#Daniel Luban, The Nation, 2.8 - 15.2021. - "The 19th century economic order was overthrown not by mass movements or vanguardist parties, but by the modern corporation and the administrative state. 'The difference between a stabilized and regulated statism, and a mechanized and streamlined socialism is not very great,' [Werner] Sombart, [a German sociologist], wrote, 'for in both cases the entire economy rests on the basis of dependulization. Capitalism stems from the specifically hierarchical and individualistic nature of Western cultures, and these underlying traits are likely to persist well into the future. Likewise, the two specific cultural traits are the distinctively Western building blocks of capitalism -- hierarchy and individualism -- raise more questions than they answer. Aren't hierarchy and individualism parts of many different societies, not just Western ones? And couldn't individualism be more an effect of capitalism than the cause of it?"

"Certainly, it reflects a tendency to conceive of capitalism in terms of a set of discrete national economies rather than an inherently interlinked global system. For instance, one suggestive way of conceiving capitalism is in terms of 'market dependence,' the extent to which participation in markets becomes mandatory for survival. Imagine, for instance, a universal basic income program generous enough to ensure a reasonably comfortable standard of living. This guarantee of subsistence would remove the most important form of market dependence. At the very least, anti-capitalists should be prepared to answer the question of those who argue that 'the capitalist/socialist dichotomy is useless,' because it is 'political rather than analytical. In other words, there's no objective set of categories to tell us where one ends and the other begins.' "

#Bankaj Mishra, "Struggle Sessions," The New Yorker, February 1, 2021. - "Much murderous insanity erupted after 1966, but the Cultural Revolution's most iconic images remain those of the struggle sessions: Victims with bowed heads in dunce caps, the outlandish accusations against them scrawled on heavy signboards hanging from their necks."

"According to [Chinese journalist Jisheny] Yang, as many as a million and a half people were killed, thirty-six million persecuted, and a hundred million altogether affected in a countryside upheaval that lasted with varying intensity, for a decade. -- from 1966 to 1976, when Mao died."

"With the Cultural Revolution, he [Mao] seemed to sideline economic development in favor of a large-scale engineering of human souls and minds." "All factions claimed recognition as the true voice of the Chairman. By early 1967, workers had joined the fray, most significantly in Shanghai, where they surpassed Red Guards in revolutionary fervor." "Growing alarmed by the sight of continuous revolution, Mao tried to restore order in the cities, exiling millions of young urban men and women to the countryside to 'learn from the peasants.' "

The great question of China's Maoist experiment looms over the United States as Donald Trump vacates the White House: Why did a rich and powerful society suddenly start destroying itself? 'There were' [Tony] Judt wrote, 'no external inputs, no new kinds of people only the political class breeding itself.' "Trump emerged six years later, channeling an iconoclastic fury at the inbred class and its cherished monuments. But the problems of political representation debilitating society remain treacherously unresolved. From transactional years of Trump passing into history, the United States seems to have completed only the first phase of its own cultural revolution."

#Jon Lee Anderson, "The Vanishing Wild" The New Yorker, February 1, 2021. - "For decades, tourism accounted for about a tenth of the Kenyan economy, largely driven by the country's natural splendor." "Fifty years ago, Kenya had a hundred and sixty thousand elephants. Today, there are thirty-five thousand. A population of twenty thousand black rhinos is down to about a thousand, and only two northern white rhinos remain."

"Land that has always been held communally is split into individual plots --but the new owners often find that their parcels are not large enough to maintain their traditional way of life." "For conservationists, the challenge is to convince indigenous people that tourism and eco-businesses can earn them as much as selling their land or leasing it to commercial farmers."

"The carnivore ecologist Mordecai Ogoda has drawn attention by campaigning against what he calls 'white colonist' control of wildlife tourism and conservation. The Kenyan conservationist, Kahumbu, profiled in 'The New Yorker,' has said: 'Wildlife numbers are plummeting across the continent without the buy-in of Africans. My bottom line on this issue of the apparent racial divide in conservation is that we cannot really complain if we are not taking action. We must be the catalysts for the change we want to see."

"Over the years, more than seventy rangers have been killed in gun battles with poachers; hundreds more have been wounded."

#Jamie Raskin's Jiujitsu Trap- MSNBC's legal analyst has said that: "Jamie Raskin is using a great deal of constitutional jujitsu here." He and his fellow managers "did not issue a subpoena, they just requested or invited him to come, and President Trump declined." The analyst said that the Senate would be able to  take "that negative inference from a defendant's silence, which would set a precedent for any future criminal trial against Mr. Trump."

#In the House debate on impeachment, Jason Smith of Missouri said that impeachment would "bring up the hate and fire more than ever before." Bob Good of Virginia cautioned  that impeachment would "further offend Trump voters." "In the end, it is the Republicans who seem frightened -- paralyzed by fear," -- as Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat put it.