The fate of Carole Vance and Kim Hopper should worry everyone who wants academics to play a larger role in public debates.
By Michelle Goldberg
The Nation - March 12, 2014
About a month ago, The New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof wrote a much-discussed column calling for academics to take on a greater role in public life. Most professors, he lamented, “just don’t matter in today’s great debates,” having instead burrowed into rabbit holes of hyper-specialization. PhD programs, he wrote, “have fostered a culture that glorifies arcane unintelligibility while disdaining impact and audience.” Professors, Kristof pleaded, “don’t cloister yourselves like medieval monks—we need you!”
Shortly before his column came out, Carole Vance and Kim Hopper, longtime professors at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, learned that they were losing their jobs because they hadn’t brought in enough grant money. Both, ironically, are models for the sort of publicly engaged intellectual Kristof wants to see more of. Vance has done pioneering work on the intersection of gender, health and human rights. “She has been a mentor and a leading influence on generations of scholars as well as activists and practitioners,” says Rebecca Schleifer, the former advocacy director for the health and human rights division at Human Rights Watch. Hopper, who divides his time between Columbia and the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, is both an advocate for the homeless and one of the nation’s foremost scholars on homelessness. Last year, American Anthropologist ran a piece highlighting his work beyond academia, noting that Hopper “has long urged anthropologists to take part in public debates, to translate ethnographic findings into policy proposals.”
Read more.....
Friday, March 14, 2014
Why Stuart Hall Mattered
The Marxist intellectual revolutionized how we think about pop culture. But the U.S. media barely noted his death.
BY Susan J. Douglas
In these Times - March 14, 2014
Imagine the unimaginable for just a minute. A towering Marxist public intellectual—who influenced multiple generations of professors and their students—dies, and the U.S. press is filled with encomia about what he meant.
When Stuart Hall died February 10, the outpouring in the British press over an avowedly left-wing, anti-racist, anti-imperialist activist and theorist of the highest order served as just another reminder of the impoverishment of intellectual life in the United States. Here, Hall was known primarily in academic circles; the New York Times reported his passing seven days late.
As one of the founding figures of cultural studies, Hall’s contributions to academic discourse cannot be overemphasized. It’s hard to imagine now, with communication studies one of the most popular majors in the United States, that in the 1960s and early 1970s, studying the media was regarded as beneath contempt. There was an elitist hierarchy affirming “high” culture as possessing quality, rigor and virtuosity, and “low” or popular culture as being banal, trashy and hardly worth academic attention. Hall, as the director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University, changed that.
Read more.....
BY Susan J. Douglas
In these Times - March 14, 2014
Imagine the unimaginable for just a minute. A towering Marxist public intellectual—who influenced multiple generations of professors and their students—dies, and the U.S. press is filled with encomia about what he meant.
When Stuart Hall died February 10, the outpouring in the British press over an avowedly left-wing, anti-racist, anti-imperialist activist and theorist of the highest order served as just another reminder of the impoverishment of intellectual life in the United States. Here, Hall was known primarily in academic circles; the New York Times reported his passing seven days late.
As one of the founding figures of cultural studies, Hall’s contributions to academic discourse cannot be overemphasized. It’s hard to imagine now, with communication studies one of the most popular majors in the United States, that in the 1960s and early 1970s, studying the media was regarded as beneath contempt. There was an elitist hierarchy affirming “high” culture as possessing quality, rigor and virtuosity, and “low” or popular culture as being banal, trashy and hardly worth academic attention. Hall, as the director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University, changed that.
Read more.....
China U. Confucius Institutes censor political discussions and restrain the free exchange of ideas.
Why, then, do American universities sponsor them?
By Marshall Sahlins
The Nation - October 29, 2013
We were sitting in his office, Ted Foss and I, on the third floor of Judd Hall at the University of Chicago. Foss is the associate director of the Center for East Asian Studies, a classic area studies program that gathers under its roof specialists in various disciplines who work on China, Korea and Japan. Above us, on the fourth floor, were the offices and seminar room of the university’s Confucius Institute, which opened its doors in 2010. A Confucius Institute is an academic unit that provides accredited instruction in Chinese language and culture and sponsors a variety of extracurricular activities, including art exhibitions, lectures, conferences, film screenings and celebrations of Chinese festivals; at Chicago and a number of other schools, it also funds the research projects of local faculty members on Chinese subjects. I asked Foss if Chicago’s CI had ever organized lectures or conferences on issues controversial in China, such as Tibetan independence or the political status of Taiwan. Gesturing to a far wall, he said, “I can put up a picture of the Dalai Lama in this office. But on the fourth floor, we wouldn’t do that.”
Read more.....
By Marshall Sahlins
The Nation - October 29, 2013
We were sitting in his office, Ted Foss and I, on the third floor of Judd Hall at the University of Chicago. Foss is the associate director of the Center for East Asian Studies, a classic area studies program that gathers under its roof specialists in various disciplines who work on China, Korea and Japan. Above us, on the fourth floor, were the offices and seminar room of the university’s Confucius Institute, which opened its doors in 2010. A Confucius Institute is an academic unit that provides accredited instruction in Chinese language and culture and sponsors a variety of extracurricular activities, including art exhibitions, lectures, conferences, film screenings and celebrations of Chinese festivals; at Chicago and a number of other schools, it also funds the research projects of local faculty members on Chinese subjects. I asked Foss if Chicago’s CI had ever organized lectures or conferences on issues controversial in China, such as Tibetan independence or the political status of Taiwan. Gesturing to a far wall, he said, “I can put up a picture of the Dalai Lama in this office. But on the fourth floor, we wouldn’t do that.”
Read more.....
Thursday, March 13, 2014
China's Li Keqiang warns investors to prepare for wave of bankruptcies
World's second largest economy is facing 'serious challenges' and many companies with high debts are being forced to the wall
By Phillip Inman economics correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 13 March 2014
China is braced for a wave of industrial bankruptcies as its slowing economy forces companies with sky-high debts to the wall, the country's premier has said.
Premier Li Keqiang told lenders to China's private sector factories they should expect debt defaults as the world's second largest economy encounters "serious challenges" in the year ahead.
Speaking after the annual session of the national people's congress, Li Keqiang said: "We are going to confront serious challenges this year and some challenges may be even more complex." He told lenders to China's private sector factories they should expect debt defaults.
Li said China must "ensure steady growth, ensure employment, avert inflation and defuse risks" while also fighting pollution, among other tasks.
"So we need to strike a proper balance amidst all these goals and objectives," he added. "This is not going to be easy," he said.
Read more.....
By Phillip Inman economics correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 13 March 2014
China is braced for a wave of industrial bankruptcies as its slowing economy forces companies with sky-high debts to the wall, the country's premier has said.
Premier Li Keqiang told lenders to China's private sector factories they should expect debt defaults as the world's second largest economy encounters "serious challenges" in the year ahead.
Speaking after the annual session of the national people's congress, Li Keqiang said: "We are going to confront serious challenges this year and some challenges may be even more complex." He told lenders to China's private sector factories they should expect debt defaults.
Li said China must "ensure steady growth, ensure employment, avert inflation and defuse risks" while also fighting pollution, among other tasks.
"So we need to strike a proper balance amidst all these goals and objectives," he added. "This is not going to be easy," he said.
Read more.....
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Soros Says Europe Faces 25-Year Slump Without Overhaul
By Jesse Westbrook
Bloomberg - Mar 12, 2014
Billionaire investor George Soros said Europe faces 25 years of Japanese-style stagnation unless politicians pursue further integration of the currency bloc and change policies that have discouraged banks from lending.
While the immediate financial crisis that has plagued Europe since 2010 “is over,” it still faces a political crisis that has divided the region between creditor and debtor nations, Soros, 83, said in a Bloomberg Television interview in London today. At the same time, banks have been encouraged to pass stress tests, rather than boost the economy by providing capital to businesses, he said.
Read more....
Bloomberg - Mar 12, 2014
Billionaire investor George Soros said Europe faces 25 years of Japanese-style stagnation unless politicians pursue further integration of the currency bloc and change policies that have discouraged banks from lending.
While the immediate financial crisis that has plagued Europe since 2010 “is over,” it still faces a political crisis that has divided the region between creditor and debtor nations, Soros, 83, said in a Bloomberg Television interview in London today. At the same time, banks have been encouraged to pass stress tests, rather than boost the economy by providing capital to businesses, he said.
Read more....
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
What do policymakers want from researchers?
Blogs, elevator pitches and good old fashioned press mentions.
By Duncan Green
The London School of Economics and Political Science - March 11, 2014
Interesting survey of US policymakers in December’s International Studies Quarterly journal. I’m not linking to it because it’s gated, thereby excluding more or less everyone outside a traditional academic institution (open data anyone?) but here’s a draft of What Do Policymakers Want From Us?, by Paul Avey and Michael Desch. The results are as relevant to NGO advocacy people trying to influence governments as they are to scholars. Maybe more so. I’ve added my own running translation.
The authors surveyed all senior White House officials involved in national security under both George Bushes and Bill Clinton. 234 out of 915 responded (pretty good response rate for people this senior). Conclusions?
Read more.....
By Duncan Green
The London School of Economics and Political Science - March 11, 2014
Interesting survey of US policymakers in December’s International Studies Quarterly journal. I’m not linking to it because it’s gated, thereby excluding more or less everyone outside a traditional academic institution (open data anyone?) but here’s a draft of What Do Policymakers Want From Us?, by Paul Avey and Michael Desch. The results are as relevant to NGO advocacy people trying to influence governments as they are to scholars. Maybe more so. I’ve added my own running translation.
The authors surveyed all senior White House officials involved in national security under both George Bushes and Bill Clinton. 234 out of 915 responded (pretty good response rate for people this senior). Conclusions?
Read more.....
The future of Egyptian democracy: Political Islam becomes less political
By Nathan J. Brown
The Immanent Frame – March 11, 2014
For the past few years, much of the scholarly literature on Islamist movements has danced around the “participation/moderation” idea: that participation in democratic politics tends to moderate the ideology and positions of Islamists. I choose my term deliberately. When I say “danced around” I do not mean that scholars have endorsed its automatic applicability; far from it. Most have eschewed the vague term “moderation,” but even those who have used it have tried to give it specificity. And they have noted that the “participation” in question has generally been in non-democratic systems, so that a generalization culled from scholarship on political party behavior in democratic electoral systems (one that has plenty of qualifications and exceptions attached) is unlikely to be transferable to elections in which the existing regime will not allow itself to lose.
But while avoiding any simple “participation/moderation” argument, scholars were drawn to the idea that the ideology and behavior of Islamist movements could shift in response to changes in the political environment in which they operated. In short, they directed their attention away from how Islamists changed politics and instead focused on how politics changes Islamists.
Read more....
The Immanent Frame – March 11, 2014
For the past few years, much of the scholarly literature on Islamist movements has danced around the “participation/moderation” idea: that participation in democratic politics tends to moderate the ideology and positions of Islamists. I choose my term deliberately. When I say “danced around” I do not mean that scholars have endorsed its automatic applicability; far from it. Most have eschewed the vague term “moderation,” but even those who have used it have tried to give it specificity. And they have noted that the “participation” in question has generally been in non-democratic systems, so that a generalization culled from scholarship on political party behavior in democratic electoral systems (one that has plenty of qualifications and exceptions attached) is unlikely to be transferable to elections in which the existing regime will not allow itself to lose.
But while avoiding any simple “participation/moderation” argument, scholars were drawn to the idea that the ideology and behavior of Islamist movements could shift in response to changes in the political environment in which they operated. In short, they directed their attention away from how Islamists changed politics and instead focused on how politics changes Islamists.
