Up From Facebook

It wasn’t Hitler or Himmler who deported me, beat me, and shot my family. It was the shoemaker, the milkman, the neighbor, who were given a uniform and then believed they were the master race. ~Karl Strojka, Auschwitz

1989 was supposed to be the end of all that: fascism had been defeated, and now communism had fallen, first that year in eastern Europe, and then two years later in the Soviet Union. But history did not end; and the belief that it had accelerated some of the more dangerous trends. Communism continued in North Korea and China, where party leaders managed to combine one-party rule with capitalism. That economic system proved compatible with essentially any form of politics. Post-communist Russia became a pioneer of extreme inequality of wealth, bringing with it oligarchy and ultimately fascism and a war of aggression in Ukraine. That inequality was characteristic of the United States as well, making social mobility difficult and opening political possibilities for those able to choose enemies and punish them. Fascism, defeated in war, now returned, first quietly, and then openly. The internet, far from spreading knowledge and reason, favored conspiracy thinking and habits of mind inconsi...

Malaria was eliminated from the US by a concerted effort to eliminate Anopheles mosquito habitats and the application of DDT. Now, tick-borne diseases are replacing malaria as a public health menace. “ Whereas malaria progressed from disease understanding to elimination within 50 years, Lyme disease has expanded dramatically in  incidence  and  geographic reach  over a similar period. Moreover,  other tick-borne diseases  have emerged and expanded alongside Lyme: babesiosis, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, and a growing number of other pathogens.   “The public health burden of the tick-borne disease epidemic has become substantial, with  incidence rates  exceeding 100 per 100,000 population in some endemic areas in the U.S. Allergic reactions to tick bites, specifically alpha-gal syndrome ("red meat" allergy), have also emerged as a major public health concern, with  tens of thousands of suspected cases  identified in the U.S. in recent...

Diesel prices are skyrocketing as we head into the midterms. Trump’s elective war in the Middle East has slowed oil production and refining. While Trump tries to shift blame to Ukraine’s bombing of Russian diesel refineries, that is dwarfed by the consequences of blocking the Strait of Hormuz and the recent bombing of a Saudi pipeline that had been used to bypass the strait. “ Priyanka Shankar   at Al Jazeera reminds us that there is yet another driver of inflation in all this. Refineries produce gasoline, diesel and distillates, and sell the heavy fuel oil (HFO) left over, “bunker fuel,” to shipping companies. But there is a shortage of bunker fuel. Not only has the Netanyahu-Trump war on Iran taken several million barrels of crude oil off the market daily, but the high price of diesel means that refineries are now making another pass at the HFO and turning it into diesel rather than selling it at a lower price for ships. Less supply and stable demand equals higher prices, and the...

I think these ‘culture war’ kind of issues are necessary to keep their base in marching formation with a party that has always primarily sought to enrich the wealthiest Americans. You’ve always kind of needed the bigotry to keep these camps together. ~Kate Riga

I graduated from a state university with a BA and from a different state university with a PhD. After that, I did a postdoc at an elite private university and served as faculty for 37 years at a different private university. My daughter got her BA from a public university and her JD from an elite private university. So I’ve seen both public and private higher ed from the inside. My impression, both from personal experience and from reading the data is that the tuition premium charged by private colleges and universities is not repaid in post-graduation earnings. Today, the reputational branding of elite colleges and universities is being questioned. “ Regardless of whether one sees these developments as an overdue correction or as a scramble to minimize the damage being wrought by the Trump administration, this much is clearly true: The proclamations of a handful of wealthy, hyperselective universities tell us almost nothing about the state of American higher education writ large. ...

  It needs to be understood that--as Reich points out--Fascism is not a 20th Century invention. With the institution of slavery, the glorification of conquest and the subjugation of women, the Fascist or Dominator State already appears in history. All the early agricultural/monarchist systems contained the full body of Fascist theory and practice; Hitler and Mussolini merely revived this system after it had appeared to be in eclipse due to industrialism and democracy.   ~Robert Anton Wilson