Max Sawicky

Left-Wing TwitterGasms: If you don’t stop, you’ll go blind

(This popped up in one of those Facebook memories things from 2018, and I think it is worth a second life here.) Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has been growing by leaps and bounds. Of course, that is from a microscopic base, relative to…

Free-Market Idolatry and Hatred of Democracy Go Hand in Hand

Review of Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy by Quinn Slobodian (Metropolitan, 2023) After reading historian Quinn Slobodian’s new book, you are not likely to think about capitalism the same way. As one…

Set It Off!

I’ll be handing this out tomorrow at Northern Virginia Community College in Loudoun, in front of the Learning Commons/Cafeteria, noon to 1. If you’re in the neighborhood, come by and say hello. Help us make some waves. If you go to Laurel Ridge, we…

Damn Finance

My two cents on SVB and Signature Bank closings. There are at least two different ways to think about this episode. The popular one is rich people got bailed out, the rest of us (e.g., student loan holders, debtors) don't, WTF. That's fine for…

Campaign Report

To date I've raised $6,348 for my campaign, most in amounts under $50. Two-thirds of it is still unspent. I'm told I will need about twenty times that to be dangerous, so keep it coming. My online newspaper ads will start popping up in a week or so.…

Equality Without Tears

One of the dumber controversies afoot is the palaver over policies aiming at “equity versus equality.” The observer might wonder, don’t these mean roughly the same thing? In the MAGA bubble, one is coded as liberal, the other as conservative. To be…

The Party that Cries Wolf

Every local office is up for election this year in Virginia, including the one I am running for – District 30 delegate to the Virginia General Assembly. So the question is what fantastical, colossal, idiotic scare the Republicans will foment this…

Sunday Quickie

https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/03/desantiss-educational-policies/ The specter of Florida. This could have used some editing, but the content is well-taken. Are fears of fascism overwrought? I have been a little impatient with academic debates…

Sexy Books!

A specter is haunting Virginia: it is Florida, under the dubious leadership of Ron ‘Meatball’ DeSantis. It may be hard to believe, but here is the latest evidence. In Fairfax County Public Schools, home to one of the best public-school systems in the…

In Praise of Book Bans

There’s a lot of it going on. Parents are appearing to speak at school board meetings, reciting the naughtiest bits from objectionable books. I’m so old it reminds me of the Starr Report’s obsession with the gamiest details of Bill Clinton’s…

If All Are Not Free, None Are Free

You’ve heard that before. It’s become a cliché that does not necessarily convince upon hearing. I would say there is more to it than meets the eye. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie elaborates to great effect. I want to add my two cents. Those…

Two Friendly Amendments to Biden's SOTU Economics

I have two beefs. Putting on my fuddy-duddy economist hat: 1. Buy American may sound great to the average person, but as industrial policy it is weak. Biden is on firmer ground with the CHIPS act. The objective for progressives is a program to…

State of the Union Notes

I watched the entire speech. It had a lot of meat and potatoes, strongly delivered, as others have noted. In his own way, Biden is a better political communicator than Obama. Obama is a great orator, but he sounds like an orator. Style aside, for me…

Against Geary Higgins and the Glory of Old Virginny

It looks like I have an opponent for the Virginia House of Delegates, District 30. His name is Geary Higgins, and he has been in Loudoun County forever. It’s funny, when I first began checking out local politics and his name came up, I thought “Who…

KIDS NEED SOCIAL SECURITY

Courtesy of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, here's a golden oldie by my former colleague Bill Spriggs on the importance of Survivors and Disability Benefits to minorities, and how they are jeopardized by privatization and other…

Forgotten Wisdom

"What the advocates of the reserve program fail to see is that the principle of full reserves, indispensable to private insurance, is not only inapplicable to social insurance programs established by the government but that, reserves or no reserves,…

Collective Bargaining for Loudoun's Teachers: An Off-Beat Take

I am not a member of the Loudoun Education Association (LEA), the labor union for teachers in my county. They are currently clamoring for collective bargaining with the Loudoun County School Board (LCSB), which ambition I unreservedly support. I’ll…

How Youngkin Divides and Conquers

My analysis of the rising tide of prejudice in Virginia, the core of my campaign for the House of Delegates seat in Loudoun County, needs refinement. My key premise remains that transphobia in the setting of local public schools is the gateway drug…

Mint the Coin!

You know about the debt limit. It’s an extra obstacle — as if we needed one — to the smooth running of the Congress, exploited by Republicans. The debt incurred by the U.S. government is founded on borrowing for spending that has already survived the…

Our Split-Level NeoFascism

In keeping with my obsessions on this substack, I need to point out that the antics of Trump’s MAGA caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives can distract from what I see as the other key dimension of political struggle in the U.S. — state and…