Ron Berger — One of the influential books I read while studying sociology in graduate school was Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn revised the conventional view that scientific progress evolves through the accumulation of accepted facts and theories. This he referred to as “normal science.” But Kuhn also thought that the discovery of puzzling anomalies that could not be explained by … Continue reading The Deficit Myth
Ron Berger — As another season of the National Football League (NFL) comes to an end, I have been thinking about the football fans who live with a peculiar form of cognitive dissonance: They certainly must know (but seem able to deny) that the athletic gladiators they enjoy watching, who perform heroic feats on the playing field, are undergoing lasting harm to their physical and … Continue reading An Uncomfortable Truth: Tackle Football and CTE
Ron Berger — When I think about the myriad issues that are being raised during the current Democratic Party presidential primary, I am reminded of the advice given by James Carville, Bill Clinton’s political strategist, during the 1992 presidential campaign: “The economy, stupid.” It is often the case, however, that when people think about the economy they are thinking about elements such as un/employment, economic … Continue reading Antitrust Law and the Regulation of Corporate Concentration
Ron Berger, Jeff Berger, Charles Cottle, and Dave Gillespie — Eric Levitz is a journalist, opinion writer, and associate editor of the “Daily Intelligencer” blog of New York Magazine. In July 2017, six months after the inauguration of Donald Trump, he published an article titled “Democrats Can Abandon the Center—Because the Center Doesn’t Exist.” In it he reviews contemporary polling data, political science research, and … Continue reading Deconstructing the Center of American Politics: A Wise Guys Conversation
Ron Berger — Most anyone who lives long enough can expect to have an experience with disability before they die. Moreover, as people live longer, on average, we are witnessing a process of what gerontologists Jeffrey Kahana and Eva Kahana call the “graying of disability.” Thus, US Census data indicate that about 25% of individuals 65-74 years live with an identifiable disability, as do about … Continue reading The Graying of Disability
Ron Berger — Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) is considered by many to be one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States, but he had to hide his polio-induced paralysis and use of a wheelchair lest the public think him too weak to be a national and world leader. During his public appearances, according to Daniel Holland, Roosevelt “worked hard to master … Continue reading Franklin Roosevelt’s Contribution to Disability Rights
Ron Berger — Read the Prologue from Wise Guys co-editor Ron Berger’s book, Children, Save Yourselves! One Family’s Story of Holocaust Survival. This book tells the story of my father’s and uncle’s survival of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. They were among the 10 percent of Polish Jewry who survived the war. My father, Michael Berger (1921-1994), endured several concentration camps, … Continue reading Children, Save Yourselves! One Family’s Story of Holocaust Survival
Ron Berger — Last November I was one of two speakers at a forum on “Fascism and the Holocaust in Historical and Contemporary Perspective” that was part of the Baeumler-Kaplan Holocaust Memorial Lecture Series at the University of Minnesota Duluth. I was there to talk about classical European fascism and the Holocaust; and Stas Vysotksy, my colleague in the sociology department at the University of … Continue reading Is Donald Trump a Fascist?
Ron Berger — In his slim but useful book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018), Francis Fukuyama offers insights into one of the most perplexing questions of our times, the issue of identity and identity politics. In doing so, Fukuyama takes us on a tour of the globe, though his emphasis is on Europe and the … Continue reading The Politics of Identity: Insights from Francis Fukuyama
Ron Berger — For people of my generation, the baby boomers, Lawrence O’Donnell’s Playing With Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics (Penguin Press, 2017), is a trip down memory lane. It was not only a year that changed U.S. politics, but our very lives. For starters, there were the traumatic assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. There … Continue reading 1968: The Year That Changed U.S. Politics, and Our Lives
Ron Berger — In the spring of 2004, during the early years of the Iraq War launched by the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, reports of widespread abuse, humiliation, and outright torture of Iraqi prisoners held by US intelligence operatives, military personnel, and private contractors in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq hit the news. Some of the interrogators had taken photos … Continue reading Remembering the U.S. Torture Regime
Ron Berger — The Polish government recently passed a law making it illegal in Poland to accuse the nation of complicity in the crimes committed by Nazi Germany in Polish territory during World War II, and from using the term “Polish death camps” to describe the concentration camps that were established and operated by the Nazis. The legislation, signed into law by president Andrzej Duda … Continue reading Collective Memories of Death Camps and Complicity in Nazi-Occupied Poland
Ron Berger — Here we are, more than a year after the November 2016 presidential election, and Democrats are still fighting the last war. In her recently published campaign memoir, What Happened, Hillary Clinton admits to having made some mistakes, but places most of the blame for her loss to Donald Trump on factors external to her campaign: Russian interference, James Comey, slanted news coverage, … Continue reading Divided We Fall: The Fractured Coalition of the Democratic Party
Ron Berger — In the latest issue of The American Prospect, long-time Democratic Party pollster Stanley Greenberg weighs in on what he thinks went wrong with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Greenberg was the lead pollster for the 1992 and 2000 presidential campaigns and a consultant for the 2004 campaign. In his TAP article, he draws upon his experience as a consultant for the 2016 … Continue reading What Went Wrong: One Pollster’s View
Ron Berger — During the 1950s to 1970s, social scientists were interested in the question of “national character,” that is, whether people in a nation could be characterized as having a common sociocultural orientation that structured the way they view the world and that penetrates individual consciousness or personality. Although this line of inquiry fell in disfavor by scholars who felt that the concept lacked … Continue reading Canada and the American Dream
Ron Berger — Donald Trump’s remarks in the aftermath of the recent turmoil in Charlottesville, Virginia and the murder of Heather Heyer brought forth widespread condemnation from people across the political spectrum. As a student of the Holocaust, I was particularly struck by his comment about the “fine people” who choose to align themselves with white supremacists, Ku Klux Klansman, and neo-Nazis. I have studied … Continue reading German Nazism and the Complicity of Ordinary People
Ron Berger — Amidst the evolving scandal involving the Trump administration’s dubious ties to Russia, which is currently under investigation by Senate and House subcommittees and independent counsel Robert Mueller, comparisons have been made to Watergate. Often forgotten or glossed over in our historical memory of presidential scandals, however, is the cluster of government crimes that took place during the administration of President Ronald Reagan … Continue reading Remembering the Iran-Contra Scandal
Ron Berger — We are currently in the midst of a political scandal that has the potential to rival the infamous Watergate scandal of the early 1970s. A political consensus has emerged, based on available information from U.S. intelligence agencies, that Russia hacked email files of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign with the intent of damaging Clinton’s candidacy. Suspicions about something … Continue reading Watergate: The Benchmark Political Scandal
Ron Berger — The critically acclaimed Hamilton: An American Musical, which opened off-Broadway in February 2015 and on-Broadway in August 2015, has been heralded as a cultural phenomenon that has rekindled interest in this important “founding father” of the United States. Based on the book Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, the musical has garnered numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The musical’s creator, … Continue reading In Hamilton’s Wake
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