Posts tagged: Politics
- On abortion: Oklahoma Abortion Law struck down + thoughts
- Score one for the choicers — for now. Oklahoma County District Court struck down an abortion law ruling that the law addressed too many topics, and therefore violated the Oklahoma constitution’s “single-subject” rule. But what galls me? This shit right here: One of the most contentious parts of the law was the creation of a Web site [...] [22 Feb 2010]
- On the Supreme Court’s paid speech decision
- This is certainly a more powerful threat to democracy than terrorism. It may well be a more powerful threat to democracy than was the fatally-flawed Soviet Union. Because to the extent to which politicians depend on donations to remain in power, they are inevitably influenced by those who have the most money. Not surprisingly, corporate [...] [23 Jan 2010]
- On Fear and Conservatism
- And sophomores and juniors with high social dominance orientation and system justification scores became more politically conservative as seniors. In other words, there was a process in which threats and anxieties led students to adopt particular political beliefs that helped them to deal with those threats and anxieties. From Can Threats and Living in a State [...] [21 Jan 2010]
- Why racial profiling doesn’t work
- From the Washington Post: Fifth and finally, al-Qaeda is covetously seeking recruits from non-Muslim countries who can be easily deployed for attacks in the West. The group’s leaders see people like these — especially converts to Islam whose appearances and names would not arouse the same scrutiny that persons from Islamic countries might — as the [...] [10 Jan 2010]
- Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is no John Brown
- From Tony Horwitz’ The 9/11 of 1859 in today’s NYT. But perhaps he doesn’t need one. In 1859, John Brown sought not only to free slaves in Virginia but to terrorize the South and incite a broad conflict. In this he triumphed: panicked whites soon mobilized, militarized and marched double-quick toward secession. Brown’s raid [...] [2 Dec 2009]
- Genetically modified eggplant, hunger and India
- Two kinds of eggplant, neither genetically modified. Photo by istorija In India, where food production depends on the vagaries of the weather, GM foods are a hot button for not just debate over bio-safety but also the power of multinationals to influence food choices. The GM eggplant strain has been developed by American agrichemical giant Monsanto with [...] [30 Nov 2009]
- Sarah Palin “stands for what America is”
- And what’s that? Being willfully ignorant? Inarticulate? Poorly informed and not all that well-read? These folks are about to make me start believing in a deity, because after witnessing the rank stupidity on full view in this video, I don’t know what else to do. [26 Nov 2009]
- It’s not Islam. It is us.
- But the knee jerk reaction of blaming Islam and Muslims, in general, or looking for delusional links to “al Qaeda,” for the horrific murders at Fort Hood points to something far more fundamental, overdue, and urgent — namely something of a psychological barrier for Americans to accept the Islamic component of their own society, culture, [...] [26 Nov 2009]
- Islam and “The Colonized Mind”
- It was the most successful form of colonialism: the colonized mind identified completely with the colonizer. The Javanese had held out for centuries, but finally they had lost. Their idea of there being many paths to God, none better than the other, had broken under the weight of the orthodox Arab injunction about the one [...] [16 Nov 2009]
- Thoughts on Barack Obama and Choosing Blackness
- I use “black” and refer to blackness and black culture in a variety of ways in this post. In some contexts, I mean “descended from Africans and living in the United States.” In others I mean “descended from Africans enslaved in the United States.” I tried to be clear, but sometimes that just isn’t enough. [...] [8 Jan 2009]