Fredric Jameson is a literary critic and Marxist political theorist. Stanley Aronowitz is a sociologist, activist, cultural critic, and an advocate for organized labor. Continue reading An American utopia: Fredric Jameson in conversation with Stanley Aronowitz
Preamble: The exchange below is between Sam Harris and Noam Chomsky. For some background please see the links provided here: Link 1 and Link 2. For more please see: Link 3 and Harris’s “Final thoughts on Chomsky.” Noam gave his … Continue reading An exchange between Sam Harris and Noam Chomsky: censored by Sam Harris
by Henry A. Giroux Seventy years after the horror of Hiroshima, intellectuals negotiate a vastly changed cultural, political and moral geography. Pondering what Hiroshima means for American history and consciousness proves as fraught an intellectual exercise as taking up this … Continue reading Remembering Hiroshima in an Age of Neoliberal Barbarism
by Diana Johnstone Opposing genocide has become a sort of cottage industry in the United States. Everywhere, “genocide studies” are cropping up in universities. Five years ago, an unlikely “Genocide Prevention Task Force” was set up headed by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former defense secretary William Cohen, both veterans of the Clinton administration. The Bible of the campaign is Samantha Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell”. Ms. Power’s thesis is that the U.S. Government, while well-intentioned, like all of us, is too slow to intervene to “stop genocide”. It is a suggestion that the U.S. government embraces, even to taking … Continue reading Taking notes 17: The good intentions that pave the road to war
by Henry A. Giroux You write in order to change the world knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that [writing] is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter even by a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it. – James Baldwin The Violence of Neoliberalism We live in a time of deep foreboding, one that haunts any discourse about justice, democracy, and the future. Not only have the points of reference that provided a sense of certainty and collective hope … Continue reading The politics of disimagination and the pathologies of power
by Peter Neil Kirstein To justify American expansionism, presidential war messages frequently contained nationalistic proclamations of American innocence and virtue. President James Knox Polk in seeking war with Mexico on May 11, 1846 as a mandate of the nation’s “Manifest Destiny,” demonized it as a “menace,” lied that it had invaded the United States and argued war was necessary to protect American democracy. “[W]e are called upon by every consideration of duty and patriotism to vindicate with decision the honor, the rights, and the interests of our country.”[1] President William McKinley in asking Congress for a declaration of war to … Continue reading Free speech, war, and academic freedom
Philosophers for Change 