Archive for the ‘ American politics ’ Category
The New Internationalist, a fine Canada-based progressive monthly magazine run by a worker’s co-operative, announced in its December issue that it would focus next month on the “murky world of corporate lobbying” As a preview, it reported that Exxon-Mobil has pumped $19 million into “promoting skepticism about global warming in order to water down any [ READ MORE ]
Here in Canada, the technique that the conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper uses to support the fossil fuel energy industries, including the tar sands oil extraction industries, is to detour around the Parliament. He has twice closed Parliament down (this rarely used legal maneuver is called peroguing). Last week, he used another authoritarian maneuver, which [ READ MORE ]
The great social movements of 20th century America were movements for inclusion of excluded groups into political life, citizenship. The two exemplary movements were Abolitionism, which brought voting rights to the former slaves, and Women’s Suffrage, which brought voting rights to women in the 1920s. Each extended the rights promised in the Constitution and Bill [ READ MORE ]
Four decades its been now since Richard Nixon’s November, 1969 Inaugural address, in which he appealed to “the better angels of our nature” to listen to each other rather than shouting past one another. He was alluding, of course, to Lincoln’s Inaugural on the eve of the Civil War in 1861, in which the President, [ READ MORE ]
This blog has been created by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl and it will consist of commentaries on current affairs and reflections on contemporary political issues and questions. Occasionally, invited guests will contribute as well[ READ MORE ]