From the war in Ukraine to the rise of far-right autocrats worldwide, extremism has become a part of everyday life.
Extreme Events Are the New Normal, and Not Just in the Weather
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economic crisis
Four More Years: Europe’s Meltdown
Back in the 1960s, the U.S. peace movement came up with a catchy phrase: “What if the schools got all the money they needed and the Navy had to hold a bake sale to buy an aircraft carrier?” Well, the Italian Navy has a line of clothing, and is taking a cut from a soft drink called “Forza Blu” in order to make up for budget cuts. It plans to market energy snacks and mineral water. Things are a little rocky in Europe these days.
Economic Crisis Shakes Old Paradigms
The world will soon enter the sixth year of the Great Recession, and there is no end in sight. In the United States, where stagnation continues to reign, some 23 million Americans remain out of work, are underemployed, or have simply dropped out of the labor force owing to frustration—a condition that now threatens to precipitate Barack Obama’s replacement by a Republican candidate whose program would only worsen the crisis.
Is Latvia an Example to Other States in Economic Crisis?
Renowned economics columnist Robert Samuelson tried to make the case that austerity measures in Latvia saved its economy.
Gambling in Japan
The great kabuki actor Mitsugoro Bando VIII was a fan of fugu, or blowfish. Fugu is a rather bland, unremarkable fish except for one thing: its internal organs, particularly the liver, are highly toxic. Japanese chefs have to acquire a special certificate to prove that they know how to remove all traces of toxin before preparing the dish. Nevertheless, a couple of people die every year from eating it, which gives the fish an exotic reputation. Diners enjoy the slight tingle that fugu sushi imparts to the tongue and lips. Bando, however, wasn’t satisfied with this slight tingle. A daredevil eater, he relished bowls of soup made from fugu liver and in this way built up a certain resistance to the toxin. But on January 16, 1975, Bando ate not only one bowl of this liver soup for dinner but also the three bowls that his friend wisely declined. That night he suffered respiratory failure and died.
The Year of Living Dangerously
Get ready for a rocky year. From now on, rising prices, powerful storms, severe droughts and floods, and other unexpected events are likely to play havoc with the fabric of global society, producing chaos and political unrest. Start with a simple fact: the prices of basic food staples are already approaching or exceeding their 2008 peaks, that year when deadly riots erupted in dozens of countries around the world.
60 Second Expert: Obama’s Failures
The progressive dilemma at this time of political crisis is not one of vision. We have identified the key fundamental values needed to construct an alternative to the abundantly discredited neoliberal world older. But on a tactical level we have failed to translate these values into a political program compelling to those most affected by the global financial crisis.
Lessons of the Obama Debacle
The problem with us progressives as this time of crisis is not that we lack an alternative paradigm to pit against the discredited neoliberal paradigm. No, the elements of the alternative based on the values of democracy, justice, equality, and environmental sustainability are there and have been there for sometime, the product of collective intellectual and activist work over the last few decades.
Racism and Recession in Europe
Of the many undesirable effects of the ongoing — and increasingly policy-induced — recession in Europe, has received relatively less public attention: the resurgence of racist and xenophobic attitudes. This was already something of a problem, especially in Western Europe in the past decade, when right-wing political forces demanded major restrictions on immigration and sporadic episodes of violence broke out against migrant and Roma groups.
The Virtues of Deglobalization
The current global downturn, the worst since the Great Depression 70 years ago, pounded the last nail into the coffin of globalization. Already beleaguered by evidence that showed global poverty and inequality increasing, even as most poor countries experienced little or no economic growth, globalization has been terminally discredited in the last two years. As the much-heralded process of financial and trade interdependence went into reverse, it became the transmission belt not of prosperity but of economic crisis and collapse.