ED CURTIN—That is why so many people will be having a special guest for Christmas. Possessed by their possessions, while disbelieving in Luther’s Satan, the American people are in the process of bringing Satan home for the holidays. Unseen but present, he will have a place of honor at Christmas dinner tables throughout the land. But don’t worry, he has a parsimonious appetite and just nibbles. My sources tell me that he likes turkey and ham, but isn’t too keen on vegetarian fare, and forget vegan. Yet I am told he has a ravenous appetite for presents, so get shopping.
Default Editor Patrice de Bergeracpas
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ANDREW LEVINE—The American equivalent is the “modern orthodoxy” of Jared Kushner and the observant Trump cronies currently charged by the Donald with getting Israelis and Palestinians to make an “artful” deal. The likelihood that those ignoramuses can do anything like that is is about the same as the likelihood that the Trump-Republican tax cut will “make America great again.”
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Rise and Decline of the Welfare State: Class Struggle and Imperial Wars as the Motor Force of US History
27 minutes readJAMES PETRAS—The American welfare state was created in 1935 and continued to develop through 1973. Since then, over a prolonged period, the capitalist class has been steadily dismantling the entire welfare state. Between the mid 1970’s to the present (2017) labor laws, welfare rights and benefits and the construction of and subsidies for affordable housing have been gutted. ‘Workfare’ (under President ‘Bill’ Clinton) ended welfare for the poor and displaced workers. Meanwhile the shift to regressive taxation and the steadily declining real wages have increased corporate pro ts to an astronomical degree.
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URI AVNERY—One State? What would the army look like? Who would command it, who…
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MARTHA ROSENBERG—Pharma has succeeded, through millions of dollars of advertising, in doing two cagey things: it has convinced people who might actually be fine that they have “depression,” GERD and other conditions and it has downplayed the risks of drugs to treat those conditions.