Are We a Democracy? Intellectuals and Politics. The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless. The Stone is featuring occasional posts by Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, that apply critical thinking to information and events that have appeared in the news. The rise of Newt Gingrich, Ph.D.— along with the apparent anti-intellectualism of many of the other Republican candidates — has once again raised the question of the role of intellectuals in American politics. In writing about intellectuals, my temptation is to begin by echoing Marianne Moore on poetry: I, too, dislike them.
But that would be a lie: all else equal, I really like intellectuals. Besides, I’m an intellectual myself, and their self-deprecation is one thing I really do dislike about many intellectuals. What is an intellectual? It’s often said that what our leaders need is common sense, not fancy theories. A utopian fantasy? The Libertarian and the Lobbyists - Simon Johnson. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space WASHINGTON, DC – In the three years since the global financial crisis erupted, two dominant views of what went wrong have emerged.
It is crucial that we understand each, because their implications for policymakers – and thus for the future health and stability of the global economy – could not be greater. The first view is that governments simply lost control of the situation, either through incompetence or because politicians were pursuing their own agendas. This is the view heard most frequently from the political right – for example, from people who think that the main problem in the run-up to the financial meltdown of 2008 was government housing policies. In the United States, among the candidates still competing for the Republican Party’s nomination to challenge Barack Obama in November’s presidential election, Ron Paul stands out for arguing consistently that government is the problem, not the answer, with regard to banking. The Koch brothers are trying to seize control of the libertarian think tank Cato. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images On Friday afternoon, as the Washington offices of the Cato Institute were emptying out for the weekend, the libertarian think tank’s president sent an e-mail to all staff.
The subject was the Koch brothers crisis. “Catoites,” wrote Ed Crane, “You are all probably aware by now of the unfortunate development with Charles and David Koch. They are in the process of trying to take over the Cato Institute and, in my opinion, reduce it to a partisan adjunct to Americans for Prosperity, the activist GOP group they control.” His fellow Catoites were waiting for this.
On Thursday morning, the Washington Post published news of a lawsuit the Kochs had filed against the 35-year-old libertarian think tank, claiming that they could buy the controlling shares held by the late co-founder and chairman William Niskanen. “Cato is the gold standard of libertarian organizations around the world,” wrote Crane. On Oct. 26, 2011, Niskanen passed away. Mohammed el Gorani and Jérôme Tubiana · Diary: Guantánamo · LRB 15 December 2011.
We met every afternoon for two weeks in N’Djamena. After the midday prayer, I would pick him up in a taxi at the shop he hoped to turn into a laundry. We ate fish and rice in my hotel room – he would have been recognised outside – and he just talked, beginning at the beginning. I was born in 1986 in Saudi Arabia, in Medina, the Prophet’s city. My parents came from North Chad – I don’t know exactly where. ‘No, Chadian.’ ‘There are no places left. When I was eight, I went to a school run by a man from Chad. He became friends with a Pakistani boy who lived near him. When I got 14, Ali asked me: ‘How long are you going to keep washing cars?’ Without telling anyone, I went to Jeddah to ask for a passport at the Chadian Consulate. ‘Maybe he went to Jeddah, like he does usually,’ she said. ‘No, this time he’ll go far away.’ I took a plane to Karachi.
‘Don’t lie, you’re Saudi!’ ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘Listen, Americans are going to interrogate you. ‘Why would I lie?’ ‘Who’s that?’ ‘I know. The First Amendment Upside Down. Why We Must...) Ceding Liberty to Terror: Senate Votes Against Due-Process Rights - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics. Asked to deny presidential authority to indefinitely detain Americans without charges or a trial, they declined, citing the threat of al-Qaeda. Is it lawful for the president to order any American held indefinitely as a terrorist, without formal charges, evidence presented in open court, a trial by jury, or a standard of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt"?
The U.S. Senate had a chance Wednesday to assert that no, a president does not possess that power -- that the United States Constitution guarantees due process. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) urged her colleagues to seize the opportunity. Sen. "If we believe an American citizen is guilty or will be guilty of acts of terrorism, can we detain them indefinitely? " In the end, however, Feinstein and Durbin lost the debate. The U.S. Here are the senators who lost, the ones who wanted to protect the rights of U.S. citizens to due process: The Republicans listed ought to be condemned by "constitutional conservatives.
" Sen. Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich, The Fall of the "Liberal Elite" Judge Janice Rogers Brown wants to return to the libertarian legal notions of the 1930s. Photograph by Douglas Graham/Roll Call/Getty Images. A few days ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed down a decision in a little-noticed case involving milk regulations, with a remarkable concurring opinion written by Judge Janice Rogers Brown. Her worldview will surprise nobody who followed Brown’s contentious confirmation to the court widely seen as a feeder to the highest court in the land. (Brown was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush and confirmed in 2005.) Dahlia Lithwick writes about the courts and the law for Slate. Follow Brown’s opinion in this week’s Hettinga v.
