Cornel West: “How do you straighten your back up? How do you tell the truth? How do you bear witness? How do you organize? How do you mobilize? How do you generate forms of resistance and resiliency in the face of some very, very ugly forms of terror and trauma and stigma?”
Read more...As mass killings become more common in the US, law enforcement agents fixate on and unduly publicize cases with jihadist links. As this post describes, that serves as an excuse for even more intensive surveillance.
Yet as Mark Ames described in one of the first works on these rampages, in his book “Going Postal,” there were no obvious similarities among the perps. They weren’t all, or even often, isolated losers. They did not typically come from broken homes. They were generally of above average intelligence. Aside from being disproportionately male, the other common thread was that they had been bullied.
If Ames’ observations still hold true, the lack of distinctive demographic or behavioral predictors of those who go on rampages means that heightened surveillance is at best another form of security theater, and at worst an excuse for Stasi-like dossier-gethering.
Read more...What you can learn from applying the Hillary Clinton Rorschach test to friends and family!
Read more...How big corporate tax avoidance hurts local schools.
Read more...To solve any “retirement security” problems, why not just expand the proven and popular Social Security program?
Read more...The Opium Wars illustrate the brutal effectiveness of Great Britain’s use of a particular notion of freedom as a means of conquest.
Read more...Obesity is fast becoming a prominent global health issue. This column presents new evidence tentatively suggesting that variables related to the costs of eating – particularly whether there is a big discount warehouse nearby – are leading drivers of the rise in obesity occurring since the early 1980s. These findings should help policymakers work with businesses to find the best solution to tackle obesity.
Read more...Social Security does face long term demographics issues….as will any approach to making sure retirees have income.
Read more...The answer to a widely-discussed Social Security scenario is not as tidy as has been assumed.
Read more...The institutionalized elements of corruption in America are so powerful that they’ve been able to gut the Constitution.
Read more...Most people don’t think too hard about the fact that there is a price for secrecy, and when the truth is dangerous, the price is high.
Read more...Efforts to reform social welfare programs in England operated on the assumption that lack of consistent work (as in periods of unemployment) and overly large families were the big drivers of poverty. But the majority of poor now are working poor, and as in the Speenhamland days, social welfare programs are helping to subsidize below-living-wage pay levels.Similar factors are in play for US employers like Wal-Mart and McDonalds.
Read more...On Independence Day’s roots as an “Americanization” propaganda project to increase acceptance of immigrants who competed with native-born workers.
Read more...Post-bailout expiration dynamics are likely to produce even worse outcomes for Greece than it had on offer from the creditors last month.
Read more...An update on where and how tenants are being squeezed by rising rents versus stagnant to low wage growth.
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