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Ron Brownstein notes in a  terrific new National Journal column just how striking it is  to see a major American political party decide, all at once, to reject  climate science in its entirety. (via Jay Rosen)

The revolutionary chants on the streets of Egypt have resonated around the world, but with a popular uprising without a clear direction and an unpopular leader refusing to concede, Egypt's future hangs in the balance. Riz Khan talks to Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek about the power of popular dissent, the limits of peaceful protest and the future of Egyptian politics.

I don't know the intentions of each of the people taking part in the riots today. I don't know for sure what the intentions of any of them are. But I do know this: every act is a political act. Whether it is intended to make a point about the government's macro-economic policy or intended to allow a pair of trainers to be stolen, the smashing of a window is a clear demonstration of a refusal to buy into society as it stands. However an arsonist explains their flames, whether they burn a building for fun, or with the intention of bringing about revolution, they are saying this: "The world I find myself in is not one in which I have a stake. It is not one I was allowed to help build. It is one which I am happy to burn".

Charles and David Koch seem less confident these days. The brothers - who inherited money from their dad and grew it into America's largest collection of dirty industries - have decided they need to fight back. That's not surprising. Since Koch-sponsored secret meetings were revealed, secret planning with Supreme Court Justices was exposed, and secret funding of right wing groups became apparent, Americans have begun to wonder just how much influence these guys have purchased. Read more: http://technorati.com/politics/article/the-koch-brothers-are-getting-nervous/#ixzz1IXD3a4Zw

Extortion Politics: Why Won't American Business Stop the GOP From Threatening to Blow Up the Economy?

Note:  Today marks the start of our series "Images of Freedom."  In this lead, Edward Miller discusses the virtues of Georgist political economy, and how structural inequality, especially through land value, can be a threat to liberty.  

The first thing that you should know about the American political movement is that you're going to be focused on two major things

With the rise of cell phone usage, candidates across the country are starting to use mobile texting as an effective campaign tool. As mobile computing blurs the line between online and offline campaigning, we are going to see more use of crossover technologies by political campaigns.

5 Website Secrets Your Political Opponent Doesn't Know

This article will allow me to evaluate the mainstream media's interpretation of the Other Campaign. Expectedly, it is full of jokes and superfluity and lacking in legitimate analysis. The NYT guy said that Marcos was vague about what the Other Campaign is about. They say Marcos "even tried to undermine" the "popular leftist candidate," the one from the PRD, who would sell out the country. "Precisely what Marcos hopes to accomplish with the meetings and with a planned national tour by a group of Zapatista representatives remains murky. He has not defined how he would change the Constitution." They say that the EZLN hasn't launched another military offensive because they were pushed back into the jungle by the military in 1995. in article: Still others say Marcos's call for a broad movement reflects a widespread disappointment with left-leaning politicians throughout Latin America, who have become enmeshed in the sort of corruption scandals they once criticized. "What they are saying represents a trend in Latin America, which is that people have lost faith in political parties," said Peter M. Rosset, an expert in agricultural policy who attended the meeting on Sunday. "The basic feeling is that the political class is all the same." That sentiment was expressed over and over here in San Miguel, a former 15,000-acre ranch that the Zapatistas seized in 1994 and divided among former Indian ranch hands. "This movement, for me, its historic," said Arturo Guzmán González, a 29-year-old singer who did a version a cappella of his protest song, "Manifestarse." "It has a moral base, this movement. They seek the words of everyone."

I was a Joe Biden fan long before I had heard of Barack Obama. Unfortunately, and to the dismay of this independent voter, the Obama political machine is making a big deal out of nothing for Biden's support of same sex marriage .

OBAMA WAS PUT IN OFFICE BY THE SAME PEOPLE THAT PUT GEORGE BUSH IN OFFICE, THE BILDERBURGERS. THAT IS WHY HE IS FOLLING BUSHES POLICIES AND HAS BROKEN ALMOST EVERY CAMPAIGN PROMISE. BOYCOTT ALL LIBERAL MEDIA ADVERTISERS UNTIL THEY STOP DISTORTING THE EWS FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES. WE CAN DO THIS! PASS THIS ON AND ENCOURAGE OTHERS OT WATCH THE BANKER CONTROLED NES MEDIA RE-ELECT BARAK OBAMA.

Plato and Aristotle are our oldest political thinkers. Surprisingly, the same debates that guided Plato and Aristotle's work remain with us today. What is the good life? What is justice? What is the best regime?

Wikimedia Commons/thesupermat. Some rights reserved. So we are all 'populist' now? Many in the media and in academia seem to think so. In Europe, various political movements and politicians are described as 'populist'.

One of the singular victories of the rich has been convincing the rest of us that their disproportionate success has been due to abstract economic forces beyond anyone's control (technology, globalization, etc.), not old-fashioned power politics. Hopefully the financial crisis and the recession that has ended only on paper (if that) will provide the opportunity to teach people that there is no such thing as abstract economic forces; instead, there are different groups using the political system to fight for larger shares of society's wealth. And one group has been winning for over thirty years.