Read more....
35 countries where the U.S. has supported fascists, drug lords and terrorists
As the situation in Ukraine continues to fester, a handy history guide -- from A (Argentina) to Z (Zaire)
By Nicolas J.S. Davies
AlterNet - March 10, 2014
Read more....
By Nicolas J.S. Davies
AlterNet - March 10, 2014
The U.S. is backing Ukraine’s extreme right-wing Svoboda
party and violent neo-Nazis whose armed uprising paved the way for a
Western-backed coup. Events in the Ukraine are giving us another glimpse
through the looking-glass of U.S. propaganda wars against fascism,
drugs and terrorism. The ugly reality behind the mirror is that the U.S.
government has a long and unbroken record of working with fascists,
dictators, druglords and state sponsors of terrorism in every region of
the world in its elusive but relentless quest for unchallenged global
power.
Behind a firewall of impunity and protection from the State
Department and the CIA, U.S. clients and puppets have engaged in the
worst crimes known to man, from murder and torture to coups and
genocide. The trail of blood from this carnage and chaos leads directly
back to the steps of the U.S. Capitol and the White House. As historian
Gabriel Kolko observed in 1988, “The notion of an honest puppet is a
contradiction Washington has failed to resolve anywhere in the world
since 1945.” What follows is a brief A to Z guide to the history of that
failure.Read more....
The United States of China
By SCOTT MOORE
The New York Times - MARCH 11, 2014
Read more....
The New York Times - MARCH 11, 2014
Last
week, China’s two primary legislative bodies, the National People’s
Congress and the People’s Political Consultative Congress, convened
their annual meetings in Beijing. Although the delegates’ primary
function is to ratify decisions made by Communist Party leaders, the
occasion of the two assemblies often stokes debate on policy reforms.
The
delegates had much to discuss, including a recent murderous rampage on
civilians at a train station in the south, linked by the government to a
separatist movement in the west. Yet the most promising path for
long-term political reform in China was not on the agenda: federalism.
Read more....
How (Not) to Kill a Philosopher
By Rafael Khachaturian
Dissent - March 11, 2014
In a recent review of Louis Althusser’s On the Reproduction of Capitalism, Anne Boyer misrepresents key aspects of his thought. At the center of her argument is the claim that “Althusserianism has been a Marxism for those who prefer their class struggle as Philosophy.” In this she is admittedly repeating the earlier critiques of figures like E.P. Thompson and Jacques Rancière. But whereas those writers at least made a concerted effort to critique Althusser from within (Rancière is one of his best known former students), Boyer’s excessively unsympathetic takedown relies mostly on rehashed ad hominem attacks that only tangentially touch the book.
Reading the review, one is led to believe that Althusser embodied the very same ideology that he critiqued—“a pure dream fabricated by nothing,” a Master who only appeared to be one to interpellated subjects. How and why this fraud influenced an entire generation of French intellectuals is inconceivable for Boyer, unless we accept that he appealed to their basically anti-political stance, which—in her account—was swept away by the revolutionary tide of 1968.
Read more....
Dissent - March 11, 2014
In a recent review of Louis Althusser’s On the Reproduction of Capitalism, Anne Boyer misrepresents key aspects of his thought. At the center of her argument is the claim that “Althusserianism has been a Marxism for those who prefer their class struggle as Philosophy.” In this she is admittedly repeating the earlier critiques of figures like E.P. Thompson and Jacques Rancière. But whereas those writers at least made a concerted effort to critique Althusser from within (Rancière is one of his best known former students), Boyer’s excessively unsympathetic takedown relies mostly on rehashed ad hominem attacks that only tangentially touch the book.
Reading the review, one is led to believe that Althusser embodied the very same ideology that he critiqued—“a pure dream fabricated by nothing,” a Master who only appeared to be one to interpellated subjects. How and why this fraud influenced an entire generation of French intellectuals is inconceivable for Boyer, unless we accept that he appealed to their basically anti-political stance, which—in her account—was swept away by the revolutionary tide of 1968.
Read more....
Cultural production of ignorance provides rich field for study
Robert Proctor is one of the world's leading experts in agnotology, a neologism signifying the study of the cultural production of ignorance.
Los Angeles Times - March 9, 2014
Robert Proctor doesn't think ignorance is bliss. He thinks that what you don't know can hurt you. And that there's more ignorance around than there used to be, and that its purveyors have gotten much better at filling our heads with nonsense.
Read more....
Los Angeles Times - March 9, 2014
Robert Proctor doesn't think ignorance is bliss. He thinks that what you don't know can hurt you. And that there's more ignorance around than there used to be, and that its purveyors have gotten much better at filling our heads with nonsense.
Proctor, a professor of the history of science at Stanford, is one of the world's leading experts in agnotology,
a neologism signifying the study of the cultural production of
ignorance. It's a rich field, especially today when whole industries
devote themselves to sowing public misinformation and doubt about their
products and activities.
The tobacco industry was a pioneer at this. Its goal was to erode public acceptance of the scientifically proven links between smoking and disease: In the words of an internal 1969 memo legal opponents extracted from Brown & Williamson's files, "Doubt is our product." Big Tobacco's method should not be to debunk the evidence, the memo's author wrote, but to establish a "controversy."
The tobacco industry was a pioneer at this. Its goal was to erode public acceptance of the scientifically proven links between smoking and disease: In the words of an internal 1969 memo legal opponents extracted from Brown & Williamson's files, "Doubt is our product." Big Tobacco's method should not be to debunk the evidence, the memo's author wrote, but to establish a "controversy."
Read more....
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Stanford's new major integrates humanities, computer science
By Kristen V. Brown
San Francisco Gate - Saturday, March 8, 2014
English majors of the future: It may be time to consider studying something other than comparative modern literature.
A new joint major program at Stanford offers the liberal arts-inclined just that, integrating humanities and computer science in an experimental merger of left- and right-brained thinking.
The CS+X program, announced Friday, will offer undergraduates the opportunity to jointly study computer science and either English or music beginning in fall 2014. But the idea isn't just to study the two subjects separately - it's to pursue a degree that mixes both disciplines, studying topics such as computing technique in literary analysis.
It is, as Stanford English Professor Jennifer Summit put it, a crossing of the "techie-fuzzy divide."
Read more.....
San Francisco Gate - Saturday, March 8, 2014
English majors of the future: It may be time to consider studying something other than comparative modern literature.
A new joint major program at Stanford offers the liberal arts-inclined just that, integrating humanities and computer science in an experimental merger of left- and right-brained thinking.
The CS+X program, announced Friday, will offer undergraduates the opportunity to jointly study computer science and either English or music beginning in fall 2014. But the idea isn't just to study the two subjects separately - it's to pursue a degree that mixes both disciplines, studying topics such as computing technique in literary analysis.
It is, as Stanford English Professor Jennifer Summit put it, a crossing of the "techie-fuzzy divide."
Read more.....
Putin’s Counter-Revolution
James Meek reports from Ukraine
London Review of Books - 7 March 2014
The Russians and Ukrainians of the 1990s were able to temper regret at the collapse of the USSR with their own knowledge of the dismembered country’s shortcomings. A generation later, this is less and less the case. Many of the most articulate and thoughtful Russians and Ukrainians, those of middle age who knew the realities of Soviet life and later prospered in the post-Soviet world, have moved abroad, gone into a small business or been intimidated: in any case they have been taken out of the political arena. In Russia and Russophone Ukraine the stage is left to neo-Soviet populists who propagate the false notion of the USSR as a paradisiac Russian-speaking commonwealth, benignly ruled from Moscow, a natural continuum of the tsarist empire, disturbed only by Nazi invaders to whom ‘the west’ are heirs and the only obstacle to its re-creation. If you were born after 1985 you have no remembered reality to measure against this false vision, just as you have no way to situate those charming Soviet musical comedies of the 1960s and 1970s, idyllic portrayals of an idealised Russophone socialism, brightly coloured and fun, propaganda now in a way they weren’t when they were made. This is the context that has made it possible for Vladimir Putin and his government to sell Russia’s opportunistic invasion of Ukraine to his own people and to Ukrainian neo-Soviets: the idea that it undoes what should never have been done, an artificial division of Russian-speaking Eurasia by fascists/the West/America/rabid Ukrainian nationalists – in neo-Soviet discourse, avatars of a single anti-Russian monster.
Read more....
London Review of Books - 7 March 2014
The Russians and Ukrainians of the 1990s were able to temper regret at the collapse of the USSR with their own knowledge of the dismembered country’s shortcomings. A generation later, this is less and less the case. Many of the most articulate and thoughtful Russians and Ukrainians, those of middle age who knew the realities of Soviet life and later prospered in the post-Soviet world, have moved abroad, gone into a small business or been intimidated: in any case they have been taken out of the political arena. In Russia and Russophone Ukraine the stage is left to neo-Soviet populists who propagate the false notion of the USSR as a paradisiac Russian-speaking commonwealth, benignly ruled from Moscow, a natural continuum of the tsarist empire, disturbed only by Nazi invaders to whom ‘the west’ are heirs and the only obstacle to its re-creation. If you were born after 1985 you have no remembered reality to measure against this false vision, just as you have no way to situate those charming Soviet musical comedies of the 1960s and 1970s, idyllic portrayals of an idealised Russophone socialism, brightly coloured and fun, propaganda now in a way they weren’t when they were made. This is the context that has made it possible for Vladimir Putin and his government to sell Russia’s opportunistic invasion of Ukraine to his own people and to Ukrainian neo-Soviets: the idea that it undoes what should never have been done, an artificial division of Russian-speaking Eurasia by fascists/the West/America/rabid Ukrainian nationalists – in neo-Soviet discourse, avatars of a single anti-Russian monster.
Read more....
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Footprints of the US State Department Chronology of the Ukrainian Coup
By RENEE PARSONS
Counterpunch - March 05, 2014
Listening to the US media, even the most diligent news junkie would find it difficult to know that the U.S. State Department played not only a vital role in the violence and chaos underway in Ukraine but was also complicit in creating the coup that ousted democratically elected President Viktor Yanuyovch. Given the Russian Parliament’s approval of Putin’s request for military troops to be moved into Crimea, Americans uninformed about the history of that region might also be persuaded that Russia is the aggressor and the sole perpetrator of the violence. Let’s be clear about what is at stake here: NATO missiles on the adjacent Ukraine border aimed directly at Russia would make that country extremely vulnerable to Western goals and destabilization efforts while threatening Russia’s only water access to its naval fleet in Crimean peninsula, the Balkans, the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East – and not the least of which would allow world economic dominance by the US, the European Union, the IMF, World Bank and international financiers all of whom had already brought staggering suffering to millions around the globe.
Read more....
Counterpunch - March 05, 2014
Listening to the US media, even the most diligent news junkie would find it difficult to know that the U.S. State Department played not only a vital role in the violence and chaos underway in Ukraine but was also complicit in creating the coup that ousted democratically elected President Viktor Yanuyovch. Given the Russian Parliament’s approval of Putin’s request for military troops to be moved into Crimea, Americans uninformed about the history of that region might also be persuaded that Russia is the aggressor and the sole perpetrator of the violence. Let’s be clear about what is at stake here: NATO missiles on the adjacent Ukraine border aimed directly at Russia would make that country extremely vulnerable to Western goals and destabilization efforts while threatening Russia’s only water access to its naval fleet in Crimean peninsula, the Balkans, the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East – and not the least of which would allow world economic dominance by the US, the European Union, the IMF, World Bank and international financiers all of whom had already brought staggering suffering to millions around the globe.
