Socialdem. 21st Century

The veteran ex-CIA officer Ray McGovern, of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and who chaired the US National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President’s Daily Brief in the 1980s, citing actual well-placed sources in the US government, gives us what sounds to me like the truth about this chemical attack in Syria:[embedded content]This confirms the same intelligence reported to Philip Giraldi by intelligence and military personnel on the ground in the Middle East as...

See this analysis at Zerohedge:Tyler Durden, “Former CIA Officer: ‘The Intelligence confirms the Russian Account on Syria,’” Zerohedge.com, 8 April, 2017.In essence, even though there aren’t any big-name Neocons in high-level positions in the Trump administration, it is the National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster who is supporting a return to Neoconservative-style policies in Syria:“Just two days after news broke of an alleged poison-gas attack in northern Syria, President Trump brushed...

If the Trump administration moves to support the failed Neocon and Liberal interventionist polices of overthrowing the Assad regime in Syria, it will be another bloody disaster for the Middle East. In brief, the US launched an attack of 50–60 Tomahawk missiles against the Syrian Shayrat airbase near Homs, in retaliation for the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime near Idlib, in an area held by Islamist rebels. The Russians were warned in advance, and “U.S. military planners...

Henry Sidgwick (31 May 1838–28 August 1900) was an English philosopher and economist of the late 19th century. On economics, Henry Sidgwick was a something of a hybrid figure: he was not quite an orthodox neoclassical, but at the same time he had moved on from Classical Political Economy too. In politics, he was not quite a conservative, but not an orthodox Classical Liberal either.At any rate, in his book The Elements of Politics (2nd rev. edn., 1897), we have this discussion of...

Steve Keen gives a lecture here on Minsky’s theories and the global financial crisis:[embedded content]Realist LeftRealist Left on Twitter @realistleftRealist Left on RedditRealist Left BlogRealist Left on YouTubeLord Keynes on FacebookSocial Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern LeftAlt Left on the Internet:Alternative Left on FacebookAlt-Left on Google+Alt-Left Closed Facebook GroupPrince of Queens YouTube Channel Prince of Queens on...

Steve Keen gives a lecture here on the Euro Crisis:[embedded content]Realist LeftRealist Left on Twitter @realistleftRealist Left on RedditRealist Left BlogRealist Left on YouTubeLord Keynes on FacebookSocial Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern LeftAlt Left on the Internet:Alternative Left on FacebookAlt-Left on Google+Alt-Left Closed Facebook GroupPrince of Queens YouTube Channel Prince of Queens on TwitterSamizdat: For the Freedom...

Keynes views on population growth and immigration can be easily found from a reading of John Toye’s book Keynes on Population (Oxford, 2000; reviews of the book include Dimand 2003 and Harcourt 2002). The purpose of this post is not to evaluate whether Keynes was right on every detail, but to just state what he thought on this subject in the years before the First World War. In 2 May 1914, Keynes gave a paper called “Is the Problem of Population a Pressing and Important one Now?” at New...

Steve Keen gives a lecture here on the effects of austerity:[embedded content]Realist LeftRealist Left on Twitter @realistleftRealist Left on RedditRealist Left BlogRealist Left on YouTubeLord Keynes on FacebookSocial Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern LeftAlt Left on the Internet:Alternative Left on FacebookAlt-Left on Google+Alt-Left Closed Facebook GroupPrince of Queens YouTube Channel Prince of Queens on TwitterSamizdat: For the...

In the midst of a story about the recent failure of Ryancare, there is a gem of an anecdote about Steve Bannon:Robert Draper, “Trump vs. Congress: Now What?,” The New York Times Magazine, 26 March, 2017.In a conversation with Robert Draper, Bannon mused:“I think the Democrats are fundamentally afflicted with the inability to discuss and have an adult conversation about economics and jobs, because they’re too consumed by identity politics. And then the Republicans, it’s all this theoretical...

A poem by Rudyard Kipling:“The Stranger within my gate, He may be true or kind, But he does not talk my talk— I cannot feel his mind. I see the face and the eyes and the mouth, But not the soul behind.The men of my own stock, They may do ill or well, But they tell the lies I am wanted to, They are used to the lies I tell; And we do not need interpreters When we go to buy or sell.The Stranger within my gates, He may be evil or good, But I cannot tell what powers control— What reasons sway his...