A demagogue, H.L. Mencken once said, is someone “who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.” This is a pretty good description of the US presidential candidates in action at their late-summer conventions. Although, to be fair to those who listened to the convention speeches, it was more a case of preaching idiotic ideas to people who wished those ideas were true. The contrast between the gassy rhetoric of the politicians and the weighty problems facing workers was particularly striking at this year’s conventions, highlighted further by the juxtaposition between jubilant...
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The WSP got a an e-mail recently from some right-wing blogger for the New York Times who asked if we considered Barak Obama a socialist and if we supported his tax plans. blah, blah, blah. We won’t pass judgement on an article which may or may not see the light of day. But most likely this was another piece attempting to get someone calling themselves socialist to endorse Obama or one of his policies. Once that confession is procured, it will be widely touted as proof of Obama being a socialist, an elitist, etc. But is Obama...
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From Marx and Coca Cola: As you are probably aware of by now the government has decided to bail out the two mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. From the Land Down Under: REPUBLICAN presidential hopeful John McCain backed a US government takeover of two mortgage giants overnight while his Democratic rival warned that taxpayers should not bail out their shareholders. McCain said that it had to be done. I agree. If the two behemoths failed it would result in massive repercussions not just for the share holders or American homeowners, but to the entire world economy. Even...
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