Read more....
China Remodels an Ancient Silk Road City, and an Ethnic Rift Widens
By DAN LEVIN
The New York Times - MARCH 5, 2014
KASHGAR, China — Visitors walking through the mud-brick rubble and yawning craters where close-packed houses and bazaars once stood could be forgiven for thinking that the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar had been irrevocably lost to the wrecking ball. A billboard looming over the ruins tries to counter that impression: “Inherit and preserve the historical culture to showcase a brand new Kashgar.”
The Chinese authorities set out five years ago to modernize Kashgar’s fabled Old City district while promising to preserve its dense Casbah-like charms. But the results underscore the growing divide between the government and the ethnic minority that lives here — the Uighurs, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people who have chafed at Beijing’s rule since Communist troops took over their traditional homeland in 1949. The region, in China’s far west, is now known as Xinjiang, a Mandarin term meaning “new frontier.”
Read more....
The New York Times - MARCH 5, 2014
KASHGAR, China — Visitors walking through the mud-brick rubble and yawning craters where close-packed houses and bazaars once stood could be forgiven for thinking that the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar had been irrevocably lost to the wrecking ball. A billboard looming over the ruins tries to counter that impression: “Inherit and preserve the historical culture to showcase a brand new Kashgar.”
The Chinese authorities set out five years ago to modernize Kashgar’s fabled Old City district while promising to preserve its dense Casbah-like charms. But the results underscore the growing divide between the government and the ethnic minority that lives here — the Uighurs, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people who have chafed at Beijing’s rule since Communist troops took over their traditional homeland in 1949. The region, in China’s far west, is now known as Xinjiang, a Mandarin term meaning “new frontier.”
Read more....
Obama's Liberal Imperialism
By David Rieff
The National Interest | February 11, 2014
To accuse President Obama of being exceptional in his refusal to embrace American exceptionalism has been a perennial staple of discourse among hawkish conservatives intent on proving that he has a proclivity for going AWOL when it comes to national security. During the 2008 election campaign, Senator John McCain, for example, accused then candidate Obama of not believing in America’s role as the world’s leader and of not pushing back hard when confronted by those in other countries who doubted America’s greatness. And Mitt Romney tried to play the same card in 2012: “Our president doesn’t have the same feelings about American exceptionalism that we do. And I think over the last three or four years, some people around the world have begun to question that.”
For those, like me, who would prefer our country to be more of a republic and less of an empire, and to eschew its historic global role of the “dangerous nation,” to use the characterization coined by Robert Kagan, who meant it as praise, the most obvious response to these claims is a heartfelt: “If only!”
Read more....
The National Interest | February 11, 2014
To accuse President Obama of being exceptional in his refusal to embrace American exceptionalism has been a perennial staple of discourse among hawkish conservatives intent on proving that he has a proclivity for going AWOL when it comes to national security. During the 2008 election campaign, Senator John McCain, for example, accused then candidate Obama of not believing in America’s role as the world’s leader and of not pushing back hard when confronted by those in other countries who doubted America’s greatness. And Mitt Romney tried to play the same card in 2012: “Our president doesn’t have the same feelings about American exceptionalism that we do. And I think over the last three or four years, some people around the world have begun to question that.”
For those, like me, who would prefer our country to be more of a republic and less of an empire, and to eschew its historic global role of the “dangerous nation,” to use the characterization coined by Robert Kagan, who meant it as praise, the most obvious response to these claims is a heartfelt: “If only!”
Read more....
US Policy of Isolating Russia and Expanding NATO Is a Dismal Failure
By Rodrigue Tremblay
Information Clearing House - March 8, 2014
[NATO's goal is] to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. — Hastings Ismay, first NATO Secretary-General
Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. — James Madison (1751-1836), fourth American President
March 06, 2014 "Information Clearing House - "Dissident Voice" - - The hazards associated with American foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 should appear obvious to all, because it is precisely this policy that has caused the crisis in Ukraine with all its negative consequences for the coming months and years. President Barack Obama was candid in admitting it on March 3, 2014: “we are indicating to the Russians [that] if in fact they continue on the current trajectory they’re on, then we are examining a whole series of steps — economic, diplomatic— that will isolate Russia.” Well, it is precisely this desire to expand NATO and to isolate Russia by incorporating all the countries bordering Russia into NATO; i.e., a strategy of geopolitical and military encirclement of Russia, which has provoked that country when it felt threatened in its national security. This is easy to understand. For example, what would the United States do if a hypothetical Russian Empire were to incorporate Mexico or Canada into a military alliance? To ask the question is to answer it. Why is it so difficult to understand that the best way to start a war is to threaten a country’s vital interests?
Read more.....
Information Clearing House - March 8, 2014
[NATO's goal is] to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. — Hastings Ismay, first NATO Secretary-General
Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. — James Madison (1751-1836), fourth American President
March 06, 2014 "Information Clearing House - "Dissident Voice" - - The hazards associated with American foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 should appear obvious to all, because it is precisely this policy that has caused the crisis in Ukraine with all its negative consequences for the coming months and years. President Barack Obama was candid in admitting it on March 3, 2014: “we are indicating to the Russians [that] if in fact they continue on the current trajectory they’re on, then we are examining a whole series of steps — economic, diplomatic— that will isolate Russia.” Well, it is precisely this desire to expand NATO and to isolate Russia by incorporating all the countries bordering Russia into NATO; i.e., a strategy of geopolitical and military encirclement of Russia, which has provoked that country when it felt threatened in its national security. This is easy to understand. For example, what would the United States do if a hypothetical Russian Empire were to incorporate Mexico or Canada into a military alliance? To ask the question is to answer it. Why is it so difficult to understand that the best way to start a war is to threaten a country’s vital interests?
Read more.....
Pray for Venezuela … to remain a sovereign nation
by Lisa Sullivan @lisavenezuela
Al-Jazeera - March 6, 2014
US media give distorted view of country I call home
I was in Guatemala on Feb. 15 when I first received the news that Venezuela — my home for the past three decades — was on the brink of civil war. My inbox flooded with questions from friends and journalists asking what was happening in my adopted country. “Pray for Venezuela,” said numerous other email messages from people in the U.S.
I had just returned from the Mayan Ixil community of Cocop, in the state of Quiche, in the western highlands of Guatemala, where I met with survivors of the 1981 massacre there. The 58 victims of Cocop were among 1,700 Ixils murdered by the army under the leadership of Gen. Jose Efrain Rios Montt, the former Guatemalan president who was recently convicted for genocide, although the conviction was overturned by the Constitutional Court and will be retried. All told, approximately 200,000 were killed in Guatemala’s 1981–96 civil war.
At Cocop’s small cemetery, the president of the town’s survivors’ committee, Jacinto de Paz, turned to me and said, “I'd like to introduce you to my parents.” His hand then swept to two tombs. As he shared the story of how the army gunned down nine family members, his body trembled and tears fell. He was 13 at the time. “I'm so sorry,” he said. “It still hurts so much.”
Back at the hotel, I learned that two Venezuelan students and a government supporter had been gunned down at a demonstration in Caracas. There were “only” three victims at that point. (The death toll would climb to 17 by the end of the month.) But, having just embraced a sobbing Jacinto 30 years after his parents’ massacre, I knew that the pain of one loss is enough to rip apart your world forever. For the families of the Venezuelan victims, it makes no difference if their loved one shared that fate with two or 199,999 others. Their pain is just as real.
Read more....
Al-Jazeera - March 6, 2014
US media give distorted view of country I call home
I was in Guatemala on Feb. 15 when I first received the news that Venezuela — my home for the past three decades — was on the brink of civil war. My inbox flooded with questions from friends and journalists asking what was happening in my adopted country. “Pray for Venezuela,” said numerous other email messages from people in the U.S.
I had just returned from the Mayan Ixil community of Cocop, in the state of Quiche, in the western highlands of Guatemala, where I met with survivors of the 1981 massacre there. The 58 victims of Cocop were among 1,700 Ixils murdered by the army under the leadership of Gen. Jose Efrain Rios Montt, the former Guatemalan president who was recently convicted for genocide, although the conviction was overturned by the Constitutional Court and will be retried. All told, approximately 200,000 were killed in Guatemala’s 1981–96 civil war.
At Cocop’s small cemetery, the president of the town’s survivors’ committee, Jacinto de Paz, turned to me and said, “I'd like to introduce you to my parents.” His hand then swept to two tombs. As he shared the story of how the army gunned down nine family members, his body trembled and tears fell. He was 13 at the time. “I'm so sorry,” he said. “It still hurts so much.”
Back at the hotel, I learned that two Venezuelan students and a government supporter had been gunned down at a demonstration in Caracas. There were “only” three victims at that point. (The death toll would climb to 17 by the end of the month.) But, having just embraced a sobbing Jacinto 30 years after his parents’ massacre, I knew that the pain of one loss is enough to rip apart your world forever. For the families of the Venezuelan victims, it makes no difference if their loved one shared that fate with two or 199,999 others. Their pain is just as real.
Read more....
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
The Everyday Psychology of Nationalism
South Koreans were enraged when their countrywoman lost to a Russian competitor at the Sochi Olympics. That reaction may or may not have been right, but it was perfectly healthy.
By Monica Kim
The Atlantic - Mar 4 2014
It was a good old-fashioned Olympic scandal in Sochi, when South Korean figure skater Kim Yuna, known as “the Queen,” lost to a less experienced Russian. The judgment spurred millions of angry Tweets, and a Change.org petition protesting the result was the fastest growing one on site record—reportedly more than 1.2 million signatures in about 12 hours.
Skating officials and fans around the world have questioned the decision, but critics remain focused on the South Korean outrage, largely since their sports fanaticism has made headlines before. Diehard citizens of countries like South Korea may seem odd to some; a post on Yahoo had the misguided headline: “Deal with it, South Korea.” But that injunction doesn't really understand the nature and depth of nationalist feeling—and the extent to which a sentiment often associated with extremism, even war, can be pervasive in the psychology of everyday life, including in sports fandom.
The ideology of nationalism has a complex history, originating in early-modern Europe and evolving in many different ways as it's spread throughout the world. Today nationalism can be civic, ethnic, or a combination of the two, but all nationalists “carry strong attitudes and beliefs about their own people and about others, who feel their attachment to their nation passionately, and who even, at times, act with great cruelty against their enemies,” according to Joshua Searle-White in his book The Psychology of Nationalism. This “us versus them” mentality and its negative effects have been well examined from a political and historical standpoint, but surprisingly few have studied its psychological roots. From a social psychological perspective, nationalist sentiment is thought to stem from two main points: attachment and identity.
Read more.....
By Monica Kim
The Atlantic - Mar 4 2014
It was a good old-fashioned Olympic scandal in Sochi, when South Korean figure skater Kim Yuna, known as “the Queen,” lost to a less experienced Russian. The judgment spurred millions of angry Tweets, and a Change.org petition protesting the result was the fastest growing one on site record—reportedly more than 1.2 million signatures in about 12 hours.
Skating officials and fans around the world have questioned the decision, but critics remain focused on the South Korean outrage, largely since their sports fanaticism has made headlines before. Diehard citizens of countries like South Korea may seem odd to some; a post on Yahoo had the misguided headline: “Deal with it, South Korea.” But that injunction doesn't really understand the nature and depth of nationalist feeling—and the extent to which a sentiment often associated with extremism, even war, can be pervasive in the psychology of everyday life, including in sports fandom.
