Escape from capitalism…

There are two great challenges to overcome in writing a history of capitalism, as John Cassidy has in his new book, “Capitalism and Its Critics”. The main one is that almost anyone, when confronted with the words “history of capitalism” and a 600-page doorstopper, will start wondering what’s on Netflix.

The Economist

Jean-Pierre Rives

JP was present at the Toulouse vs Racing game the other week. Apparently, he has little to do with rugby now. His career, or calling, post-rugby is as a sculptor and artist. When the camera found him, he was introduced as:

“one of the iconic non-Welsh rugby players of the 1970s”. Made me smile.“I was there” as the saying goes..

Yes, I know the denominators are different, but still an eye opening comparison

The U.S. healthcare industrial complex is bigger than the entire German economy.

The Fix | No Mercy / No Malice

Pope Francis’s illusions – New Statesman

If Francis was defeated in his efforts to shape the world, defeated in his attempts even to direct his Church, it was because popes can preach, appeal, convict – but not compel. The power of the papacy is, in this sense, like the light of the moon: a beautiful illusion. St Peter’s throne is also his prison cell.

Timothy Garton Ash writing in the Financial Times

Brace for disorder as the great power shifts begin

As we pass the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war in Europe, every day brings further evidence that a remarkably long-lived US-led international order is over. Everyone is now scrambling to work out what might succeed it. A new multi-polar order? Spheres of influence? A worldwide version of the 19th-century Concert of Europe? By far the most plausible answer, however, is a prolonged and dangerous period of global disorder.

James Butler writing in the LRB of the late pope, Francis

I watched the ailing Francis insist on visiting prisoners, gaspingout greetings, being present for his Easter message, speaking against the madness of rearmament and war,squeezing every last opportunity to speak to the world as it continues to erect new prisons and walls, and new oligarchic idols. ‘Today’s builders of Babel tell us that there is no room for losers, and that those who fall along the way are losers,’ Francis wrote in his last meditations on Good Friday. ‘Theirs is the construction site of Hell.’

Fill the gaps, as you think. We live within it.

Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich

What sort of people drove the Third Reich, Richard Evans asks. There is — there always is — a message for the present day.

For, since shortly after the beginning of the twenty-first century, democratic institutions have been under threat in many countries across the world. Strongmen and would-be dictators are emerging, often with considerable popular support, to undermine democracy, muzzle the media, control the judiciary, stifle opposition, and undermine basic human rights. Political corruption, lies, dishonesty and deceit are becoming the new currency of politics, with fatal results for our fundamental freedoms. Hatred and persecution of minorities are on the increase, stoked by unscrupulous politicians. The future is bleak, the prospects for freedom and democracy uncertain.

‘A new reality began to dawn’: the fall of Saigon, 50 years on

Chris Mullin writing in the Guardian.

Why, I asked Vietnam’s foreign minister, Mr Thach, didn’t you appeal to the UN when you were attacked by the Khmer Rouge, instead of invading? “We do not have such a high regard for the UN as you do,” he said.

“How so?”

His reply was devastating. “Because during the last 40 years we have been invaded by four of the five permanent members of the security council.”

Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’ – The Atlantic

“When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.” [emphasis added]

A spade, a spade. Am in Italy. It matters.

Unbridled capitalism is the ‘dung of the devil’, says Pope Francis

“The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain ‘free trade’ treaties, and the imposition of measures of ‘austerity’ which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor,” he said.

The Guardian

In the last months of his reign, Francis lashed out at the Trump administration’s plans for “mass deportations” of migrants. In a letter to American bishops that some commentators saw as containing implicit criticisms of JD Vance, Trump’s Catholic vice-president, the pope denounced measures that link “the illegal status of some migrants with criminality”. The pope received Vance for a brief personal audience on the eve of his death on Easter Monday. The US vice-president also met senior Church officials who conveyed the Vatican’s dismay about Washington’s immigration policies.

FT