Articles by Robert Jensen
Torture is trivial
Al Jazeera ·
The focus on torture in “Zero Dark Thirty” ignores more significant US policies of dubious legality.
We All Politicize History
Academe Blog, January 12, 2013 ·
Here’s an interesting question for historians: Why do ideologues never seem to be aware of their own ideology?
Such is the case with the recent report from the Texas Association of Scholars and the National Association of Scholars’ Center for the Study of the Curriculum, “Recasting History: Are Race, Class, and Gender Dominating American History?”
Put religion and politics on Thanksgiving menu
USA Today ·
The United States is the most affluent and powerful nation in history.
Despite our worldly riches, Americans are facing a sort of existential crisis.
Thoughtful discussion of contentious issues offers a way for us to learn, grow and come together.
A Pornography Habit Destroys Relationships
New York Times Room for Debate ·
Assessing the effects of mass media is never simple, but the important questions about pornography are obvious: What happens when a culture is saturated with sexually explicit images eroticizing male domination and female subordination? When those images become increasingly cruel and degrading to women and increasingly racist? When pornography becomes the de facto sex education for most boys and an increasing number of girls?
From Start to Finish: Why We Won and How We Are Losing
Al Jazeera English ·
We may not be driving ourselves into extinction, but we are creating conditions that make our future frightening.
Generation Food
Edible Austin ·
In the 2007 book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, author Raj Patel describes how an indefensible corporate global food system—focused on producing products for profit, not food for people—leaves a billion people overweight and nearly a billion starving.
Learning to Hate Longhorn Football
Counterpunch ·
The opener of the 2012 Longhorn football season is Saturday, Sept. 1. In this essay, a University of Texas at Austin professor reflects on the downside of the team that is so beloved in Austin and around the state.
Hope is for the Lazy: The Challenge of Our Dead World
CounterPunch ·
In 2005, I preached on the ecological crisis in a sermon I titled “Hope is for the Weak: The Challenge of a Broken World.” Looking back, I realize that I had been far too upbeat and optimistic, probably trying too hard to be liked. Today I want to correct that.
There are Marxists in India?” Economist Prabhat Patnaik on the global crisis
Al Jazeera English ·
Economist Prabhat Patnaik says moving back to an economic ‘golden age’ is impossible, so we must invent new solutions.
The Corporate Media Crisis: Everything Old Is New Again
Truthout ·
These days, there’s one political point on which one can usually get consensus: Mainstream journalists are failing. In common parlance, most everyone “hates the media.” But there is little agreement on why journalism might be inadequate to the task of engaging the public in a democratic society. More than ever, it’s important to understand the forces that constrain good journalism.
Journalists Rock! Journalism Sucks!
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting: Why media activists should love the players and hate the game ·
Prophetic politics: Charting a healthy role for religion in public life
Truthout ·
Does God take sides in the elections? Is there a voters’ guide hiding in our holy books? Should we pray for electoral inspiration?
The plow and the iPhone: Conservative fantasies about the miracles of the market
Al Jazeera English ·
A central doctrine of evangelicals for the “free market” is its capacity for innovation: New ideas, new technologies, new gadgets – all flow not from governments, but from individuals and businesses, allowed to flourish in the market, we are told.
Holding onto the joy in teaching: Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it
CounterPunch ·
I am a tenured professor in a relatively stable university, which is quite possibly the best job in the world. I get paid well to read, think, talk, and write, and I have more job security than almost anyone I know.
Like many professors, I am critical of the increasingly corporate nature of universities. The conservative/neoliberal project of turning public schools into educational factories is also gathering steam in higher education, and there is much organizing work necessary just to protect what little space for critical thinking still exists.
Foreword: Prophets of the Fourth Estate: Broadsides by Press Critics of the Progressive Era
Litwin Books/Library Juice Press ·
Occupy Congress: Norman Solomon sees a role for progressive legislators
Al Jazeera English ·
Norman Solomon, who is campaigning for Congress, believes that it’s possible to be an activist and a politician.
Conventional politics in the United States focuses on elections, while leftist activists typically argue that political change comes not from electing better politicians but building movements strong enough to force politicians to accept progressive change.
Environmental Historian Angus Wright’s Call For a Planetary Patriotism
Texas Observer online ·
Angus Wright has a way of saying things we may not want to hear in a way that’s hard to ignore.
Occupy demands: Let’s radicalize our analysis of empire, economics, ecology
Al Jazeera English, November 3, 2011 ·
The crisis we face is caused by failed systems – replacing leaders while keeping the old system intact will not help.
Ignoring the lessons of 9/11
Houston Chronicle; and Philadelphia Inquirer ·
Ten years ago, critics of America’s mad rush to war were right, but it didn’t matter.