The ideology of nationalism has a complex history, originating in early-modern Europe and evolving in many different ways as it's spread throughout the world. Today nationalism can be civic, ethnic, or a combination of the two, but all nationalists “carry strong attitudes and beliefs about their own people and about others, who feel their attachment to their nation passionately, and who even, at times, act with great cruelty against their enemies,” according to Joshua Searle-White in his book The Psychology of Nationalism. This “us versus them” mentality and its negative effects have been well examined from a political and historical standpoint, but surprisingly few have studied its psychological roots. From a social psychological perspective, nationalist sentiment is thought to stem from two main points: attachment and identity.
Read more.....
Monday, March 3, 2014
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Putin’s Nationalist Strategy
By Masha Lipman
The New Yorker - March 2, 2014
What is happening in the Crimean peninsula is not a war, exactly—or not if bloodshed is the standard for war. It is an ominous, creeping occupation (for now) of a region of sovereign Ukraine by the Russian armed forces at the order of the Kremlin. So far there have been no casualties, almost no shooting. In the predominantly pro-Russian Crimea, the Russian servicemen are generally welcomed by the local inhabitants. As Russian troops encircle and block Ukrainian military units in Crimea, the Ukrainian government in Kiev, the capital, is preparing for resistance. What will come next—full-blown war, negotiations, or a prolonged standoff—is anyone’s guess.
The one moment of promising news Sunday came when Russian President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he would accept her proposal to establish an international fact-finding “contact group” to discuss the crisis in Ukraine. Putin, in his conversation with Merkel, however, insisted that his actions were justified by an “unrelenting threat of violence” to Russian-speaking people in Ukraine. Merkel, for her part, called the invasion a contravention of international law.
Read more.....
The New Yorker - March 2, 2014
What is happening in the Crimean peninsula is not a war, exactly—or not if bloodshed is the standard for war. It is an ominous, creeping occupation (for now) of a region of sovereign Ukraine by the Russian armed forces at the order of the Kremlin. So far there have been no casualties, almost no shooting. In the predominantly pro-Russian Crimea, the Russian servicemen are generally welcomed by the local inhabitants. As Russian troops encircle and block Ukrainian military units in Crimea, the Ukrainian government in Kiev, the capital, is preparing for resistance. What will come next—full-blown war, negotiations, or a prolonged standoff—is anyone’s guess.
The one moment of promising news Sunday came when Russian President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he would accept her proposal to establish an international fact-finding “contact group” to discuss the crisis in Ukraine. Putin, in his conversation with Merkel, however, insisted that his actions were justified by an “unrelenting threat of violence” to Russian-speaking people in Ukraine. Merkel, for her part, called the invasion a contravention of international law.
Read more.....
The Real Reason Nobody Reads Academics
By Ezra Klein
Bloomberg View - Feb 28, 2014
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently ignited a bit of a firestorm with a column asking why academics are irrelevant to public debates. I’d turn the question around: Why aren’t journalists better at taking advantage of academic expertise?
The most efficient arrangement would have academics communicate directly with the public. Thankfully for journalists, they don’t. That presents a kind of arbitrage opportunity for journalists: Although academics write in jargon, they speak in English. And they’re typically happy to donate absurd amounts of time walking reporters through the thickets of their expertise. Their knowledge becomes our stories -- and, ultimately, our page views and advertising impressions. It would be a disaster for our profession if academics became good at communicating what they know.
Read more.....
Bloomberg View - Feb 28, 2014
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently ignited a bit of a firestorm with a column asking why academics are irrelevant to public debates. I’d turn the question around: Why aren’t journalists better at taking advantage of academic expertise?
The most efficient arrangement would have academics communicate directly with the public. Thankfully for journalists, they don’t. That presents a kind of arbitrage opportunity for journalists: Although academics write in jargon, they speak in English. And they’re typically happy to donate absurd amounts of time walking reporters through the thickets of their expertise. Their knowledge becomes our stories -- and, ultimately, our page views and advertising impressions. It would be a disaster for our profession if academics became good at communicating what they know.
Read more.....
India and the politics of ‘corruption’
By Anjan Chakrabarti & Anup Dhar
Philosophers of Change - February 4, 2014
There is little doubt that the rise of AAP, especially since its extraordinary electoral success in Delhi, has transformed at least some of the political language in India. Using ‘corruption’ — itself a term that needs much unpacking, even deconstructive work: as the ‘entry point’ (to some this would nevertheless appear to be a simple entry point; we shall try to show how it is not simple with respect to India) and then connect it to a host of other related processes. It has inaugurated a new political language and praxis that is in turn a critique of what AAP has designated as the Indian ‘political system’ and the political class. The appreciation of the overdetermined nature of reality by at least leading AAP functionaries has given to its political praxis immense flexibility and the option to shift the focus of public attention and critique from region to region, issue to issue. Consequently, as it moves from Delhi to Haryana to Uttar Pradesh to Gujarat to Karnataka and even to Maharashtra and so on, what it means to be AAP mutates.
Read more....
Philosophers of Change - February 4, 2014
Politics begins where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begins. — LeninThink of all the people in Tagore’s Red Oleander, residing perhaps in post-independent India -- who did not have names and were identified as mere numbers, 21F, 79D, 84M, etc. — forming their own party with the assistance of Nandini, the female rebel protagonist (Ranjan — the other rebel protagonist had already been killed by the King) and challenging the King, the Gosain (clergy), the Adhyapak (professor) and a host of other sycophants; throw in also the madness and music of Bishu Paagla (Bishu, the mad one), the carnivalesque anarchism of the multitude — and you have something like the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
There is little doubt that the rise of AAP, especially since its extraordinary electoral success in Delhi, has transformed at least some of the political language in India. Using ‘corruption’ — itself a term that needs much unpacking, even deconstructive work: as the ‘entry point’ (to some this would nevertheless appear to be a simple entry point; we shall try to show how it is not simple with respect to India) and then connect it to a host of other related processes. It has inaugurated a new political language and praxis that is in turn a critique of what AAP has designated as the Indian ‘political system’ and the political class. The appreciation of the overdetermined nature of reality by at least leading AAP functionaries has given to its political praxis immense flexibility and the option to shift the focus of public attention and critique from region to region, issue to issue. Consequently, as it moves from Delhi to Haryana to Uttar Pradesh to Gujarat to Karnataka and even to Maharashtra and so on, what it means to be AAP mutates.
Read more....
The End of the ‘Developing World’
By DAYO OLOPADE
The New York Times - FEB. 28, 2014
Read more....
The New York Times - FEB. 28, 2014
BILL GATES, in his foundation’s annual letter,
declared that “the terms ‘developing countries’ and ‘developed
countries’ have outlived their usefulness.” He’s right. If we want to
understand the modern global economy, we need a better vocabulary.
Mr.
Gates was making a point about improvements in income and gross
domestic product; unfortunately, these formal measures generate
categories that tend to obscure obvious distinctions. Only when
employing a crude “development” binary could anyone lump Mozambique and
Mexico together.
It’s
tough to pick a satisfying replacement. Talk of first, second and third
worlds is passé, and it’s hard to bear the Dickensian awkwardness of
“industrialized nations.” Forget, too, the more recent jargon about the
“global south” and “global north.” It makes little sense to counterpose
poor countries with “the West” when many of the biggest economic success
stories in the past few decades have come from the East.
Read more....
Why Russia No Longer Fears the West
By BEN JUDAH
Politico Magazine - March 02, 2014
The West is blinking in disbelief – Vladimir Putin just invaded Ukraine. German diplomats, French Eurocrats and American pundits are all stunned. Why has Russia chosen to gamble its trillion-dollar ties with the West?
Western leaders are stunned because they haven’t realized Russia’s owners no longer respect Europeans the way they once did after the Cold War. Russia thinks the West is no longer a crusading alliance. Russia thinks the West is now all about the money.
Putin’s henchmen know this personally. Russia’s rulers have been buying up Europe for years. They have mansions and luxury flats from London’s West End to France’s Cote d’Azure. Their children are safe at British boarding and Swiss finishing schools. And their money is squirrelled away in Austrian banks and British tax havens.
Read more....
Politico Magazine - March 02, 2014
The West is blinking in disbelief – Vladimir Putin just invaded Ukraine. German diplomats, French Eurocrats and American pundits are all stunned. Why has Russia chosen to gamble its trillion-dollar ties with the West?
Western leaders are stunned because they haven’t realized Russia’s owners no longer respect Europeans the way they once did after the Cold War. Russia thinks the West is no longer a crusading alliance. Russia thinks the West is now all about the money.
Putin’s henchmen know this personally. Russia’s rulers have been buying up Europe for years. They have mansions and luxury flats from London’s West End to France’s Cote d’Azure. Their children are safe at British boarding and Swiss finishing schools. And their money is squirrelled away in Austrian banks and British tax havens.
Read more....
Doing Higher Ed Right
Increasing education funding! Hiring full-time professors! Are these places for real?
By Rebecca Schuman
The Slate - Feb. 10, 2-14
Seems sometimes like every week is a bad week for higher education. Last week was no different: First came news of the University of Akron threatening to shutter 55 degree programs—you know, frivolous ones, like elementary education—broken on the heels of comments by the school’s vice provost, Rex Ramsier, that if his institution stopped using underpaid adjunct labor, it would have to raise tuition 40 percent.
Read more....
By Rebecca Schuman
The Slate - Feb. 10, 2-14
Seems sometimes like every week is a bad week for higher education. Last week was no different: First came news of the University of Akron threatening to shutter 55 degree programs—you know, frivolous ones, like elementary education—broken on the heels of comments by the school’s vice provost, Rex Ramsier, that if his institution stopped using underpaid adjunct labor, it would have to raise tuition 40 percent.
Meanwhile, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting reveals that Ramsier, his six-figure salary,
and the adjuncts he loves to impugn are business as usual. According to
the report, since 1987, the number of administrators and other
nonteaching employees at colleges nationwide more than doubled, “vastly
outpacing” growth of not just faculty, but students. So,
another week, another set of woes about which I can cry foul, and then
get a bunch of condescending responses about supply and demand, as if I
have never heard of such a thing.
Read more....
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Exclusive: One of Washington’s wealthiest is giving $20 million to a top conservative think tank
By Zachary Goldfarb
Washington Post - February 24, 2014
Daniel A. D'Aniello, the co-founder and chairman of the Washington-basedprivate-equity giant Carlyle Group, is contributing $20 million to the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
The contribution by D'Aniello — set to be announced Tuesday — marks a new foray into policy advocacy by the top Carlyle executive, who has maintained a much lower profile than co-founder David Rubenstein. It also represents the marriage of one of Washington's business titans to one of its top think tanks.
AEI will name its new building after D'Aniello before moving in late next year. The building, at 1785 Massachusetts Ave. NW, formerly owned by Andrew Mellon and purchased from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is in a neighborhood that houses a number of think tanks, including the Brookings Institution.
Read more.....
Washington Post - February 24, 2014
Daniel A. D'Aniello, the co-founder and chairman of the Washington-basedprivate-equity giant Carlyle Group, is contributing $20 million to the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
The contribution by D'Aniello — set to be announced Tuesday — marks a new foray into policy advocacy by the top Carlyle executive, who has maintained a much lower profile than co-founder David Rubenstein. It also represents the marriage of one of Washington's business titans to one of its top think tanks.
AEI will name its new building after D'Aniello before moving in late next year. The building, at 1785 Massachusetts Ave. NW, formerly owned by Andrew Mellon and purchased from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is in a neighborhood that houses a number of think tanks, including the Brookings Institution.
Read more.....
