Who Is Learning from History?
1. Oscar Romero’s Letter San Salvador February 17, 1980 His Excellency The President of the United States Mr. Jimmy Carter Dear Mr. President: In the last few days, news has appeared in the national press…
Category: Dissidents
Doing the Opposite of What Dr. King Suggested
Reagan Patrick is taking her third course with me, Comparative Religion and Culture. She recently spent some time with Dr. Martin Luther King’s April 4, 1967 speech on Vietnam and wrote the following reflection. After…
As Broad and Powerful as Possible
Mark Rudd, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (William Morrow, 2010) If a white person wants to help our cause, ask him what he thinks of John Brown. Do you know what Brown…
The Preferential Option for the Rich
“[You in the Western countries] have organized your lives around inhuman values [which] are inhuman because they cannot be universalized. The system rests on a few using the majority of the resources, while the majority…
Finkelstein’s Gaza
I just received Norman Finkelstein’s latest book, Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. I noticed this blurb by Alice Walker: “This is the voice I listen for, when I want to learn the deepest reality…
Three Hours in the Morning
In Talking with Sartre, U.S. professor John Gerassi explores a fascinating range of subjects with the French intellectual, writer, and activist. At the book’s conclusion, Gerassi writes, “What we must do instead, he said, is…
On “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” by Carly Hofstetter
Carly is taking my Humanities class at Maryville and shared the following with me, and I am happy to share with you. After watching this documentary I realized I know little to nothing about China,…
For All My Friends Who Are Free Spirits
“What is now proved was once only imagin’d.” –William Blake Free Spirits desire the emancipation of all humankind Free Spirits conceive a habitable, harmonian world Free Spirits know that no revolution has gone far enough…
After Reading a 2002 Book by Arundhati Roy
What is happening to our world is almost too colossal for human comprehension to contain. But it is a terrible, terrible thing. To contemplate its girth and circumference, to attempt to define it, to try…
What I Can Use: Notes on Waldman and Birman’s Civil Disobediences
“Emerson was not a systematic reader, but he had a genius for skimming and a comprehensive system for taking notes…. He read rapidly, looking for what he could use.” p. 67 “He read widely in…