Tom Hayden And Unofficial Peace Diplomacy During The Vietnam War

Private Citizens and Conflict Resolution Efforts

To the memory of Tom Hayden On December 28, 1965, in light of the escalating war in Vietnam, three American private citizens landed in Hanoi, North Vietnam. They were Staughton Lynd, a Yale professor of American history and civil rights activist; Herbert Aptheker, an historian and communist activist; and Tom Hayden, ...
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Tom Hayden And Unofficial Peace Diplomacy During The Vietnam War

Is Abortion Candy?

Abortion is not a vice and every attempt to legislate it is a failure

Abortion worked its way into this past election, just like it did with every other election for the past few decades. Clinton said she believes in upholding Roe v Wade; Trump still wants to overturn it (but considers the question of marriage equality “settled”). In a series of debates that ...
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Is Abortion Candy?

From A Despised Elitist

So, I’m a despised elitist? This bemusing, tragicomic motif in the aftermath of the Trump victory is heard over and over among the white Rust-Belter diaspora. Living here in deep blue Massachusetts, I know people from all over Trump country: Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin (my home state), Michigan… all over the Midwest. ...
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From A Despised Elitist

Moral and Political Competence, Redux

The View from the Rubble

Last spring, when the Democratic primary was still somewhat in doubt, and people worried about the “bruising” primary season damaging the likely standard bearer in the general election, I suggested that the center/center-left/left coalition needed to hear out the debate between Sanders and Clinton. I argued that this was sound ...
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Moral and Political Competence, Redux

Maximizing Risk and Uncertainty in a Changing World

Notes on Volatility in Cultures of Finance

One of the most remarkable contemporary developments has been the rise of what might be called a “politics of volatility” in which volatility is deliberately produced to take advantage of the uncertainty it creates. Its current embodiment is Donald Trump. Like the efficient market that he embraces, in the primaries, ...
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Maximizing Risk and Uncertainty in a Changing World

What Do You Do with a Massacre?

Grenadians Vote on Constitutional Reforms 33 years After the Assassination of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop

Nine years ago, I came across this article: “Remembering That Fateful Day” by Michael D. Roberts, published in Carib-News (October 23, 2007). It had been 24 years since the killing of Grenadian prime minister Maurice Bishop and his cabinet members on Fort Rupert, in the parish of St. George’s, on ...
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What Do You Do with a Massacre?

The Resistible Rise of Fascists Today

Trump, Erdoğan, Zizek, and All of Us?

This won’t be just four years; we are going to re-elect Trump. Perhaps it’s just a pessimism that has possessed me, but it seems that we -- the whole we, the global human race -- it seems to me, that we have turned servile. That we have become subservient and substandard ...
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The Resistible Rise of Fascists Today

Peace-ing Colombia Together

Colombia’s Aftermath in Rejecting the Peace Deal Referendum

But the Colombian tragedy is more convoluted still. Over the last month we have lived a political and moral rollercoaster. First was the joy of having the peace treaty signed, then the perplexity and frustration of the plebiscite result, followed by anxiety about the political limbo it created. Sadness grew ...
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Peace-ing Colombia Together

Family and Friends

Another Thought About Donald Trump’s Authoritarianism

Family and friends. We all have them, or at least most of the time we want them. In colloquial terms, family and friends offer support, love, and joy. They constitute a sphere of personal intimacy that makes a life more meaningful. The support of family and friends helps us to ...
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Family and Friends

Remaking the Rust Belt

The Postindustrial Transformation of North America

The decline of American manufacturing and what to do about it has been a key topic in the current election cycle. The demise of the nation's industrial plant, and its implications for manufacturing cities such as Detroit, Akron, and Pittsburgh, has often been seen as inevitable, a result of blind ...
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Remaking the Rust Belt

Politicizing and Practicing Motherhood

Why We Should Care What Phyllis Schlafly Served Her Kids for Breakfast

This article was originally posted at Process, the OAH blog, on October 18, 2016. “I’d like to burn you at the stake,” pioneering feminist Betty Friedan famously spat at conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly during a 1973 debate about the Equal Rights Amendment. Her loathing reflected the recognition of a formidable opponent. Though ...
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Politicizing and Practicing Motherhood