Elaine Scarry, Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University, is author most recently of Thinking in an Emergency.
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Elaine Scarry, Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University, is author most recently of Thinking in an Emergency.
On the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, it is clear that white supremacy sustains the U.S. nuclear arsenal.Â
With virtually no democratic oversight and over 6,500 missiles in the United States alone, the use of nuclear weapons is almost inevitable. So why is it so hard to think about nuclear war?
To be a nuclear-armed state is to invest the executive with dictatorial powers over immeasurable destructive capacity.
Why we must prosecute the Bush administration officials who sanctioned torture.
It is only by addressing torture through legal instruments—not simply through the electoral repudiation of bad policy—that the grave and widespread damage stands a chance of being repaired.
The double requirement of the Constitution—that people's lives be private and government actions be public—is turned inside out by the Patriot Act.
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For National Poetry Month, sign up for our newsletter and get a digital copy of our out-of-print chapbook Poems for Political Disaster.