Essays Archive - Page 54 of 131

Deb Haaland Brings Experience and History to Biden’s Cabinet

Opportunities for justice abound as she takes the helm at a branch of government that has historically mishandled and cheated indigenous people

March 24, 2021 • by Michael Leroy Oberg and Joel Helfrich

_____ In 1968 the National Indian Youth Council served as one of the organizers of the Native American contingent for the Poor People’s Campaign. This multi-racial coalition marched on Washington and, in a document penned by the “Committee of 100,” presented its list of demands. With regard to Indigenous Peoples in the ...

Deb Haaland Brings Experience and History to Biden’s Cabinet

Democracy

Can The Republican Party Successfully Orbanify the U.S.?

Some comparative reflections on the exceptional vulnerability of American democracy

March 23, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

This past year the U.S. experienced a transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. It was not a peaceful transfer of power. On January 6, a large and angry mob descended on the U.S. Capitol to “Stop the Steal” by obstructing the constitutionally mandated certification by Congress of the ...

Economy

State Secrets

Let’s ban non-disclosure agreements in government economic development deals

March 23, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ Sometime later this year, the Fort Wayne, Indiana, city council will vote on whether to give a 10-year, $16 million property tax break to the builder of a new warehouse. There is an issue, however, one that goes beyond the potential loss of public money. The city council members – ...

Higher Ed

The Education Trap

Schools and the remaking of inequality in Boston

March 22, 2021 • by Cristina Groeger

————— Despite its centrality in public life and scholarly debate, education, surprisingly, has not been a chief focus of political or economic histories of the modern United States. The role of schools, however, has been fundamental to American historical development in several key ways. Politically, education was a key driver of ...

History

We Lionize Abraham Lincoln – But John Wilkes Booth Still Embodies a Part of America’s Soul

How the insurrection on January 6th brought a legendary assassin back to life

March 18, 2021 • by Bennett Parten

"But if January 6 should tell us anything, it’s that his cause is far from lost. Like Lincoln, the ghost of John Wilkes Booth still haunts us from the grave." - Bennett Parten ...

We Lionize Abraham Lincoln – But John Wilkes Booth Still Embodies a Part of America’s Soul

Politics

How Donald Trump Facilitated the Current Racist Attacks on Asian Americans

The long history of America’s hostility toward immigrants from China, Japan, and Korea

March 18, 2021 • by Nadia Y. Kim

_____ EDITORS NOTE: Last summer, in the midst of the Black Lives Matter uprisings around the country, Public Seminar published a prescient piece by Nadia Kim, a professor of sociology and the author of several books, including Imperial Citizens: Koreans and Race from Seoul to LA, and Refusing Death: Immigrant Women ...

How Donald Trump Facilitated the Current Racist Attacks on Asian Americans

Economy

Location, Location, Location!

Why tax breaks are such a negligible part of corporate decision-making

March 18, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ Last month, Macy’s received a slew of job creation tax credits from the Ohio Tax Credit Authority to expand a warehouse in Jackson Township, a city located within easy reach of both Canton and Cleveland. One of the township trustees — which is akin to a city council member — had ...

Race

I Am a Man

As the nation looks for justice in the George Floyd murder, activists embrace the world Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned during the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike

March 18, 2021 • by Mark Allan Williams

_____ Martin Luther King encapsulated all that Black Americans demand and deserve from their country into one sentence: “All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper.’” King spoke those words on April 3. 1968, during what is remembered as the “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, ...

Politics

Andrew Cuomo’s Female Enablers

Powerful men have recruited successful women to shield and defend them for decades – but other feminists are seeing the bigger picture

March 18, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ The scandals in the New York governor’s office have exploded. One sexual harassment allegation has become multiple allegations. The cover-up of nursing home deaths from Covid-19 is now prompting a broader inquiry into Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic. And all of these allegations have ripped back the curtain on ...

Democracy

America’s Political Parties

The order shattering and the order affirming

March 17, 2021 • by Thomas Cobb

The oppositional leadership styles of Trump and Biden have proved the timelessness of the political scientist Stephen Skowronek’s position, outlined in the second chapter of his 1993 masterwork The Politics Presidents Make, that the American presidency displays competing instincts. Skowronek posited that the presidency contained the potential for “order shattering,” ...

Politics

The Department of the Interior’s New Face

Deb Haaland represents a reckoning with the fossil fuel industry–and our history of mistreating indigenous people

March 17, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ This week, the Senate confirmed the appointment of Representative Deb Haaland (D-NM) as Secretary of the Interior Department. An impressive woman in her own right, Haaland embodies the determination of the new administration to use the government for the good of all Americans, rather than for special interests. This makes ...

The Department of the Interior’s New Face

Uncategorized

The Matzneff Affair: Should Love Have No Age Limit?

Sex and the Sixties, from Lolita to Vanessa Springora’s consent

March 16, 2021 • by Mitchell Abidor

_____ Almost every allegation of sexual aggression that has been made in these years of #MeToo has had “he said she said” moments. The woman accuses, the man denies or excuses, and the public chooses who they believe. The 1986 affair between the then 14-year-old Vanessa Springora and 50-year-old writer Gabriel ...

Essays

Deb Haaland Brings Experience and History to Biden’s Cabinet

Opportunities for justice abound as she takes the helm at a branch of government that has historically mishandled and cheated indigenous people

Can The Republican Party Successfully Orbanify the U.S.?

Some comparative reflections on the exceptional vulnerability of American democracy

State Secrets

Let’s ban non-disclosure agreements in government economic development deals

The Education Trap

Schools and the remaking of inequality in Boston

We Lionize Abraham Lincoln – But John Wilkes Booth Still Embodies a Part of America’s Soul

How the insurrection on January 6th brought a legendary assassin back to life

How Donald Trump Facilitated the Current Racist Attacks on Asian Americans

The long history of America’s hostility toward immigrants from China, Japan, and Korea

Location, Location, Location!

Why tax breaks are such a negligible part of corporate decision-making

I Am a Man

As the nation looks for justice in the George Floyd murder, activists embrace the world Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned during the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike

Andrew Cuomo’s Female Enablers

Powerful men have recruited successful women to shield and defend them for decades – but other feminists are seeing the bigger picture

America’s Political Parties

The order shattering and the order affirming

The Department of the Interior’s New Face

Deb Haaland represents a reckoning with the fossil fuel industry–and our history of mistreating indigenous people

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