China horrified as mass stabbings at Kunming rail station leave dozens dead
Unidentified raiders shot by police after 'violent terror attack' at crowded ticket hall in Yunnan province, south-west China
By Barry Neild and agencies
The Observer, Saturday 1 March 2014
China was reeling from what was described as a "violent terror attack" on Saturday in which a knife-wielding gang stabbed 28 people to death and left scores more injured at a railway station.
State media blamed the killings at Kunming in Yunnan province, south-west China, on militants from Xinjiang in the country's restive north-west. "Evidence at the crime scene showed that the Kunming railway station terrorist attack was carried out by Xinjiang separatist forces," the Xinhua news agency said, quoting officials in the city.
Reports said five attackers were shot dead by police following the incident on Saturday evening and another five were being hunted. Unverified photographs circulating on social media appeared to show the blood-soaked bodies of victims lined up on the floor. Other images showed distraught people running away from the station and crowds gathering among police officers and ambulances.
Read more....
By Barry Neild and agencies
The Observer, Saturday 1 March 2014
China was reeling from what was described as a "violent terror attack" on Saturday in which a knife-wielding gang stabbed 28 people to death and left scores more injured at a railway station.
State media blamed the killings at Kunming in Yunnan province, south-west China, on militants from Xinjiang in the country's restive north-west. "Evidence at the crime scene showed that the Kunming railway station terrorist attack was carried out by Xinjiang separatist forces," the Xinhua news agency said, quoting officials in the city.
Reports said five attackers were shot dead by police following the incident on Saturday evening and another five were being hunted. Unverified photographs circulating on social media appeared to show the blood-soaked bodies of victims lined up on the floor. Other images showed distraught people running away from the station and crowds gathering among police officers and ambulances.
Read more....
The Academic-Industrial Complex
By GRAHAM BOWLEY
The New York Times - July 31, 2010
WHAT does Shirley Ann Jackson know about shipping parcels? For that matter, what does Steven B. Sample understand about mutual funds?
Dr. Jackson, who is a theoretical physicist and the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., has served as an outside director on the board of FedEx since 1999.
Dr. Sample, an electrical engineer and the retiring president of the University of Southern California, sits on the boards of directors of the American Mutual and Amcap mutual funds. He is also a director of another company, and stepped down two years ago from the board of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, the candy maker.
Dr. Jackson and Dr. Sample are part of a cozy and lucrative club: presidents and other senior university officials who cross from academia into the business world to serve on corporate boards.
Read more....
The New York Times - July 31, 2010
WHAT does Shirley Ann Jackson know about shipping parcels? For that matter, what does Steven B. Sample understand about mutual funds?
Dr. Jackson, who is a theoretical physicist and the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., has served as an outside director on the board of FedEx since 1999.
Dr. Sample, an electrical engineer and the retiring president of the University of Southern California, sits on the boards of directors of the American Mutual and Amcap mutual funds. He is also a director of another company, and stepped down two years ago from the board of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, the candy maker.
Dr. Jackson and Dr. Sample are part of a cozy and lucrative club: presidents and other senior university officials who cross from academia into the business world to serve on corporate boards.
Read more....
Neoliberalism and the commercialization of higher education
By Holly Brentnall
The International - SUNDAY JULY 28, 2013
Cuts in spending and the replacement of academic staff by technology are not the only pressures faced by British academia. Increasingly, education is fashioning students into a productive labor force rather than teaching them more traditional academic ideals. Last year’s plans to raise tuition fees in Britain to a maximum of £9000, $13,731 at today’s exchange rate, were coterminous with cuts of £2 billion in funding for education. Universities’ lack of funding caused them to compensate for lost income by hiking up tuition fees. This is perceived as disastrous for Britain’s progression up the global league tables, which, conducted by the Times educational supplement, rank universities by teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. With increasing competition from universities around the world, the UK’s University and College Union warns that Britain is at risk of being left behind. The neoliberal turn to privatization and the commercialization of education is an area of concern for British universities. Since the 1980s, neoliberalism has been expressing itself in university syllabi. Abandoning previous values of critical-thinking and challenging basic assumptions, the focus leans towards teaching vaguely defined “skills” such as “teamwork,” “communication” and “leadership.”
Read more....
The International - SUNDAY JULY 28, 2013
Cuts in spending and the replacement of academic staff by technology are not the only pressures faced by British academia. Increasingly, education is fashioning students into a productive labor force rather than teaching them more traditional academic ideals. Last year’s plans to raise tuition fees in Britain to a maximum of £9000, $13,731 at today’s exchange rate, were coterminous with cuts of £2 billion in funding for education. Universities’ lack of funding caused them to compensate for lost income by hiking up tuition fees. This is perceived as disastrous for Britain’s progression up the global league tables, which, conducted by the Times educational supplement, rank universities by teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. With increasing competition from universities around the world, the UK’s University and College Union warns that Britain is at risk of being left behind. The neoliberal turn to privatization and the commercialization of education is an area of concern for British universities. Since the 1980s, neoliberalism has been expressing itself in university syllabi. Abandoning previous values of critical-thinking and challenging basic assumptions, the focus leans towards teaching vaguely defined “skills” such as “teamwork,” “communication” and “leadership.”
Read more....
The neoliberal assault on academia
The neoliberal sacking of the universities runs much deeper than tuition hikes and budget cuts, notes Barkawi.
By Tarak Barkawi
Tarak Barkawi is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, New School for Social Research.
Al-Jazeera - 25 Apr 2013
he New York Times, Slate and Al Jazeera have recently drawn attention to the adjunctification of the professoriate in the US. Only 24 per cent of the academic workforce are now tenured or tenure-track.
Much of the coverage has focused on the sub-poverty wages of adjunct faculty, their lack of job security and the growing legions of unemployed and under-employed PhDs. Elsewhere, the focus has been on web-based learning and the massive open online courses (MOOCs), with some commentators celebrating and others lamenting their arrival.
The two developments are not unrelated. Harvard recently asked its alumni to volunteer their time as "online mentors" and "discussion group managers" for an online course. Fewer professors and fewer qualified - or even paid - teaching assistants will be required in higher education's New Order.
Lost amid the fetishisation of information technology and the pathos of the struggle over proper working conditions for adjunct faculty is the deeper crisis of the academic profession occasioned by neoliberalism. This crisis is connected to the economics of higher education but it is not primarily about that.
The neoliberal sacking of the universities runs much deeper than tuition fee hikes and budget cuts.
Read more....
By Tarak Barkawi
Tarak Barkawi is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, New School for Social Research.
Al-Jazeera - 25 Apr 2013
he New York Times, Slate and Al Jazeera have recently drawn attention to the adjunctification of the professoriate in the US. Only 24 per cent of the academic workforce are now tenured or tenure-track.
Much of the coverage has focused on the sub-poverty wages of adjunct faculty, their lack of job security and the growing legions of unemployed and under-employed PhDs. Elsewhere, the focus has been on web-based learning and the massive open online courses (MOOCs), with some commentators celebrating and others lamenting their arrival.
The two developments are not unrelated. Harvard recently asked its alumni to volunteer their time as "online mentors" and "discussion group managers" for an online course. Fewer professors and fewer qualified - or even paid - teaching assistants will be required in higher education's New Order.
Lost amid the fetishisation of information technology and the pathos of the struggle over proper working conditions for adjunct faculty is the deeper crisis of the academic profession occasioned by neoliberalism. This crisis is connected to the economics of higher education but it is not primarily about that.
The neoliberal sacking of the universities runs much deeper than tuition fee hikes and budget cuts.
Read more....
"Neoliberalism and the Academic-Industrial Complex"
By Jason Del Gandio
Truthout - Thursday, 12 August 2010
Read more....
Truthout - Thursday, 12 August 2010
A recently published New York Times article entitled
"The Academic-Industrial Complex" (July 31, 2010) outlines the growing
trend of university presidents and other senior university officials
serving on corporate boards. As author Graham Bowley states:
According to a 2008 survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education, presidents from 19 of the top 40 research universities with the largest operating budgets sat on at least one company board. The trend is more widespread among public universities, but the private ones are catching up: the American Council on Education says that from 2001 to 2006, the proportion of presidents from all doctorate-granting institutions sitting on corporate boards rose to 52.1 percent from 47.8 percent at public institutions and to 50.9 percent from 40.6 percent at private ones.[1]
The article brings attention to this growing
academic-corporate connection and, on occasion, addresses some important
concerns. For example, can university presidents properly fulfill their
duties while serving on multiple corporate boards? Are there any
conflicts of interests between academic and corporate obligations? And,
perhaps most importantly, are students and faculty likely to censor
their corporate critiques (of sweatshop labor or financial scandals, for
instance) if their president serves the targeted corporation?
Read more....
Chomsky: How America's Great University System Is Getting Destroyed
By Noam Chomsky
Alternet - February 28, 2014
The following is an edited transcript of remarks given by Noam Chomsky via Skype on 4 February 2014 to a gathering of members and allies of the Adjunct Faculty Association of the United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh, PA. The transcript was prepared by Robin J. Sowards and edited by Prof. Chomsky.
On hiring faculty off the tenure track
That’s part of the business model. It’s the same as hiring temps in industry or what they call “associates” at Wal-Mart, employees that aren’t owed benefits. It’s a part of a corporate business model designed to reduce labor costs and to increase labor servility. When universities become corporatized, as has been happening quite systematically over the last generation as part of the general neoliberal assault on the population, their business model means that what matters is the bottom line. The effective owners are the trustees (or the legislature, in the case of state universities), and they want to keep costs down and make sure that labor is docile and obedient. The way to do that is, essentially, temps. Just as the hiring of temps has gone way up in the neoliberal period, you’re getting the same phenomenon in the universities. The idea is to divide society into two groups. One group is sometimes called the “plutonomy” (a term used by Citibank when they were advising their investors on where to invest their funds), the top sector of wealth, globally but concentrated mostly in places like the United States. The other group, the rest of the population, is a “precariat,” living a precarious existence.
Read more.....
Alternet - February 28, 2014
The following is an edited transcript of remarks given by Noam Chomsky via Skype on 4 February 2014 to a gathering of members and allies of the Adjunct Faculty Association of the United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh, PA. The transcript was prepared by Robin J. Sowards and edited by Prof. Chomsky.
On hiring faculty off the tenure track
That’s part of the business model. It’s the same as hiring temps in industry or what they call “associates” at Wal-Mart, employees that aren’t owed benefits. It’s a part of a corporate business model designed to reduce labor costs and to increase labor servility. When universities become corporatized, as has been happening quite systematically over the last generation as part of the general neoliberal assault on the population, their business model means that what matters is the bottom line. The effective owners are the trustees (or the legislature, in the case of state universities), and they want to keep costs down and make sure that labor is docile and obedient. The way to do that is, essentially, temps. Just as the hiring of temps has gone way up in the neoliberal period, you’re getting the same phenomenon in the universities. The idea is to divide society into two groups. One group is sometimes called the “plutonomy” (a term used by Citibank when they were advising their investors on where to invest their funds), the top sector of wealth, globally but concentrated mostly in places like the United States. The other group, the rest of the population, is a “precariat,” living a precarious existence.
Read more.....
