Why Not Falling Off the Fiscal Cliff Requires Conversion

By Jonathan Michael Feldman Don’t Just Cut the Defense Budget With Laissez-Faire Economic Policy Progressive and left leading economists have proposed military budget cutbacks,  increased taxes and closing loop holes as ways to reduce the deficit.  The problem with the first proposal is that it often is not accompanied by proposals to create civilian alternatives…

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Congress coddles military while neglecting Sandy victims and violence prevention

By Brian D’Agostino What I find remarkable about the recent “fiscal cliff” debate in the United States, which is now morphing into the “debt ceiling” debate, is the absence of America’s bloated and obsolete war economy from the discussion, even as vitally needed programs are on the chopping block.  For two months, right wing Republicans…

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A Deconstruction of Hanne Kjöller’s article, ”Upplopp: Husby som ett Rorschachtest,” Dagens Nyheter, May 24, 2013. Accessible at: http://www.dn.se/ledare/signerat/upplopp-husby-som-ett-rorschachtest.

By Jonathan M. Feldman, Stockholm University, May 24, 2013. Kjöller Argument 1: Upploppen blir ett Rorschachtest, en bläckplump där allt från Sverigedemokrater till anarkister tycker sig kunna läsa in just det som bekräftar den egna verklighetsbilden… Analysis of Argument 1: The claim is that people from the far right to the far left will interpret…

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The Politics of Scarcity: New Code Words for Swedish Politics

 By Jonathan Michael Feldman, November 25, 2015, Modified November 26, 2015. Party Leaders Valorize the Politics of Scarcity On Swedish television (SVT) yesterday we saw a series of party leaders speak. One key point was when the Green Party Leader Gustav Fridolin said that Europe must do its duty by taking in more refugees (their…

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How to Reclaim the Universities

By Jonathan Michael Feldman October 25, 2015 Capitalism as the Colonizer of Universities In a recent article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Terry Eagleton, describes “The Slow Death of the Universities.”  He writes: “Yet the distance they established between themselves and society at large could prove enabling as well as disabling, allowing them to…

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Connecting the Dots Working Group: Workshop in Stockholm

Connecting the Dots Working Group Workshop Connecting the Dots (CTD) är ett nytt Stockholmsbaserat gräsrotinitiativ och en arbetsgrupp med syfte att fungera som tankesmedja, organisatör och initiativtagare. Vi vill bjuda in er  till en workshop. Våra medlemmar är aktiva inom den breda vänstern och inom gröna, feministiska, antimilitaristiska och antirasistiska rörelser som aktivister, akademiker, konstnärer…

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How to Build Affordable Housing in Sweden: A Thought Experiment for the Left

THE BIGGEST BARRIERS ARE POLITICAL AND NOT SIMPLY “ECONOMIC” By Jonathan M. Feldman The argument that it is impossible to build low cost housing sounds plausible, using the tools of standard housing economics, but it leaves many questions unanswered. First, the population of Stockholm and other key locations will inevitably expand. One study suggests its…

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Deconstructing Peter Woladarski’s Editorial on the SD Poster Controversy

Deconstructing Peter Woladarski’s Låt SD vråla för sig själva i svensk politik  in Dagens Nyheter, August 9, 2015: An Analysis of Nine Key Problems Picture 1: SD poster campaign; Picture 2: August 4, 2015 protest against posters By Jonathan Michael Feldman, Posted August 9, 2015 and August 10, 2015 Preface At one point in time,…

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