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Democracy Needs Informed Citizens; Consumerism Needs Self-Centered Dolts by Marc Jampole THAT A FAILED real-estate developer turned reality TV star and brand marketer could win enough votes in Republican primaries to become the presumptive GOP nominee confirms the essential contradiction of a consumerist capitalist society organized as a representative democracy. Democracy requires well-informed, well-read, well-adjusted […]
Read Moreby Marc Jampole SOMEONE TOOK an online poll that finds that more than half of all Americans think that the primary system is rigged. If the primaries are rigged, the fix favors rural counties and rural states, which tend to be more conservative. In that, our nominating process resembles our bicameral system — one house […]
Read Moreby Marc Jampole Discussed in this essay: Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, by Jane Mayer. Doubleday, 2016, 461 pages. JANE MAYER’S recently published Dark Money does a thorough job of dissecting the 40-year campaign of a small coterie of billionaires to change the American political […]
Read MoreWas Ferdinand Lundberg Right? by Marc Jampole SINCE THE PUBLICATION of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, the mainstream news media has been paying attention to the impact of the super-rich on the political system. We see a growing number of candidates for major offices who are multi-millionaires and billionaires without elective experience, such […]
Read Moreby Nicholas Jahr NETANYAHU’S LAST MINUTE DECLARATION that the Palestinians have no partner clinched an election that seemed to be slipping away from him, snatching an impressive victory from defeat’s drooling jaws. In truth, anyone who has been paying attention couldn’t be surprised by Bibi’s pronouncement that there would never be a Palestinian state, which […]
Read Moreby Ralph Seliger THE ORGANIZATION FOUNDED IN 1897 by Theodor Herzl to establish a modern Jewish state still exists. It’s called the World Zionist Organization, and it’s guided by resolutions of the World Zionist Congress, which convenes at four-year intervals. In the United States, there is an election going on at this very moment, with […]
Read MoreLikud’s Slogan: It’s “Us or Them” by Ron Skolnik From the Spring, 2015 issue of Jewish Currents. WHEN BINYAMIN NETANYAHU SPOKE to Likud party activists in December 2014 to energize them for the grueling current election campaign, he framed the contest as one that pitted his Likud not against any particular party but against “the […]
Read MoreA Look at Israeli Election Dynamics by Nicholas Jahr BACK IN EARLY MARCH OF LAST YEAR, the Knesset passed an amendment to the Israeli Basic Law increasing the electoral threshold, the minimum percentage of votes a party needs to win to be allotted seats in the Knesset. The amendment was drafted in part by […]
Read Moreby Mitchell Abidor SYRIZA, THE COALITION OF THE RADICAL LEFT has won the Greek elections and, though they are described as left-wing and “anti-austerity,” make no mistake about it: This is the first victory of a small “c” communist party in history. I have no Greek, and so can’t comment on the party’s Greek documents […]
Read Moreby Gary Schoichet Shortly after Election Day, Blinding Light News Flash scored an exclusive interview with President Barack Obama. The president let his lack of hair down… SO SOME OF THE DISASTER of the midterm elections was my fault. I could be more of a back-slapper and back room guy. I could have channeled Lyndon […]
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