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Hic Jacet Humptus - with a bow to the late William Buckley
| Marvin Mandell | April 4, 2010 |
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses
And all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again
How much can a citizen expect of his state?
Before we rush into the breach with solutions that only create more problems, solutions like more welfare, more job-retraining programs, more touchy-feely therapy, in short, more middle class boondoggling in a mind-boggling bureaucracy, let us try to find out what caused the problem.
Obama's War/Obama's Atrocities
| Steve Shalom | March 27, 2010 |
Since George Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001 -- the unjust, illegal, and unnecessary attack on Afghanistan -- there have been constant US and NATO strikes on Afghan civilians, along with constant denials that such strikes have taken place.
Diane Ravitch
| Lois Weiner | March 24, 2010 |
You can hear Diane Ravitch's revised version of what's needed for school reform, as well as a very different perspective (my own), in a panel this Friday, March 26, 6:00 PM, at NYU, Silver Room 207.
Addicted to war
| Marvin Mandell | March 22, 2010 |
Kathryn Bigelow, the director of The Hurt Locker, claims that many men in Iraq and Afghanistan are addicted to war. If this is true, could it have something to do with the fact that GIs today do not face the endless bombardment from airplanes, field artillery, and tanks that World War II soldiers did?
I served in the 88th Infantry Division in Italy and I never met anyone so addicted. Had we met someone like that we would have considered him “Section 8,” that is, seriously disturbed.
Does that mean that many gung-ho GIs now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are Section 8?
Democrats for Education Reform?
| Lois Weiner | March 20, 2010 |
Anyone who doubts that the Democratic Party has morphed from “liberal” to “neoliberal” in regard to education policy should check out the Democrats for Education Reform (DER).
9-11 Revelation
| Steve Shalom | March 18, 2010 |
Conspiracy theorists often take evidence of government cover-ups as proof that a conspiracy occurred. Sometimes a conspiracy may indeed have occurred, but often the cover-up was designed to hide not some grand conspiracy, but malfeasance, incompetence, or wrong-doing.
Help Haitian Popular Radio Mobilize the Haitian People after the Earthquake
| Joanne Landy | March 11, 2010 |
Below is an appeal from Mark Dow for the Haitian popular radio work of New Politics writer Sony Esteus and his colleagues in the wake of Haiti's devastating earthquake. I hope you can make a contribution, even if it is modest. Send a donation to our office, New Politics, 155 W. 72nd Street, Rm 402, NY, NY 10025 or go give through PayPal on our website www.newpol.org. As always, gifts to New Politics are tax deductible; please indicate that the donation is for Haiti. To contact Mark directly, write him at mdow@igc.org
In solidarity,
Joanne Landy, member, New Politics editorial board
The Swiss Healthcare System a Model for the U.S.?: Even the Swiss Are Growing Dissatisfied with Private Insurance!
| Joanne Landy | March 3, 2010 |
The Swiss health insurance system, which mandates every individual to buy private health insurance, has been held up by many as a realistic model for the United States. In Switzerland, however, private insurers are far more highly regulated than is conceivable to imagine in the U.S. for example, they are not allowed to make profit on “basic” coverage. Yet even so, as my friend Dennis Clagett who lives in Switzerland has written to me, popular dissatisfaction with the country’s healthcare system is mounting due to the way that the private insurers have behaved.
Zimbabwe and Rhode Island: The new exemplar for labor
| Lois Weiner | February 26, 2010 |
“Unions are killing the economy” says Henry Blodget at the Business Insider. He gleefully applauds the firing of every teacher in a Rhode Island school for their arrogance. How dare workers, teachers especially, think they have a voice in their working conditions or salaries? How uppity of teachers to sneer at the bosses’ absolutist control of the workplace. Let’s recall that Henry Blodget was indicated for insider trading.
Winds of change in US teacher unions
| Lois Weiner | February 18, 2010 |
Though you wouldn’t know it from the mass media, which focuses its attention on the way teacher unions impede “educational innovation,” (e.g., standardized testing’s stranglehold; privatization; cuts in funding), we are witnessing a growing swell of reform in teacher unions. Transformation of both national teacher unions is absolutely essential to turn back the neoliberal program that the Obama administration is pushing.