Quincy Lehr THE YELTSIN-CLINTON ERA, CENTRAL TIME ZONE The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one’s life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, … Read more
The Corbyn phenomenon – and the utter media-class meltdown over it – is weirdly but obviously reminiscent to anyone who witnessed the rise of Bernie Sanders here in the United States. In both cases, the harbingers were clear, both in terms of responding to grim economic data for an indebted younger generation, and arriving in … Read more
DEMON CUM I He’s the latest spawn of Hell with a lanyard and a notch lapel and “there is no alternative,” as if nothing has to give, a stench of sulfur to intrigue some think-tank from the Ivy League. Gray-flecked beard and close-cropped hair, a ruin that’s beyond repair but crying out for management, refurbishing, … Read more
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. (‘The … Read more
The problem with writing about the U.S. Democratic Party, whether analytically, historically, or even as a matter of praxis, is that it has all been said or tried before. Want to run party candidates on a left-wing (or progressive, or whatever?) platform? Recall the so-called Alliance Yardstick, when the Farmers’ Alliance in 1890 held Democratic Party … Read more
Missiles flashed, and it was beautiful— flares in the darkness of a fallen world where Satan plays the good guy in a wig. I’m in my safe space, a battered easy chair, swearing at the laptop, at the stream of video and voices, overlaid on top of breakfast. Coffee’s gone lukewarm, the trail’s gone cold. … Read more