University of Chicago Hires Notorious Goldman Sachs Fraudster to Teach Economics to Undergrads
By Patrick Caldwell
Mother Jones | Thu Feb. 27, 2014
The lone individual found liable for committing fraud during the lead up to the financial crisis will soon be teaching undergrads the basics of economics at one of America's most prestigious universities. Former Goldman Sachs banker Fabrice Tourre—better known by his self-assigned nickname, "Fabulous Fab"—is studying to get his Ph.D. in economics from University of Chicago. Per the Chicago Maroon, the school's student newspaper, Tourre will teach a class this semester, offering honors students the opportunity to learn "Elements of Economics Analysis 3" from a man who owes over $1 million in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Tourre is a poster child for Wall Street malfeasance. While working at Goldman in 2007, he designed a financial product called Abacus 2007-AC1. This collection of mortgage-backed securities was designed to fail—hedge funder John Paulson had asked Goldman to sell a package of bad mortgages that he could then bet against. Thanks to Tourre and the foreclosure crisis, Paulson made a cool $1 billion. Fab and Paulson knew Abacus was a bum product from the get-go, but Tourre hid that information from investors. Goldman rewarded Tourre handsomely for the scheme: He was promoted and earned a reported $2 million.
Read more....
Mother Jones | Thu Feb. 27, 2014
The lone individual found liable for committing fraud during the lead up to the financial crisis will soon be teaching undergrads the basics of economics at one of America's most prestigious universities. Former Goldman Sachs banker Fabrice Tourre—better known by his self-assigned nickname, "Fabulous Fab"—is studying to get his Ph.D. in economics from University of Chicago. Per the Chicago Maroon, the school's student newspaper, Tourre will teach a class this semester, offering honors students the opportunity to learn "Elements of Economics Analysis 3" from a man who owes over $1 million in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Tourre is a poster child for Wall Street malfeasance. While working at Goldman in 2007, he designed a financial product called Abacus 2007-AC1. This collection of mortgage-backed securities was designed to fail—hedge funder John Paulson had asked Goldman to sell a package of bad mortgages that he could then bet against. Thanks to Tourre and the foreclosure crisis, Paulson made a cool $1 billion. Fab and Paulson knew Abacus was a bum product from the get-go, but Tourre hid that information from investors. Goldman rewarded Tourre handsomely for the scheme: He was promoted and earned a reported $2 million.
Read more....
From Academic Freedom to Academic Capitalism
By Diane Reay, University of Cambridge
Discoversociety - February 15, 2014
For the first decade of the 2000s I was a member of FAAB – Feminists against Academic Bollocks. We wrote satirical sketches, sang and danced, tried to embody innovative forms of resistance to the academic status quo, and gave conference performances. In part, this was about performance as reclaiming a feminist identity, but it was also centrally about what is legitimated and delegitimated in the academy, and the gendering and classing of the academic persona. One of the songs we sang to the lyrics of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I will survive’ started:
At first we were feminists, we were organised
Then we entered academia and were atomised
But then we spent so many nights
cursing how you did us wrong
Read more.....
Discoversociety - February 15, 2014
For the first decade of the 2000s I was a member of FAAB – Feminists against Academic Bollocks. We wrote satirical sketches, sang and danced, tried to embody innovative forms of resistance to the academic status quo, and gave conference performances. In part, this was about performance as reclaiming a feminist identity, but it was also centrally about what is legitimated and delegitimated in the academy, and the gendering and classing of the academic persona. One of the songs we sang to the lyrics of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I will survive’ started:
At first we were feminists, we were organised
Then we entered academia and were atomised
But then we spent so many nights
cursing how you did us wrong
Read more.....
Friday, February 28, 2014
The Murmurations of Starlings
The Atlantic - February 28, 2014
When starlings flock together, wheeling and darting through the sky in tight, fluid formations, we call it a murmuration. These murmurations can range from small groups of a few hundred starlings in a small ball, to undulating seas of millions of birds, blocking out the sun. I thought today would be a good day to just take a few moments and appreciate the simple beauty of murmurations, captured by various photographers over the past few years.
To see the photos.....
When starlings flock together, wheeling and darting through the sky in tight, fluid formations, we call it a murmuration. These murmurations can range from small groups of a few hundred starlings in a small ball, to undulating seas of millions of birds, blocking out the sun. I thought today would be a good day to just take a few moments and appreciate the simple beauty of murmurations, captured by various photographers over the past few years.
To see the photos.....
Partisan Infighting Hinders AIPAC's Iran Lobbying
BY John Hudson
Foreign Policy - FEBRUARY 28, 2014
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), one of the most powerful special interest groups in the United States, has an unusual problem on its hands. On Sunday, March 2, it will welcome a record 14,000 attendees to Washington, D.C., for its annual policy conference. After two consecutive days of pro-Israel speeches, those supporters will storm Capitol Hill to lobby U.S. lawmakers. But according to sources inside and outside AIPAC, the group does not yet have a piece of legislation to pass for the issue it cares about most: Iran's nuclear program. The absence of a bill or nonbinding resolution reflects AIPAC's bruising battle with the White House that left Democrats and Republicans bitterly divided on the traditionally nonpartisan issue. It's also leading to criticisms that the group doesn't have a clear legislative agenda ahead of its most important lobbying event of the year.
Read more....
Foreign Policy - FEBRUARY 28, 2014
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), one of the most powerful special interest groups in the United States, has an unusual problem on its hands. On Sunday, March 2, it will welcome a record 14,000 attendees to Washington, D.C., for its annual policy conference. After two consecutive days of pro-Israel speeches, those supporters will storm Capitol Hill to lobby U.S. lawmakers. But according to sources inside and outside AIPAC, the group does not yet have a piece of legislation to pass for the issue it cares about most: Iran's nuclear program. The absence of a bill or nonbinding resolution reflects AIPAC's bruising battle with the White House that left Democrats and Republicans bitterly divided on the traditionally nonpartisan issue. It's also leading to criticisms that the group doesn't have a clear legislative agenda ahead of its most important lobbying event of the year.
Read more....
Unsupervised robotic construction crew to build flood defenses
Homeland Security News Wire - February 28, 2014
On the plains of Namibia, millions of tiny termites are building a mound of soil — an 8-foot-tall “lung” for their underground nest. During a year of construction, many termites will live and die, wind and rain will erode the structure, and yet the colony’s life-sustaining project will continue. A Harvard University release reports that a team of computer scientists and engineers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, inspired by the termites’ resilience and collective intelligence, has created an autonomous robotic construction crew. The system needs no supervisor, no eye in the sky, and no communication: just simple robots — any number of robots — that cooperate by modifying their environment.
Harvard’s TERMES system demonstrates that collective systems of robots can build complex, three-dimensional structures without the need for any central command or prescribed roles. The results of the four-year project were presented this week at the AAAS 2014 Annual Meeting and published in the 14 February issue of Science.
Read more....
On the plains of Namibia, millions of tiny termites are building a mound of soil — an 8-foot-tall “lung” for their underground nest. During a year of construction, many termites will live and die, wind and rain will erode the structure, and yet the colony’s life-sustaining project will continue. A Harvard University release reports that a team of computer scientists and engineers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, inspired by the termites’ resilience and collective intelligence, has created an autonomous robotic construction crew. The system needs no supervisor, no eye in the sky, and no communication: just simple robots — any number of robots — that cooperate by modifying their environment.
Harvard’s TERMES system demonstrates that collective systems of robots can build complex, three-dimensional structures without the need for any central command or prescribed roles. The results of the four-year project were presented this week at the AAAS 2014 Annual Meeting and published in the 14 February issue of Science.
Read more....
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Why Ivy League Schools Are So Bad at Economic Diversity
Elite universities should not be asking, “Why do we have so few low-income students?” but “How do we have so many wealthy ones?”
By Robin J. Hayes
The Atlantic - Feb 27 2014
Yale Alumni Magazine’s cover announced this month that the university “seeks smart students from poor families.” As the illustration of a white man in a business suit reaching past low-hanging fruit demonstrates, Yale believes “they’re out there—but hard to find.” I guess my alma mater feels fortunate to have found me–a native of East Flatbush, Brooklyn and the descendant of a housekeeper, doorman, drug addict, and prisoner. I completed a Master’s and Ph.D there in African American Studies and Political Science in 2002 and 2006, respectively.
The article the cover refers to, “Wanted: Smart Students from Poor Families,” argues that decision-makers at this school and others (including Amherst and Vassar) are sincere in their efforts to both recruit more low-income students and make them “feel more at home” once admitted. The piece inadvertently reveals how the privileged point of view of trustees, administrators, and wealthy alumni donors present serious obstacles to these intentions ever manifesting into reality. Since graduating from Yale, I have taught courses at Williams College and Northwestern, published articles, as well as given lectures and trainings related to the politics of structural inequality. Here are three reasons why I believe elite universities and colleges continue to fail to economically democratize their student bodies.
Read more....
By Robin J. Hayes
The Atlantic - Feb 27 2014
Yale Alumni Magazine’s cover announced this month that the university “seeks smart students from poor families.” As the illustration of a white man in a business suit reaching past low-hanging fruit demonstrates, Yale believes “they’re out there—but hard to find.” I guess my alma mater feels fortunate to have found me–a native of East Flatbush, Brooklyn and the descendant of a housekeeper, doorman, drug addict, and prisoner. I completed a Master’s and Ph.D there in African American Studies and Political Science in 2002 and 2006, respectively.
The article the cover refers to, “Wanted: Smart Students from Poor Families,” argues that decision-makers at this school and others (including Amherst and Vassar) are sincere in their efforts to both recruit more low-income students and make them “feel more at home” once admitted. The piece inadvertently reveals how the privileged point of view of trustees, administrators, and wealthy alumni donors present serious obstacles to these intentions ever manifesting into reality. Since graduating from Yale, I have taught courses at Williams College and Northwestern, published articles, as well as given lectures and trainings related to the politics of structural inequality. Here are three reasons why I believe elite universities and colleges continue to fail to economically democratize their student bodies.
Read more....
Does journalism have a future?
By NICHOLAS LEMANN
The Times Literary Supplement - December 18, 2013
People tend to have little sympathy with accounts of crisis in a trade or
profession. It comes across as evidence of excessive self-preoccupation, or
as a prelude to special pleading before government. Journalism’s
difficulties seem to be drawing this kind of reaction from many people who
aren’t journalists. Isn’t the press still a swaggering, even power-abusing
actor in politics and society? Doesn’t it command vast attention and
resources? Isn’t more news being read by more people than ever before?
Out of Print: Newspapers, journalism and the business of news in the digital age shows that something really has changed quite suddenly and dramatically in the press industry. George Brock is a veteran newspaperman, and his main concern in this clear-headed, synoptic and never whiny book is with the institutions where he has spent most of his career. In the United States, newspaper advertising revenue – the main source of economic support by far – was $63.5 billion in 2000. By 2012 it had fallen to $19 billion. (During the same period, advertising revenue at Google went from zero to $46.5 billion.) Employment in the American newspaper industry fell by 44 per cent between 2001 and 2011. In the European Union, newspaper revenue is falling by more than 10 per cent a year. In the UK, newspaper circulation has dropped by more than 25 per cent during the twenty-first century. It would be hard to think of another industry that is going through such a sudden collapse.
Read more....
The Times Literary Supplement - December 18, 2013
People tend to have little sympathy with accounts of crisis in a trade or
profession. It comes across as evidence of excessive self-preoccupation, or
as a prelude to special pleading before government. Journalism’s
difficulties seem to be drawing this kind of reaction from many people who
aren’t journalists. Isn’t the press still a swaggering, even power-abusing
actor in politics and society? Doesn’t it command vast attention and
resources? Isn’t more news being read by more people than ever before?
