Sadly, it took the extrajudicial killing of yet another unarmed black man at the hands of the police for me to find my voice about finishing a dissertation under quarantine during a pandemic. I have considered whether or not I should write something every day since my...
This was another busy week in global politics and I'm going to highlight some of the best tweets in my Twitter feed. Before starting, however, I will acknowledge that this post is late. I believe my...
It's the weekend, so it's time for the third edition of “Tweets of the Week.” My twitter feed was again filled with some interesting micro-blogging. By the way, I apologize for the way last week's...
“Mutti,” aka Angela Merkel, is not amused. Neither is the rest of the German political establishment, the German media, or the vast majority of German people. Three days ago, some of the protesters...
As the Occupy Wall Street New York movement enters its second week of activity and the movement spreads to LA, Boston, Chicago, Denver and other cities across the country, the silence on the part of the Obama administration becomes more and more noticeable (we can't count Biden's weird and incoherent references to the movement in an interview yesterday). Few expected Obama to come out with any statement last week, when the media was still painting the movement largely as a band of hippies who don't know enough to shower, let alone drive a political movement. Dan Gainor at Fox news pointed...
Do we?Tomorrow is slated to be a showdown between the US backed Mubarak regime and masses of Egyptian protesters. It is a critical moment for Egypt, and also for the Arab nation. What strikes me about these events, is the general way in which the discourse of "reform" continues to be the official American mantra (at least where there is not out right denial of the authoritarian nature of the regime in Egypt). After decades of supporting a dictatorship, the US government continues to claim that the Mubarak regime needs only to reform to retain power and address the legitimate anger of the...
The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that the hackitivist collective [?] "Anonymous," famous for DDOS attacks on Mastercard and Paypal after the Wikileaks Cablegate fiasco, is attacking the government of Tunisia's website in support of the growing and increasingly violent protests there:"But the unrest has since spread to a wide cross-section of Tunisian society, reflecting broader discontent with inequality and autocratic leaders perceived as corrupt figures who live high on the hog while blocking free expression by average Tunisians (see map showing protest locations). The...
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has proposed an amendment to the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill, which will end the National Science Foundation's program for political science.I have set up an online petition to rally opposition to this amendment, and I ask any and all readers to sign it, and pass it on to anyone and everyone. I also encourage everyone to call their senators and ask them to stop amendment 2631 to H.R. 2847.https://www.petition2congress.com/2/2508/keep-nsf-political-science-program/UPDATE: The petition has generated over 2,000 letters to Congress in less than...
The G20 Summit kicked off yesterday in Pittsburgh, and today the NYTimes reported that anti-globalization protesters vandalized the Boston Market I used to feed my kids at in Shadyside. Aside from feeling a bit homesick when I saw the photo of that neighborhood on the front page, I ask myself what the anarchist block of these movements really thinks it's accomplishing with these tactics. Bear in mind that unless the movement has changed considerably in the last decade, the majority of the protesters are using nonviolent tactics and it's only a few on the fringes that are mucking up my...