Tag: Conflict Narratives
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The Money Illusion Manifesto
Here’s the gist: I would like to argue that most of the really important public policy issues are not even part of the ongoing debate in the press. Here are some examples: 1. The huge rise in occupational licensing. 2. The huge rise in people incarcerated in the war on drugs, and also the scandalous…
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Why I am still hopeful for Egypt’s revolution
It is said that revolution is what happens when a police officer is transformed from a legitimate authority into a man with a gun. If that’s true, then what we witnessed in Egypt yesterday is a classic counter-revolution: irregular hoodlums attacking peaceful protesters, whose only defense is the military standing by. To ask for the…
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Left for Dead: Equality of What, Equality for Whom?
There’s a pretty fantastic exchange happening in the blogosphere right now, started by Freddie DeBoer here and followed-up here. The substance of DeBoer’s criticism is that there are no legitimate “far left” bloggers, only center-left “neo-liberals” and the panoply of social conservatives, partisan Republicans, and libertarians. Thus, DeBoer charges, we have a blind spot, an…
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Psychologizing Politics
On the Diane Rehm Show today, Jill Lepore echoed Richard Hofstadter’s diagnosis of political violence: I went back and — a few years ago and reread an issue of Newsweek magazine that was published a couple of months after the Kent State shootings, which is, in some ways, a similar moment to this pause and this…
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Three Thoughts on the Tuscon Shootings
The immediate response to tragedy ought to be a cautious silence and a quiet search for understanding. Yet when I attended a vigil on Sunday at the US Capitol building, a reporter from WAMU spent a half hour gathering quotes (none of which he used, thankfully) and in the process goaded a few vocal participants into…
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Beware of Awe
Over the holiday weekend, I spent some time with my family watching the series Planet Earth on a high definition television. It was moving and informative, a sublime challenge to our capacities in its global sweep and the depiction of interconnections between the planet’s various ecosystems. I found myself thinking that this was the perfect propaganda…