Links for Friday, January 26
More on predators and prey, discussions of the Houthi blockade, a surprising Van Jones admission, and your musical treat.
Today’s offering is a nice mix of themes: More on predators and prey, discussions of the Houthi blockade, a surprising Van Jones admission, and your musical treat.
Links
Six links for today, and links within links. Enjoy.
• Weekend Wrap — Political Economy — January 21, 2024 (Tony Wikrent)
I recently posted a piece called “Predators and Prey: Subverting Liberal and Populist Institutions”. It described how small, well-funded, ideologically driven groups have been used to take over and subvert formerly liberal institutions, both religious and secular.
Tony Wikrent posted a link to it in his own ‘links post’ at Ian Welsh’s site and added an example of his own — the far-right takeover of the NRA in 1977. This is his addition (emphasis mine):
This is a very important article that lays bare the fact that the political divisions in USA are largely artificial constructions aimed at preserving the institutional and social power of the reactionary rich. The issue of abortion, for example, was seized upon by Paul Weyrich — a full six years after the Roe v. Wade decision — as an effective means of driving religious conservatives to the polls to vote for (anti)Republicans. Another example of reactionary wealth creating then promoting a radicalized right wing agenda is the Second Amendment “gun rights” issue. In May 1977, after the leadership of the National Rifle Association had decided to retreat from politics by [moving] NRA headquarters from Washington DC to Colorado, radicals from the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms seized control of the NRA at its annual meeting. This is now known as the “Revolt at Cincinnati.” These groups were funded by Adolph Coors Foundation, the Koch brothers, and Richard Mellon Scaife and included on its board Richard DeVos, Peter Grace, and Jesse Helms. The crucial fact of USA politics over the past half century is that the “overton window” has been deliberately shifted by a conservative movement that is not at all organically spontaneous or democratically based.
File under “The evil that men do.”
• 'I'm sorry your Amazon packages are delayed... but, genocide, guys' (Sky News)
A perfect example of neoliberalism vs people. Also a perfect example of UK news anchors showing their instinctive deference to Israel. Click the link above to watch the video.
Israel defender: We started the whole conversation an hour ago about how you can’t afford housing … these people [the Houthi] are causing a total blockade which is causing inflation which is causing all sorts of problems for everybody.
Francois: How dare we have a conversation about trade right now when there are children being treated without anesthetic…?
…
Media anchor: They do have the global markets hostage—
Francois: Good for them.
File under “From a UK perspective, aren’t they rather brown?”