Author Archives: stephenkmacksd

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About stephenkmacksd

Rootless cosmopolitan,down at heels intellectual;would be writer. 'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.' https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary

Pretty Boy Reactionary,The Arab Spring and the Promise of Neo-Colonialism: Episode 1491 of the American Political Melodrama

Posted on March 5, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/un-american-revolutions.html Pretty Boy Reactionary (PBR) sounds a solemn warning to Americans to give up their self-destructive romantic attachment to Revolution and Revolutionaries as nihilistic, even puerile: for Revolutionary fervor can lead to disastrous consequences: internecine war and the mass murder … Continue reading →

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Cockeyed Platonist and The Clash of Civilizations, Redux

Posted on March 5, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/opinion/04brooks.html If one really makes an effort to discover first rate critiques of the neo-imperialism of Mr. Samuel P. Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’, the wise reader might opt for such thinkers as Edward Said and his devastating ‘Clash of Definitions’ … Continue reading →

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The Oil and Gas Industry’s 800-Pound Gorilla: RADIATION

Posted on March 4, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

The Oil and Gas Industry’s 800-Pound Gorilla: RADIATION March 1, 2011 8:08 am An odd sort of perfect storm – involving a high-profile New York Times energy series, a quirky documentary that just missed the Oscar and federal BP-spill recovery … Continue reading →

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Throttled by Compliance | Hoover Institution

Posted on March 4, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

via hoover.org

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Movie Review – ‘The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg And The Pentagon Papers’ : NPR

Posted on March 4, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

via npr.org

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Iran’s State of Fear by Haleh Esfandiari | NYRBlog | The New York Review of Books

Posted on March 4, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

via nybooks.com

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The siren song of the neocons in David Cameron’s cabinet | Richard Seymour | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Posted on March 4, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

via guardian.co.uk

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Why Washington Doesn’t Care About Jobs | The Nation

Posted on March 3, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

via thenation.com

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It’s not a Shiite-Sunni divide – CNN.com

Posted on March 3, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

March 2, 2011 10:32 a.m. EST via cnn.com

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The New Normal, David Brooks and Austerity: Episode 1929 of The American Political Melodrama

Posted on March 3, 2011 by stephenkmacksd

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss   Here is the opening paragraph of Cockeyed Platonist’s (CP) column for February 28th 2011: ‘We’re going to be doing a lot of deficit cutting over the next several years. The country’s future greatness will be shaped by whether … Continue reading →

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