Now out from Zed Books. Available here. A quarter of a century after the fall of communism, novelist and journalist John Feffer returned to Eastern Europe to track down the hundreds of people he spoke to in the initial atmosphere of optimism as the Iron Curtain fell. Aftershock is the sensational account of that journey. Revealing the… Continue reading Aftershock
Democracy can be messy. In the northeast corner of Spain this week, democracy was downright chaotic. Catalans went to the polls on Sunday to vote in a referendum on whether to stay in Spain or go their separate way. The Spanish authorities, however, declared the vote illegitimate and sent in the national police to disrupt… Continue reading Things Fall Apart
Every few years — sometimes four, sometimes eight — America’s political mood swings from one pole to another. It’s a not-uncommon disorder for democracies. Voters get disgusted with one flavor of politics and opt for another. For better or worse, the United States doesn’t have a Baskin-Robbins democracy. So, the vacillations in Americans’ political taste… Continue reading The Semtex President
North Korea has the worst human rights record of any country in the world except perhaps Eritrea and Syria. There is, however, a curious exception to this record: disability rights. This case offers a powerful counter-example of successful engagement in an arena where the country normally experiences nothing but universal condemnation. For nearly two decades,… Continue reading Engaging North Korea Successfully on Human Rights
Germany got its very own electoral shock this week when the far right won 13 percent of the vote in country’s parliamentary elections. For the first time in more than half a century, the far right will be represented in the German parliament, with more than 90 seats. Although it’s now Germany’s third most popular… Continue reading Germany and the Rise of a “Fascist International”
The United States faces a new nuclear power ruled by a communist dictator. Washington is worried that the leadership of that country is crazy enough to use its new weapons — even against the United States. Meanwhile, other countries fear that the “madman” in the Oval Office might just launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack. This… Continue reading Time to Make a Deal with North Korea
They were Muslims, and they were leaving the country in droves. Their homeland, a remote corner of a multiethnic country, had become a warzone. Militants had taken up arms to fight for their rights, and the central government retaliated in force. Human rights abuses, mostly by the government, were rampant. Caught in the gunfire, hundreds… Continue reading The Rohingya and the Responsibility to Ignore
The storm inside the Republican Party has reached Category Four. At the end of August, as Hurricane Harvey tore through Texas and Hurricane Irma was poised to devastate Florida, the hard right was experiencing its own high winds and pelting rain. On the TV show Fox and Friends, conservative commentator Laura Ingraham took aim at the Trump administration… Continue reading Hurricane Donald Hits the Republican Party
In 1993, I arrived one fall evening in the Romanian city of Cluj. The railway station was mysteriously full of people, and the city outside was crowded and frenetic. I was mystified. Why did this rather obscure Transylvanian outpost suddenly seem like New York City? My contacts in Cluj eventually provided me with an explanation.… Continue reading The President Is a Ponzi Scheme
On race relations, the United States has slipped into the same category as Burundi and Iraq. After the violence in Charlottesville earlier this month — and the outrage generated by President Trump’s response — the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued an “early warning.” As the chair of the committee, Anastasia… Continue reading The Racism Heard Round the World