Academic

Wall Street Bonuses

Posted on February 04, 2009
Wall Street has taken a beating in the press regarding the estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses firms paid out in 2008.  Just for the math challenged, $18.4 billion in bonuses amounts to $10 million bonuses for 1,840 people or $1 million bonuses for 18,400 people or $100,000 bonuses for 184,000 people...

America, the World, Requires a Reckoning

Posted on February 03, 2009
Is it morally conceivable that the Obama administration will fail to pursue some institutional mechanism for determining whether George W. Bush is responsible for war crimes? The moral core of American values requires a reckoning. Even if the former president is never tried, the United States must take it upon itself in whatever venue possible [...

Who?s Afraid of Bipartisanship?

Posted on February 02, 2009
What is political bipartisanship and why do we think it represents an attractive form of politics? First, bipartisanship is an elementary form of political community. It requires taking other people seriously. Rather than attempt to brow beat our political opponents, bipartisan politics seeks to appreciate their conscientious convictions and genuinely try to incorporate them into [...

Is the Pope a Closet Holocaust Denier?

Posted on January 30, 2009
The Pope has sent a terrible message concerning the Catholic Church’s position on Holocaust denial. In order to avoid a continuing “schism” in the Church Pope Benedict decided “to lift the excommunication of four ultra-traditionalist bishops, including one who has denied the Holocaust, has angered many Jews and Catholics who say the bishops represent repressive [...

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James Ashley, another ?Great Emancipator?

Posted on January 29, 2009
Next month, our country will celebrate the 200th birthday of The Great Emancipator, President Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln deserves  his revered status in our history.  He presided over the nation during the Civil War which preserved the Union; he freed the slaves with his Emancipation Proclamation and his advocacy for the Thirteenth Amendment...

Putting Away Childish Things, Part One

Posted on January 28, 2009
In his inaugural speech, President Obama noted that it is time to put away childish things.  This call to action and maturity was taken by some as a slap at the Bush Administration and taken by others as a slap at the entire political system.  Regardless of what it was, it was a call to [...

Should President Obama Be Impeached?

Posted on January 27, 2009
Based on the catastrophic lack of accountability of the past administration, perhaps Congress should form a standing committee to gather information on whether the 44th president should be, at some time in the future, impeached. By appointing such a committee the President has notice that he is accountable for his decisions, that his actions must [...

Community in Obama?s Deliberative Conversationalism

Posted on January 26, 2009
President Obama’s political philosophy–what I call “deliberative conversation–has at its center piece, the idea of community. The moral imperative of the idea of community is simply that human beings are members of a community ab initio, but its a community we must work to perfect...

What Obama?s Victory Means for Racism in America

Posted on January 23, 2009
Hank Chambers’ Wednesday’s post makes an important point, namely, the inauguration of Barack Obama alone neither fulfills Dr. King’s dream nor ends racism in our time. Hank insists that we must explore the reasons why people voted for President Obama, not just that they did...

My Journey to the Inauguration

Posted on January 22, 2009
I just returned from Washington, DC, where I witnessed the Inauguration of President Obama on a jumbotron at the foot of the Washington Monument.  To get there, my family and I drove past Youngtown, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, both cities which used to be the home of a thriving steel industry - an industry that is [...

What The Inauguration Does Not Mean

Posted on January 21, 2009
A number of folks have suggested that the inauguration of President Barack Obama is the fulfillment of or a down payment on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.  It is unclear it is either.  Barack Obama’s election suggests that more Americans in particular states voted for Obama than voted for John McCain...

TO BEGIN THE WORLD A NEW

Posted on January 20, 2009
The American Revolution and its constitutional expression–at least in the Constitution’s Preamble, the Bill of Right, and the Civil War Amendments–represent a commitment to the critical political values of liberty and equality. Ours was the first nation to be committed to an idea, to popular sovereignty...

The Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted on January 19, 2009
Racial apartheid has taken a terrible toll on African Americans by shutting them out of America’s promise.  But racism has exacted a terrible cost on all Americans. The symbol of this oppression can be best captured in the introduction to the film “Mississippi Burning...

Geithner and Vetting

Posted on January 15, 2009
The newspapers have been abuzz over the last few days regarding the tax problems of Timothy Geithner, current New York Federal Reserve Bank Chairman and nominee to be Treasury Secretary in President-elect Barack Obama’s administration.  The Geithner nomination and the ensuing uncertainty regarding it may stem from the speed with which Obama needed to name [...

What Safety Net?

Posted on January 15, 2009
As more and more Americans lose their jobs, our system of unemployment insurance has come under strain.  Last week, the Ohio unemployment insurance computer system crashed under the strain of overuse, and the phone lines followed, because they were receiving 80,000  calls a day...