America’s cowboy capitalism was long ago disarmed by a democratic process increasingly dominated by powerful groups with economic interests antithetical to competitors and consumers. There’s one other point worth making, before we leave Judge Brown to her open-mic libertarian musings. A Referendum on Obama - Michael Boskin.
Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space STANFORD – Successful political candidates try to implement the proposals on which they ran. In the United States, President Barack Obama and the Democrats, controlling the House of Representatives and (a filibuster-proof) Senate, had the power to do virtually anything they wanted in 2009 – and so they did. The last election that was followed by such a sweeping change in policy direction occurred in 1980, when President Ronald Reagan overhauled taxes, spending, and regulation, and supported the Federal Reserve’s course of disinflation.
While the 1988, 1992, and 2000 elections were also quite consequential, the policy shifts were not nearly as large as in 1980 and 2008. The country rebelled against Obama and the Democrats’ lurch to the left with historic Congressional election victories for Republicans in 2010. The 2012 election is shaping up as a referendum on Obama’s policies and performance. Peter Van Buren, In Washington, Fear the Silence, Not the Noise. [Note for TomDispatch Readers: A last reminder for those of you in New York City: Jeremy Scahill and I will be onstage Friday, 6-8 pm, at New York University’s Arthur L.
Carter Journalism Institute discussing our American world (such as it is), his work, and my new book, The United States of Fear. Hope you’ll drop by. For further information and directions on getting there, click here. Tom] One thing is obvious. In Van Buren’s case, it was perhaps all those late nights on some desolate base thousands of miles from his family, thinking about the mad way your taxpayer money was being squandered -- millions of dollars, for instance, going into the building of an all-Iraqi chicken-plucking factory that would never be used to pluck chickens. He had the urge to offer you an insider's view of your government in action in a distant land.
Though the Obama administration has, from its first days, talked the talk of governmental openness and “sunshine,” it’s walked a very different walk. Iowa Has Hogged First Place in Our Political Line Too Long - Steve Buttry - Politics. The Hawkeye State is unrepresentative of the nation, caucuses are bizarre, and the system doesn't work. It's time to let someone else start the nominating process. Let's bid farewell to the Iowa caucuses. They've had a long run, but it's time for someone else to launch the presidential campaign process. This state with far more hogs than people has hogged its place at the front of the political line far too long.
It is past time for the Hawkeye State to practice the manners that Iowa parents and teachers have been teaching Iowa children for generations: Take turns. Someone will need to wrench the spotlight away from Iowa, but I hope someone does. I voiced this view privately during the 2008 caucus season, though I never wrote it. When I became editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette later in 2008, I wondered whether I would have the courage to voice this heresy from such a prominent Iowa forum during the 2012 caucus season.
Image: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images. The Darkest Day in the History of American Super PACs - Nancy Scola - Politics. When it comes to campaign spending, we know only a fraction of the information we have the ability to know. Today, Jan. 30, 2012, is a uniquely strange day in the history of American democracy. It's the day before Florida's Republican primary, and the gap between the million dollars in outside spending and the possibility of transparency through technology is, quietly, bigger than it has ever been in the history of the republic. "There's really two phenomena here," says Commissioner Ellen Weintraub of the Federal Election Commission, "the creation of the super PACs and the compression of the primary schedule.
" We'll add a third: the blurring of the line between coordination and independence. They add up to mean that, when it comes to campaign spending, at this very moment we know only a fraction of the information we have the ability to know. But it hasn't exactly played out that way. The filing schedules are decades old, dating back to when primary season stretched far longer. The SportsCenter-ization of Political Journalism - Patrick Hruby - Politics.
Coverage that focuses purely on emotional conflicts and who's winning impoverishes our democracy and obscures the real, important issues at play. Up went the shirtsleeves. Out came the jabbing index finger. The commander-in-chief meant business. Two years ago, just hours before the House of Representatives narrowly passed a sweeping, historic health-care reform bill -- or, depending on your ideological persuasion, the socialist straw that broke liberty's back, sending America on a one-way slouch to neo-Soviet tyranny -- President Obama stood behind a lectern at George Mason University and made his closing argument: a punchy, ad-libbed plea for change on a matter of literal life and death. Interspersed, of course, with a mocking, frustrated jab at the hothouse media coverage surrounding the contentious legislation. "The [cable-television stations] like to talk about the politics of the vote," Obama lamented. "A lot of reporting in Washington, it's just like SportsCenter.
