Make Sense of the world
Unique insight from 2,000+ contributors in 80+ Countries
Watching the exposure of the ugly underbelly of the American “dream” on full display in the impeachment hearings has been reaffirming for those of us in the body politic who have long thought that self-delusion, rather than freedom and democracy, is the currency of the land. Meanwhile,...
The Financial Times claims that a major shift is taking place in the world order. Rana Foroohar writes: “Anyone who still doubts that the US is economically decoupling from the rest of the world should take a look at a proposal the commerce department put forward last week.” This assumes...
A succession of social upheavals over the last decade has radically realigned political power throughout the world. As a result of these tectonic shifts, what had once been on the furthest fringes of the right has now moved toward the center while the left has been pushed to the margins....
The rise of Islamophobia and the increase in hate crimes targeted at Muslims point to the lasting effect of Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis. Twenty-three years after the publication of his book, the image of a “violent and irrational” Muslim continues to...
Wired magazine dares to challenge and deconstruct one of the media’s and the Western world’s dominant memes about the economy. The article introduces its readers to Italian-American economist Mariana Mazzucato, who recently launched a frontal attack on modern capitalism’s favorite fairy...
The leaders of neo-Nazi and other white nationalist groups in the United States face a major problem, one having to do with their claims of white or Aryan racial superiority. What to do if the groups involved appeal primarily to white men — and some women — who, by most standards,...
Profiting from his return to Europe to celebrate the 70th anniversary of NATO, US President Donald Trump used the platform to launch the opening salvos in a new skirmish in his endlessly improvised “America First” trade wars. On the same day, we learn that Brazil and Argentina are also under...
In an interview with Gayle King on CBS, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg continued to defend what he sees as his mission to publish false information. He even sees this as a service for the benefit of the public. He thinks it will help people emerge from their state of political blindness and “see...
US President Donald Trump announced a true bombshell this week when he informed the crowd he was addressing at a speech in Florida that it was time to prepare their defense in the growing “war on Thanksgiving.” Trump didn’t bother to mention who was waging this war, possibly because he...
The controversy over US President Donald Trump’s pardoning of three soldiers accused of war crimes reveals more than the confrontation of two contrasting interpretations of the law and the limits of executive power. As he does with so many questions of policy and political reasoning, Trump has...
French King Louis XV reputedly said, “Après moi, le déluge.” (“After me, the flood.”) Whether that line was really his or not remains unclear, but not long after his death did come the French Revolution. We should be so lucky! Our all-American version of Louis XV, Donald I, is...
