Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders had a dust-up in January. After that, a number of Sanders supporters directed the snake emoji at Warren on social media. You know the one. It’s the one in the photo above. What’s going on here? Is Warren a snake?
No, not exactly. Or so I’ll argue. Sanders supporters got it wrong with the snake emoji. But I don’t think they know why they got it wrong. I’ll say a bit about why and what I think they miss.
I tried to buy The ABCs of Socialism one time. I messed up and bought The ABCs of Capitalism instead. Doing the best I could with the situation, I read the pamphlets and wrote an overview. As it turned out, they’re a – decent, not great – socialist overview of capitalism.
This time I bought the real thing: The ABCs of Socialism, from Bhaskar Sunkara‘s Jacobin crew. Like much of what’s going on in the Jacobin world, it’s influential among many people in the social democratic-to-socialist left. And I think it has much to offer people in that camp.
For the sixth installment of the Foreign Policy 101 series, let’s move to sub-Saharan Africa. We’ll take a look at U.S. policy in Nigeria. In most of these foreign policy posts, I approach policy through issues of war and peace. That’s a bit less useful in Nigeria, where economic issues loom large. The extraction of resources looms largest.
Oh, the U.S. fights wars in the region. But not as often as other places and not often at all in Nigeria. The U.S. has long been a Nigerian ally. It spends most of its time there managing its economic interests, especially via primitive accumulation. The U.S. state – and both U.S. and European NGOs – uses Nigeria as a place for gathering capital.
Hi folks! I wanted to send along an announcement that Base and Superstructure now has a Patreon page. I’m happy to accept monthly patrons starting at $3 per month.
The blog itself will always remain free of charge! But I’ll have a few extras for patrons.
To check out the page, click here or navigate using the toolbar at the top of this page.
Two years ago – on June 22, 2018 – Mattachine Society president and pre-Stonewall gay rights activist Dick Leitsch died at the age of 83. I’ll share with readers what I wrote about him in a Facebook post a few weeks ago. I wanted to highlight him and his work for Pride Month.
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