“Is Censorship Proof of Art’s Political Power?” was just published in the Los Angeles Review of Books‘ “The Philosophical Salon.” A special thanks to Patricia Vieira and Michael Marder for their work curating this important platform.

Excerpt: “Does not the very existence of censorship prove, in reverse so to speak, that art is a sociopolitical force to be reckoned with? In other words, if censorship exists, isn’t it because aesthetics is perceived — at least by those in power — as a very real threat to the social and political order? […read more]”

A Persian translation, by Rahman Bouzari, of my op-ed in Counterpunch “Media Blackout on Nuit Debout,” was just published in Shargh Newspaper. Click here to read page 1 and here to read page 2.

My satirical op-ed, “Corporate Idiocracy and the Manufacturing of ProducTrump,” was just published in CounterPunch, along with excellent articles by Patrick Cockburn, Barbara MacLean, Ralph Nader and many others. Click here to read.

Excerpt: “Let us not […] utter the dummy’s name but instead call for a general moratorium on it. It is time to recognize it for what it is—a product of the media-money complex—and talk only of productrump, or more simply product rump. […] We must not forget that it is the system, not the person, that is the ultimate problem. In fact, there is not really a person here. There is productRump, the tail end of the corporate glitz machine, the rump of a debunk system of hype and distraction in the name of profit and power. Although this butt looms particularly large in its vulgar posturing and machismo, we must not let the backend mask what is behind it. It is only the protruding derrière of an enormous network of media-cracy—i.e. mediocrity—that has produced it [read more]”.