Thursday, June 18, 2015

Is Political Equality Possible?

Citizenship is waning. There are the obvious, brutal signs of this: the police apparently have a free hand to kill and cage certain citizens, more or less as they see fit; the fiscal state is crippled by the ability and willingness of its wealthier subjects to refuse taxation; voters must now share political space with corporations, their new legal equivalents in significant elements of democratic life. In many places, especially poorer places like Greece and Detroit, unelected bureaucracies now explicitly overrule the will of electorates. 
Crooked Timber, To Carry the Past Around with You

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Bread and Circuses: Round II

That a superficial media whore like Trump is taken seriously in his bid for the presidency clearly shows the extent of amorality circulating through the political cesspool we know as Washington DC. 

Assisting in this fiasco are the ignorant millions who believe that the value of the examined life is based solely on media exposure. This cult of the celebrity has foisted onto national prominence low-brow icons like Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, Trump, the Kardashian family, Honey Boo Boo, and the Duck Dynasty.