In an op/ed in the Austin American-Statesman, Robert Jensen and Patrick Youngblood of Third Coast point out that while Texas politics is particularly reactionary, the deeper problem is a U.S. political culture that can’t face reality. We spend little time decrying the ideological fanaticism of Republicans but instead highlight differences between our work on global […]

Despite overwhelming evidence of the depth of the ecological crises we face, mainstream political and theological institutions have avoided talking about the radical changes that are necessary. “The Apocalypse of the Teacher (The Book of the Great Divide)” is one writer’s attempt to present those questions in the form of a modern fable. The story […]

Conservatives love purity myths, those stirring stories of how America was the first nation born without political original sin. It turns out that many liberals like the same myths, with a slightly different focus. George Lakoff and Glenn W. Smith indulge in that myth-making in their piece “How Romney-Ryan’s Budget Would Destroy America’s Soul” on […]

Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate brings what the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer calls “the ghostly presence” of Ayn Rand to the Republican ticket. It’s not hard to understand why Rand’s reactionary hyper-libertarian philosophy has long been attractive to disaffected adolescents — it allows someone who is frustrated with the stupidity […]

Author and activist Raj Patel, who spoke in Austin at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in 2009, is one of the most insightful critics of how capitalism distorts the world food system. In this new interview in Truthout, he explains: So it’s absolutely the case that we’re able to feed everyone if we wanted to, but […]

Sara Robinson offers “Six Reasons We Can’t Change the Future without Progressive Religion” on Alternet. One thing I’ve appreciated about the progressive church I attend, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian in Austin, is that people there are willing to confront the harsh realities of social and ecological breakdown. When the pastor there, Jim Rigby, takes a break, […]

Wendell Berry  is at his most insightful in the 2012 Jefferson Lecture, “It All Turns On Affection.” Here’s one of those many insights: Economy in its original—and, I think, its proper—sense refers to household management. By extension, it refers to the husbanding of all the goods by which we live. An authentic economy, if we […]

Every day are more studies and more voices sounding a warning about the dire state of the living world and the need for humans to dramatically alter the way we are drawing down the ecological capital of the planet. Arne Mooers, an expert on biodiversity at Simon Fraser University, sums it up without sugar-coating in […]

Inter Press Service reporter and Truthout contributor Gareth Porter has been awarded the 2012 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, a top UK award for reporting that tells “an unpalatable truth, validated by powerful facts.” In a series of extraordinary articles, Gareth Porter has torn away the facades of the Obama administration and disclosed a military […]

NPR rarely engages radical critics, but this week the syndicated interview show “On Point” featured Noam Chomsky for an hour. Here’s how the show introduced the interview: These seem like big troubled times and Noam Chomsky joins us to give us his take on everything from the Occupy Movement to the Arab Spring. Noam Chomsky […]