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John Spritzler - Latest News [Page 1]
Let's Remove the Rich from Power
Thursday, 10 July 2014, 3:29 pm | John Spritzler
Here's an idea. Instead of ineffectually complaining about how the ruling elite (the rich, the plutocracy, or whatever you want to call them) are using their power over us to do terrible things, let's remove them from power and thereby stop them from ... More >>
The "Ralph Nader" Illusion
Tuesday, 20 May 2014, 4:37 pm | John Spritzler
Ralph Nader is providing a kind of leadership to the many Americans who are fed up with our dictatorship of the rich and who want a much more equal and democratic society. More >>
Why the American Plutocracy Needs BOTH Parties
Thursday, 8 May 2014, 2:50 pm | John Spritzler
Both the Democratic and Republican parties get their funding from Big Money, as is well known: "A decade ago, corporate PACs favored Republicans over Democrats by about a two-to-one ratio. More >>
Beware of Dangerous Articles by Rob Kall of OpEdNews
Wednesday, 30 April 2014, 4:50 pm | John Spritzler
"Oligarchs, Billionaires, Uber Wealthy are Killing Capitalism--They Are Dangerous," by Rob Kall, is a wrongheaded and dangerous article. It is typical of others like it that are starting to appear more frequently (by authors such as Robert Reich and ... More >>
A Nation Is Not a Person: Now Let's Talk About Ukraine
Thursday, 13 March 2014, 12:20 pm | John Spritzler
A nation is not a person. A nation is a place where class conflict rages. A nation's government--"democratically elected" or not--is an instrument that the ruling class uses to dominate the rest of the population. More >>
A Lesson from Ukraine
Thursday, 27 February 2014, 11:52 am | John Spritzler
Based entirely on reading what other people, presumably better informed than I, have written about recent events in Ukraine, I am going to try to draw a lesson from them. Some articles that I found useful are this one by Israel Shamir and this one by Mark ... More >>
Freedom...But to Do What?
Tuesday, 25 February 2014, 1:10 pm | John Spritzler
Freedom. Everybody says freedom is such a very good thing that it's worth fighting for. But something so good and important deserves a clear meaning, no? Well, what is it? More >>
Lawrence Lessig's Wrongheaded March to End Corruption
Thursday, 20 February 2014, 5:07 pm | John Spritzler
Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Constitutional scholar (like President Obama once was), is leading a march against corruption, by which he means the inordinate influence of Big Money on Congress. More >>
BDS Needs to Counterattack
Wednesday, 12 February 2014, 11:29 am | John Spritzler
Today's Opinion page column by Roger Cohen in the NYT attacks the BDS campaign for having a hidden agenda: the end of Israel as a Jewish state. The author makes the perfectly valid point that the BDS's stated goals (ending the Occupation, equality ... More >>
BDS needs to counterattack
Tuesday, 11 February 2014, 11:44 am | John Spritzler
Today's Opinion page column by Roger Cohen in the NYT attacks the BDS campaign for having a hidden agenda: the end of Israel as a Jewish state. The author makes the perfectly valid point that the BDS's stated goals (ending the Occupation, equality ... More >>
What about Rush Limbaugh?
Friday, 31 January 2014, 4:11 pm | John Spritzler
Rush Limbaugh, the American conservative talk radio host, according to a Zogby poll in 2008, was the "most trusted news personality, followed by Bill O'Reilly and Tom Brokow." How many people listen to Limbaugh is not known, but here's a reasonable ... More >>
Which Creates Better Living: Capitalism or Egalitarianism?
Thursday, 30 January 2014, 3:26 pm | John Spritzler
One often hears capitalism defended on the grounds that it is the economic system that best improves the standard of living of all people. Pro-capitalists cite three facts 1) that the proportion of people in the world living in poverty has been declining, ... More >>
Mexican Vigilantes Stand Up Against Crime
Monday, 30 December 2013, 10:46 am | John Spritzler
This video is about ordinary Mexicans forming local assemblies and democratically forming armed militias (they use a different name) to defend their communities against the extreme violence (murder, rape, kidnapping, extortion for 'protection') of the ... More >>
American Christian Zionism in Perspective
Monday, 23 December 2013, 3:41 pm | John Spritzler
A good friend of mine who is very rightly a vehement opponent of Zionism recently told me that the fact that so many Americans belonged to Christian Zionist fundamentalist megachurches made her despair if it would ever be possible to mobilize sufficient ... More >>
Old-Fashioned Political Activism Doesn't Work
Friday, 15 November 2013, 1:26 pm | John Spritzler
If you have ever read an article aiming to make you angry at some government or corporation by exposing some vile wrong-doing of it, then you've experienced at least one author's old-fashioned political activism. More >>
Once Upon A Time
Tuesday, 3 September 2013, 9:47 am | John Spritzler
Once upon a time there was a country ruled by a small number of rich and evil men and women. The rulers led the country into one evil war after another. To get The People of the country to go along with the wars, the rulers told them Big Lies. Some ... More >>
Why Our Rulers Killed MLK, Jr. and Malcolm X
Thursday, 29 August 2013, 3:35 pm | John Spritzler
There are a lot of radio/t.v. commemorations of the famous March on Washington held 50 years ago this August 28. These commemorations give us (and especially the younger generation born long after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death) a "safe" (for the ruling ... More >>
Egypt and the Meaning of Democracy
Monday, 19 August 2013, 12:08 pm | John Spritzler
In light of recent events in Egypt, what does "democracy" really mean? By most accounts, the election in Egypt that installed the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi in office as president was as fair as they come. Jimmy Carter said so and virtually nobody ... More >>
What Replaces the "Free Market" in a Sharing Economy?
Tuesday, 6 August 2013, 11:39 am | John Spritzler
The sharing economy as described in Thinking about Revolution is based on sharing, according to need, among those who contribute to the economy reasonably according to ability. More >>
How the 18:1 Law Makes the War on Drugs Racist
Monday, 22 July 2013, 1:02 pm | John Spritzler
There is a United States federal law on the books, what I call the "18:1" law, that is, in its effect, as viciously racist as the old and now thoroughly discredited Jim Crow laws that explicitly discriminated against black people. More >>
