Think Again: Intelligence

Here are seven premises that have allowed a secret intelligence community costing the US taxpayer as much as $100 billion dollars a year to exist without being held accountable for systemic and specific failures.

Thousands march in Hong Kong in escalating battle for democracy

Thousands protested in Hong Kong on Wednesday pressing China to allow full democracy in the city as a battle intensifies over Beijing’s attempts to control the outcome of a planned direct election for the city’s leader in 2017.

Empowering Public Wisdom: Chapter 4

In a democracy we, the people, are stewards of the values in our communities and country. We need to be in charge of seeing that those values govern our collective lives. That’s why we need to talk together about it. 

Empowering Public Wisdom: Chapter 1, A Practical Vision of Citizen-Led Politics

The public is not just a bunch of isolated disengaged individuals. It is the people in the sense of Lincoln’s memorable phrase “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.” When I talk about public wisdom I mean that the public has latent wisdom that can be brought out and then spoken by its public voice — the voice of the people. People can and must empower their public wisdom to have real impact in the world. 

Glory in the Highest (Part Three)

But wait a minute. What about all the people who don't have enough to eat and a comfortable place to sleep? How about the victims of war and epidemics, and the oppressed who live under the rule of tyrants, and the innocents whose lives are distorted by bigotry? Where's their glory in the highest? Why should they feel grateful? Part Three of a three-part series.

Kettling: Another “Special Relationship” Between the US and UK

Britons are not alone in facing the kind of ‘kettling' practices
deployed during the G-20 Summit. Here in the States it's also been in use
for some time.

Fred Astaire in the White House

Remember Obama's campaign slogan? "Yes we can." Yes we can what? Stand the robot of monoculture up on its wheels again? Our challenge goes beyond universal health care, economy, and environment. It is no less than pulling the plug on 8000 years of Empire.

Toward a New Economic Order

Is the present financial crisis due to a system out of control and failing, or to a system that is being demolished to further enhance the power and wealth of a few?

Habits of the Heart

In the classic study Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, the authors explore the ways in which contemporary Americans use private and public modes of thought to make sense of the world around them, even as that world is swept from under their feet.

The Despotism of Personality: Obama, McCain and Metahistory

The conflict between McCain and Obama is in essence a conflict between two different conceptions of personality and its
relationship with political power, ideological manifestations having a
common root: the rise of the Western ego.