Articles by Robert Jensen
We found 18 results.
‘Cancel Culture’ Cannot Erase a Strong Argument
Robert Jensen | Countercurrents - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
13 Jul 2020 – In the current squabble on the liberal/progressive/left side of the fence over so-called “cancel culture”—in which one open letter in favor of freedom of expression led to a rebuttal open letter in favor of a different approach to freedom of expression—I can offer a report on the experience of being canceled.
→ read full articleCan the United States Transcend White Supremacy?
Robert Jensen | Dissident Voice - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jul 2016
Because the wealth and power of the United States are so deeply rooted in white supremacy, the abandonment of that pathology would inevitably lead to difficult questions about the country’s moral and material obligations to non-white people…. The United States likely will always be a white-supremacist nation because we have neither the intellectual nor moral traditions to deal with these harsh realities.
→ read full articleReview of Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate’ – Extracting Ourselves from the Extractivist Mindset
Robert Jensen – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Oct 2014
Naomi Klein has written a brave book that not only confronts the calamity of climate destabilization but also examines the deep roots of the crisis in the perverse logic of capitalism and the dehumanizing values of the “extractivist” high-energy/high-technology world.
→ read full articleThe Watchdog That Didn’t Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism
Robert Jensen – The Texas Observer,
31 Mar 2014
Barking dogs and sinking ships: Journalism’s search for metaphor and meaning.
→ read full articleHow Unchecked Capitalism Has Brought the World to the Brink of Apocalypse — and What We Must Do Now
Robert Jensen – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jul 2013
If there is to be a decent future, we have to give up on the imperial fantasy of endless power, the capitalist fantasy of endless growth, the technological fantasy of endless comfort. Those systems have long been celebrated as the engines of unprecedented wealth, albeit for a limited segment of the world’s population.
→ read full articleTorture Is Trivial
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera,
28 Jan 2013
The focus on torture in “Zero Dark Thirty” ignores more significant US policies of dubious legality. When I look at the decade since 9/11, torture is hardly the greatest crime of the US war machine. Since 9/11, the United States has helped destroy two countries with, at best, sketchy moral and legal justification.
→ read full articleWhy We Won and How We Are Losing
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera,
1 Oct 2012
“[A]part from death, the only ironclad rule of human experience has been the Law of Unintended Consequences. Our brains are extraordinary mechanisms, and they have allowed us to accomplish truly amazing things; but we are still only good at anticipating – or at least of paying attention to – highly immediate consequences. We are notably bad at assessing risk, especially long-term risk. We believe crazy things, such as that human sacrifice will propitiate the gods, or that people are kidnapped by space aliens, or that endless economic expansion is possible in a finite world, or that if we just ignore climate change we won’t have to face its consequences. Or at the very least, we act as if we do.”
→ read full article“There Are Marxists in India?”
Robert Jensen – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Apr 2012
While there certainly are no shortages of capitalists, there are still lots of Marxists in India, as well as communist parties that have won state elections. Patnaik represents the best thinking and practice of those left traditions — both the academic Marxism that provides a framework for critique of economics, and the political Marxism that proposes public policies — which is why I was so excited to talk with him about lessons to be learned from the current economic crisis.
→ read full articleThe Corporate Media Crisis: Everything Old Is New Again
Robert Jensen, Litwin Books – Truthout,
2 Apr 2012
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.
→ read full articleThe Emperor’s Messenger Has No Clothes: Belén Fernández Dresses Down Thomas Friedman
Robert Jensen - Truthout,
27 Feb 2012
What’s scary about Thomas Friedman is not his journalism, with its underinflated insights and twisted metaphors. Annoying as his second-rate thinking and third-rate writing may be, he’s not the first – or the worst – hack journalist. What should unnerve us about Friedman is the acclaim he receives in political and professional circles. Although his work is stunningly shallow and narcissistic, Friedman is celebrated as a big thinker.
→ read full articleOccupy Demands: Let’s Radicalise Our Analysis
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera,
7 Nov 2011
The crisis we face is caused by failed systems – replacing leaders while keeping the old system intact will not help. There’s one question that pundits and politicians keep posing to the Occupy gatherings around the country: What are your demands? I have a suggestion for a response: We demand that you stop demanding a list of demands.
→ read full articleThe Imperial Delusions of the United States
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera,
12 Sep 2011
Ten years ago, critics of the United States’ mad rush to war were right, but it didn’t matter. Ten years later, we are still right and it still doesn’t matter. Empires rarely learn in time, because power tends to dull people’s capacity for critical self-reflection. While ascending to power, empires believe themselves to be invincible. While declining in power, they cling desperately to old myths of remembered glory. Today, the United States is morally bankrupt and spiritually broken. The problem is that we are still operating on delusional notions about manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, the right to take more than our share of the world’s resources by whatever means necessary.
→ read full articleThe Painful Collapse of Empire: How the “American Dream” and American Exceptionalism Wreck Havoc on the World
Robert Jensen – Information Clearing House,
4 Jul 2011
Even tragic heroes can, at the end, celebrate the dignity of the human spirit in their failure. That may be the task of Americans, to recognize that we can’t reverse course in time to prevent our ultimate failure, but that in the time remaining we can recognize our hamartia, name our hubris, and do what we can to undo the damage. That may be the one chance for the United States to be truly heroic, for us to learn to leave the stage gracefully.
→ read full articleEconomics: Doing Business As If People Mattered
Robert Jensen – Common Dreams,
11 Oct 2010
When politicians talk economics these days, they argue a lot about the budget deficit. That’s crucial to our economic future, but in the contemporary workplace there’s an equally threatening problem — the democracy deficit.
→ read full articleNo Nukes/No Empire: The Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Requires the End of the U.S. Empire
Robert Jensen – Common Dreams,
21 Jun 2010
[A version of this essay was delivered to the “Think outside the Bomb” event in Austin, TX, on June 14, 2010.] If we are serious about the abolition of nuclear weapons, we have to place the abolition of the U.S. empire at the center of our politics.
→ read full articleABE OSHEROFF ON THE STRUGGLE FOR A BETTER WORLD: GETTING RID OF HOPE AND FAITH
Robert Jensen - Counterpunch,
5 Mar 2010
After a recent talk about the struggle for social justice and the threats to the ecosystem, a student lingered, waiting to talk to me alone, as if he had something to confess. “I feel so overwhelmed,” he finally said, wondering aloud if political organizing could really make a difference. The young man said he often […]
→ read full articleGREAT TELEVISION/BAD JOURNALISM: MEDIA FAILURES IN HAITI COVERAGE
Robert Jensen - ZNet,
26 Jan 2010
CNN’s star anchor Anderson Cooper narrates a chaotic street scene in Port-au-Prince. A boy is struck in the head by a rock thrown by a looter from a roof. Cooper helps him to the side of the road, and then realizes the boy is disoriented and unable to get away. Laying down his digital camera […]
→ read full articleTHE PROPHETIC CHALLENGE: “FEW ARE GUILTY, BUT ALL ARE RESPONSIBLE
Robert Jensen,
14 Sep 2008
One of the common refrains I heard from progressive people in Pakistanand India during my month there this summer was, “We love the Americanpeople — it’s the policies of your government we don’t like.”Read more
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