(These are excerpts—click on the title to view the whole piece!)
 

Ideas That Came and Went (Or Should Have)

My Conservative friends don't distinguish between Socialism and Communism. They believe that either idea means the government owns everything and individual initiative is stifled, everyone reduced to ciphers, political and economic zombies. These friends don't recognize that fire departments, toll-free highways, garbage collection, public education, tax exemption for religious organizations, clean air and water, and a host of other services Conservatives take for granted, are "socialism."

Thomas J. Hubschman
 

What I think about after reading Maus

Reading Maus now, I focused less on the story as history or even as a memoir of a complex father-son relationship than I might have just two years ago. Instead, I find myself constantly circling back to the matter of resistance. American officials are now saying and doing things that would have resulted in forced resignations in more "normal" times. Whether or not we're "there" yet, oppression and cruelty are now rolling downhill instead of up, unless you've been sleeping with Corey Lewandowski.

Marko Fong
 

 

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