The Digger

"But the most important part of the explanation, in the   American case,  is  the lack of a real opposition party that the system in place does not  thoroughly marginalize.  The Democratic Party is useless for that.   To be sure, even Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been known  to mouth off about the evils of inequality.  But you don’t need a  bullshit  detector to see that they are part of the problem, not part of  the solution." Longish excerpt from a lengthy and informative article: "The Trump phenomenon is both a symptom and a cause of this sorry state of affairs.  It seems anomalous, because Trump’s persona is so outrageous, and because it is plain that no one with his temperament should be anywhere near the seat of power, much less anyone as clueless as he.   It doesn’t help either that his cabinet is full of nincompoops and that his advisors are even worse; or that, for the time b...

Link:  Ocasio-Cortez Vs. The Conditioners Excerpt: "I gotta say it:  sure sounds like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right about this biannual “bipartisan” Harvard orientation for incoming Congressional freshmen : On Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez criticized the event for including four corporate CEOs but no labor leaders or activists to talk to the new members. Barra, the GM CEO, attended a “discussion with business leaders” at which she was joined by Alex Gorsky, chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, and Dennis Muilenburg, chair and CEO of Boeing. Mark Gearan, director of the Harvard Institute of Politics, confirmed in an interview that no labor leaders were represented on panel discussions. “Lobbyists are here. Goldman Sachs is here,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter, a reference to panelist Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive and top economic adviser to President Trump. “Where‘s labor? Activists? Frontline community leaders? ...