09—Ehrenreich herself posted a message on a cancer support site under the title “Angry,” complaining about the effects of chemotherapy, “recalcitrant insurance companies,” and “sappy pink ribbons.” –NYTBR 7
--11-07-0-9—Unemployment plus underemployment rate at 17.5%. NYT A1
--The American Health care system is more expensive than any other, without providing beter results. NYT A1

11-06-09

11-06-09—North by Northwest is 50 years old.—SBT D4 [ famous airplane scene near La Porte, Indiana]

--Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. are among several large NYC employers that got doses of the H1N1 vaccine, which remains in short supply—WSJ A4 [any doubts left on who owns the USA and what it’s there for??]


--11-04-09—A landmark agreement aimed at giving the European union a global stature on par with major powers like the US and China cleared its last major hurdle on Tuesday... NYT A5 [actually, the week’s biggest news...]

this is the way the empire ends, not with a bang but a whimper

11-4-09--WASHINGTON (Nov. 3) -- Are America's youth too fat, dumb or dishonest to defend the nation against its enemies? The latest Army statistics show a stunning 75 percent of military-age youth are ineligible to join the military because they are overweight, can't pass entrance exams, have dropped out of high school or had run-ins with the law. So many young people between the prime recruiting ages of 17 and 24 cannot meet minimum standards that a group of retired military leaders is calling for more investment in early childhood education to combat the insidious effects of junk food and inadequate education.

sit down before reading

11-3-09—The health insurance industry likes to cite figures showing that 87 cents of every dollar in premiums is spent on medical claims.
But a new Senate analysis suggests that for-profit insurance companies are spending much less than that, especially for policies sold to individuals and small businesses. Instead, as little as 66 cents of each dollar paid in premiums goes toward doctor and hospital bills, while the rest covers administrative expenses, marketing and company profits, according to the analysis.
The data come from an analysis of regulatory filings by the Senate Commerce Committee from the largest for-profit companies, including WellPoint, the UnitedHealth Group, Aetna and Cigna. They spent about 74 cents out of every dollar on medical care in the individual market, according to the information released by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat, who is chairman of the commerce committee.

--Crisis Compels Economists to Reach for New Paradigm. WSJ A1

--Arabs See US Tilt to Israel. WSJ A1

Halloween weekend

11-2-09—... Under Armour is teaching up with IMG Worldwide ... to run 100 training and evaluation combines for high school athletes in the US next year. Executives say the goal is to create an evaluation system in which everything from natural talent, to strength, to sport-specific ability, to nutrition and musculo-skeletal issues are reduced to a single SAT-like score. WSJ B10

--10-30-09—More states have lowered their academic proficiency standards than raised them, casting doubts on claims of educational progress. ... nearly all [states] used exams that feel short of federal testing benchmarks.... WSJ A1, A3

crabs

HARPERS NOV. 2009:
--% of white Americans in August who said they considered Fox News “reliable: 46
--% of black and Latino Americans, respectively, who did: 5, 11 [p.13]

--Those who celebrated Bush’s militancy back in the intoxicating days when he was promising to rid the world of evil see Obama’s enthusiasm for pressing on in Afghanistan as a vindication of sorts. They are right to do so. ... Not for nothing has [Afghanistan] acquired the nickname Graveyard of Empires. Americans, insistent that the dominion over which they preside does not meet the definition of empire, evince little interest in how the British, Russians, or others have fared in attempting to impose their will on the Afghans.... For those who, despite all this, still hanker to have a go at nation building ... why not fix first, say, Mexico? ... The contrast between Washington’s preoccupation with Afghanistan and its relative indifference to Mexico testifies to the distortion of US national security priorities adopted by George W. Bush in his post-9/11 prophetic mode—distortions now being endorsed by Bush’s successor. It also testifies to a vast failure of imagination to which our governing classes have succumbed. ... The ethos of consumption and individual autonomy, privileging the here and now over the eternal, will conquer the Muslim world as surely as it is conquering East Asia and as surely as it has already conquered what was once known as Christendom.—Prof. Andrew Bacevich [pp. 15,16,18,20]

--...we concluded that I was doomed for the rest of my life to be a professor. Not that I hated to teach. But defined. Classified. Serious. That was the worst part, to have to be serious about life. ...The basic question: Who was ready, willing even, to launch an attack on the other, to lead us into a new war that would devastate the planet. Obviously, it was the United States. ... Then deGaulle seized power and suddenly it dawned on my that my life would be totally absurd, that my generation was doomed to exist under his pathetic and ridiculous assurances of “la grandeur de la France.”—Jean Paul Sartre [21]