Some Reading

• A scathing review by Marc Cooper of George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant, a popular "what do we do next" book among U.S. liberals after the Republican consolidation of November 2004. Cooper is too much the cold war liberal for me to endorse what he has to say unreservedly, but I very much enjoyed most of the vitriol in this piece. I think his concluding advice for action is limited and shallow but his slap across the face of much of U.S. liberaldom is refreshing as far as it goes. (Found via Direland.)
  
  
• This is just disturbing -- I don't understand why this article bothers to try and paint the use of DVD players that can be set to censor what you watch in 14 fun and different ways as a burning legal issue, since I would not favour in the least the state interfering in the availability of this technology. But the very fact that there is a demand for this technology is messed up.
  
  
• An useful overview article on globalization called "Glasgow and Globalization" that I include because it talks a little bit about the city in which my mother grew up. (Via ZNet.)
  
  
• "Rates of violence against women still astounding"
  
  
• A fiery indictment of the white leadership of both sides of the warring factions of the U.S. labour movement by Black trade unionists, and a call for a national convention to renew Black politics in the United States.
  
  
• An essay by Albert Einstein called "Why Socialism?" published in 1949. "[W]e should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society."
  
  
• An article on the gendering of literature directed at pre-pubescent girls. (Via Rabble.CA.)