Out of Print: Newspapers, journalism and the business of news in the digital age shows that something really has changed quite suddenly and dramatically in the press industry. George Brock is a veteran newspaperman, and his main concern in this clear-headed, synoptic and never whiny book is with the institutions where he has spent most of his career. In the United States, newspaper advertising revenue – the main source of economic support by far – was $63.5 billion in 2000. By 2012 it had fallen to $19 billion. (During the same period, advertising revenue at Google went from zero to $46.5 billion.) Employment in the American newspaper industry fell by 44 per cent between 2001 and 2011. In the European Union, newspaper revenue is falling by more than 10 per cent a year. In the UK, newspaper circulation has dropped by more than 25 per cent during the twenty-first century. It would be hard to think of another industry that is going through such a sudden collapse.
Read more....
Genetically Modified Babies
By MARCY DARNOVSKY
The New York Times - FEB. 23, 2014
Read more....
The New York Times - FEB. 23, 2014
BERKELEY, Calif. — AN advisory committee of the Food and Drug Administration is set to begin two days of meetings tomorrow to consider radical biological procedures
that, if successful, would produce genetically modified human beings.
This is a dangerous step. These techniques would change every cell in
the bodies of children born as a result of their use, and these
alterations would be passed down to future generations.
The
F.D.A. calls them mitochondrial manipulation technologies. The
procedures involve removing the nuclear material either from the egg or
embryo of a woman with inheritable mitochondrial disease and inserting
it into a healthy egg or embryo of a donor whose own nuclear material
has been discarded. Any offspring would carry genetic material from
three people — the nuclear DNA of the mother and father, and the
mitochondrial DNA of the donor.
Read more....
The Middle Classes: Workers, not Owners
The New Left Review Project - February 20, 2014
In a recent Guardian article, Paul Mason discusses the rapid growth of a global ‘new middle class’ of educated, skilled and mostly non-manual workers as a result of globalisation. He argues that while rising incomes have lifted them out of desperate poverty, they now fight on issues such as corruption, democracy, urban infrastructure and healthcare.
The article was informative and refreshing in many ways, especially in situating the question of class globally rather than nationally, and in taking account of the universal shift from manual to non-manual work. But it also revealed the continuing confusion that bedevils public discussion about class – both here and in the rising economies of the global south. In particular, what do we mean when we speak of the middle class, ‘old’ or ‘new’, or indeed the plural ‘middle classes’? And if their defining characteristic is ‘middle’, what lies above and below them?
In most discussion, whether in mainstream academia or in the media – ‘classes’ are seen as separate groupings, based on a shifting amalgam of occupation, income, status and lifestyle. Usually these classes are understood to be arranged in a hierarchy. Social mobility is often a major concern, and it is measured by looking at how many people move upwards (or indeed downwards) from one such designated class to another.
Read more...
In a recent Guardian article, Paul Mason discusses the rapid growth of a global ‘new middle class’ of educated, skilled and mostly non-manual workers as a result of globalisation. He argues that while rising incomes have lifted them out of desperate poverty, they now fight on issues such as corruption, democracy, urban infrastructure and healthcare.
The article was informative and refreshing in many ways, especially in situating the question of class globally rather than nationally, and in taking account of the universal shift from manual to non-manual work. But it also revealed the continuing confusion that bedevils public discussion about class – both here and in the rising economies of the global south. In particular, what do we mean when we speak of the middle class, ‘old’ or ‘new’, or indeed the plural ‘middle classes’? And if their defining characteristic is ‘middle’, what lies above and below them?
In most discussion, whether in mainstream academia or in the media – ‘classes’ are seen as separate groupings, based on a shifting amalgam of occupation, income, status and lifestyle. Usually these classes are understood to be arranged in a hierarchy. Social mobility is often a major concern, and it is measured by looking at how many people move upwards (or indeed downwards) from one such designated class to another.
Read more...
The Unintended Reformation: Contents and discontents of (post)modernity
By Brad S. Gregory
The Immanent Frame: Secularism, Religion and Public Sphere
February 27, 2014
The Unintended Reformation is an unusual work of history in deliberately focusing as much on the present as on the past, and in emphasizing the ongoing importance of the Reformation era for understanding the Western world today. Having considered issues related to the book’s genre, method, and assumptions in the first part of my response and others related to its historical arguments and omissions in the second part, the principal focus of the final part of my response will be the reactions of the forum participants to my description and assessment of the present. I will also take up speculation about my supposed agenda, and the book’s lack of ideas for solving contemporary problems.
As I noted briefly in the first part, it is quite possible that
someone could agree with my description of our contemporary hegemonic
institutions and ideological hyperpluralism but evaluate them
differently than I do in my book. In that case we would simply disagree
about what is desirable and what is not, presumably as a function of
more basic beliefs, as different evaluative expressions within our
current hyperpluralism. On this point, I will first simply repeat what
is also apparent in the book, namely that its argument is neither a
blanket condemnation of modernity nor a thoroughgoing lament about the
contemporary Western world (James Chappel’s “Weltschmerz”).
Second, the three contemporary practical concerns I mention in the
Introduction—a conspicuously uncivil public sphere and political life
(especially in the U.S.), global climate change, and a frequently
nonchalant attitude in the academy about the alleged lack of
non-subjective moral norms—are an attempt to appeal to readers’ moral
awareness. I hope that many readers share my (and many others’) view
that these are serious problems. Those who do not will obviously be
unmoved by my appeal to them and will instead view their invocation as
oddly alarmist or exaggerated, as will others who find unproblematic the
conditions endured by millions of factory workers in poor countries,
for example, or the incoherence of undergraduate education in research
universities. In that case we disagree about what is good and bad—which
reinforces my point about the subjectivization of morality as a
sociological reality but vitiates the force of my moral appeal. I happen
to think (and imply in the book) that those who are unperturbed by the
subjectivization of morality are naïve, doubly so given the ever more
astonishing biotechnological possibilities that may well be around the
corner, a concern also expressed by Jürgen Habermas and others. But if
someone relishes the prospects of a transhumanistic future, for example,
in which individual choice is extended limitlessly via a liberal
eugenics to embrace whatever cybernetic innovation and genetic
engineering can facilitate, I am afraid I do not know how to reach such a
person from my own moral vantage point. But I do not think this
describes most readers.
Read more.....
The Immanent Frame: Secularism, Religion and Public Sphere
February 27, 2014
The Unintended Reformation is an unusual work of history in deliberately focusing as much on the present as on the past, and in emphasizing the ongoing importance of the Reformation era for understanding the Western world today. Having considered issues related to the book’s genre, method, and assumptions in the first part of my response and others related to its historical arguments and omissions in the second part, the principal focus of the final part of my response will be the reactions of the forum participants to my description and assessment of the present. I will also take up speculation about my supposed agenda, and the book’s lack of ideas for solving contemporary problems.
Read more.....
Xi calls for socialism to fill China's spiritual void
Xinhua - 2014-02-26
Chinese president Xi Jinping has reiterated the importance of "core socialist values," urging deep understanding and comprehensive implementation of the moral doctrine nationwide.
While presiding over a high-level meeting on this issue on Monday, Xi asked for widespread publicity of the values, which he called the "moral and ideological foundation" for socialist China,in order to guide morality.
Xi said authorities should make use of various opportunities and occasions to create circumstances for the promotion of these values.
Core socialist values comprise a set of moral principles summarized by central authorities as prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, the rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity and friendship.
Read more...
Chinese president Xi Jinping has reiterated the importance of "core socialist values," urging deep understanding and comprehensive implementation of the moral doctrine nationwide.
While presiding over a high-level meeting on this issue on Monday, Xi asked for widespread publicity of the values, which he called the "moral and ideological foundation" for socialist China,in order to guide morality.
Xi said authorities should make use of various opportunities and occasions to create circumstances for the promotion of these values.
Core socialist values comprise a set of moral principles summarized by central authorities as prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom, equality, justice, the rule of law, patriotism, dedication, integrity and friendship.
Read more...
Exporting the Anti-Gay Movement
How sexual minorities in Africa became collateral damage in the U.S. culture wars
By Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma
The American Prospect - April 24, 2012
In October 2010, a banner headline ran on the front page of the Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone: “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos Leak.” Subheadings warned of these people’s dark designs: “We Shall Recruit 1,000,000 Kids by 2012,” and “Parents Now Face Heartbreaks as Homos Raid Schools.” One of the two men pictured on the front page was David Kato, an outspoken leader of Uganda’s small human-rights movement. Inside the newspaper, his name and home address, along with those of other LGBT Ugandans, were printed. The article called for the “homos” to be hanged.
Three months later, after numerous threats, Kato was bludgeoned to death in his Kampala home. Police said the motive was robbery, but human-rights advocates did not believe the official story. At Kato’s funeral, an Anglican priest condemned homosexuality. Kato’s death was international news, making him the highest-profile victim of the anti-gay hysteria that has enveloped much of sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade. Although U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has joined other Western diplomats in being openly critical of African political leaders who fail to defend the rights of their LGBT populations, the crisis afflicting sexual minorities on the continent has its origins in the United States. Pejorative attitudes toward LGBT people in Africa have long been widespread. But the recent upsurge in politicized homophobia has been inspired by right-wing American evangelicals who have exported U.S.–style culture-war politics.
Read more...
By Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma
The American Prospect - April 24, 2012
In October 2010, a banner headline ran on the front page of the Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone: “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos Leak.” Subheadings warned of these people’s dark designs: “We Shall Recruit 1,000,000 Kids by 2012,” and “Parents Now Face Heartbreaks as Homos Raid Schools.” One of the two men pictured on the front page was David Kato, an outspoken leader of Uganda’s small human-rights movement. Inside the newspaper, his name and home address, along with those of other LGBT Ugandans, were printed. The article called for the “homos” to be hanged.
Three months later, after numerous threats, Kato was bludgeoned to death in his Kampala home. Police said the motive was robbery, but human-rights advocates did not believe the official story. At Kato’s funeral, an Anglican priest condemned homosexuality. Kato’s death was international news, making him the highest-profile victim of the anti-gay hysteria that has enveloped much of sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade. Although U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has joined other Western diplomats in being openly critical of African political leaders who fail to defend the rights of their LGBT populations, the crisis afflicting sexual minorities on the continent has its origins in the United States. Pejorative attitudes toward LGBT people in Africa have long been widespread. But the recent upsurge in politicized homophobia has been inspired by right-wing American evangelicals who have exported U.S.–style culture-war politics.
Read more...
Who Tried to Silence Drone Victim Kareem Khan?
By Murtaza Hussain
The Intercept - 25 Feb 2014
In the early morning hours of February 5, a group of armed men – some dressed in Pakistani police uniforms – appeared at Kareem Khan’s home, awoke him and his family at gunpoint, and took him away in an unmarked vehicle. Khan was hooded, shackled around the wrists and ankles, and driven for hours, eventually arriving at a building where he was thrown into a windowless holding cell. There he stayed for more than a week, during which he was subjected to sensory deprivation and physical abuse. Khan says he was repeatedly beaten on the soles of his feet and threatened with death by his captors. He was kept hooded and shackled for most of the day, and fed only dry bread and water.
Read more....
The Intercept - 25 Feb 2014
In the early morning hours of February 5, a group of armed men – some dressed in Pakistani police uniforms – appeared at Kareem Khan’s home, awoke him and his family at gunpoint, and took him away in an unmarked vehicle. Khan was hooded, shackled around the wrists and ankles, and driven for hours, eventually arriving at a building where he was thrown into a windowless holding cell. There he stayed for more than a week, during which he was subjected to sensory deprivation and physical abuse. Khan says he was repeatedly beaten on the soles of his feet and threatened with death by his captors. He was kept hooded and shackled for most of the day, and fed only dry bread and water.
“I thought I would never get out,” Khan
later told his Pakistani lawyer, Shahzad Akbar. “…I thought I would
become one more among thousands of ‘missing persons’ in Pakistan.”
