Browsing: Opinions

     In America, ‘In God We Trust’ is preached, but ‘In Gun We Trust’ is practiced, leading to over 48,000 lives being lost to gun violence.

     Black women, and other women, can give you the greatest gift that you can get, the gift of life! If you were not born in an immaculate conception, you were created in your mother’s womb.

Black People Deserve to Leave Home and Return Home Alive

We Must Have Fewer Disposable Neighborhoods, More Good Green Jobs

   I recently viewed the new Oppenheimer movie and was struck by the horrifying McCarthyism based on unfounded accusations and inuendo that destroyed Dr. Oppenheimer’s reputation. This severely undermined his efforts after World War II to stop the H-bomb and start nuclear arms control regimes to prevent nuclear war.

      After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Oppenheimer saw immediately that any nation with adequate resources would be eventually able to build a weapon, and that something as gargantuan as an H-bomb had no possible military function. It could only be a mechanism for genocide.

      This September is the 60th anniversary of U.S. and Soviet ratification of the world’s first significant nuclear arms control agreement, the Partial Test Ban Treaty. Thus, it’s an appropriate time to examine that treaty, as well as to consider what might be done to end the danger of nuclear annihilation.

     Over the last decade or so, the tendency among China watchers has been to see China’s rise as an endless upward progression. Just as happened during the Cold War when the Soviet Union was viewed as a colossus that in fact had feet of clay, China’s economic and diplomatic successes are significant but often have been exaggerated, while its weaknesses have been ignored or underestimated. Only now, amidst bad news for China’s economy, have observers awakened to certain Chinese realities.

     The state of labor this year is so fraught, so weighted with issues and problems, that a single day of homage and reflection doesn’t seem enough. It’s as if a year or more is needed to engage the issues, challenges, and possibilities facing American workers today. Consider the following:

     So why do I care about art? Indeed, why now? As I grow older (by which I mean “old”), I refuse, refuse, refuse to retire: to quit writing, to quit believing I’m doing something that matters . . . to quit believing that humanity is collective and, at the deepest levels of our being, we all participate in this collective. This is what I call art, even though I don’t know what I mean by that. Or at least I don’t mean something that’s simple and certain, or even particularly serious — at least not in an academic sense. Serious can be fun.