Sidney Plotkin

May 25, 2023 | znetwork.org | William E. Scheuerman |Sidney Plotkin |Liberties Law

Outrage continues over Justice Neil Gorsuch’s recent remarks that policy responses to COVID-19 may represent “the greatest intrusion of civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.” Slavery, the historical exclusion of women and non-property owners from voting, Jim Crow, the abuses of the Red Scares and an infinite list of other violations of civil liberties are nothing to Gorsuch compared to asking people to wear masks and get vaccinations.

May 24, 2023 | znetwork.org | Sidney Plotkin |William E. Scheuerman

Patty Chayefsky’s film Network, an acid-laced spoof of capitalist media, reaches its climax when Chairman Arthur Jensen, leader of the fictional mega-corporation CAA, thunders his disapproval to the crazed but wildly popular anchorman, Howard Beale.

Mar 28, 2023 | znetwork.org | Sidney Plotkin |William E. Scheuerman

Capitalism, Marx said, is unceasingly prone to crisis. His observation applies as much to financial capital as to industrial capital, as the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank of New York attest. In their pursuit of profits, banks make loans that borrowers cannot repay. Why has this scenario become so deeply rooted in American capitalism and what is the state’s role in restabilizing the financial system once the house of cards begins to tremble?

Mar 2, 2023 | znetwork.org | William E. Scheuerman |Sidney Plotkin

A recent expose in The New York Times documenting how U.S. corporations exploit migrant children sheds light on a crucial issue facing the American Left. Nowadays, many left activists rightly focus on identity politics. To them, diversity is the order of the day. No argument here. Richard Penniman, aka Little Richard, said it succinctly: diversity is a beautiful bouquet of flowers. But the celebration of differences oftentimes ignores what holds us together, what we have in common.

Feb 24, 2023 | znetwork.org | Sidney Plotkin |William E. Scheuerman

Florida’s Governor DeSantis educational scheme that students need to learn the facts and nothing but the facts is likely to make teaching and learning in Florida more challenging than ever before. DeSantis’ “fact only” pedagogy mirrors that of Thomas Gradgrind, a character in Dickens’ Hard Times who sustained the Victorian status quo by teaching students how not to think.