American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism.
The rise of capitalist practice and morality brought with it a radical revision of how the commons are treated, and also of how they are conceived.
Markets have built in inefficiencies, serious inefficiencies which are well known.
When George W. Bush came into office, North Korea had maybe one nuclear weapon and verifiably wasn't producing any more.
The public is strongly in favor of the Kyoto Protocols, so strongly in favor that a majority of Bush voters thought that he was in favor of it. They are simply unaware.
The U.S. - the idea that the U.S. has introduced and imposed principles of international law, that's hardly even a joke. The United States has even gone so far as to veto Security Council resolutions calling on all states to observe international law. That was in the 1980s under Reagan.
When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, the U.N. vetoed several resolutions right away, calling for an end to the fighting and so on, and that was a hideous invasion.
Obama's primary constituency was financial institutions. They were the core of the funding for his campaign. They expect to be paid back. And they were. They were paid back by coming out richer and more powerful than they were before the crisis that they created.
The call for debt cancellation is welcome, but debt does not just go away.
You cannot control your own population by force, but it can be distracted by consumption.
Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it.