Archive | September, 2016

There is currently too much dramatic news abroad in the world, mostly bad.  What can an election in one single city mean, far from most fronts?  Yet the voting in Berlin last Sunday (September 18th) was full of drama and meaning, also outside Germany.  The results caused some to grieve, some to applaud, and analysts […]

In January 2016, I attended Tate Britain’s Artist and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past, a disappointing exhibition that in spite of its title did not face Britain’s past in any meaningful way.  On the contrary, as I argued in my review, it shied away from this bloody history in favour of quasi-glorification, non-committal wording and […]

The debate about the US anthem echoes a debate about the German anthem.  The “Deutschland über alles” text goes back to 1841 but its meaning has been and still is easily misused.  When East Germany was annexed in 1990 many suggested adopting the GDR anthem, written in 1949 by the anti-Nazi poet (and minister of […]

The Protest Encampment at the entrance of the Federal Courthouse in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico against the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (cynically called “PROMESA”), as well as the Wall Street Junta that said law imposes, constitutes an important act of popular resistance. In addition to the dictatorial Wall Street Junta, PROMESA sets up a legal framework to impose a $4.25-an-hour wage on young workers ages 20-24, curtail and even eliminate public sector pensions, cancel collective bargaining agreements, and ram through a host of other austerity measures upon the Puerto Rican people.