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Something worth thinking about.

I wish I had time to fully understand all that Baudrillard writes in this piece. I guess he is arguing that the biggest institution of all--globalized anything--is the cause of terrorism. He writes, "In this way it is indeed a World War, not the third one, but the fourth and only truly World War, as it has as stakes globalization itself. The first two World Wars were classic wars. The first ended European supremacy and the colonial era. The second ended Nazism. The third, which did happen, as a dissuasive Cold War, ended communism. From one war to the other, one went further each time toward a unique world order. Today the latter, virtually accomplished, is confronted by antagonistic forces, diffused in the very heart of the global, in all its actual convulsions. . . . . It is a conflict so unfathomable that, from time to time, one must preserve the idea of war through spectacular productions such as the Gulf (production) and today Afghanistan's. But the fourth World War is elsewhere. It is that which haunts every global order, every hegemonic domination; -if Islam dominated the world, terrorism would fight against it. For it is the world itself which resists domination." I think there's a lot more that he says, so I'll have to return to this one. Maybe you can share your read on this in class, Wendell. Thanks!

Yeah, this article is definitely difficult to understand without an extensive background on his social theory (what he's written about what he calls symbolic exchange, the exclusion of the dead, the procession of the model or simulacra). What he's arguing is definitely that globalization is creating the seeds of its own destruction, but terrorism is but one example of this process. To clarify, when he says "the spirit of terrorism" and "Then let us be immoral ourselves and, if we want to understand something, let us go somewhat beyond Good and Evil. As we have, for once, an event that challenges not only morals, but every interpretation, let us try to have the intelligence of Evil.", he's not trying to advocate for murder or anything but rather is suggesting that the strategy taken by terrorists is something theoretically important. The last things he published were "The Intelligence of Evil" and "The Agony of Power" where he more or less argued that it is impossible to assimilate singular individuals, cultures, and ways of life under a universal (which he refers to as the Good in the article ^) and that attempts at assimilation only make "Evil" more powerful and make it more likely for the Good to collapse in on itself. He thinks this process is occurring across all planes of social existence and is inevitable. He wrote about a possible attack on the twin towers decades in advance and the Spirit of Terrorism was sort of like a "I told you this would happen" to the academy. The thing about Baudrillard is that he takes a very pessimistic outlook on the trajectory of modernity/post-modernity and was probably looking forward to the collapse of globalization/capitalism/the world order. While that's obviously a controversial and morally dubious opinion, he's still definitely very interesting to read about. Andrew Robinson wrote a bunch of articles describing his social theory/what he means for activism and the world today. While they are pretty dense and probably requir

" scale. The broad sweep of Harari's writing, which encompasses the prehistoric past and a dark far-off future, has turned him into a bit"

I found this article especially interesting on Aljazeera's website, because it looks at an American criminal and personal/moral issue in the eyes of a Middle Eastern and largely Arabic news staff. I wanted to see if they had tainted eyes or more contempt for this Marine who defamed a dead body. What I found is the article did a great job of sticking to the news story and not straying into any moral debates or inappropriate personal commentary on the soldier's actions. This is obviously how a good journalist news writer should write and act, and the author, Mr. Deptola, did a good job of keeping the expository stance.

I pretty much agree with this article. I, too, get annoyed with politicians who practically decide our fates constantly being swayed by super PACS. But I think that in order for us to stop this, both sides need to acknowledge this inequality and stop succumbing to this influence simultaneously. And I do not think this will ever happen. As good as it may be to write an article about it and ask eleven people what the problem is, how this problem effects others, how to solve it, etc, I just don't think that we will ever see real political reform that "defeats big money". But maybe I'm just being too pessimistic. What do you think?

This "Room for Debate" article is about workers' strikes in China. The second response by Yasheng Huang is particularly interesting because it touches on something that we came across in our country jigsaws - even though a country may have an enormous GDP and growing economy, the average citizen is not necessarily well off. Huang writes: "Job creation is one thing; who gains from it is another…Many Western economists are cheerleaders of 'the China miracle,' but for the average Chinese the miracle is far less than what meets the eye." American companies profit from Chinese labor wages being so cheap, but how will things play out on the international stage if wages increase in Chinese factories?

(For people that are having difficulty finding the article for homework, I already posted it on Diigo)

This is an interesting article that goes with "The Story of Our Stuff." Pogue writes about our need to constantly replace our products (he offers some solutions as well). A very cool fact: in Europe, all cell-phone chargers have the same type of power cord. The EU mandated it.

I chose this article about the Israel-Palestine conflict because it talks about how this conflict is not an isolated battle between Israel and Palestine. The Op-Ed columnist David Brooks writes that because of all the conflict in the Middle East each country, group, or "political contour" that is striving for power influences the actions of either the Palestinian or Israeli parties. For example, Brooks mentions how Egypt blocked 95% of the tunnels that connected Egypt to Gaza, which costed Hamas $460 million a year. Hamas could not attack Egypt, so they attacked Israel instead. The public dissatisfaction caused Egypt to end the blockade. Thus, the external parties in the Middle East have a large effect on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Brooks says that the conflict should therefore be analyzed from a different perspective: "It, like every conflict in the region, has to be seen as a piece of the larger 30 Years' War" (Brooks). This article shows us that we need to think a little more broadly when analyzing certain conflicts.

I think it's interesting that these outside countries are involving themselves by using all the deaths of the Israelis and Palestinians as leverage to get what they want. The violence in Gaza negatively influences all of its surrounding regions. Violence only brings more violence.

This article was a great way to clear the air on many misconceptions that have been floating around that make the Israel-Palestine conflict seem like a very straightforward conflict. This makes it clear that many of the warfare between Israel and Palestine isn't related to conflict between these two nations, rather in some cases it is attempts by Palestinian states and Muslim rebels to show dominance to other Middle Eastern countries and sects in order to make political and economic moves. With so much intertwining of conflict with the Egypt and the Islamists at the Arab Spring and the closing of the 95% of the tunnels being closed between Egypt and Gaza. The Brotherhood, ISIS, and other militant groups are vying for power throughout the Middle East and flexing their muscle on anybody and everybody to establish political dominance.

For an influential group of advanced thinkers, violence is a type of backwardness. In the most modern parts of the world, these thinkers tell us, war has practically disappeared.

Wow, that's quite a blog post. I used to like Steven Pinker's writing--on the human brain, for example. But this new book seems like a hypothesis in search of biased evidence.

This article details in depth the political side as well as the economic side of the Danish and Dutch pension systems. It sheds light on the possible political problems the US would have implementing any such reforms. As Anderson writes, "As Esping-Andersen (1985) notes, Danish social democrats had the misfortune of facing strong liberal competition in social welfare policy, so Danish social policies are a curious blend of social democratic and liberal values. When the social democrats joined with liberals to improve the basic pension scheme, they had to accept generous tax incentives for private pensions." However, where would "social democratic" resistance on the Danish scale come from in the United States? The power of the liberal democrats is far more prevalent in the US.

Yay! Another Profile of the Syrian Republic. In April 2011 Bashar Al-Assad made an end to the 48-year-old state of emergency but demonstrations continued. Massive anti-regime protests broke out in several cities in Syria. Protesters demanded the release of all political prisoners, more freedoms for individuals and an end to pervasive corruption. In this source the European Forum analyzes and writes a profile of Syria in recent years- allowing for quantitative and qualitative analysis on my part.