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James R. Brett, Ph.D. taught Russian History before becoming an academic administrator in faculty research administration. His academic interests are the modern period of Russian History since Peter the Great, Chinese History, the history of science, and the history of ideas, including psychology and consciousness studies. His personal and completely non-commercial website is called "Iron Mountain" ... http://jamesrbrett.com/ironmtn/.
Monday, August 9, 2010 Building A Mosque (2 comments)
Amid the pelting of anti-Islamic emails and lectures by anonymous Christian jihadists comes the question about mosques. James Carroll in the "Globe" has a perspective.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 The Last Straw in Afghanistan (1 comments)
The Wikileaks prove only one important thing. America is in major DENIAL about the efficacy of war.
Friday, July 23, 2010 Bernanke's Dilemma (5 comments)
The Fed is out of chips, basically, so we need another player. Can Congress stomach the stakes of this very dangerous situation?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 Amazing Oracle at OpEdNews (14 comments)
The Obama presidency is NOT, despite what you might read here, going down the tubes. The sad fact is that some writers cannot keep the big picture in focus.
Sunday, July 18, 2010 The Empire Strikes Back (17 comments)
The Pope and the College of Cardinals and the Curia have made a critical and I believe FATAL mistake. The Church will now enter its final stage of slow dissolution and inevitable decay.
Thursday, July 15, 2010 Immigration: The Policy of Deliberate Ignorance (1 comments)
Americans no longer can afford deliberate ignorance of immigration policy and the players at the table.
Thursday, July 8, 2010 Fanny & Freddy Are F-Words
FannyMae and FreddyMac need a house-cleaning. Their latest ploy is completely counter-productive and begs for new management.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010 Revolution Both Sides of the Border
There is more to the immigration paralysis than the MSM is willing to chatter about. Mexico is a failed state, but U.S. interests are that it not become a revolutionary hotbed. Much better to be a stable narcokleptocracy, don't you think!
Friday, July 2, 2010 The Funny Bone of Economic Politics
We are headed over a cliff. Unemployment is represented to be 9.5% but where it counts, 12%, with 50% of Americans directly affected by lowered income, hours, or complete loss of jobs. As this crisis continues to deepen, we have to keep our wits and understand the reasons we are outraged.
Monday, June 28, 2010 The Paradox of Economic Stress Disorder
Toronto may be the turning point, but we don't yet know whether we have turned toward recovery or toward irrationalism and a long double-dip into economic (and psychological) depression.
Monday, June 21, 2010 The Long Hot Dog Days of the Press (7 comments)
Enough of the Obama bashing, Liberals! The problem is your need for instant gratification and a father figure. Grow Up!
Sunday, June 13, 2010 Forgiveness Includes Consequences!
The Pope's plea for forgiveness did not include an admission of personal guilt. Blanket amnesties are not in the cards. There must be consequences.
Sunday, June 13, 2010 Irony! Maybe ... (1 comments)
The Press is at a wit's end. Obama is not what they hoped, a genial user of the press to fashion a better world, a person ready to take meaningless carping in an understanding way. Instead, the press seems ready to carve an effigy of Barack Hussein Obama that he will not soon forget.
Saturday, June 5, 2010 Unseen Gaza
Reckless behavior of Israel will eventually isolate that country, even from the goodwill of the United States.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 Theories of Change ... and Now Paralysis (1 comments)
An extension of David Brooks's thoughtful column today on Change. We hate it and we love it. We obviously need it. There are many who have already given up, saying that we are incapable of orderly change.
Saturday, May 22, 2010 The End of the Celibacy Rule
A trial balloon or not? In any case celibacy for the Roman Catholic Clergy cannot last.
Monday, May 17, 2010 Nationalism and Egalitarianism: Not Dead Yet!
We see the world through eyes accustomed to our own habits of mind. The "truth" is elusive, to be sure, but there are realities, and we can grope towards them.
Sunday, May 16, 2010 "The Disease Calling Itself the Cure" (1 comments)
James Carroll in the Boston Globe sees the end of the Roman Catholic Church's problems, and it is a monumental change that must occur.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010 The Conscience (and Politics?) of the Pope (3 comments)
Differing reports of the Pope's contrition for the Church puts a cloud over the momentous event.
Monday, May 10, 2010 "The Low Road is Bumper to Bumper"
Social criticism is a tradition in America, says James Carroll, and he is correct, but what comes of it all. Aren't we basically deaf to the essential problem?
