It might be said that one of the key questions facing the Left -- the section that takes electoral politics as an arena of struggle -- regarding the 2008 elections is how to assess the relative importance of defeating McCain versus using the elections to create of a base for progressive politics.

The upsurge in activity behind Obama comes from a ( Read more... )

Another ten-minute post ( Read more... )

In case you were wondering where food riots have broken out in the past month or so, the Guardian has compiled a map.

I'm not yet clear on the reason for rising food prices.

"However, the fact that Barack Obama openly defines himself as a centrist invites the formation of this progressive force within his coalition. Anything less could allow his eventual drift towards the right as the general election approaches. It was the industrial strikes and radical organizers in the 1930s who pushed Roosevelt to support the New ( Read more... )

quickly now -- I'm blogging this in ten minutes or less cause I can't sleep ( Read more... )

Here's a link to the full text of Obama's speech.

Comment will be reserved for a later date.

Dollars and Sense has a good article on the recent subprime crisis.

D and S also has a good assessment of recent economic history here.

The section on "Lordship and Bondage" is one of the most famous passages from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit; I think Fanon calls it the dialectic of the Master and the Slave, although the Bondsman is something ( Read more... )

Jeff Chang has written a blog entry regarding the Latino and Asian American vote swinging to Clinton.

Robert Lovato has written that the Latino vote did not, in fact, swing hard to Clinton.

The usual suspects (The Nation, The American Prospect) are also alive with political punditry of this sort.

The elections give me cause to reflect on Jean Paul- ( Read more... )

After the Preface we get... the Introduction, of course.  I guess I will have to look up exactly what the difference is between a preface and an intro.  Anyway, the introduction seems concerned with the methodology of Phenomenology of Spirit and the ideas associated with the methodology.   Crucial to this discussion is  the nature of thinking and ( Read more... )

Hegel writes his lengthy preface to Phenomenology of Spirit in order to emphasize that a preface, as is conventionally understood, is not possible.  One cannot simply state the aims and results of the philosophical investigation, and differentiate it from other contemporary and historical trends of thought; the way that, for instance, one may be ( Read more... )