Read more....
Boeing is making a spy phone that self-destructs
By Nick Stockton
Quartz - February 26, 2014
This filing comes two years after the original news leaked
that the company was working on the smartphone, which will support all
the world’s major communications (GSM, LTE, and WCDMA), storage (USB,
HDMI, SIM), and wireless (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi) standards.
Read more.....
Quartz - February 26, 2014
Boeing has filed papers
with the FCC to develop a smartphone for people in the business of
secrets. The phone, simply called “Black,” will run an Android-variant
operating system, be compatible with other technology, and—like any good
spy phone—will self-destruct if you try to figure out its secrets.
Read more.....
The Secret Auden
Edward Mendelson
The New York Review of Books - March 20, 2014
W.H. Auden had a secret life that his closest friends knew little or nothing about. Everything about it was generous and honorable. He kept it secret because he would have been ashamed to have been praised for it.
I learned about it mostly by chance, so it may have been far more extensive than I or anyone ever knew. Once at a party I met a woman who belonged to the same Episcopal church that Auden attended in the 1950s, St. Mark’s in-the-Bowery in New York. She told me that Auden heard that an old woman in the congregation was suffering night terrors, so he took a blanket and slept in the hallway outside her apartment until she felt safe again.
Read more....
The New York Review of Books - March 20, 2014
W.H. Auden had a secret life that his closest friends knew little or nothing about. Everything about it was generous and honorable. He kept it secret because he would have been ashamed to have been praised for it.
I learned about it mostly by chance, so it may have been far more extensive than I or anyone ever knew. Once at a party I met a woman who belonged to the same Episcopal church that Auden attended in the 1950s, St. Mark’s in-the-Bowery in New York. She told me that Auden heard that an old woman in the congregation was suffering night terrors, so he took a blanket and slept in the hallway outside her apartment until she felt safe again.
Read more....
7 signs America has regressed — to the 19th century
Workers aren't unionized, and some pols are now advocating child labor. It's like the U.S. has gone back in time
RJ Eskow
AlterNet - Saturday, Oct 5, 2013
Here are seven signs the United States of America has returned to the 19th century.
1. Wall Street can “send your man around to see my man” again.
Shocked by newly elected President Teddy Roosevelt’s moves against Wall Street, J. P. Morgan went to the White House. “If we have done anything wrong,” said Morgan, “send your man to my man and they can fix it up.”
“That can’t be done,” said Roosevelt. “We don’t want to fix it up,” his Attorney General added, “we want to stop it.” The year was 1902, and 19th-century privilege was over for Wall Street. Now it’s back, and so are the “men”—and as the recent foot-dragging over female Fed chair candidate Janet Yellen highlights, they almost always are men.
Read more.....
RJ Eskow
AlterNet - Saturday, Oct 5, 2013
Of course they shut the Federal government down. Tea Party
Republicans long for the days when there were no government authorities
to enforce laws and restrain the power of unchecked wealth, the days
when there was no Justice Department, no SEC, no other agencies
protecting Americans from the misdeeds of bankers and corporate titans.
But
it already seems as if our entire country has secretly been transported
back in time. We may think we’re living in the 21st century, but all
the signs suggest we’re living in an earlier and harsher era.Here are seven signs the United States of America has returned to the 19th century.
1. Wall Street can “send your man around to see my man” again.
Shocked by newly elected President Teddy Roosevelt’s moves against Wall Street, J. P. Morgan went to the White House. “If we have done anything wrong,” said Morgan, “send your man to my man and they can fix it up.”
“That can’t be done,” said Roosevelt. “We don’t want to fix it up,” his Attorney General added, “we want to stop it.” The year was 1902, and 19th-century privilege was over for Wall Street. Now it’s back, and so are the “men”—and as the recent foot-dragging over female Fed chair candidate Janet Yellen highlights, they almost always are men.
Read more.....
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Pentagon Will Cut Services and Benefits To Soldiers While Protecting Profits of Defense Industry
William Hartung: Those who fight the wars will face cuts, but not high- ranking military personnel or the companies that build weapons
The Real News - February 25, 2014
JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jaisal Noor in Baltimore. On Monday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel outlined a Pentagon budget that will reduce the size of the military and curtail certain weapons systems. The proposal is an alternative to across-the-board cuts which will be implemented because of the so-called sequester. Now joining us to discuss this is William Hartung. William is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. Thank you so much for joining us.
WILLIAM D. HARTUNG, DIRECTOR, ARMS AND SECURITY PROJECT, CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY: Yes. Thanks for having me. NOOR: So let's start off by getting your response to this proposal by Chuck Hagel. So even though the military personnel are going to get cut, the defense budget, the Pentagon's five-year plan, would boost spending by as much as $115 billion over spending caps set in the sequester. So what's happening, basically, is that even though the fighting force is one of the smallest it's been since World War II, the budget is near historic highs. Give us your response.
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The Real News - February 25, 2014
JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jaisal Noor in Baltimore. On Monday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel outlined a Pentagon budget that will reduce the size of the military and curtail certain weapons systems. The proposal is an alternative to across-the-board cuts which will be implemented because of the so-called sequester. Now joining us to discuss this is William Hartung. William is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. Thank you so much for joining us.
WILLIAM D. HARTUNG, DIRECTOR, ARMS AND SECURITY PROJECT, CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY: Yes. Thanks for having me. NOOR: So let's start off by getting your response to this proposal by Chuck Hagel. So even though the military personnel are going to get cut, the defense budget, the Pentagon's five-year plan, would boost spending by as much as $115 billion over spending caps set in the sequester. So what's happening, basically, is that even though the fighting force is one of the smallest it's been since World War II, the budget is near historic highs. Give us your response.
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Is San Francisco losing its soul?
The big pay cheques of the tech boom are changing the City by the Bay as Twitter and Google millionaires take over its bohemian haunts. Could this be the end of the city as we know it?
By Zoë Corbyn
The Guardian - February 24, 2014
Poet and painter Lawrence Ferlinghetti came to San Francisco in 1951 because he heard it was a great place to be a bohemian. He settled in the Italian working-class neighbourhood of North Beach with its cheap rents and European ambience. And before long he put the city on the world's counter-cultural map by publishing the work of Beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. But despite his status as world and local literary legend, the 94-year-old co-owner of the renowned City Lights bookshop and publishing house doesn't feel so at home in the City by the Bay anymore.
He complains of a "soulless group of people", a "new breed" of men and women too busy with iPhones to "be here" in the moment, and shiny new Mercedes-Benzs on his street. The major art galley in central San Francisco that has shown Ferlinghetti's work for two decades is closing because it can't afford the new rent. It, along with several other galleries, will make way for a cloud computing startup called MuleSoft said to have offered to triple the rent. "It is totally shocking to see Silicon Valley take over the city," says Ferlinghetti, who still rents in North Beach. "San Francisco is radically changing and we don't know where it is going to end up."
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By Zoë Corbyn
The Guardian - February 24, 2014
Poet and painter Lawrence Ferlinghetti came to San Francisco in 1951 because he heard it was a great place to be a bohemian. He settled in the Italian working-class neighbourhood of North Beach with its cheap rents and European ambience. And before long he put the city on the world's counter-cultural map by publishing the work of Beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. But despite his status as world and local literary legend, the 94-year-old co-owner of the renowned City Lights bookshop and publishing house doesn't feel so at home in the City by the Bay anymore.
He complains of a "soulless group of people", a "new breed" of men and women too busy with iPhones to "be here" in the moment, and shiny new Mercedes-Benzs on his street. The major art galley in central San Francisco that has shown Ferlinghetti's work for two decades is closing because it can't afford the new rent. It, along with several other galleries, will make way for a cloud computing startup called MuleSoft said to have offered to triple the rent. "It is totally shocking to see Silicon Valley take over the city," says Ferlinghetti, who still rents in North Beach. "San Francisco is radically changing and we don't know where it is going to end up."
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Denmark Bans Ritual 'Halal' and 'Kosher' Slaughter, Stirs up Animal vs Religious Rights Debate
By Divya Avasthy
International Business Review - February 22, 2014
Halal and kosher meat will no longer be produced in Denmark, where the ritual slaughter has been banned after years of campaigning by animal welfare groups.
Dan Jørgensen, Minister for Agriculture and Food, backs the decision with certainty of his conscience, even as he is widely quoted by the media as saying, "animal rights come before religion".
The statement has stirred up much controversy and debate from Jewish and Muslim religious groups, which are not willing to take non-halal/kosher meat on a "platter".
Animals in most countries are required to be stunned before slaughter to avoid excruciating pain at the time of death, but Jewish and Muslim rituals require the animal to be conscious during slaughter. Their legs and stomachs shiver, their necks twist and their bodies convulse painfully.
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International Business Review - February 22, 2014
Halal and kosher meat will no longer be produced in Denmark, where the ritual slaughter has been banned after years of campaigning by animal welfare groups.
Dan Jørgensen, Minister for Agriculture and Food, backs the decision with certainty of his conscience, even as he is widely quoted by the media as saying, "animal rights come before religion".
The statement has stirred up much controversy and debate from Jewish and Muslim religious groups, which are not willing to take non-halal/kosher meat on a "platter".
Animals in most countries are required to be stunned before slaughter to avoid excruciating pain at the time of death, but Jewish and Muslim rituals require the animal to be conscious during slaughter. Their legs and stomachs shiver, their necks twist and their bodies convulse painfully.
Read more....
Hollywood: Chronicle of an Empire
We examine the dominance of the US entertainment industry and its power to shape perceptions about culture and society.
Al-Jazeera - 24 Feb 2014
"Entertainment is part of our American diplomacy," US President Barack Obama told a crowd last year at a DreamWorks Animation facility. In 2013, it was the Hollywood production Iron Man 3 that made the biggest splash globally, bringing in over $1bn at the box office. In fact, the top 500 grossing films of all time are Hollywood productions.
Hollywood has increasingly made huge inroads into other countries’ box office markets with its blockbusters and studio investments. While countries like China limit the number of foreign films that can be shown at theatres annually, and other countries rely on government assistance to buoy local industries and counter Hollywood’s influence, the US still finds a way to woo non-American audiences.
But at a time when Hollywood’s global reach has never been greater, and as it rakes in millions of dollars each year, what does the dominance of the US entertainment industry say about its power to shape perceptions about society, culture and history? And does this economic and diplomatic might make Hollywood a chronicle of American power?
Empire heads to California to speak to leading directors, producers, film critics and cinema historians to decipher how Hollywood interacts with and affects the rest of the world.
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Al-Jazeera - 24 Feb 2014
"Entertainment is part of our American diplomacy," US President Barack Obama told a crowd last year at a DreamWorks Animation facility. In 2013, it was the Hollywood production Iron Man 3 that made the biggest splash globally, bringing in over $1bn at the box office. In fact, the top 500 grossing films of all time are Hollywood productions.
Hollywood has increasingly made huge inroads into other countries’ box office markets with its blockbusters and studio investments. While countries like China limit the number of foreign films that can be shown at theatres annually, and other countries rely on government assistance to buoy local industries and counter Hollywood’s influence, the US still finds a way to woo non-American audiences.
But at a time when Hollywood’s global reach has never been greater, and as it rakes in millions of dollars each year, what does the dominance of the US entertainment industry say about its power to shape perceptions about society, culture and history? And does this economic and diplomatic might make Hollywood a chronicle of American power?
Empire heads to California to speak to leading directors, producers, film critics and cinema historians to decipher how Hollywood interacts with and affects the rest of the world.
Read more....
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