From a review of Spies for Hire in DailyKos

You won’t read the words “ruling class” in Spies for Hire, and I’m sympathetic, because few writers who want to be taken seriously will unhesitatingly employ those words in public discourse these days. Not so much out of fear that Patrick Buchanan will redbait them as that many post-Cold War liberals will do so. But a slice of the ruling class is who Shorrock describes throughout his book.

Point well taken. Sure, there’s a ruling class, but calling them that does indeed, especially in America, tend to immediately turn people off and get you dismissed as an irrelevant Marxist. That’s why the Left needs new phrases and ways of explaining its often quite useful and on-target analysis.

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DSP splits in Australia along lines all familiar to the Left.

The fundamental dividing line therefore among Marxists today is between those who wish to continue with the demonstrably failed paradigm of building ideologically homogenous “parties” that are ostensibly “Leninist”, but have almost no impact on the politically relevant mainstream; and those who are prepared to work with others in the radical but pragmatic left to build a broad party in the space vacated by social democracy.

The first approach, the Leninist Party, risks becoming marginalized and ignored while often falling prey to endless factional splits over maddening obscure tenets of Marxism while the other can become diluted, losing zeal  and commitment for structural and revolutionary change.

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“We need sensible gun laws,” said the Senator. “I just got back from Montana where just about everyone has guns. In that culture, fathers and sons bond over hunting. You can’t take that away from rural America. But the inner city is different, and we should tighten the laws on gun purchases and close the loopholes in gun show sales to unscrupulous buyers. The gun control people and the right to bear arms people are talking past each other about disconnected topics.”

I completely agree. Guns are much more about the differences between cities and rural areas than Left vs. Right and need to be approached that way. Guns have been a part of life in the country for hundreds of years, and people need them, as critters sometimes want to attack and eat their livestock and crops. But  OTOH, I don’t want the driver in the car next to me during a Los Angeles freeway traffic jam to have a loaded Glock under the seat.

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Several countries are moving full speed ahead on next-gen nuclear reactors that can use reprocessed spent nuclear fuel. The US is not one of them, even though it has vast (and expensive to store) stockpiles of spent fuel being warehoused.

Will nuclear energy be a major source of power in the coming decades? Many countries think so and are planning for it. But the US lags way behind, even as its stockpiles of spent fuel grows ever higher.

Are there risks in reusing spent fuel? Yes. But there are risks in storing it too. Unless you think that renewables can handle all the load for power generation in the coming years as oil gets more expensive and coal not politically or ethically possible, then, like it or not, nuclear power will play a major role.

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Cheat Offsetting

When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in the atmosphere.

Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience.

Perhaps warlords and rogue nations could also apply this ingenious concept to murder, torture, and pillaging and, for example, pay Switzerland to do none of them while they continue doing them.

Tip: Peak Energy

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