Guess what? Reporters Without Borders: Press Freedom Index slams US for Occupy Wall Street arrests. Unexceptionalism - A Primer. Congressmen Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban. The Decline of the Public Good) Meryl Streep’s eery reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” brings to mind Thatcher’s most famous quip, “there is no such thing as ‘society.’” None of the dwindling herd of Republican candidates has quoted her yet but they might as well considering their unremitting bashing of everything public.
What defines a society is a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions — public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on. Public institutions are supported by all taxpayers, and are available to all. If the tax system is progressive, those who better off (and who, presumably, have benefitted from many of these same public institutions) help pay for everyone else. "Privatiize" means pay-for-it-yourself. Much of the rest of what’s considered “public” has become so shoddy that those who can afford to do so find private alternatives. Why it matters that our politicians are rich. Politics Q&A: Lawrence Lessig on the 2012 Primaries - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics. The Harvard professor and campaign-finance-reform advocate reflects on the corrupting influence of money in American politics.
Larry Lessig, the renowned Harvard Law School professor and political activist, was known until recently as a champion of the open Internet. Although he hasn't stopped caring about causes like reforming intellectual-property law, he has recently turned his attention to the political system itself, and what he sees as the legalized corruption of campaign contributions and lobbying. He's out to persuade all Americans what so many already believe: that money is distorting our politics, and that major reforms are needed. He chatted with me about his cause and whether or not the presidential race has made him rethink any of his ideas about how our politics works.You've recently written at book, Republic Lost, and an e-book, One Way Forward, about the corrupting influence of money in American politics.
How so? But those are the two I'd point to. Now it's outrageous. Our Corrupt Politics: It’s Not All Money by Ezra Klein. Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption from America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist by Jack Abramoff Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It by Lawrence Lessig Twelve, 317 pp., $26.99 In 1982, Mississippi senator John Stennis was chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Stennis was a senator of the old school—literally. Reflects a change in norms. Crucially, those limits were not always legal. “Would that be proper?” Abramoff lobbied for the Northern Mariana Islands, which sought exemption from certain labor rules for a variety of Native American tribes, which sought to continue a low-regulation, low-tax environment for their casinos, and for defense contractor Tyco, which wanted a tax cut.
Abramoff might be the most prominent example of the corruption that has infected our political system, but he is not the best example of it. “The ordinary lobbyist today is a Boy Scout compared with the criminal of the nineteenth century,” Lessig writes. Sugar Daddies. The Demise of Moderation. Harry Hudson was about to launch a music career when he found a tumor the size of a grapefruit in his chest. Then the 20-year-old documented his fight on Twitter and Instagram. Harry Hudson can pinpoint the exact minute he was booted out of the Garden of Eden. An up-and-coming musician, Hudson was on the brink of stardom when life came crashing down. He had just managed to score a meeting with the legendary Martin Kierszenbaum, head of Cherrytree Records, the same guy who launched Lady Gaga's career.
It was a good meeting. Kierszenbaum seemed impressed. But that sense of elation would last only a few short hours. “It went from the best day to the worst day of my life,” says Hudson. That something unexpected was a tumor the size of a grapefruit in his chest. Hudson, who’d been feeling a bit rundown, was rushed to the hospital that night after having difficulty breathing. “I had never been to the ER before, never had an IV in my life,” he says. His family was worried too. Why Congress May Be Done for the Year - Linda Killian - Politics. America’s dream unravels. Robert Draper’s history of the current House of Representatives is a study of dysfunction. How the Right Has Turned Everything Into a Culture War -- And Why That's Terrible for Our Democracy | News & Politics. It's Time to Clean House - Philip K. Howard - Politics. "“Terrorists” at Home" by Naomi Wolf.
The Tyranny of Freedom. Facts, 360 B.C.-A.D. 2012. Timothy Noah, Charles Murray, and America’s Inequality. 4 May Day Stories the Corporate Media Missed While Fixating On Obama's College Girlfriend. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson urge compromise in U.S. politics | Harvard Magazine Jul-Aug 2012. Business - Derek Thompson - Government of the Elderly, by the Elderly, and for the Elderly Shall Not Perish. Charles Homans: The Operator. The Facts Behind Obama’s Executive Privilege Claim. Politics - David A. Graham - Eric Holder, Contempt of Congress, and Fast and Furious: What You Need to Know. How Right-Wingers on the Supreme Court Sold Our Democracy Down the River -- Again. National - Andrew Cohen - If You Think Monday Was Bad at the Supreme Court... "Tea Party Victory, Global Defeat" by Gareth Evans. How Bryan Fischer is Making Mitt Romney More Conservative. The Truth About American Politics and the Extremism of the G.O.P.
Why Republicans Oppose the Individual Health-Care Mandate.