Within hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it was clear that political leaders were going to use the attacks to justify war in Central Asia and the Middle East. And within hours, those of us critical of that policy began to offer principled and practical arguments against aggressive war as a response to the crimes.
9/11 Lessons: Combating Ignorance, Avoiding Arrogance
Jadaliyya ·
Ten years ago, within hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, it was clear that the architects of US foreign policy were going to use the events to justify war in Central Asia and the Middle East. And within hours, those of us critical of those policies began to articulate principled and practical arguments against the mad rush to war.
Nature Bats Last: Notes on Revolution and Resistance, Revelation and Redemption
Truthout ·
My title is ambitious and ambiguous: revolution and resistance (which tend to be associated with left politics), revelation and redemption (typically associated with right-wing religion), all framed by a warning about ecological collapse. My goal is to connect these concepts to support an argument for a radical political theology — let me add to the ambiguity here — that can help us claim our power at the moment when we are more powerless than ever, and identify the sources of hope when there is no hope.
First, I realize that the term “radical political theology” may be annoying. Some people will dislike “radical” and prefer a more pragmatic approach. Others will argue that theology shouldn’t be political. Still others will want nothing to do with theology of any kind. At various times in my life, I would have offered all of those objections. Today, I think a politics without a theology is dangerous, a theology without a politics is irrelevant, and radical is realistic.
Green is the new red: environmental activists under attack
Grist ·
For centuries, the arbitrary use of power by the state against dissidents has been a key threat to freedom. More recently, the concentrated wealth of corporations has emerged as a major impediment to democracy. When those two centers of power decide to come after people, not only do the individuals suffer, but freedom and democracy take a beating.
In his debut book, Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement under Siege, independent journalist Will Potter details one such assault on freedom and democracy: the targeting of environmental and animal rights activists.
The Power – and Limits – of Social Movements
Common Dreams ·
Dissidents not only have to be willing to tell the truth about the delusions of the dominant culture, but make sure we don’t fall into delusions of our own.
The Jemima Code: Toni Tipton-Martin Explores the Politics of the Kitchen, Past and Present.
Texas Observer online ·
In the cafeteria-turned-classroom at UT Elementary School, Toni Tipton-Martin struggles to keep six restless boys focused on hot cocoa, the day’s nutrition lesson. She starts with a store-bought cocoa mix, guiding the students through the list of “all those crazy ingredients”—the tongue-twisting list of scary-sounding additives and preservatives—before explaining how they will use four simple ingredients to make their own.
Delivering Educational Products: The Job Formerly Known as Teaching
Texas Observer online ·
Hi, I’m Robert Jensen, a provider of educational products to consumers at the University of Texas at Austin.
I used to introduce myself as a UT professor, but that was before I attended a Texas Public Policy Foundation session last week offering more exciting “breakthrough solutions” to the problems of higher education.
Journalism And Democracy In A Dead Culture: An interview with Robert Jensen
Countercurrents ·
Greek journalist CJ Polychroniou interviewed Robert Jensen about recent trends in media and politics. The interview appeared in Epsilon, the Sunday magazine of Eleftherotypia, Greece’s premier progressive newspaper.
Listening to Life, before it’s too late: An interview with Ellen LaConte
Resilience, originally published by Energy Bulletin ·
People of conscience face two crucial challenges today: (1) Telling the truth about the dire state of the ecosphere that makes our lives possible, no matter how grim that reality, and (2) remaining committed to collective action to create a more just and sustainable world, no matter how daunting that task. It’s not an easy balancing act, as we struggle to understand the scope of the crisis without giving into a sense of hopelessness.
Consciousness Rising, World Fading
Common Dreams. An edited version was posted as “Not a knight in shining armor,” on MS Magazine blog. ·
Our stories of awakenings — whether moral, intellectual, religious, artistic, or sexual — are tricky. Honest self-reflection doesn’t come easy, and self-satisfied accounts are the norm; we love to be the heroes of our own epics.
Technological fundamentalism: Why bad things happen when humans play God
Counterpunch ·
If humans were smart, we would bet on our ignorance.
That advice comes early in the Hebrew Bible. Adam and Eve’s banishment in chapters two and three of Genesis can be read as a warning that hubris is our tragic flaw. In the garden, God told them they could eat freely of every tree but the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This need not be understood as a command that people must stay stupid, but only that we resist the temptation to believe that we are godlike and can competently manipulate the complexity of the world.
‘Greatest Nation’ Rhetoric Roars Back
Common Dreams ·
My greatness as a writer is simply a fact.
You don’t agree? Well, then obviously you are churlish or malevolent.
If I were serious about such a claim of superiority, now would be the time to stop reading — on the reasonable assumption that I’m a dull-witted bore with no capacity for critical self-reflection. What applies to individual declarations is also true of nations, yet in the United States such statements about our greatness are common.