A quarter century after the end of the Cold War and decades after the signing of landmark nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements, are the U.S. and Russian governments once more engaged in a potentially disastrous nuclear arms race with one another? It certainly looks like it.
There are glaring contradictions between the rhetoric and action of modern American conservatives. Can conservatives explain these discrepancies? If not, we have good reason to conclude that their professed principles are no more than a respectable mask behind which lurk less admirable motives.
Betty Medsger's account of the 1971 break-in at the FBI headquarters in Media, Pennsylvania not only provides us with a fascinating history of FBI criminality, but an exciting tale of activist courage and success in defending civil liberties.
The reign of Shirley Jackson at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute exemplifies the corporate model that is sweeping through American higher education. It includes inflating administration salaries, exploiting adjunct faculty, regular faculty, and other workers, strengthening administraton power, raising tuition to astronomical heights, and, above all, running colleges and universities like modern business enerprises.
U.S. politicians and pundits are fond of saying that America's wars have defended America's freedom. But, in fact, over the past century, U.S. wars have triggered major encroachments upon civil liberties, including violations of freedom of speech and press, imprisonment of dissenters, internment of thousands of U.S. citizens without charges or trials, and massive spying on Americans by government agencies.
In the supposedly classless society of the United States, the 400 wealthiest Americans now have an average net worth of $5.7 billion -- an increase of 14 percent over the previous year. Economic inequality is growing rapidly, and the wealthiest Americans are increasing it by championing the abolition of public schools, minimum wage laws, Medicare, and Medicaid, weakening unions, restricting voting rights, and, of course, promoting tax cuts for the rich.
The United States is the top nation in the world when it comes to war and gun-related deaths. But, when it comes to education, health, and the environment, the statistics show that it ranks far down on the list.
After thousands of years of bloody wars among contending tribes, regions, and nations, is it finally possible to dispense with the chauvinist ideas of the past? To judge by President Barack Obama's recent rhetoric and Middle East policy, it is not.
An array of global problems -- including not only the aggressive use of military force, but climate change, disease, and poverty -- cry out for global solutions. But we are not likely to see these solutions in a world of international anarchy, in which the "national interest" continues to trump the human interest.
Americans committed to better living for bosses can take heart at the fact that college and university administrators -- unlike their faculty (increasingly reduced to rootless adjuncts) and students (saddled with ever more debt) -- are thriving. Indeed, these are boom times for campus administrators.