ILF POST

By Charles Lindblom Might the President, alleging enemies dangerous to the nation, at some point announce the cancellation of a coming election? Or, after an electoral defeat, refuse to leave office, calling on a willing military unit to surround the White House to maintain him? Who or what might deter him? Who or what could [...]

By Douglass Carmichael Bush took 9/11 as an opportunity for defining the world in terms of war when it needed to be defined in terms of economic participation.
As a result we have a very narrow vision for this presidency and an economy controlled by a few [...]

By Mary Catherine Bateson Vice president Gore has made a movie which attempts to do two things: it attempts to make Americans really worried about climate change, worried enough to change their behavior, and it attempts to teach them to think about the issue. Personally, I would go for [...]

By Harlan Cleveland “The ambitious plans that the president announced to transform American defense proved to be at odds with his bold plan to transform a region.”
“The violent chaos that followed Saddam’s defeat was not a matter of not having a plan but of adhering too rigidly to the wrong one.”
These nuggets of practical wisdom [...]

By Nicholas Johnson** Perspective on Military Murder and the Mission at Hand* Murder is wrong, whether during wars abroad or breaches of the peace at home.
Moreover, as Israeli soldier Haim Watzman writes in the New York Times, “morality in combat is not just an abstract principle. It is an [...]

By Gloria Feldt The world was riveted when Natalie Holloway went missing in Aruba last year. Dan Brown’s best-selling novel, “The Da Vinci Code,” mesmerizes readers and movie-goers by spinning the tale around how Mary Magdalene went missing from Christian theology except as a reformed harlot.
In an equally riveting mystery, women have disappeared from [...]

By Charles Lindblom Thanks both to individual philanthropy and corporate gifts, American society is favored, beyond what governments provide, with a wealth of schools, universities, research institutes, hospitals, museums, art galleries, orchestras, theaters, beneficial societies, parks and nature reserves, and some splendors of architecture. The same sources also give us political corruption. But set that [...]

By Mary Catherine Bateson Was it fear or anger that has made us so unthoughtful in our response to 9/11? Both tend to create stupidity – and probably there has been a mix. But let’s look at 9/11 to explore the way we think about intention and causation.
Certainly the terrorists set out to hurt [...]