Joe Costello has decades experience in politics, energy, environment, and communications. Traveled and worked across the planet. Long a student of democracy, its demise, possible revitalization.
Life in the 21st Century is reader supported, help make it sustainable by subscribing: I was never aware of Simone Weil until listening to J. Robert Oppenheimer mention her in a speech from 1955. When I first listened to the speech, I should have paid greater attention to Oppenheimer'
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“We may note in passing that one other race (not counting ourselves) has made this sharp distinction between itself and all other foreigners, namely the Hebrews. Here were two races, each very conscious of being different from its neighbors, living not very apart, yet for the most part in complete
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Once again, I’m in bed with nefarious Russians. Thanks Yasha and Evgenia Globalist Goblins in the Democratic Machine w/Joe Costello We talk to our friend Joe Costello about Trump’s tariffs, democracy, deindustrialization, the Yeltsinification of America, and the innate human desire for a communal life…NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS
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A note: Trump, as is his propensity, already caved on this issue, but here it is anyway. “By what standard then shall we rightly judge these things? By wealth? An evil test to use.” - Euripides, Electra You spend 3 months scrambling across the deserts, mountains, and selvas of Peru, get
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on the Good Doctor Thompson 20 years on, and his still astute and acute insights on the American political condition 50 years on. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/thompson-on-the-campaign-trail Well worth the read.
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The last couple days I reread Guglielmo Ferrero’s first volume of The Greatness and Decline of Rome. What a book! What a history! Funny thing, after literally reading for decades about the Roman republic and its fall, I only found Ferrero’s work a couple years ago. A book
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So be easy and free when you’re drinking with me I’m a man you don’t meet every day In the middle of the town that had no use for him when he was alive, Jimmy Carter lies in state. As the American political class grasps desperately for
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Note to Readers – Three years ago, Life in the 21st Century entered through Nigeria with Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, so it is now appropriate to exit from the Congo. Doubt there will be future posts here, I may start something further down the line
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'Cause your mornings will be brighter Break the line and tear up rules Make the most of a million times no “I myself however, when a young man, was at first led by inclination, like most others, to engage in political affairs; but in that pursuit many circumstances were
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As a life-long Jeffersonian, I never carried a very high opinion of Hamilton. However, many years ago, I read Hamilton's Report on Manufactures and was simply blown away. Few had a more accurate view of what would become the future and how to get there. Unlike Jefferson,
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“The most difficult political problem facing mankind is the centralization of power in highly technological societies.” - Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise, 1976 “There will be a further increase of useful things for useless people.” – Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality, 1970 “It is quite conceivable that the modern age―which began with
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When you kiss me Does the lipstick on your lip stick on my face When you miss me In your dreams does your lover have my face Here’s some rock and roll trivia, if there can be such a thing. Not only were the Buzzcocks essential to their era’