Essays Archive - Page 53 of 131

Glenn Greenwald Punches Down

Worse, when he attacked an intern for USA Today, this established and wealthy journalist also threw the truth under the bus

April 1, 2021 • by Claire Potter

My disappointment with Glenn Greenwald, who I once admired for his work on the Snowden revelations, escalates. Watch as Greenwald, who has 1.6 million followers, deliberately exposes a recent college graduate, a woman, to a screaming mob of trolls on March 28, 2021: Screenshot via Glenn Greenwald's Twitter @ggreenwald. What a bully. More importantly, ...

Politics

The Struggle at Turkey’s Boğaziçi University

Attacks on higher education tighten the grip of the AKP’s hegemonic project

April 1, 2021 • by Birgan Gokmenoglu

_____ Late at night on January 1, 2021, by presidential decree, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appointed new rectors to five universities in Turkey. One was Professor Melih Bulu, who became rector of the prestigious Boğaziçi University. This liberal and pluralist institution hosts dissident students and faculty, including many connected to Academics for Peace, ...

The Struggle at Turkey’s Boğaziçi University

Politics

Obama Said He’d Close Guantánamo — These Activists Are Pushing Biden to Finish the Job

What should have been an end to the Guantánamo saga in 2012, was only the beginning of more grueling work for this anti-torture coalition

April 1, 2021 • by Jeremy Varon

_____ I remember, as if in a distant dream, repeating through sobs of joy and exhaustion, “It’s over. It’s over.” On live TV President Obama had just signed, as his first official act in January 2009, an executive order mandating the closure of the prison at Guantánamo. To Obama’s right stood ...

Obama Said He’d Close Guantánamo — These Activists Are Pushing Biden to Finish the Job

Democracy

Winston Churchill’s North American Tour

In the summer of 1929, the future prime minister almost quit politics

March 30, 2021 • by Josh Ireland

_____ One night in the summer of 1929, Winston Churchill, who was staying in a bungalow owned by William Randolph Hearst, was horrified to see a bulky figure clambering through his window. The intruder, Winston realized, was his son Randolph, who seemed equally startled. Randolph had expected to find Hearst’s daughter-in-law, who ...

Democracy

Citizens Defending Democracy Are Being Shot on the Streets of Myanmar.

We should support them

March 29, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

By all accounts the situation in Myanmar is grave, as citizens struggle non-violently to defend democracy, and as the military massacres them. As always, behind this violent military coup is a complicated political situation. Here is an extensive account published in today’s New York Times. Here is a recent Times piece on the ...

Citizens Defending Democracy Are Being Shot on the Streets of Myanmar.

East Asia & Pacific

What America Teaches White Men About Asian American Women

The Atlanta killings have all the hallmarks of a hate crime

March 25, 2021 • by Nadia Y. Kim

_____ On March 16, 2021, Robert Aaron Long – a twenty-one-year-old white male evangelical Christian – massacred six Asian American women while they were working at three Asian-owned Atlanta-area spas: Daoyou Feng (44), Hyunjung Grant (51), Suncha Kim (69), Soon Chung Park (74), Xiaojie Tan (49), and Yong Ae Yue (63). Police ...

What America Teaches White Men About Asian American Women

Politics

Beyond the Two-State Solution

A decimated Left is at a crossroads. Is the only chance for meaningful opposition to drop the doctrine that Zionism requires a Jewish State? A discussion

March 25, 2021 • by Omri Boehm, Micha Brumlik, Shimon Stein and Moshe Zimmerman

_____ The Left in Israel has been decimated, its options reduced to propping up Netanyahu or his hardline challengers. Some, including philosopher Omri Boehm, believe that the only chance for meaningful opposition is for the Left to drop the doctrine that Zionism requires a Jewish State. The Zionist Left, so this ...

Politics

We Must Concede That By Tolerating Shooting Massacres, We Are Choosing Not to Be Free

Democracy is the path toward greater freedom for all

March 25, 2021 • by John Stoehr

_____ The Republicans in the US Congress insist the right to bear arms is a constitutional Second Amendment issue. The Democrats say gun control is a common sense safety issue. The press corps, which prefers binaries as a matter of professional convenience, frames the question as, well, a question, as a tension between the right to bear arms ...

We Must Concede That By Tolerating Shooting Massacres, We Are Choosing Not to Be Free

Politics

Ukraine Has An Anti-Semitism Problem

While America struggles against ultra-right nationalism, one of our allies is embracing it

March 25, 2021 • by Neil Karpenko

_____ In 2020, Americans stood up against Trumpism, white supremacism, and chauvinism. By electing Joe Biden to become President, Americans showed to the whole world that they would not allow neo-fascists to rule their country. Unfortunately, there are still countries where ultra-right tendencies dominate politics and social life – and one of ...

Columnists

Our Nation Is a Shooting Gallery

But anyone who pretends there’s nothing we can do is lying

March 25, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ Yesterday I began to see the tweets, again: people who had left their houses that day to do something unremarkable were dying. Friends at the University of Colorado-Boulder expressed fear, horror, and confusion as another mass shooting unfolded at a supermarket near their campus. Later, I learned that ten people, ...

Uncategorized

The New Essentialism

Old ways of thinking are returning–again

March 25, 2021 • by Simon Garnett

_____ If we share the assumption that every culture is necessarily incomplete in itself and that there is no such thing as a self-contained, homogeneous culture, then the very definition of a given culture has to include what I would call inter-translatability. In other words, being-in-translation is an essential defining feature ...

Democracy

As Biden Reverses GOP Policies, SCOTUS May Stand In the Way

An all-out legal attack by Republican attorneys general will be warmly welcomed by Trump appointees

March 25, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ As the Biden administration sets out to restore a government that can regulate business to level the playing field in the United States between workers and employers, address inequality, and combat climate change, Republicans are turning to the courts to stop him. Republican attorneys general have already launched a number of lawsuits ...

Essays

Glenn Greenwald Punches Down

Worse, when he attacked an intern for USA Today, this established and wealthy journalist also threw the truth under the bus

Obama Said He’d Close Guantánamo — These Activists Are Pushing Biden to Finish the Job

What should have been an end to the Guantánamo saga in 2012, was only the beginning of more grueling work for this anti-torture coalition

Winston Churchill’s North American Tour

In the summer of 1929, the future prime minister almost quit politics

Citizens Defending Democracy Are Being Shot on the Streets of Myanmar.

We should support them

What America Teaches White Men About Asian American Women

The Atlanta killings have all the hallmarks of a hate crime

Beyond the Two-State Solution

A decimated Left is at a crossroads. Is the only chance for meaningful opposition to drop the doctrine that Zionism requires a Jewish State? A discussion

We Must Concede That By Tolerating Shooting Massacres, We Are Choosing Not to Be Free

Democracy is the path toward greater freedom for all

Ukraine Has An Anti-Semitism Problem

While America struggles against ultra-right nationalism, one of our allies is embracing it

Our Nation Is a Shooting Gallery

But anyone who pretends there’s nothing we can do is lying

As Biden Reverses GOP Policies, SCOTUS May Stand In the Way

An all-out legal attack by Republican attorneys general will be warmly welcomed by Trump appointees

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