Blog Entries by Randall Amster
The War Drones On...
(0) Comments | Posted June 3, 2012 | 12:23 PM
Drones are all the rage these days, and not in a good way. The increasing toll taken by these robotic executioners is beginning to register with the public, after many years of automated death from above in our adventurist wars. Still, the use of drones is expanding in many places,...
Scenes From an Airport Restaurant
(0) Comments | Posted May 7, 2012 | 4:07 PM
It seems like such an innocuous idea. What if there was a shared space set aside, as a matter of course, in private and/or quasi-public places such as airports, hotel lobbies, college campuses, etc.? It's not a radical concept by any means, suggesting simply that a small area be created...
Occupy Asteroids?
(14) Comments | Posted April 26, 2012 | 5:29 PM
Sometimes the news reads like a cross between a corporate promotional campaign gone haywire and a rejected science-fiction B-movie script. The announcement this week of an asteroid mining venture -- backed by Google executives, the Perot Group, and James Cameron, among others -- is precisely the sort of item that...
Debt of Gratitude: Less Earning, More Learning
(10) Comments | Posted February 22, 2012 | 1:42 PM
I'd like to share a story, a personal story, a common story, an American story. For nearly two decades, I have carried the burden of a crushing student loan debt, well over six figures and impossible for me to fathom paying off in this lifetime. While I have written before...
Occupy Ourselves
(3) Comments | Posted December 13, 2011 | 10:21 AM
In just a few short months we have reached a point of near saturation in which the modifier "Occupy" has been applied to almost every sphere of our beleaguered political economy. Not every such application has been equally useful, but for the most part the intended meaning of the word...
Tangled Up in Blue: Can There Be Solidarity Between Activists and Police?
(0) Comments | Posted November 22, 2011 | 9:28 AM
Recent days have seen the increasing use of police violence against peaceful Occupy demonstrators around the country, including the gone-viral merciless pepper-spraying of students at UC Davis as well as that of 84-year-old Dorli Rainey in Seattle, and the critical wounding of Iraq war veteran
Power to the Peaceful: Holding Space as OWS Camps Come Under Assault
(2) Comments | Posted November 17, 2011 | 4:24 PM
As the Occupy Movement gains strength and garners worldwide support, the predominant anti-OWS tactic of authority is becoming clear: decimate as many Occupy camps as possible, in the hope that this delivers a fatal blow to the movement's momentum. It is an outmoded, heavy-handed tack, one that starkly illuminates the...
Pax Occupata
(0) Comments | Posted November 14, 2011 | 11:25 AM
Decades ago, on the eve of a period of widespread societal upheaval, Bob Dylan famously intoned that "the order is rapidly fading." For a time, this appeared to be so: around the world people were in the streets, revolution was in the air, and structures of oppression were being openly...
Mic Check: Can You Hear Us, America?
(13) Comments | Posted October 29, 2011 | 6:52 PM
We find these views to be mutually relevant...
that all people, by virtue of their basic humanity, deserve the opportunity to live, work, and associate according to the dictates of their own consciences and capacities;
that the exercise of such freedoms is only tenable in conjunction with the ability of...
"I Want to Be a Farmer": Food Justice, Out of the Mouths of Babes
(2) Comments | Posted June 3, 2011 | 5:23 PM
"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." -- Psalm 8:2
My oldest son recently "graduated" from preschool. In the endearing ceremony, each of the children was asked what they want...
Obama Bags Osama -- So Now What?
(6) Comments | Posted May 2, 2011 | 1:41 PM
President Obama's shocking May Day announcement that Osama bin Laden has been killed, and his body captured promises to usher in a new era of U.S. foreign and domestic policies alike. But what will this portend in actual practice? The implications for the future are potentially staggering in their full...
Obama's Fake Progressive Birth Certificate
(507) Comments | Posted April 27, 2011 | 3:01 PM
Okay, so now we finally know: Barack Obama is an American. (Well, he's a Hawaiian actually, but I suppose we can put any lingering sovereignty issues aside for the moment.) In a startling revelation sure to send chills up the virtual spines of rightwing operatives everywhere, the President delivered a...
Top 10 Alternative '10 Best' Articles: The Pun Is Mightier Than the Sword
(1) Comments | Posted April 19, 2011 | 6:30 PM
Discerning readers of the "progressive blogosphere" will likely have noticed a growing tendency to title articles in the form of "Top 10 Best..." or "10 Reasons to..." or "10 Ways to a Better..." Not only does this subtle push to headline articles in such a manner impact the habits of...
Meltdown: Unsafe at Any Screed
(0) Comments | Posted March 15, 2011 | 12:25 PM
Search the news for the word "meltdown" these days and you'll probably get one of three main hits: the situation in Japan; the economy; and Charlie Sheen. Take a guess which one is most likely to occupy peoples' attention spans and fill the pages of tabloids going forward? Celebrity gossip...
Morning in America: If at First You Don't Secede...
(35) Comments | Posted March 2, 2011 | 12:13 PM
Progressive eyes have been rightly transfixed on Wisconsin of late, with the en masse display of "people power" directly confronting attempts to erode public infrastructure and eviscerate the leverage of collective bargaining that so many have struggled for over the decades. Coming on the heels of popular uprisings in Egypt...
Despite Harassment, Peace Activists Vow to Continue Work
(0) Comments | Posted February 10, 2011 | 12:16 PM
On January 25, 2011, people gathered in cities across America to demonstrate against the ongoing harassment of peace organizations and individual activists by law enforcement agencies. In particular, these "solidarity actions" were focused on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had served subpoenas and raided the homes of people involved...
Apocalypse Not Now: Seeking a New Beginning ... before the End
(2) Comments | Posted February 2, 2011 | 1:14 PM
Undertaking even a cursory review of the news queue evidences the apocalyptic overtones in our collective midst. In the most recent additions to the canon, 2010 ended with semi-sardonic coverage of the so-called "Snowpocalypse" and its aftermath, and 2011 began with perplexed musings over the "Aflockalypse"...
Healing the Wounds: Transforming Our Culture of Violence
(1) Comments | Posted January 13, 2011 | 1:04 AM
Whatever your political leanings, you'd have to be incredibly hardhearted not to be moved by the shooting in Tucson that claimed the lives of a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl, among others, and critically wounded Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Some will attempt to politicize this episode as emblematic of...
First Amendment Remedies: Hey, Sarah, Refudiate This
(39) Comments | Posted January 10, 2011 | 4:10 PM
Despite the temptation to join the grief-stricken chorus of blame, I do not believe that flame-fanners and spleen-suppliers like Sarah Palin, et al., are responsible for the tragic events in Tucson. Rather, the incendiary rhetorical devices they've used -- from gun sights over congressional districts to the invocation of "Second...
Arizona's Long Dark Night Continues
(30) Comments | Posted January 9, 2011 | 12:49 AM
Perhaps not since the full-on throes of the Civil Rights era has a single state been so beset by crisis, conflict, and now catastrophe. Chronicling Arizona politics has been a trying and tiresome experience on many levels, with few points of optimism at hand to buffet the constant blows of...
