A Day Spent Listening to Talk Radio

On a drive around the great state of Georgia, I got to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes: taking the temperature of conservative talk radio.  Tuning into the AM dial is like checking into an alternate reality version of America: the commercials endlessly promote end-of-the-world survivalism; the hosts fixate on political issues and grievances that most of the rest of the country has given little, if any, thought to; and the world as these stations portray it is stuffed to the gills with robbers, rapists, child molesters, terrorists, con artists, malevolent conspiracies, and venal politicians of the most incomprehensible kind.  Talk radio is like an overweight white man stuffed into …

Was the American Civil War the First “Total War”?

“War is simply power unrestrained by constitution or compact.” With words like these General William Tecumseh Sherman helped secure himself and the American Civil War a place in the pantheon of modern conflicts. Few have become more closely associated with the notion of “total war,” and thanks to the horrors of twentieth century battle he has become an icon of modernity. Works on the topic are suffused with a sense of regret and dread, often coming on the heels of deadly conflicts. In The Destructive War, Charles Royster touched on the gloomy anticipation that pervades these histories with a 1934 quotation by James Truslow Adams: “What the horrors of the next war are to be, no one …

Is the Beltline Bad for Atlanta?

Class has always been the shadow cast by New Urbanism.  The idea of curbing sprawl and promoting greater urban density runs up against material realities time and time again.  Consider Oregon’s much-lauded urban growth boundary system, which set a limit for growth around the state’s cities beginning in the 1970s.  The policy was put in place by a liberal Republican governor, Tom McCall, who hoped to prevent “grasping wastrels” from gobbling up Oregon’s farms and scenic countryside.  It has since promoted infill – intensive reuse of existing urban space, in lieu of expansion – and contributed to the famously walkable and bike-friendly urban culture of cities such as …

Civil Society and Mass Incarceration

From 1980 to 2007, the number of prisoners held in the United States quadrupled to 2.3 million, with an additional 5 million on probation or parole. What Ayn Rand once called the “freest, noblest country in the history of the world” is now the most incarcerated, and the second-most incarcerated country in history, just barely edged out by Stalin’s Soviet Union. We’re used to hearing about the widening chasm between the haves and have-nots; we’re less accustomed to contemplating a more fundamental gap: the abyss that separates the fortunate majority, who control their own bodies, from the luckless minority, whose bodies are controlled, and defiled, by the state. Christopher …

The Ties that Bind: The Transnational Trick of Immobilizing the Mobile

Few words in historical discourse (outside of the word discourse mind you) elicit cynical responses more than transnationalism. If definitions remain murky for some, others argue transnational connections are falsely constructed via sophisticated argumentation and careful selection of evidence. After all, we can all agree that Kung Fu movies broadcast over superstations in Chicago and New York influenced metropolitan young people of all stripes in the 1980s, such that rap collectives like Wu Tang Clan reimagined Staten Island as Shaolin. The Wu Tang refracted these experiences through the prism of Eastern martial arts (see GZA’s Liquid Swords for a precise example). However, the pervasive …

Goats, Swords, & Fried Oreos: The Old 321 Flea Market as a Landscape of Globalization

The Old 321 Flea Market in Dallas, NC is now known as the I-85/321 Flea Market, even though it is even farther from Interstate 85 than it is from Highway 321.  The name change is most likely designed to lure the bargain hunters who seek out flea markets to come to the small town of Dallas by suggesting that the market is right off the interstate, when it is actually situated in a semi-rural stretch of town on the way to the even tinier hamlet of High Shoals. But the name change also reflects the greater connection of Dallas and Gaston County in general to the broader world, as symbolized by the interstate that connects the area's mill villages to a more cosmopolitan circuit of commerce …

Over 140 Educators, Students, and Allies Sign Letter Opposing HB 87

A coalition of students, staff, faculty members and alumni of Georgia’s colleges and universities have signed a letter to Governor Nathan Deal, urging him to veto HB 87, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011. The letter, which circulated online from Monday through Wednesday this week, lays out moral and practical arguments against the anti-immigration measure. The signers suggest that the bill unfairly targets immigrants and could lead to racial profiling of Georgia residents who are suspected of being undocumented migrants based on their physical appearance. The letter questions the constitutionality of the bill, and warns that it will cost the state business and …

Teachers and Students in Georgia Speak Out Against HB 87

In recent months, legislators in Georgia have aspired to imitate their peers in Arizona by passing a bill that allows state and local authorities to police the immigration status of state residents.  These measures have raised serious concerns about the possibility of racial profiling and the power of state governments to regulate immigration, which has traditionally been a function of the federal government.   The current anti-immigrant agenda among conservatives portends a worrying trend toward the politics of scapegoating in the United States, as immigrants are held to blame for problems such as budget deficits, unemployment, healthcare costs and so forth. Governor Nathan Deal has …