Author name: davidswanson

By David Swanson

Kurt Vonnegut, at age 82, has published over two dozen books. His latest is called “A Man Without a Country.” It’s a book that is brutally honest in its hopelessness, in fact – I think – overly hopeless, and yet humorous. It may even be hopeless in order to better be humorous. Vonnegut discusses in the book the use of tragedy to heighten laughter. But certainly the humor works to lighten the load of dismay and despair that this book ever-so-lightly dumps read more

Bush, God, Fox and the International Criminal Court
Jan. 14, 2005
Here’s an interesting theory for why Bush attacked Iraq. He did so in order to violate international law. This is what Eric Zuesse argues in “Iraq War, the Truth,” a 188-page book from Delphic Press.

The book is better than its title or its preface. Zuesse makes a case that Bush’s central motivation in launching this war was to render the United Nations and the International Criminal Court powerless. Bush read more

“What’s Wrong With a Free Lunch” by Philippe Van Parijs

“What’s Wrong With a Free Lunch” by Philippe Van Parijs proposes that every person be given an above-subsistence-level Universal Basic Income with no strings attached. The book includes responses from 15 thinkers, mostly sympathetic to the idea. A couple oppose the idea of letting anyone have anything for nothing (as if that were not already the case), and several suggest what they see as similar but better read more

“Achieving Our Country,” by Richard Rorty.
Harvard University Press, 1998

The well-known philosopher, Richard Rorty, has published a short little book on American politics which has the potential to do a tremendous amount of good.

Rorty, as he recounts in the book, grew up in a family very active in leftist politics during the Thirties and Forties. His was a Left superior, he believes, to today’s academic Left in at least two ways: it wasted no time on theory so far removed from read more

“To Hell With School Vouchers, Charter Schools, and Merit Pay,” by Samuel Breidner.

“To Hell With School Vouchers, Charter Schools, and Merit Pay,” by Samuel Breidner is a short book that’s well worth reading and probably won’t reach much of the audience it should. To begin with, it’s mistitled. The book is a proposal for Theme-Based Academies in public schools, in which teams of teachers design curricula around themes that keep the students interested read more

“The Stakeholder Society,” by Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott.
7 May 1999

The Stakeholder Society and Private charity as a Reason for Banning Public Charity

In an outstanding new book called the Stake holder society, Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott propose having the government give every American $80,000 in their early twenties. This would be funded by a two percent tax on wealth above $80,000. They also suggest a privilege tax on those who have had financially privileged childhoods. read more

Thieves in High Places By Jim Hightower

They say a great actor can read the side of a cereal box and make you cry. I doubt it. Jim Hightower couldn’t read the side of a cereal box if you paid him, not without dragging in about 85 analogies and bits of wisdom his neighbor told him about how to relate to hogs and chickens. But by the time he was through improving on that cereal box, you’d be stomping your feet and clutching your sides to control the laughter, and in the process you’d read more

“The Revival of Pragmatism,” by Morris Dickstein.
February, 1999

The Washington Post, Feb. 7, 1999: “CINCINNATI — An appeals court has overturned a rapist’s 51-year prison sentence because a judge turned to the Bible while deciding his punishment.”

THE REVIVAL OF PRAGMATISM, edited by Morris Dickstein, 1998, contains a section on “Pragmatism and Law.” The first essay in this section is an excellent one by Richard Posner discussing legal pragmatism read more