Power and Crisis Archives - Page 4 of 6

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Nuclear Crisis — Or Nuclear Theater?

Comparing the Cuban Missile

August 15, 2017 • by Richard D. Anderson

In the Cuban Missile Crisis, the sound judgment and self restraint of President John F. Kennedy, ably advised by his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, supposedly saved the world from the nuclear war advocated by hawks like Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay. But that triumphalist story is ...

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Three Values of Anger

Chapter Five from ‘Sing the Rage’ by Sonali Chakravarti

August 9, 2017 • by Sonali Chakravarti

—Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider Anger, like other emotions, is closely related to a cluster of affective predispositions, including resentment, sadness, and frustration. Insisting on a narrow definition of anger misses the way these emotions often overlap; conversely a broad interpretation of the emotions, writ large, lacks analytical specificity. Cutting through these ...

Education

Finding Value in Schoolhouses as Public Things

A Reply to Johann Neem

August 7, 2017 • by Michael Weinman

I am fully persuaded by Neem’s diagnosis of the current crisis in American public education, and hope we all take his lesson to heart. In this reply, I hope to augment and perhaps slightly shift the prognosis that his (and Honig’s) focus logically entails: that if we want to save ...

Finding Value in Schoolhouses as Public Things

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Why Engage Public Anger

A reply to Chakravarti’s Introduction to ‘Sing the Rage’

August 1, 2017 • by Michael Weinman

“Sing the Rage” is a bold title for a bold book. It is no small provocation to thus entitle a book that argues for a more robust engagement with anger in public life in today’s democratic societies. The title is a further challenge for readers who recall the proem[1] to ...

Feature

Sing the Rage

Listening to Anger after Mass Violence

July 27, 2017 • by Sonali Chakravarti

The words of Godfrey Xolile Yona, who appeared before the TRC in October 1996, exemplify the type of testimony that is the catalyst for my thinking about the significance of anger in testimony after mass violence and its relationship to restorative justice. Detained for his involvement with the anti-apartheid organization ...

Education

Why Do Schoolhouses Matter?

The Rise of Public Education in America

July 20, 2017 • by Johann Neem

In our imagined past, we idealize the little red schoolhouse, a symbol of ourselves as a community, as a public. We dreamily recall the public schoolhouse as a place where children of the village congregated; learned their reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic; and became Americans together. Certainly, as Jonathan Zimmerman argues ...

Feature

Making Russia Great Again

The Facts and Fictions of Russian Nationalism

July 19, 2017 • by Abby Schrader

On Monday, Richard D. Anderson argued that carefully managed conflict with the United States allows Putin to balance the competing demands of kleptocracy and nationalism without giving in to forces on his left or his right. Today, historian Abby Schrader explains that eliminating economic sanctions may be critical to the stability ...

Feature

The Politics of Russian Nationalism

Vladimir Putin as Centrist

July 17, 2017 • by Richard D. Anderson

In this essay, national intelligence expert Richard D. Anderson forwards our first critical perspective: Vladimir Putin is, in the context of Russian authoritarianism, a political centrist. Promoting and managing conflict with the United States, Anderson argues, allows Putin to balance the competing demands of kleptocracy and nationalism without giving in ...

Power and Crisis

Jerusalem on the Fourth of July

Reflections a bold and immoral message to Americans

July 5, 2017 • by Michael Weinman

A leftover from President Trump’s visit here in late May, the banner’s message is unambiguous. What makes it somewhat interesting is that immediately to its left we saw another banner that depicts (in a clownish and offensive way reminiscent of the Cleveland MLB team’s infamous logo) an American Indian who ...

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The Captivity of Otto Warmbier

Outsiders, Insiders, and Mad Kings

June 15, 2017 • by Ann M. Little

I’ve followed Warmbier’s story as closely as I can -- as closely as any of us can at this remove from the DPRK’s closed society, one dominated by an autocratic regime that is itself ruled by the whims of a mad king. At the same time, I have thought about ...

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Mayoral Statements on Confederate Memorials

Misrepresentation and Misrecognition, yet again (Part Two)

June 12, 2017 • by Michael Weinman

In this second part of further reflections on misrepresentation and misrecognition building on posts from earlier this year, I explore this rhetorical practice with reference to the current debate concerning the removal of statues of and to “Confederate heroes.” These debates have centered on the removal of four statues in ...

Mayoral Statements on Confederate Memorials

Feature

Presidential Visits to Yad Vashem

Misrepresentation and Misrecognition, yet again (Part One)

June 8, 2017 • by Michael Weinman

You will by now have seen one report or another contrasting the responses of Presidents Obama (who visited as a senator and presidential candidate) and Trump to Yad Vashem, the Israeli national museum and memorial dedicated to the victims of the Nazi Genocide, the survivors of that crime, and the ...