When Students Are a Shock to the System

Originally appeared at TomDispatch. Once upon a time, in another era, maybe even another universe, the head of a university refused to call on the police, the National Guard, or even federal troops in the face of student and other protests. Instead, he opened the...

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Robert Lipsyte: What Kind of Jew Am I?

I grew up in the least-Jewish Jewish family around in the 1950s. We celebrated Christmas every year in a big-time fashion: tree, decorations, and all. And despite the desires of my dear grandmother, there would be no temple, no Sunday Hebrew school, no religion of any...

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A Case for Demilitarizing the Military

Originally posted at TomDispatch.General Lloyd Austin, the outgoing head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), recently testified before Congress, suggesting that Washington needed to up its troop levels in Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, in his own congressional testimony,...

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Genuine, Handcrafted, Man-Made Government

From the beginning, it was to be “Russia’s Vietnam.” First the administration of President Jimmy Carter, then that of President Ronald Reagan was determined to give the Soviet Union a taste of what the U.S. had gone through in its disastrous 14-year...

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Ignorance Can Be Dangerous

Originally posted at TomDispatch.Ignorance can be dangerous, as shown in a recent poll asking Americans what to do about the Ukraine crisis.  It turned out that the less those polled were capable of identifying where in the world Ukraine is, the more likely they...

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The Imperial Mentality and 9/11

Editor's note: On Tuesday, we linked to an excerpt of a Noam Chomsky essay from a forthcoming book. TomDispatch has a longer excerpt, which is linked to below. This is, of course, the week before the tenth anniversary of the day that “changed everything.”  And enough...

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