Media

If a Social Movement Falls Outside of the Media, Are Any Lives Improved?

Leave a Comment /

When We Fight We Win! is the overly violent and overly optimistic title of a very good new book about recent nonviolent social struggles in the United States for LGBTQ rights, immigrants rights, economic justice, public education, a sustainable environment, and an end to mass incarceration.

My initial response to this book was very different from my considered response.

My initial response to a table of contents like the one in this book is always: Where the hell is war? Don’t they read more

If a Social Movement Falls Outside of the Media, Are Any Lives Improved? Read More »

Iniquity, the 0.000006%, and Who Pays $300k to Hear Hillary

Leave a Comment /

The United States’ 20 wealthiest people (The 0.000006 Percent) now own more wealth than the bottom half of the U.S. population combined, a total of 152 million people in 57 million households. The Forbes 400 now own about as much wealth as the nation’s entire African-American population — plus more than a third of the Latino population — combined; more wealth combined than the bottom 61 percent of the U.S. population, an estimated 194 million people or 70 million households.

These read more

Iniquity, the 0.000006%, and Who Pays $300k to Hear Hillary Read More »

5 Things to Do About ISIS, or Can an American Without a Gun "Do Something"?

Leave a Comment /

Toward the end of altering our idea of what counts as “doing something,” I offer this composite representation of numerous media interviews I’ve done.  

Interviewer: So you’d stop the planes and the drones and the bombs and the special forces. You’ve said lots about what you wouldn’t do, but can you say what you would do?

Me: Sure, I believe the United States government should propose and attempt to negotiate and at the same time unilaterally read more

5 Things to Do About ISIS, or Can an American Without a Gun "Do Something"? Read More »

The TPP: You, Me, Everyone Else, Against the Media

Leave a Comment /

The proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a test of whether the people of the United States can communicate something critically important to each other that the major media corporations do not want communicated.

For years I’ve joined with others in quoting people like former U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to the effect that if the text of the TPP were shown to the public, that would be the end of it, because it’s just so awful.

But now that the text has finally been read more

The TPP: You, Me, Everyone Else, Against the Media Read More »

Is War Beautiful?

Leave a Comment /

“War Is Beautiful” is the ironic title of a beautiful new book of photographs. The subtitle is “The New York Times Pictorial Guide to the Glamour of Armed Conflict.” There’s an asterisk after those words, and it leads to these: “(In which the author explains why he no longer reads The New York Times).” The author never explains why he read the New York Times to begin with.

The author of this read more

Is War Beautiful? Read More »

Living With Racism in the USA

Leave a Comment /

I thought Deepa Iyer’s new book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future, would be about positive and jarring cultural contributions from immigrants, how their literature, music, myths, cooking, clothing, and cultural practices are merging with and influencing wider U.S. culture. I think that would be a good book. Maybe someone’s written it.

This, too, is a good book, and I recommend it. But it is mostly about the all-too-familiar read more

Living With Racism in the USA Read More »

Can Corporatized Universities Allow Criticism of Israel?

Leave a Comment /

The University of California is seeking to ban criticism of Israel. This is a widespread phenomenon in the United States, as attested by two new reports and cases like that of Steven Salaita, author of Uncivil Rights: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom.

Salaita was fired by the University of Illinois for criticizing Israel on Twitter. Norman Finkelstein had been denied tenure by DePaul University for criticizing Israel. William Robinson was almost driven out at UC Santa Barbara for refusing read more

Can Corporatized Universities Allow Criticism of Israel? Read More »