For more than forty years one of our favorite writers, Detroit-based Peter Werbe, has been publishing provocative essays about capitalism, technology, religion, politics, and popular culture in the anarchist journal The Fifth Estate, where he’s long been an indispensable member of the editorial collective. Some of his best work is now organized in a compulsively readable...
Dear Councilmember Soto-Martinez, The man you replaced, Mitch O’Farrell, was perceived by many as a cynical politician who placed the desires of wealthy real-estate developers over the concerns of the people he was supposed to represent. Sensitive to any perception of impropriety, you’ve made it a point to not accept campaign donations from developers. You’ve...
If you have the stomach for in-depth reporting on corruption in Los Angeles — at City Hall, on the City Council, the police force, everywhere there’s money and power — the citizen journalist Michael Kohlhaas is a necessary read. Just like old-fashioned investigative reporters used to do before being co-opted by papers uninterested in offending...
The timing of Aaron Sorkin’s new historical drama, “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” couldn’t be better — or more poignant. After a summer in which millions of American’s discovered the reality of police brutality, the profound corruption of the authorities who control the uniformed thugs, and the shocking disrespect powerful men have toward the...
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension…is itself a frightful despotism [serving] always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot...
What would happen to American democracy if our elections offered two or more excellent choices for the office, a situation in which voters aren’t forced to choose between one awful politician from one kind of political mafia and another awful politician from the other mafia? Wouldn’t that be demonstrably better than the depressingly cynical situation...
I’m a fan on Twitter. You’re one of the smartest people I know and, coincidentally, I agree with just about everything you say —
Four years ago, an unknown “director of development” (i.e., someone who raises money) supported by Korean-American business moguls, defeated a large field of similarly unknown candidates to become the newest member of the Los Angeles City Council. His name was David Ryu, and the contest he won was Council District 4, which includes the World...
Look Within. Ask yourself: What are my core values? If I were President, what positions would I hold? What would my priorities be? Be honest. If, say, self-enrichment and personal convenience is the most important thing to you, own it. If taking care of others is most important, own that. If spending your money on...
The major players of American “neo-liberalism” — which might be more accurately called “neo-corporatism” — are panicking. Thanks to their abject failure to provide “Change You Can Believe In,” their failure to stem the tide of angry right-wing extremism, and their systematic “free trade” evisceration of the middle class, the Clintons, Joe Biden, and Barack...
An Open Letter to Councilmember Hugo Soto-MartinezDear Councilmember Soto-Martinez,
The man you replaced, Mitch O’Farrell, was perceived by many as a cynical politician who placed the desires of wealthy real-estate developers over the concerns of the people he was supposed to represent. Sensitive to any perception of impropriety, you’ve made it a point to not accept…
For more than forty years one of our favorite writers, Detroit-based Peter Werbe, has been publishing provocative essays about capitalism, technology, religion, politics, and popular culture in the anarchist journal The Fifth Estate, where he’s long been an indispensable member of the editorial collective. Some of his best work is now organized in a compulsively readable...
