I cut my political teeth on the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, working to persuade my college to divest from companies doing business in South Africa. It wasn’t easy work. What did I know about investment portfolios? We were a small group, and we didn’t have any business majors providing pro bono advice. We knew… Continue reading Divest Now?
When two young boys square off in the school playground, they will often appeal to higher powers. “My big brother can beat up your big brother!” they cry out as a scare tactic. Even if the two kids don’t come to blows, one will still try to impress the other by claiming that his elder… Continue reading Summit: Post-Playground Politics
I have a confession to make: I’m losing my faith in the political process. When it comes to foreign policy, the candidates are using their bully pulpits to sermonize in the dullest possible way: all heat and no enlightenment. They preach to the converted. They disparage the unorthodox and adhere to the party platform, chapter… Continue reading We Get Religion
They look like portals that deliver people from one planet to another, as in a science fiction movie. You turn a corner in Manhattan and there they are: full-sized figures in full military uniform emblazoned on graffiti-laced walls. The faces of the U.S. soldiers appearing in these arresting images are blurred as if in great… Continue reading Art as Jujitsu
The future has arrived, but the Futurists didn’t make it. In the early part of the 20th century, the Futurist movement of artists in Italy, led by Filippo Marinetti, glorified war as a dynamic organizing principle for their art work. If art was about energy – and the raw power of the modern machine age… Continue reading The Art of Anti-War
Kosovo almost got its own flag. According to the compromise proposal of UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, the international community was to grant “supervised independence” to Kosovo, the largely Albanian enclave in southern Serbia. This compromise plan provided Kosovo with its own constitution, its own national anthem, and perhaps most symbolically, its own flag. And… Continue reading The Taiwan of Europe
Name the country in the Middle East that is most anti-American. Egypt? Palestine? Lebanon? Try again. Try instead our key NATO ally, the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, and one of the countries in line for membership in the European Union. Try: Turkey. According to a new poll from the Project on International… Continue reading Bazaar-o-World
As the call to prayers in Istanbul gets louder – thanks to more sophisticated amplifying systems – the number and size of Turkish flags have grown in proportion. This is the fundamental conflict in Turkey today. On one side are the secularists, the heirs of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. On the other… Continue reading Postcard from Istanbul
In the mid-1970s, Coca-Cola tried to sell the convenience store 7-Eleven on the idea of a 32-ounce cup for soft drinks. The 7-Eleven rep doubted that the public was ready to drink that much: the larger cup was “absolutely insane.” Alas, American consumers proved him wrong and soon came the Super Big Gulp (44 ounces)… Continue reading Xtreme Gulpism
Bush is on the ranch in Crawford, Texas. Members of Congress are back at home or are abroad doing important “research”. With the policymakers who have steered our country in the wrong direction absent from Washington, now is the time for YOU to start making US foreign policy. Foreign Policy In Focus is excited to… Continue reading Make Your Own Foreign Policy