Nicco Mele is a man who knows the internet. The webmaster for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004 and the founder of a leading internet strategy firm, his discussion moves between the effect of Twitter on news reporting, Hollywood’s relationship with Netflix and Al Qaeda’s use of YouTube. These are only three of the many examples which make this book so interesting. The big ideas are sustained by engaging anecdotes.

The theme of Mele’s book is the effect of “radical connectivity”, which he describes as “our breathtaking ability to send vast amounts of data instantly, constantly and globally”, thus transforming politics, business and culture.

The story of robotics replacing workers in manufacturing is nothing new but now it seems that robots are moving into the once unthinkable sector of service jobs. The kind of work some previously thought only humans could do.

Meet Baxter.

If there is one thing the American people are not is a “family” with “common goals”. One percent of the population controls thirty five percent of the net worth. Twenty percent of the population controls eighty five percent of that wealth. That leaves no less than eighty percent of the population to divide up the remaining fifteen percent of the wealth left over.

Last Friday President Obama signed the sequester order officially launching America’s latest austerity program. Austerity has yet to produce jobs or growth in any country it has been tried in. In fact, austerity is becoming one of the few certainties within economic policy making – the certainty of losing growth if the policy is adopted. And now we get to learn the lesson everyone else now knows the hard way.
But even in the “across the board” cutting program it seems the poor are going to get the worst of it.

The fleecing class had quite a year. Despite providing little to no valuable goods or services Wall Street has once again siphoned off a huge share of America’s wealth for itself. While Americans foolishly dreamed of a time gone by where opportunity existed for the non-rich as well as the rich, Wall Street broke into their bedrooms and stole their wallets.

I can think of few books about a slice of American history that have more relevance to the vital debates of today than Sam Pizzigati’s “The Rich Don’t Always Win.” Sam’s book tells the story of how the United States, one of the world’s most unequal societies in the early 1900s, became by the middle of the 20th century one of the most equal nations on earth. He shows how average Americans, organized in the labor and other movements, mobilized and vanquished a plutocracy even more powerful than ours today.

Why is this relevant to today? Well, starting with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the U.S. government — fueled by a far right ideology — passed “free market” taxes and other policies that left the nation once again as one of the most unequal on earth by the beginning of this century.

When it comes to the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I have this deep, yet complicated sense of gratitude to people who poured their hearts into the issue of making abortion a legal right. It is humbling to think about all the work that came before this moment in the civil rights, social change, and social justice movements.

Thankfully, stories of striking workers at Wal-Mart and Hostess are making the front pages of newspapers and leading the “A” blocks of cable news shows. These two companies epitomize the war against workers that began over 40 years ago. Wal-Mart is the poster-child for corporate malfeasance and draconian worker policies. Wal-Mart workers on average are paid so little that the American taxpayer is literally subsidizing these workers as tens of thousands of them have no health benefits which forces them to use state Medicaid for healthcare. Wal-Mart made $15 billion dollars last year. Four out of the America’s top ten Billionaires are Wal-Mart heirs.

Read no further if you believe that Social Security’s benefits for you future senior citizens of 2050 are going to be too generous. Read no further if you are convinced that because a subgroup of you affluent seniors in 2050 might live long and healthy lives, that everyone who is fifty years old or younger today should have their benefits cut, and their retirement age raised another two years to 69, and those changes made permanent for all future generations. Read no further if you think retirement, survivors’ and disability benefits for those entering the workforce this year should be cut 36%.

New York is slowly recovering from the damaging floodwaters and winds of Superstorm Sandy. And what we’re seeing in the aftermath is how the burden natural disasters invariably falls on the shoulders of those least equipped to cope. Nowithstanding the human interest stories about trying to find an outlet to charge cell phones, the real victims of this storm are old, disabled and/or poor. They represent the majority of those still without power. They live in the areas more likely to be inaccessible to rescue efforts. They are among the 250,000 trapped in the dark in Manhattan. They are the ones most at risk of disease and illness.