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Remembering the Boxer Uprising: A righteous fist
IN A schoolyard in a village on the dusty north China plain, martial artists drill children in the stylised kicks and punches of Plum Flower Boxing. This discipline, they proudly claim, spearheaded the Boxer Uprising of 1900. In a village recreation room, musicians practise the ear-splitting tunes which their ancestors played for Boxer braves heading into battle with the foreign “hairy ones”. Folk memories abound of an event that transformed the country's relationship with the West, and its own view of itself.
Wall Street, investment bankers, and social good
A few months ago, I came across an announcement that Citigroup, the parent company of Citibank, was to be honored, along with its chief executive, Vikram Pandit, for “Advancing the Field of Asset Building in America.” This seemed akin to, say, saluting BP for services to the environment or praising Facebook for its commitment to privacy. During the past decade, Citi has become synonymous with financial misjudgment, reckless lending, and gargantuan losses: what might be termed asset denuding rather than asset building. In late 2008, the sprawling firm might well have collapsed but for a government bailout.
How Dems Allowed the Tea Party to Rebrand the GOP
TRNN Replay (first published days before the 2010 elections) - Paul Jay: Top six ways Obama and the Democratic Party allowed a resurgence of the Republicans 2013-02-27 10:47:21 Transcript PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to the The Real News Network, I'm Paul Jay in Washington. On Tuesday, American voters are going to choose which section of the American elite they want to govern them. Who says that's the choice?
Petty China's Nobel problems to continue
China reacted initially by terming the award an “obscenity” and demanded an apology. It accused Europeans generally of using the Nobel prize as part of a plot to contain China. It has also accused the West of trying to force its values on China. Now, however, the focus is on the scheduled formal ceremony for the conferment of the award in Oslo on Dec. 10, at a grand ceremony in the presence of the king and queen of Norway. It is unclear who will receive the award on Liu's behalf.
The Federal Reserve will pump $600 billion more into the US economy and keep interest rates at historical low levels. The short-term impact of the Fed?s move, known as quantitative easing, has been a jump in stock prices across the globe. Many nations, however, have accused the United States of waging a currency war by devaluing the dollar.
Michael Hudson, former Wall Street economist: New $600B Fed Stimulus Fuels Fears of U.S. Currency War
false consciousness
Author: Daniel Little University of Michigan-Dearborn “False consciousness” is a concept derived from Marxist theory of social class. The concept refers to the systematic misrepresentation of dominant social relations in the consciousness of subordinate classes. Marx himself did not use the phrase “false consciousness,” but he paid extensive attention to the related concepts of ideology and commodity fetishism.