Monday, May 3, 2010 Net Neutrality in Trouble
Net Neutrality is ESSENTIAL in a democracy increasingly involved and dependent on fairness on the internet. The FCC must regulate internet service providers.
Sunday, April 18, 2010 World-wide Attack on the Vatican? Think of it as an Opportunity! (8 comments)
One of the insidious doctrines of Roman Catholicism is that only God can judge the Church and its clergy. We profoundly reject this as tautological nonsense. The Church is a temporal edifice and subject to the laws of mankind.
Friday, April 16, 2010 Indulgence! No! (4 comments)
New Yorker Magazine's Hendrick Hertzberg gives Pope Benedict's Church a virtual pass. Since when are medieval indulgences a greater evil than raping children!
Sunday, April 11, 2010 Forging a Green Economy (6 comments)
Global warming and the attendant climate change is the greatest challenge we face as a species, not because of the probably dire consequences, but because of who we are.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 Hot Seething Anger (3 comments)
Satisfied human beings dislike (even hate) change. Progress is a dirty word to the self-satisfied. For the rest of us Change is necessary for our lives. For others Change requires reconsidering an entire world view. It is painful and that is what we are experiencing now--their pain.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 China's Motivations (4 comments)
China's monetary policy is not helping the rest of the world emerge from the Great Recession, but it is helping them bootstrap. The question is whether it is precedent for an aggressive China when they become #1.
Sunday, March 7, 2010 High Hopes Strangled in Their Cradle
The etiology of malfunctioning politics is very likely an "emergent property," one which emanates from the essential parts working (or actually not working) together effectively.
Saturday, March 6, 2010 The Problem in Virginia (1 comments)
Radical reactionaries have Richmond and threaten higher education in Virginia.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 The Problem in the White House
Smell the smoke! There is a fire under Rahm Emanuel and it is about time. With luck we can rid ourselves of this carbuncle on the Presidency.
Saturday, February 27, 2010 Playing Games While the Planet Warms and Climates Change (5 comments)
Disputing facts about global warming is gaming the ignorance of the public. It would not matter, if after the damage is done we who survive could rid ourselves of those who deny the truth. The problem is one of leadership and that is sorely lacking.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 The "God Gap"?
Religious tolerance is our creed. We respect all religions, but we do not proclaim one above others. That is the American way. Make sure the zealots do not get traction on this issue.
Monday, February 22, 2010 "Starve the Beast" (3 comments)
Paul Krugman does a good job of pinning the GOP slogan to the wall. Now we need to understand the reasons for it ... and it is not all because they don't trust bureaucrats.
Saturday, February 13, 2010 A Fatal Flaw (2 comments)
Charles M. Blow nails the Obama problem. The question is whether Obama has the guts to change.
Thursday, February 11, 2010 The Slow Motion Implosion of the EU
Ominous rumblings from the southern tier in Europe are visibly on Germany's plate and silently on ours. In the Navy we would say "stand by for heavy rolls."
Monday, February 8, 2010 The Internet: Powerful, Yet Fragile (3 comments)
The importance of the Internet cannot be overstated, but the motives for governments and net citizens do not necessarily coincide.
Monday, January 25, 2010 How China Thinks (13 comments)
Sergei Brin, Larry Page, and Hillary Clinton have turned a corner in the progress of the global culture we are constructing. China's leaders will be left behind. The very forces of history that have humbled China will free her finally. We call it the Internet.
Friday, January 22, 2010 The Supreme Court and Galloping Fascism
This weeks ruling by SCOTUS is a travesty, a dagger in the heart of human democracy. The ruling must be overturned.
Thursday, January 21, 2010 Unacceptable Failure in Washington
Coakley ran without help. DSCC, DNC, and the White House all dropped the ball. It is time to look at the top and see the cause. Obama, Emanuel, and Axelrod all failed! At least Emanuel should lose his head for it!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 Listen Up, Obama!
You have just witnessed righteous and seething anger. Massachusetts is telling Washington how it feels. It feels betrayed and dismayed and angry as hell! Obama has 30 days at best to take a different path with different people. If he doesn't the Democrats are going to be trounced in November. But, there is good news: the Progressive Movement now knows that it must be free of the corruption and lethargy in the Democratic Party.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 Rahm Must Go! (3 comments)
We have a month, perhaps, to save the 2010 "mid-term" elections. If we do not do the obvious, then Democrats will lose big ... and so will Obama. He must fire Rahm Emanuel at once.
