The 18th-century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham once designed a prison he called the Panopticon. The Panopticon was shaped as a cylinder, with cells radiating from a central guard tower. The guard tower was always to be dark, so that the inmates never knew whether they were being observed. Because prisoners could never see the guards, […]
Rod Helle
Rod Helle is a teacher at Pleasant Plains
High School.
Posted inOpinion
Caging the beast
“Kill every buffalo you can . . . every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.” — Col. R.I. Dodge, Fort McPherson, 1867 “We are going to fight them and impose our will on them and we will capture them or . . . kill them until we have imposed law and order in this country. […]
Posted inOpinion
A double standard
One of the most heated academic controversies in America today involves Ward Churchill, a central-Illinois native and Sangamon State University graduate. A May 17 article in the State Journal-Register discussed the charges of plagiarism against Churchill and reminded readers that he once likened some 9/11 victims to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. More needs to […]
Posted inOpinion
New class of mandarins
In August 2003 a shipment of the book Grand Canyon: A Different View was delivered to Grand Canyon bookstores and museums to be sold alongside other merchandise. The book, edited by Canyon Ministries founder Tom Vail, claims that the Grand Canyon was formed by the same deluge that launched Noah’s ark a few thousand years […]
Posted inOpinion
Independence day
A specter is haunting Latin America — the specter of socialism. From the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego, alternatives to the Washington Consensus are being developed and leftist governments are being elected. A 200-year legacy of U.S. intervention in the form of the Monroe Doctrine, “dollar diplomacy,” CIA-backed dictatorships, and the International Monetary Fund […]
Posted inOpinion
The end is near
Denial and willful ignorance are two of the most salient features of contemporary American society. Our political and business leaders have a financial interest in encouraging short-term thinking, selfishness, and war. As a result, topics covered in depth by foreign media are taboo for America. Some of the issues we refuse to address have the […]
Posted inOpinion
Take back the country
America is becoming a two-class society. Not since the age of the robber barons has the distribution of wealth and power been so polarized in America, and never in our history have average citizens been less important in the political progress. The class war that began with the Reagan revolution in 1980 has been brought […]
Posted inOpinion
commentary 5-12-05
The recent appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank was viewed around the world as a scandalous example of the Bush administration’s arrogance. Perhaps more than any other member of the clique that has taken control of the White House, it was Wolfowitz who masterminded the illegal war in Iraq. This, together […]
Posted inOpinion
Are you an idiot?
Broadcast journalism has never been this awful. If you’ve ever watched a few minutes of Fox News, CNN, or even Springfield’s own WICS (Channel 20) news and wondered how such programming could be aired, the answer is simple: Most of the major broadcast outlets have been gobbled up by a handful of companies in recent […]
Posted inOpinion
commentary 3-24-05
Over the last decade and a half, and especially since the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon has developed methods to intervene in other countries without resorting to direct military force. The military has adopted tactics usually reserved for the Central Intelligence Agency as a means of avoiding congressional oversight and curious journalists. As is generally the […]
Posted inOpinion
The price of our addiction
Republicans who saw the November elections as a mandate for easing environmental laws are once again attempting to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. This time, with no meaningful political opposition, it’s quite likely that they will finally succeed. Americans interested in the kind of world their children will inherit should pay […]
Posted inOpinion
What has happened to our country?
With each passing day, the Bush administration gives us new reasons to be ashamed. But nothing these people have done has damaged America as much as the torture and murder of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. With Alberto Gonzales as the attorney general of the United States, what until now has been treated […]
