Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Month: March 2019 (Page 1 of 2)

“Are You Related to that Baseball Player?”

March 28, 2019 /
Doug Drabek

Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kyle_Drabek_with_his_father_Doug.jpg)

Today is opening day for the 2019 baseball season. We’re finally done with all that ‘pace of play‘ nonsense! I’m going to write a bit about a question I sometimes get: Drabek? Have I heard that name before? Are you related to that baseball player?

Why, yes! Or, at least, kinda. We’re distant cousins. Both our families are from Texas, and specifically the Houston area. But we don’t know each other. My family holds a reunion each year, and as far as I know, Doug Drabek doesn’t attend. Neither do I, for that matter.

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North Korea Policy 101

March 25, 2019 /
North Korea arirang

Source: Roman Harak (https://www.flickr.com/photos/roman-harak/5015832858)

We know Trump eats up most of the news cycle these days. Not much foreign policy gets through unless it’s about Russia. But there have been a lot of developments in relations between the US and Asian countries, particularly North Korea.

It’s all over the map. No pun intended.

I also think much of the US left still needs basic orientation around foreign policy issues. A few well known analysts (e.g., Noam Chomsky) talk a good game, but even Noam focuses on details that might not be helpful for beginners.

I’m writing about North Korea in this post. But at a broader level, I’m going to write a series of 101 level posts on foreign policy in the coming months. I’ll write in a way that doesn’t require the reader to have much prior background.

In these posts, I won’t hash out every minor detail. Nor will I solve every problem. It’s more about getting down the basics about what’s happening and how to reason through issues regarding the US’s relationship with the world.

My leading questions are: what are these conflicts really about? What are the underlying issues and interests at stake?

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The Demographics of a Bernie Sanders Victory

March 18, 2019 /
Bernie Sanders

Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bernie_Sanders_2015_(1).jpg)

Let’s suppose it’s April 2020, and the New York Times reports that Bernie Sanders has just won enough delegates to clinch the Democratic Party nomination for President. Bernie will face Trump in November for the presidency.

How did he get there? What does a Bernie Sanders victory look like? And who’s a part of a winning Bernie Sanders coalition?

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“Should I Write About That Politician?”

March 14, 2019 /

I write a lot in this blog about political issues, and I try to keep individual personalities out of politics as much as possible. If politics is about any specific thing, it’s about collective struggles over things like ownership and control of resources, rights, representation, et al. If you want something even more vague and unhelpful, I could stick with Aristotle and say it’s about the “affairs of the city.”

My point is that it’s not about individual personalities.

But that’s easier said than done. When I’m thinking about what to write in this blog, individual personalities frequently come to mind. In fact, I’ve devoted an entire category to an American political movement organized around an individual personality. Yes, that one.

And so, it turns out I find myself writing about specific people. When is it best to write about specific people? Here are my thoughts.

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