Cultural Commentary
The Powell Memo and the Teaching Machines of Right-Wing Extremists
Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, echoing the feelings of many progressives, recently wrote in The New York Times about how dismayed he was over the success right-wing ideologues have had not only in undercutting Obama's health care bill, but also in mobilizing enormous public support against almost any reform aimed at rolling back the economic, political, and social conditions that have created the economic recession and the legacy of enormous suffering and hardship for millions of Americans over the last 30 years.[1]
Maybe We Really Do Want Government to Make the Decisions
This post was written for the Commonweal Institute Progressive Op-Ed Program. I am a Fellow with the Commonweal Institute.
Tags: Politics, Huffington Post, Government, Dave Johnson
Why Health Care Reform Now
Today, many of us know someone who has no health insurance and we
worry about what would happen if they got seriously sick. Early last
year a friend was diagnosed with cancer. Fortunately he had an
excellent outcome with treatment. But two months later, he lost his job
and—after he and his wife struggled to keep up with the insurance
payments for eight months while he searched for a new job—they finally
stopped paying for insurance. The choice came down to keeping a roof
over their heads or paying their COBRA bill. They know they are now
playing the lottery with his health. And God forbid his wife or son
gets sick. This is the dilemma too many of our families, our friends
and our neighbors are facing right now.
Reforming the health-care insurance market is not only a primary
goal of President Barack Obama, but is also a major requirement for the
economic health of the United States because it will prevent the
bankruptcy of our country and its citizens.
Education by Inches?
Education by Inches?
With all of President Obama's lofty rhetoric on education, surprisingly few innovative policies have materialized.
Why Conservatives Can't Think Big About the Middle Class
Exposing the Intercollegiate Studies Institute
On
October 3, KQED, an NPR radio station in the San Francisco Bay area,
aired a panel discussion (www.kqed.org/epArchive/
The research results attracted widespread media attention, including that of MSNBC, the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, and Newsweek.
Talking ’bout My Generation
Stop telling me that I am out of my element! Stop telling me that I am morally corrupt! Stop telling me that I am the problem!
If it sounds like I have an attitude problem, I do. This Generation Y’er has a beef with his elders. Call me naïve, or call me crazy, but I believe that my Generation (those born between 1977 and 1994) is becoming the generation of the future. Right now, it is the older generations that are holding this country back, not the younger ones.
The Curious Fate of Populism: How Politics Turned Into Pose
Shop like a populist," wrote a columnist in The St. Petersburg Times earlier in the month, recommending a local store that specializes in quirky collectibles like old soap boxes and bowling pins.
That's what the "pop" of "populist" has come to, a century after the disappearance of the Populists, or People's Party, who were a powerful political force in the 1890's. They advocated restrictions on corporate power, the direct election of United States senators, an eight-hour day, and a graduated income tax - proposals that led critics to call them "wild-eyed, rattle-brained fanatics."
Today, though, populism can be as much a matter of style as substance. In Boston Magazine, Jon Keller speaks of John Kerry's difficulty in "convincing southern Nascar dads and Wal-Mart moms of the populist empathy of a windsurfing New England multimillionaire." National Review's Jay Nordlinger writes that "President Bush is engaged in a little populist campaigning himself today - he's going to Indiana and Michigan, for a bus tour."
Bilingualism in Canada
"Every time you look at the world and life and humanity through the key, which is language, you discover another profile, another vision of the same world & So, learning another language makes you bigger, gives you a wider vision, makes you feel subtleties that you don't get in one language." --Antonine Maillet
America’s Fascination with Personality
The Commonweal Institute’s Uncommon Denominator has lamented our society's increasing dependence on images and the rise of domestic fundamentalism, and, as a response to these anti-democratic trends, called for a renewed emphasis on critical thinking in the public educational system: "The qualities of thought we wish to promote should be promoted among younger students . . . such that they enter their adult years already better equipped to make good decisions for their lives, and to understand the forces and processes that shape their world."