Monday, January 18, 2010 Law of the Jungle
The democracy of the world wide web requires informed and responsible citizenship, just as our nation's democracy does. Loose Lips Sink Ships and flawed browsers like MSIE are no different. It is time for a change YOU can make.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 Do You See What I See?
Human perception is a mixed bag, as this little experiment begins to show. The implications for democracy are interesting. It may be that only with a broad consensus are we getting the full picture. It also may be that we should listen more carefully to minority opinion.
Sunday, December 20, 2009 Disappointment and Defection
The Greek chorus is getting louder and louder. The emperor's clothes are falling away. His base is eroding. His goodwill is full of holes. Barack Obama has only a few months in which to make up the difference, or he will be facing a very hostile Congress in 2011 and probable defeat in 2012.
Friday, December 18, 2009 The Senate
It is time to change the Senate. We are a mature democracy now, and we don't need the Senate as it currently is provided for in the Constitution or by its own rules!
Monday, December 14, 2009 "The People Speak" (7 comments)
The History Channel has a winner, but the establishment and the elite don't think so. Should we be surprised? No, we should demand that this theme become part of the curriculum everywhere!
Saturday, December 12, 2009 The Psychologies of Conservatism and Liberalism (2 comments)
What looks like a simple psychological assessment schema conceals entailments in human behavior that have troubled societies from the beginning. In the U.S. the strain on conservatives is reaching a breaking point.
Monday, December 7, 2009 Divergent Views on Copenhagen
The politics of Global Warming will not suffice. We need a Marshall Plan, a concerted effort, an intelligent plan of coordinated action.
Saturday, December 5, 2009 Manipulating the News (3 comments)
The object of dissent is to change decision-making BEFORE it happens, not AFTER.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 The Afghan Conundrum (2 comments)
The basic story is that Cheney-Bush really screwed this up and now we have to find a solution that does not actually invite terrorism. Tuesday's speech and decisions are nothing but temporizing measures to provide time to clean of eight years worth of Republican Neocon arrogance and stupidity.
Monday, November 30, 2009 Open Letter to Iran (2 comments)
Dear Citizens of Iran,
Here's some friendly advice.
Yours truly,
the rest of the world (mostly ...)
Wednesday, November 25, 2009 Jobs! Can They Not Hear and See? (9 comments)
The honeymoon is definitely over. The Obama Administration has shown its hand and the hand is empty. The country's best columnist agree that something serious is amiss in the West Wing, not just across the breadth and length of our land. Enjoy your Thanksgiving repast, but remember there are millions who cannot!
Saturday, November 21, 2009 The End of an Era?
The portent for our holiday economy is laden with opportunity for even more unemployment, bankruptcies and business failures.
Do these in turn portend an end to American consumerism. The answer is not "no"; it is "maybe," and that is good!
Friday, November 20, 2009 Reasons Not to Abandon Afghanistan
While looking for reasons to stay in Afghanistan, it would be beneficial to check out some of the assumptions being bandied about these days.
Thursday, November 12, 2009 The Illusions of Arrogance
Neil Gabler's essay on American exceptionalism is excellent and points out that our hubris will certainly bring us down ... way down. It does not matter, exactly, why this mythos was created, even if for the best of intentions. It is a rope around our necks and we must free ourselves from it.
Friday, November 6, 2009 Talking Our Way Out of the Great Recession
No, we cannot talk our way out of this one, but we do have to know what is going on and why ... and the press sure is not telling us.
Monday, October 5, 2009 Muddling Afghanistan
Finding reasonable and attainable goals for the AfPak war would be difficult enough, but many are playing politics with the issue.
Saturday, September 26, 2009 Left Behind
"Beyond insanity," is what he called it and he was there and knows. The radical fundamentalist apocalypic Armageddon and Rapture waiting fringe is not to be ignored, but the problem is not them. It's Congress, right and left and we have to fix that first.
Sunday, September 13, 2009 The Paranoid Rightwing (2 comments)
Max Blumenthal's "Republican Gomorrah" has some interesting lessons from Hoffer and Fromm. The sociology of the rightwing is born in hopelessnes and paranoia.
