I would argue that Capitalism is indeed a Religion of dogma. The most obvious dogma is blind faith in the invisible Market. The Americans who spend every Sunday in church actually place more faith, in their daily affairs, in the Market than in God.

At a deeper level, Capitalism is based on the dogmatic belief, contrary to science, that we are each separate individuals who interact only through discrete market transactions. All of the canonical literature of Capitalism - Adam Smith and even Locke and Rousseau - start out with the fiction of the individual Man on his own island…

I am no advocate of "Cancel Culture." But I think your article missed the point. We should not cancel any person, but we should indeed cancel certain behaviors. In terms of child rearing, it is put as: Punish the behavior, not the child.

The problem is in labelling people and ideas, without considering the actual person or idea. This is what racism is. Nearly all my family in Europe were cancelled - brutally and literally - for the label put on them. I personally knew people who were blacklisted (or worse) as Communists. Cancelling people is a way to avoid…

We can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel of the awful pandemic which has claimed nearly three million lives. But this is not waking up from a nightmare. Quite the opposite — the pandemic itself should have awoken us to the nightmarish reality we have been sleeping through for too long.

In an essay written just before his untimely death in 2020, David Graeber wrote:

“[I]n reality, the crisis we just experienced was waking from a dream, a confrontation with the actual reality of human life, which is that we are a collection of fragile beings taking care of one another, and that those who do the lion’s share of this care work that keeps us alive are overtaxed, underpaid, and daily humiliated, and that a very large proportion of the population don’t do anything at all but spin fantasies, extract rents, and generally get in the way of those who…

As I write, I have not yet decided if I will publish this. Some people will be upset that I question the core of their faith. Hopefully this does not incite the very hatred I am trying to counter. If you are reading this, it is because I have decided there is hope that there are those who will take this as an opportunity for reflection, with a willingness to revisit a vicious common belief from a different perspective.

In 1965, Curtis Knight recorded a song, based on Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone (with Jimi Hendrix playing uncredited guitar)…

I began my legal career representing people in deportation proceedings at the El Centro Detention Center by the border in the Imperial Valley. I represented hundreds, if not over a thousand, there. From my personal experience, I can attest that this is true. Clients who were darker-skinned, wherever they were from, were treated distinctly different than those with lighter-skin. That was a long time ago (mid-80s), but my friends still practicing, and the study cited by the Nation, shows that this has not changed. Our first immigration law (The Chinese Exclusion Act) was explicitly racist, and every immigration law since has been based on racism and enforced in a racist manner. Immigration and Racism are entertwined in our country.

On the Jewish holiday of Pesach — Passover — we tell the story of the exodus from slavery to freedom over the Seder. But that celebration of freedom must be diminished by its cost in the suffering of others, even our enemies. So we symbolically take out a drop of the wine of celebration for each of the Ten Plagues. Here, I offer Ten lessons for these times to take from the Seder, one for each of the Ten Plagues.

1. Blood

Dam

Like the Nile turned red, the flow of social life we depend on has become polluted — something to…

Words of Advice and Encouragement to the New Generation of Activists

There is no getting around it — this last year has been awful. But one shining light amidst the darkness, despair and death was the rise of a new generation of activists. I was encouraged to see young people braving COVID and tear gas to protest racist police killings, to resist the fascist regime closing its grip on the country, and to make sure that people were able to exercise their right to vote. …

"Clapping" doesn't seem appropriate here. I'll try to offer something useful instead. I went to school at UCSC, and my first son was born there. I still have fond memories of the place, but reading your story I understand my wife’s reticence whenever I fantasize moving there (besides the high cost). Thank you for speaking out, and please do not give up.

Don't give up on your claims, although you may face obstacles. While it may be too late for a Gov. Code § 910 claim, it is not too late for a federal civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C…