Category: Politics
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Stop Making Fun of Trump
Perhaps the only good thing to have come out of a Trump presidency is the dark humour, and I must confess – much of it has been brilliant. Seeing the wonderful placards (WE SHALL OVERCOMB) hearing the chants (TINKLE TINKLE LITTLE CZAR, PUTIN PUT YOU WHERE YOU ARE) and watching the SNL skits has raised…
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The Only Way to Have a Free Press is to Pay For It
One of the things that’s been on my mind in the wake of recent political events is the vital importance to liberal democracy of a genuinely independent and critical free press. It strikes me that if we want a free press, we’re really do need to be willing to pay for it. In Raoul Martinez’s Creating…
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Inaugurate Something… and Make Trump Irrelevant Again
My suggestion for marking Trump’s inauguration would be to inaugurate some amazing thing, some small seed of action that’ll build bridges and tear down prejudice. At the moment, the three most troubling words I know are ‘God,’ ‘bless,’ and ‘America,’ and every time I hear them in sequence part of my brain freezes. Can anyone tell…
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Enjoy the last day on vaguely sane politics for 4 years…
…though my hunch is that it won’t be 4 years. He’ll get bored. Or impeached. Or get bored and get himself impeached. Enjoy the last few hours!
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‘Free’ Markets
“So it appears that #Brexit means closing our borders to people, but opening them to the free movement of capital.” Precisely this. Capitalism loves the free movement of everything except the poor. Money must be free to move. The cheap labour that creates it must not. This, apparently, is what we mean by a ‘free market.’ I…
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Next Up, Capitalism Is Killing Us
Lead stories on the radio this morning: How a third of fathers want a less stressful job so they can actually spend time with their kids. Eight people in the world have more wealth than the poorest 50% The UK’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence rejects a life-extending cancer drug for use on NHS because…