Monday, September 7, 2009 The Future Shock of Change
It is obvious that some among us resist Change because of how disconcerting it is. James Carroll of the Boston Globe personifies a "resistor" of the intellectual variety. It is not a pretty sight. Change is inevitable.
Thursday, September 3, 2009 Scaling Back (2 comments)
President Obama's forthcoming address to a joint-session of Congress is too little, too late, and all the more insulting to Liberals and Progressives because he intends to gut the health care reforms, rather than sticking by our guns.
Saturday, August 29, 2009 Now -- Onward!
Liberalism flourishes in America because there are so many liberals, people whose self-discipline gives them an appreciation of the needs and welfare of others. Ted Kennedy's passing is the loss of an exemplar, but because of him liberalism and the progressive spirit are strong.
Sunday, August 23, 2009 Good-Bye America! (2 comments)
The reckless brandishing of words and arms of the far right since before the election is the epitome of irony, but that is lost on people whose lives feel uprooted by massive and accelerating change.
Saturday, August 22, 2009 What a Revolt of the Left Means (8 comments)
Pusillanimous leadership and outright moral and political cowardice characterize the Obama presidency. Liberal Progressives have had it, and the devil take the hindmost!
Thursday, August 6, 2009 The Far Side of Prudence (5 comments)
For all its promise, where change has been necessary, Obama has not changed. He is weak, deluded with a fantasy of inclusiveness, and soon to lose the battle we elected him to win.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009 Nagasaki (8 comments)
The anniversary week of the atomic bombs over Japanese cities brings out the perennial, James Carroll, in the Boston Globe, and although he is improving, his take is still strongly flavored by latter-day morality and not historical accuracy.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009 The Misery Curve
As the NYT graph shows, the business cycle spends more time in the red than in the black. The social cost is enormous and, in fact, we do not break even. The business cycle needs immediate and profound repair.
Monday, July 27, 2009 Cancel the "Beer Summit"
Obama should just back out of the "Beer Summit." He and his office will obscure the legal remedies available to Professor Gates. The "teaching moment" is Gates's to pursue ... or not.
Friday, July 24, 2009 On Health Care Reform (1 comments)
David Brooks and Paul Krugman write today in the NYT about health care reform. Both graze the core problem. The problem is that medicine is currently not self-governing, with the AMA and APA having already forfeited their best opportunities for integrity.
Thursday, July 23, 2009 Obama On Health Care Reform (8 comments)
As the New Republic notes, yesterday President Obama spoke to us as if we're adults. It is essential that health care be wrested from the corrupt hands of the insurance industry ... the biggest scam going.
Monday, July 20, 2009 War! ... with Switzerland?
The news about conflicts over Swiss bank secrecy law masks a much more serious problem ... the impending collapse of Europe's banking "system."
Monday, July 13, 2009 The Boiling Frog (8 comments)
Paul Krugman's Boiling Frog column is the tocsin for our survival. We are simply not doing what we must to save our planet or our economy.
Friday, July 10, 2009 All In The Family
Private individual responses to economic stimuli fall nevertheless into patterns that appear to be "quorum sensing" behaviors. Currently the result is that fewer households are being formed and this has negative consequences for the economy ... and for the people around them.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Indistinguishable From Magic (2 comments)
Modernity v. Tradition is a human theme, played out not only in Iran, but in the United States as well.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 What is an Actuary?
The Public Option for Health Care is hanging in the balance. It is time for Americans to step up and let Congress know that they will be thrown out of office if the Health Care Bill does not have a public option.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 California Dreamin' (1 comments)
California's economy is sound, but their property tax law is utter foolishness and must be changed as a condition of the federal government helping out.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 White Water Statecraft (1 comments)
We are on a perilous journey in a partly swamped boat. The pundits continually forget how dangerous and complicated the situation is. We should have more pulling together, don't you think!
Friday, June 5, 2009 So, Grasshopper ... (12 comments)
David Carradine, dead at 72.
Thursday, June 4, 2009 First Decline, Then Fall (4 comments)
It boils down to the nature of representative government. Either we wait until the central government is brought to its knees by unfolding events that it failed to address in a timely and effective way or we teach government how to act for us.
Thursday, May 28, 2009 Holy War (9 comments)
Evangelical Christians have found a goldmine in the armed forces. It is time to understand the peril their beliefs put us in.
