Comment by mathgenius
10 years ago
Chris Hedges writes alot about this nowadays. His background as a war reporter for nyt gives him a bit of a radical perspective, but like much of modern social commentary, it makes me depressed reading too much of it.
Joe Bageant (RIP) is really good too, and he can be funny aswell. Hedges is never humorous.
We should add Chomsky to the list, although I can't stand reading his stuff. I'm sure it's good what he writes, but he is just too high-brow for me.
Chomsky is obviously strongly influenced by Russell, he's usually on the mark but takes 25,000 words where Russell takes 500 or so to make the same point and much stronger.
Chomsky's output before the mid-70's was very highbrow, but most of it subsequently is very readable and straightforward.