The authoritarian right wing and their talking heads on radio, tv, and social media relentlessly stoke the anti-government, anti-semitic, anti-corporate, homo and transphobic, misogynist, and racist feelings of a frightenly large section of white people. In their spin, covid is no worse than the annual flu. Vaccines are a hoax. Invermectin is a proven cure. Masks and safety protocols are the stuff of fools and government overreach. Neither scientists nor science can be believed. The “deep state,” liberal think tanks, Big Pharma, and Anthony Fauci, a Jew, are plotting against America. And Trump is right and Biden – “Let’s go, Brandon!” – is wrong.

These messengers of lies, peddlers of death and conspiracies, and the front edge of a creeping tyranny are embedded in the country’s (dis)information ecosystem and won’t go away. Countering them is only one challenge, but big one at that for the diverse, majoritarian coaltion fighting for a future that upholds humankind’s most noble ideals.

I don’t support the provocative and dangerous expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia, but by the same token, I can’t support the imperial claims of Putin either.

The current (and general) crisis of neoliberalism isn’t a product at first remove of the contradictions internal to this (capitalist) model of political govenance and economic accumulation. Instead, it’s author is a deadly and contagious microbe and its lighting-like spread to all parts earth. It has, to paraphrase the Communist Manifesto, nestled everywhere, settled everywhere, made connections everywhere, and wreaked havoc and death everywhere. Although to be fair, the very existence of this microbe/transmissable virus, the speed of its spread, and its deadly and disruptive effects owe a large debt to its subsoil, that is, the expansionary and explotive nature of historical capitalism.

Or to put it differently, this global system of exploitation of human labor and nature, morphing and thickening over time, laid the groundwork for this modern day plague in multiple ways.

This is a big deal whose ripples will be felt in workplaces and organizing drives at Amazon and far beyond. Will it have the same impact as the Wagner Act? We’ll see. I have always belieived that a shift in the political-legal terrain is an indispensible condition of any mass breakthrough in union organizing. Somewhere in this we have to thank Biden and the NLRB.

As a young man, me and my friends would hang out in bars – my two favorites The Monkey Farm in Deep River CT and the Beer Barrel in Portland ME – on Sunday afternoon and Monday evening in the fall. There we would drink much too much beer and watch NFL football. But what made it special was the presence and voice of John Madden, first as coach of the “lunch pail/outlaw” Oakland Raiders and then as football commentator. Madden, who could make the complex play or scheme simple, was larger than life. What other football analyst and “Merry Prankster” rode his own bus back and forth across the country to cover and call games. Madden died yesterday at the age of 85 and today much of the sports world grieves. He was the “genuine article.”