Geithner and Vetting

Posted on January 14, 2009
The newspapers have been abuzz over the last few days regarding the tax problems of Timothy Geithner, current New York Federal Reserve Bank Chairman and nominee to be Treasury Secretary in President-elect Barack Obama’s administration.  The Geithner nomination and the ensuing uncertainty regarding it may stem from the speed with which Obama needed to name [...

Never ?Misunderestimate? W.

Posted on January 13, 2009
George W. Bush has managed to become a transformative president after all. Consider how he has single-handedly metamorphosed presidential security surveillance by alerting us to the possibility that shoes can be used to injure and insult presidents.  Of course, we already knew that shoes can be used as bombs on airplanes...

Traditions: What Are They Good For?

Posted on January 12, 2009
Traditions, of every stripe, wear a canonical authority that often loses its connection with the circumstances engendering the tradition in the first place. This prevents us from criticizing ancient standards in order to evaluate their propriety in contemporary America...

W.?s Final Press Conference: What a Relief!

Posted on January 12, 2009
With great pathos the man who never should have been president held his final press conference. His strident defiance, obtuseness, defensiveness, and absence of subtlety, and intellectual and emotional depth shown vividly throughout this exercise. Mr...

W.?s Legacy

Posted on January 09, 2009
Salon.com has an important article evaluating the Bush-Cheney failures. Here’s a sample: “After a couple of presidential terms, mismanagement in every area of policy — foreign, domestic, even extraterrestrial — starts to add up...

The President?s Lawyer

Posted on January 08, 2009
President elect Barack Obama’s appointments to cabinet positions give us a sense of what he may be like as President, and what policies he may pursue.  The official who best reflects the President’s over-arching theory of his role in our constitutional structure is the head the Office of Legal Counsel, the agency that advises the president [...

Senator Reid?s Club

Posted on January 07, 2009
When people speak of the Senate being the most exclusive club in America, it is meant figuratively. However, apparently, a number of senators have taken the reference literally in dealing with the Roland Burris affair. Clubs are allowed to determine their membership based on whatever criteria they choose...

President Obama Must Protect His Left Flank!

Posted on January 06, 2009
President Barack Obama, if he wants to be effective and potentially become a great president, must not lose faith with liberals and progressive constituting his “base.”  After all, it was the democratic Left that began his remarkable, successful quest to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination...

The Role of Journalists in Shaping the American Public?s Understanding of the Israeli/Palestianian Conflict.

Posted on January 05, 2009
Jerome Slater has an intriguing piece in Tikkun Magazine on the role of journalists, specifically Tom Friedman of the New York Times, in distorting the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  Here’s the editor’s note: [Editor?s Note: Jerome Slater?s critique of Thomas Friedman raises important questions about the role of journalists in mis-shaping public understanding of the [...

The Environment? Had McCain Won

Posted on January 02, 2009
Check out Katharine Mieszkowski’s piece in Salon.com tracing an imaginary scenario implicating continued degradation of the economy had Senator McCain won the presidency. Here’s a taste: “Before hailing the close of the Bush administration’s eight-year attack on the environment and scientific integrity, and celebrating Barack Obama’s takeover, let us pause to imagine an [...

God and The Problem of Evil

Posted on January 01, 2009
Isn’t it curious that people suffering the loss of a loved one due to the deadly work of wrongdoers or natural catastrophes often congregate in their Church to seek comfort from God. If God  is understood to be an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect being, it would seem to follow that evil or suffering would be [...

Two American Pathologies: ?Guns Don?t Kill People, People Kill People? & ?Arm the Good Guys?

Posted on December 30, 2008
Two incidents of gun violence occurred in the past week that underscore American pathology regarding gun ownership. First, a truck driver, at the end of his haul, was shot and killed by a passing motorist in a pickup truck. Subsequently, a former Utah police officer, dressed as Santa Claus, crashed a party at the home [...

Can President Obama Undo the Imperial Presidency?

Posted on December 29, 2008
Over the past eight years the Bush-Cheney regime has virtually shredded the U.S. Constitution and the fundamental rights and ideals that help to define American society. From warrantless wiretaps, the abuse of signing statements, torture, data mining, unlawful detention, sending the military to fight a war on false pretenses, redistributing wealth from the poor and [...

The Economy in Free Fall

Posted on December 27, 2008
With hundreds of billions already spent in bailing out the financial system, the American economy is still plummeting. For the latest on this crisis click here. It’s unclear whether American constitutionalism designed to deal with such critical financial and economic downturns...

Will Barack be a ?Goo Goo??

Posted on December 26, 2008
Progressives supporting the President-elect may be asking themselves just what Barack must do to begin reclaiming American ideals–including, of course, a fair economic system–from the depredations of the past eight years. Here are some ideas from Paul Krugman: “Times have changed...

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