DTP

DTP

Ameena Gafoor Institute

Public Articles - Indentured Labour — Ameena Gafoor Institute

the Guardian

The Pegasus project | The Guardian

Latest The Pegasus project news, comment and analysis from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

Berghahn Journals

Making the Case for Kleptocratic Oligarchy

Mainstream pundits, the media, and many academics represent the United States of America’s political system as a democracy, and the vast majority of its middle- and upper-middle-class citizens certainly think it is. I would like to argue against this idea, to propose instead that the US form of rule at present is not a democracy but instead an emergent kleptocratic oligarchy. According to the Webster’s Third International Dictionary (1976), this is “despotic power exercised by a privileged clique,” one moreover devoted at the most mundane level to kleptocracy, or rule while engaged in plunder of the public treasury. This emergent oligarchy is the undeclared alternative base of rule to the demos or ‘people’, whose organized governance constitutes a democracy. Although kleptocratic oligarchical rule is not entirely new to the US—the ‘Gilded Age’ from the 1880s to 1910, marked by corporate ascendancy and control of the US Senate, was very similar in many respects (Phillips 2004: 236–242)—I would argue that the contemporary American oligarchy has new strategies, organization, and objectives.

POLITICO

America’s Forgotten Internment

The United States confined 2,200 Latin Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. They’re still pushing for redress.

Aeon

Dreams are a precious resource. Don’t let advertisers hack them | Aeon Essays

Dream-hacking techniques can help us create, heal and have fun. They could also become tools of commercial manipulation

YouTube

Autonomous Weapons Are Unstoppable

Autonomous weapons are taking over modern warfare. Support me through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thehatedone - or donate anonymously:Monero:84DYxU8rPzQ...

CNBC

DC attorney general wants to hold Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible for Cambridge Analytica scandal

The District of Columbia's attorney general added Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a defendant in a complaint over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Business Insider

Millennials own nothing because the economy screwed us over for 25 years — but older generations still try and blame it on our work ethic

Older generations don't understand just how much harder it is for millennials and younger generations to build wealth.

YouTube

Bitter Lake History Edited

It argues that Western politicians have manufactured a simplified story about militant Islam into a good vs. evil argument, informed by and a reaction to Wes...

ProPublica

Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge.

Judge Donna Scott Davenport oversees a juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, Tennessee, with a staggering history of jailing children. She said kids must face consequences, which rarely seem to apply to her or the other adults in charge.

Nature Sustainability

From Mario Kart to pro-poor environmental governance - Nature Sustainability

Improving environmental stewardship requires improvement of the options available down to the poorest resource users. Agriculture will no longer be the path to development and better options that it once was, without rethinking how and where to intervene. An iconic video game provides a lens into how this can happen.