Monday, May 18, 2009 Sack Rahm (21 comments)
Every administration makes mistakes. So far the Obama administration's mistakes are beginning to have a "feel," a personality. It is not the personality of Barack Obama. It looks, feels, and smells like Rahm Emanuel.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 Afghanistan's McGenerals (8 comments)
The sacking of the commander sends a message down to the troops in the field that this war must be fought against the real enemy of Afghanistan, not against the Afghans themselves.
Thursday, May 7, 2009 The Disaster (4 comments)
The damage done to Wall Street and "bankers row" was so substantial that there was neither time nor prudent necessity to reorganize these sectors first. Reorganization is more than inevitable, but it will not happen until the bilge pumps are all on line, the ship stops sinking, and the passengers are all safe, in or near life-vests and life-boats. Obama's strategy is not only reasonable, but obvious.
Saturday, May 2, 2009 Economy v. Ecology (8 comments)
"Rather than ground the economy in a broad set of social institutions and a broad set of values, we let the market economy become unhinged. And it has become unhinged in a way that has now created a worldwide crisis."
Sunday, April 26, 2009 The Cojones Frame (1 comments)
Long time journalist William Greider has stepped on his shoe-lace with an article about President Obama losing to the "big dogs" on Wall Street.
Friday, April 24, 2009 The Lone Star of the Third World (4 comments)
The Republic of Texas is a historical fact ... historical, not a present day fact, but the Governor of Texas wants to be Sarah Palin's running mate in 2012. Let him!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 On Being Bad (2 comments)
We are often bad. The problem is that we do not understand how we are bad and what the consequences are. Prejudice, stereotyping, illogical reasoning, demagoguery, and a host of complex factors are currently at play in contemporary society. We need to do something about it.
Thursday, April 16, 2009 Torture and Tortured Reasoning (4 comments)
I do not see how, given the strong case brought in Nuremberg on these grounds that "mere orders or permissions are not exculpatory," that President Obama can justify relieving the CIA of its crimes. It will be seen by many world-wide an act of political cowardice! But there is, perhaps, a supervening context.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Granularity
The consequences of inflation and deflation are different, no matter what you hear from the conservatives.
Friday, April 10, 2009 G.O.P. in Exile? (3 comments)
Fair political reporting is reporting the activities of responsible and rational and civic-minded people who may agree or disagree with one another, not the rants and orations of lunatics who are pretty obviously bent on destruction of our democracy in favor of a republic of hatred and paranoia.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 Dark Energy (4 comments)
In Scientific American Magazine this month (April, 2009) there is a very interesting article about whether there really is dark energy in our universe. The article in instructive about paradigms.
Sunday, April 5, 2009 The Oldest Profession (4 comments)
Assertions that "'registered lobbyists' will be deprived of their right to petition their government" are utter and malicious hogwash. Lobbying is destroying our democracy and it must be strictly and completely controlled.
Saturday, April 4, 2009 Fraud ... Rampant, Pervasive Fraud! (7 comments)
In a sense that is probably the most cutting irony in a hundred years, FDR's statement that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself" has now doubled back onto the White House itself where fear has created a public policy, a managerial and class fear that will surely wreak havoc among us and extend this crisis off into the distant future.
Thursday, April 2, 2009 The End of the Marshall Plan (4 comments)
Yesterday, President Obama announced to the world in London that the United States could no longer be expected to be the sole engine of world economics. In untold ways this was a revolutionary statement, the echos of which will be reverberating for decades.
Sunday, March 29, 2009 Tipping Points (6 comments)
There is, even among Progressives, a hesitancy to believe the worst, for if all that is said about big corporations is true, then evolving a solution to the current financial crisis is going to be very tricky, indeed. In fact it will be more than tricky; it will be impossible.
Friday, March 27, 2009 Pavlov's Blue Dog
We are unused to the Barack Obama way, and it shows all over the place in columns, articles, essays, and frantic angst, even here. Obama is missing a key adviser on communications.
Sunday, March 22, 2009 No Mulligans! (6 comments)
We do not want a return to that gilded lie of an economy. We want a new economy with social and economic justice incorporated in every cell and fiber.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 Public Flogging (9 comments)
A public flogging might seem appropriate, but it would not serve any progressive purpose. Obama knows what he is doing, and he knows we are not in this mess alone.
Saturday, March 14, 2009 Mimesis on Wall Street
The tipping point between "restoration" and change has not yet been reached. The old order is fighting tooth and nail to stay alive. Only real pain in the economy will disarm them
