One reader's rave

"Thanks for the newspaper with your book review. I can’t tell you how impressed I am with this terrific piece of writing. It is beautiful, complex, scholarly. Only sorry Mr. Freire cannot read it!" -- Ailene

Cassie Jaye, the day before I met her at the _Red Pill_ world premiere

Friday, September 18, 2026

National Tall Hall: Declaration of Independence from the Medical-Industrial Complex

https://nationalsinglepayer.com/declaration-of-independence/ 

Coming up 10/14/2026:

 

A NATIONAL VIRTUAL TOWN HALL

On this 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we declare it is time for the people to rise up, organize, take control of the health care system, and run it in the interest of the public instead of in the interest of profit. It’s time for comprehensive, universal, national Medicare for All, free from profit!

  

Skyrocketing health insurance premiums, deductibles, copays, and denials, and crushing medical debt are overwhelming millions of Americans while expired ACA tax credits, life-threatening cuts to Medicaid, and rising health care costs deepen uncertainty for families. The closure of rural hospitals will put millions of rural residents at risk.

Historic public support for a national health program, free from insurance companies and financed through progressive taxes, presents us with a new opening for National Improved Medicare for All, free from profit, guaranteeing coverage for everyone, permanently resolving these crises, lowering costs, and ending medical debt.

Instead, policymakers continue to offer half-measures: meaningless proposals that prop up the ACA, deadly high-deductible junk insurance, and misleading schemes like “Medicare by Choice.” A profit-driven system cannot be repaired with incremental fixes. We have the hard facts from a century of failed attempts to prove it.

Let’s not miss this unique opportunity to achieve national single payer.

The time is now to:

Declare our independence from the U.S. medical-industrial complex: insurance companies and middlemen sucking public dollars, pharmaceutical companies holding us hostage, private equity and venture capital owning the delivery of care, profit-generating “nonprofit” health and hospital systems, compromised academic centers and endowed nonprofit organizations, and all politicians who accept political contributions to work for the industry instead of for the people.

After our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury, we:

Demand that our government recognize health care as a human right.

Demand the elimination of private health insurance and the banning of for-profit delivery of care.   

Demand the enactment of a publicly financed, national single payer program that provides comprehensive coverage to everyone from cradle to grave and the passage of improved H.R 3069 Medicare for All, free from profit.

Demand that health care delivery be transformed from profit-seeking ventures into services organized to serve the people of our country, a system in which all caregivers are freed from corporate control.

If you wish to sign this Declaration as an individual, please click here. If you wish to sign this Declaration as an authorized representative of an organization, please click here. We will forward your signed Declaration to your elected officials and candidates running for office. 

On October 14 at 8 pm Eastern, join NSP, elected officials, and candidates in a virtual National Town Hall, as we declare our independence from the medical-industrial complex and demand the passage of improved H.R. 3069 (119th Congress), a comprehensive, universal, national Medicare for All, free from profit.

We will not settle for less.

 

 

 

Thursday, September 03, 2026

Online Reading Group: What is the Left? -- What is Marxism?

 

Platypus Philadelphia
What is the Left? -- What is Marxism? 

Monday, 7 PM EST
September 7, 2026
Online meet (Collaborative with Platypus Boston!)
 

 
To be radical is to go to the root of the matter. For man, however, the root is man himself.
— Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843)

Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract (1762)

(• required / + recommended reading)

 • Max Horkheimer"The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)
• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by James Miller (on Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marxon "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)
+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)
+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)
Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms
• Jean-Jacques RousseauDiscourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754) PDFs of preferred translation (5 parts): [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
• Rousseauselection from On the Social Contract (1762) [on freedom and alienation]

Saturday, August 08, 2026

Seminar: How to Discuss AI Extinction Risk with Your Congressional Representatives

 

ControlAI seminar with Connor Leahy: how to discuss AI extinction risk with your congressional representatives

Every August, members of Congress work from their home district instead of DC. Congressional offices count every letter, call and meeting they receive. A constituent asking to sit down is the best signal they can get, and we're going to help you schedule a meeting and demand action on the risk of extinction from AI.

​Connor Leahy, US Director of ControlAI and founder of the AI safety research company Conjecture, has met with dozens of congressional offices. He'll walk through how a lawmaker meeting actually works, what to say and what to ask for. Then, we will help you send a meeting request to your own representative's office before the session ends.

​We'll follow up with everything you need to prepare for the meeting itself, and check in afterwards to hear how it went.

​No experience or policy background is needed. The event is open to all US constituents.

Register here: https://luma.com/21cpku2b 

ControlAI is a nonprofit working to prevent extinction risk from artificial superintelligence.

 

Friday, July 31, 2026

Green Party of Washington Endorses Kshama Sawant for U.S. Congress

 

Tuesday, July 21, 2026

One Seat in Congress Can Change the Country

 

"I only have one seat" is not an excuse, as Kshama Sawant proved during her ten years on Seattle's city council. With only one seat she won nationally unprecedented renters' rights, the highest minimum wage in the country, and other major victories for working people. She was able to win these things because she didn't "go along to get along" -- she used her office as an organizing center for mass working-class mobilization. She intends to transform national politics in the same way if she wins her race for Congress, which is why anyone who cares about the direction of this country should be actively supporting her campaign.

Watch the rally here: fstube.net/w/cwK8iFBwkNg1LnGvBXMWEj 


Wednesday, July 08, 2026

Over $11K Have Now Been Donated from "Melt ICE" Sales


Minnesota Artists United Against ICE has sent out an update on the funds it has raised through sales of the "Melt ICE" compilation, which I purchased several months ago. The music (110 tracks) is uniformly of high quality and I've already been moved to check out the other work of several of the artists.  They write:

We are happy to report that as of today, July 8, your generous support has allowed us to donate a total of $11,310 to MNTogether since February. Monthly donations have been made based on the amount received from Bandcamp (minus fees for payment processing + taxes).

We will continue to donate funds as we receive them to help our community members recover from the impact of Operation Metro Surge.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, and we hope you have enjoyed the music.

Best,
Organizers Anna Devine, Jonny Fuller & Ryan Kemp
 

As explained on their Bandcamp page: “Melt ICE” is a Mutual Aid Compilation album featuring 100+ Minnesota musicians against the occupation of federal agents terrorizing our communities and ripping families apart. We strongly condemn the actions of ICE and Border Patrol agents in our home state.

One of the songs on the compilation can be heard here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZXwl85R3hq/

Monday, July 06, 2026

"The timeline is not years, it is months."

 

An update from ControlAI:

 

Last week 'Five Eyes' — a joint intelligence sharing operation between the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — shared a statement on recent AI developments:

"Frontier AI models are anticipated to exceed current industry expectations, fundamentally transforming both offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. The timeline is not years, it is months."
Expect to see more warnings like this as AI companies recklessly continue to pursue superintelligent AI. More key defence organisations are taking the risks seriously as the fruits of unregulated AI development can no longer be ignored.
However, there is a better path, a good future, if we can take it.
It starts with you.
Signature
Andrea Miotti,
Executive Director, Control AI