Forget Pessimism
Just this morning I came across the following exchange with Noam Chomsky, which reminded me of what Steve said last night in his talk on Syria… Interviewer: Did you go through a phase of hopelessness,…
Tag: Noam Chomsky
“Whatever Gets You through the Night…”
My friend’s typical work day 90 emails to respond to 7-8 meetings to move through 3 fires to put out 5 staff people in crisis to support 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. It’s go, go,…
The United States, Iran, and Ourselves … A presentation by Andrew Wimmer
Dear Friends, Please join us for a presentation by Andrew Wimmer on the political and cultural forces at work in the on-going U.S. fixation on Iran. We meet on Sunday 23 September from 6:00 to…
Take Your Pick/2
Pascal raised the question: How do you know whether God exists? He said, if I assume that he exists and he does, I’ll make out OK. If he doesn’t, I won’t lose anything. If he…
Responsibility to Our “Unworthy Victims”
On Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, The Politics of Genocide. Many years ago, I wrote a critical study of acclaimed moralist Elie Wiesel in which I tried to account for his trajectory from being…
From Guatemala to Gaza
1. It was Ash Wednesday 1983. In a darkened sanctuary with some lighted candles, an unfamiliar Catholic priest and several other people entered the sanctuary and sat in the front row. The people wearing bandanas…
A Lifetime of Letters
The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, edited by Bill Morgan (Da Capo Press, 2008) I have a file titled “Noam Chomsky” that contains several letters from the linguist during the 1990s. I first began writing him…
Gaza: Toward Understanding and Action
Because of the extensive, though sanitized, U.S. news coverage of Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza, many Americans are paying closer attention to the Israel-Palestine conflict (those with access to Arabic news programming and Youtube…
Remembering the Nakba
Recently the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC sponsored an unusual exhibit, “Darfur: Who Will Survive Today?” Photographic images of the genocide in Darfur are flashed to incredible size at night outside on…
A Jewish Theology of Liberation
A review of Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation, 3rd expanded edition, by Marc H. Ellis. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2004. First Published in the Journal of Palestine Studies (2005). At the 60th anniversary…