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Published in “The Wealth Inequality Reader” by Dollars and Sense and United for a Fair Economy

Flame-Broiled Shark
May 2005 By David Swanson

If someone told you that a bunch of low-income people, most of them African-American or Latino, most of them women, most of them elderly, had been victimized by a predatory mortgage lender that stripped them of much of their equity or of their entire homes, you might not be surprised. But if I told you that these women and men had gotten together read more

Nov. 5, 2004
Already the strategists are advising the Democrats to go to church more, hunt more, and become more like the Republicans. This strategy has, however, been pushed just about as far as it will go, and in a quarter century of trying has worked only for Bill Clinton, and then only with a lot of help from Ross Perot and a number of lucky breaks.

With over 40 percent of the country still not interested in voting despite massive Get-Out-the-Vote efforts, record turnouts, and endless lines read more

Sep. 3, 2004
If you read a newspaper this fantastic Friday morning, be prepared to believe the impossible. The current occupant of the White House last night accepted the Republican Party’s nomination with a string of lies and nonsense that will be reported to you as if worthy of respectful consideration.

Unlikely to be noted will be the fact that while Bush babbled away about keeping America secure, he was unable to keep protesters out of his convention, where they disrupted his speech read more

June 9, 2004

It’s official. Cable television has now completely and thoroughly covered presidential politics, fully informing all Americans of all the issues, positions, promises, and disputes. That job completed, one cable channel has moved on to the important public function of making shit up.

No, I don’t mean Fox News. I’m referring to Showtime’s new presidential election reality TV show, in which 12 “candidates” will pretend to run for president. What could read more

April 5, 2004

Also published on BartCop and OpEdNews

The internet has not yet reshaped politics in any fundamental way, and its failure to do so constitutes a powerful argument for reform of the television, newspaper, and radio media. In his recent book “Politics Moves Online,” George Washington University professor Michael Cornfield claims that “the more activists a campaign ensnares in its network-on-the-Net, the more money and volunteer hours it will collect, and the more voters read more

Also published at http://www.buzzflash.org

I have often heard Democrats accuse Republicans of being selfish. That’s nonsense. The economic policies of the Bush Administration have dramatically benefited only the wealthiest two percent of Americans. There are a lot of Republicans nowhere near that level of wealth. To my mind, most people who have voted Republican have not been selfish enough. I encourage everyone to vote their economic self-interest.

By voting Republican, you are voting for read more

Recent experiments in game theory, and specifically the finding that so many people do not behave in the way that game theory says that they “should,” shed light on the failures of economic theories, including the whole idea of the “market.”

In both academic game theory and the common idea of the economic market, people are imagined as motivated by only one goal, increasing their wealth. And they are imagined as viewing all others as competitors and rivals with the same read more

Also published, in a slightly longer version, at www.democraticunderground.com

Even Ralph Nader is saying that the current rash of corporate accounting scandals is uncovering more than he expected. There’s not just feigned and willful shock and surprise out there. Some honest and intelligent commentators are dumbfounded. Why?

Perhaps I’m just a cynic and always expect the worst and sometimes end up being right. Or perhaps my reasoning is oversimplifying. But I am not surprised by the read more

April 18, 2005

For more than a decade we’ve heard about a political animal called the RINO (Republican in Name Only), but most species of RINO have become endangered or at least threatened. Republicans in Congress have learned to close ranks and vote as a block.

On the recent bill restricting the rights of those who would file class action law suits, Republicans in the House voted 229 to 1 in favor of it, and in the Senate 54 to 0, with two not voting. On the latest increase in war spending, read more

March 13, 2005
The majority of Americans, even according to polls conducted by corporations with an interest in war, think that attacking Iraq was a mistake and that continuing to occupy it is a mistake. But the will of a majority of Americans means very little without a substantial minority of Americans willing to struggle and suffer for a goal. If majority opinion mattered on its own, we’d have clean elections, democratic media, a serious effort to slow global warming, major investment read more