How can cooperation emerge in a world of selfish individuals ruled by a Darwinian competition for survival? This is the question that Martin Nowak, Professor of Mathematics and Biology at Harvard University, discusses in Super Cooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed. Nowak and his collaborators have published a series of […]
Progressives
The Three Splits on the Left
There are three splits on the left: 1. The Democrats are split from the Socialists, Greens,Anarchists and others on the far left, and (2) Within the Democratic Party, the progressive Dems and Berniecrats are split from the mainstream, corporate Dems, and (3) Within the far left, the various factions rarely agree and often have weird […]
Highly educated people are liberal
Pew Research reports: A Wider Ideological Gap Between More and Less Educated Adults Political polarization update Two years ago, Pew Research Center found that Republicans and Democrats were more divided along ideological lines than at any point in the previous two decades. But growing ideological distance is not confined to partisanship. There are also growing […]
Do liberals suffer more than conservatives?
I finished Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom. All the relationships in the novel (between lovers, between parents and kids, between siblings, and between friends) were screwed up. People fought, competed, and betrayed each other. People yearned to be free of dysfunctional relationships. Franzen showed how dysfunction was passed down through generations. He described the struggles and […]
Hot August Political Thoughts
Currently, we arguably live in an Oligarchy – A form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people might be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, religious or military control. Examples: The Russian Federation, the United States of America. -Wikipedia This is Our Revolution. Yes, […]
The Divided Left revisited
The Divided Left in America is a major problem, and it’s come to fore in the discussions on social media about whether Bernie should run as an independent and about whether Bernie supporters should work within the Democratic Party. Progressive Democrats are desperately trying to reform the Democratic Party but lack numbers. As a result […]
Hey, all you Bernie supporters who attended the caucuses, take over the Party!
The surprise overwhelming win by Bernie Sanders in the Washington State Democratic caucus was due, I surmise, to the participation of young people who had never before gotten involved. I know in my precinct there were a surprising number of young people I had never seen before. I am eager to see hard data […]
The Republican scam, and the Democrats' unwillingness to oppose it
Last night I was listening to AM talk radio, and a Republican candidate was promoting the following conservative narrative: “Yes, there is terrible wealth inequality, and it’s due to government waste, corruption and regulations. We need to slash taxes and get rid of regulations so that the middle class can have jobs and thrive. Government […]
Should progressives vote for Hillary if she wins the nomination?
My statement on the discussion of whether or not to vote for Clinton should Bernie not win the Democratic nomination and the many permutations of that discussion: I support the values embodied in the Democratic Party’s Washington State Platform (and many other state and local platforms, and quite a bit of what winds up in […]