Is Democratic Capitalism In Danger?

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“In the quest for growth, many countries have neglected to build a reliable system of social security that will help citizens buffer the market’s volatility.

(…) Democratic capitalism’s greatest problem is not that it will destroy itself economically, as Marx would have it — but that it may lose its political support.” — Raghuram Rajan

Professor Rajan’s idea that capitalism might lose its “democratic support” unless it protected its citizens with a reliable social net just wont leave me alone, I keep coming back to it over and over again … especially when the entire system’s trend at this moment seems to be going in exactly the opposite direction: leaning toward reducing not enlarging “entitlements” and the worse things get, the more cuts are being put on the table and the more entitlements are being taken off.

Political Prisoner Oscar Lopez And The United States’ Subjugation Of Puerto Rico

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With Eric Holder on his way out the door as Attorney General, many Puerto Ricans are stepping up their calls for President Barack Obama to pardon 71-year-old political prisoner Oscar López Rivera, who has spent the last 33 years behind bars for seditious conspiracy. The holiday season is a common time for Presidents to use their power to grant clemency, but this was not to be in 2014 for the President who has granted the fewest pardons in modern times.

For Puerto Ricans, dismissal of their political demands is emblematic of their subjugation as colonial subjects.

In December, at a concert in San Juan, reggaeton singer René Pérez Joglar of the band Calle 13 brought López’s daughter Clarissa on stage to read a letter pleading for her father’s release. After winning the silver medal in judo in the Central American and Caribbean games in November, Augusto Miranda told the press: “I want to use this forum for all the people of Puerto Rico and the United States. It’s an abuse what they’ve done to Oscar López Rivera, political prisoner. It’s time to give him his freedom.”

AL And His Best Bud Gerry Mander

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The Supreme Court is set to hear a case concerning gerrymandering in Alabama, specifically the recent case spearheaded by Alabama Republicans. Generally, as is the case with the current Alabama ballyhoo, politicians squeeze or stretch the lines of voting districts in an effort to stack them in their favor or to hurt their opponent.

The case that the Supreme Court will be hearing concerns changes made in 2010 by Alabama’s majority Republican legislature which consolidated black voters into already majority black districts. The intended outcome of this is obvious: if Southern black voters, who generally vote for Democrats, are consolidated together into voting districts, their vote will have less of an impact in elections.

Our law actually allows for politicians to lump people into voting districts to stack bigger districts with their constituents in an effort to affect the outcome of elections. Therefore, it is not the indecency of southern conservatives that is the root of this problem, it is the age-old practice of gerrymandering that should truly be on trial.

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