Jeffrey Cavanaugh

Jeffrey Cavanaugh is a former MintPress political analyst and columnist specializing in international relations and US policy. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations, specializing in International Security and Conflict. He has worked as a political science and public administration lecturer at Mississippi State University.

Not Oil-Rich Or A Threat To Israel? Your Country Isn’t Newsworthy

Of course U.S. cable news won’t cover the protests in Turkey — that would reveal the difference between what our leaders say about the world and how the world actually is.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh

As this is being written late on a Monday evening, Turkish riot police are once again attacking the protesters occupying Istanbul’s Taksim Square with tear gas and batons wielded by jack-booted cops. This news is brought to me online by way of Al-Jazeera and BBC News, but a quick scan of cable television news channels reveals little or no

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A Humanitarian Hawk Heads To The UN

In many ways, Samantha Power is the liberal mirror image of Paul Wolfowitz and his neoconservative ilk.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh

The elevation of liberal firebrand Samantha Power to the post of America’s ambassador to the United Nations is an interesting, if dangerous, choice for President Obama. On the one hand, Power represents everything that a liberal progressive could wish for in a UN ambassador. On the other, her unflinching support of the use of force in support of

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If China Caps Carbon Emissions, Will The US Follow Suit?

The People’s Republic seems poised to take the lead both on combating climate change and producing renewable energy.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh

Last Monday a widely circulated story published by the Financial Times suggests that China’s leadership may have decided to place a cap on their country’s carbon emissions, and to do so as soon as 2016. If this is the case, a long standing obstacle currently blocking successful negotiations over a global climate treaty would be removed, placing

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So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye…

Can we really say “good riddance” to Michele Bachmann — or was she more useful than frustrating to her opponents?

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh

America’s long-suffering normal people breathed a collective sigh of relief this past Wednesday when Tea Party Queen and Minnesota’s resident crazy woman, Rep. Michele Bachmann, announced she would not be running for reelection in 2014. While most of the progressive and center-left political establishment, not to mention many Republicans, are no

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White Picket Poverty

America’s poor are increasingly moving to the suburbs, whose sepia-tinted prosperity — like the American Dream itself — is proving to be more fictitious every day.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh

The American suburb, wreathed in manicured lawns and chock-a-block with malls and big-box retailers, has long been derided by social commentators. Mocked for being bland nowhere-lands of conspicuous consumption run amok or a breeding ground for soul-crushing social conformity, the ‘burbs tempted Americans, by the millions, away from crowded, dirty,

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The Imprisonable Class And The Crisis Of American Criminal Justice

While Americans might assume by default that police states only exist in strange, faraway countries, there’s plenty in our broken system that rivals the Gulag.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh

When Americans think of police states they often envision an authoritarian country like North Korea, the old Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. The very phrase conjures up images of men in dark uniforms breaking down doors in the middle of the night so as to catch unawares enemies of the ruling regime. It evokes the idea of a vast, unaccountable police

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The Spooky Physics Of Quantum Mechanics

A way around the limits erected by normal physics is to simply go around them using the spooky physics of quantum mechanics.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh
Rosser Pryor, Co-owner and President of Factory Automation Systems, stands near new high-performance industrial robots at the company's Atlanta facility. (AP/David Goldman)

Though written more than 40 years ago, Alvin Toffler’s work on the psychological and social consequences of too much change, too quickly, remains one of the best attempts to date in understanding the cultural consequences of rapid technological change. Man has limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the

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