"In Shalom Neuman’s portraits," writes Lester Strong, "the subjects are not just surrounded by objects, but in some sense are the objects—the products of consumerism run amok. These works are at first glance quite whimsical, but on careful inspection appear more than a little sinister....It’s disturbing art, and meant to reflect the disjointed times in which it was created." (Image: Shalom Neuman's Fusion Golems)

Terry Glavin argues against the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy. “The pall that has fallen over Afghan democrats has nothing to do with American guns or American money. What has changed are the reasons the United States is giving for having soldiers in Afghanistan in the first place, and the fire-sale price the White House is now willing to offer to pack everything in.” With an exchange between Michael Walzer and Glavin. (Image: Afghan National Army troops; Teddy Wade, 2009, U.S. Army)

“[B]ecause chimpanzees are so close to us, we tend to find it amusingly incongruous to mock that sliver of biological difference between us by, for example, dressing them up in clown clothes and teaching them to ride tricycles,” writes Benjamin Hale. “Through ridicule, we magnify that less than 2 percent difference into a gulf.” But to “see an animal display...vulnerable, joyful, and dissipated human behavior is a profoundly unsettling feeling.”

“As India completes its sixty-fourth year of independence from British colonial rule on August 15, along with twenty years of market reform, one must pause to reflect on the future of this vibrant but troubled nation,” writes Mitu Sengupta. “[T]he country’s profound disparities of wealth have undermined many of its achievements. India’s population is effectively divided into two classes of citizens, one with access to a full complement of rights and privileges, and one without.” (Image: A demolished slum dwelling in Mumbai; Joe Athialy, 2005, Flickr cc)

“The collaborative model of Japanese unions contributed to their early success in securing benefits,” writes C.D. Alexander Evans. “But this kind of cooperation, unsurprisingly, retarded the development of an independent labor movement”—and has sometimes “led to tragedy....[But] the post-crash economy is beginning to create a labor movement that is newly dynamic.” (Image: Protesting for victims of the Minamata disaster; W.E. Smith, Wiki. Com.)

Henry Kissinger “does not ask Americans to abandon their values” in dealing with the People's Republic of China, “but suggests that his own realist approach, in which they are subordinated to the presumed needs of the state, is infinitely superior,” writes Warren I. Cohen. “There is, of course, another approach.” (Image: Kissinger and Mao in the early 1970s; Wiki. Com.)

“[T]he two-state vision, the only proposed solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that does not require a fundamental (and probably multi-generational) transformation of the two people’s sense of themselves, is fast receding from view,” writes Farid Abdel-Nour. “A move as symbolically powerful and radical as the admission of Palestine to full UN membership would increase this vision’s admittedly meager chances of being realized.” (Image: demonstration against the wall in Ni'lin; mar is sea Y, Flickr cc, 2010)

“What is happening in Israel?” asks Michael Walzer. “As usual, no one expected, no one predicted, the massive uprising of Israel’s young people—joined last Saturday night by large numbers, amazing numbers, of their parents and grandparents. What started as a demand for affordable housing has turned into something much bigger.” (Image: Tel Aviv demonstration on 8/6/2011; Sharon G., Flickr creative commons)

“The Rhino Charge raises an obvious question,” writes Meera Subramanian: “why do a bunch of people need to drive a lot of really fuel-inefficient vehicles into some of the last wild remnants in the world, then proceed to run over some trees, and uproot others with their winch lines as they dig their tires into sensitive soils on steep slopes...all in the name of conservation? The short answer is, because it brings in buckets of money.” (Image: davida3, 2010, Flickr creative commons)

“It appears that the...Israeli public has succeeded where so many other outside actors have failed,” writes Neri Zilber: “to put real pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. With 150,000 Israelis all across the country taking to the streets this past Saturday to demand, in effect, government intervention to lower the cost of living and an increase in state welfare, Netanyahu is facing the stiffest challenge yet to his premiership.”

“On the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama pledged to make the abolition of nuclear weapons a ‘central element’ of U.S. foreign policy,” writes Andrew Butfoy. But “there is little sign of a critical mass of either domestic or international support for prioritizing abolition. Widespread international rhetorical agreement on the desirability of abolition as a long-term objective is mostly platitudinous and disguises the reframing, rather than ending, of nuclear deterrence.” (Image: Operation Crossroads nuclear test; U.S. Navy, 1946, Wikimedia Commons)

“It would be utterly mistaken,” writes Ulrich Beck, “to imagine that Germany’s political decision to phase out nuclear energy means that it is turning its back on the European concept of modernity in favor of the dark forests, the obscure roots of German intellectual history. This is not simply the latest outburst of Germany’s proverbial love of the irrational, but rather proof of its faith in modernity’s adaptability and creativity in its dealings with risks it has itself generated.” (Image: nuclear plant in Grohnde, Germany; Heinz-Josef Lücking, 2009, Wikimedia Commons)

Read Dissent's coverage of the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis. Daniel Greenwood writes that “decent countries don’t voluntarily refuse to pay money they owe”; Mark Engler scrutinizes the claim that the debt-ceiling deal will entail cuts to defense budgets; Joseph Schwartz criticizes those on both sides who have given in to the logic of austerity; and Nick Serpe writes, “Compared to the deal that looks likely to pass in order to avoid federal default and resolve the debt-ceiling crisis...the Simpson-Bowles plan looks more reasonable than it should.” (Image: Erikjc, Wikimedia Commons, 2009)

Delmas Howe's The Three Graces presents a "fusion of cowboy iconography with classical myth," writes Lester Strong. "Like other gay artists before him...[Howe's] work can be appreciated on its aesthetic merits without the mote of homophobia in the eyes of many viewers and curators of the past." (Image courtesy of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History)

"Three times in thirteen years," write Kristin Collins and Linda K. Kerber, "the Supreme Court has heard arguments on the question of whether mothers and father may be treated differently in determining whether their children are American citizens. Given the equivoval result in Flores-Villar v. United states, and the importance of what is at stake, there will no doubt be a fourth time." (Image: Wikimedia Commons, 2007)

Zelda Bronstein argues against a "democratic demobilization that's being advocated by...many influential individuals and organizations on the Left: treat politics as a source of personal validation and emotional succor...[T]herapeutic motives are fatal to political effectiveness and highly susceptible to manipulation." With an exchange between Bronstein and Marshall Ganz. (Image: S Brunn, 2010, Flickr)

Leonard Quart reviews The Interrupters, a documentary by Alex Kotlowitz about Ceasefire, a group trying to stop street violence in Chicago. "Ceasefire’s members make no attempt to take apart the city’s entire gang culture or interrupt the drug trade. Instead, they try to physically insert themselves in street fights and angry arguments, before that decisive moment when someone reaches for a gun."

"I know what feminism can become for [my college students]," writes Ann Snitow, "if I teach well. But what could it become in a medium-security prison for men who had been incarcerated for long periods, sometimes decades?...I was both excited by the prospect of this new teaching and fearful that I wouldn't be able to discover some kind of authentic link with my students, something beyond the suspect reign of sympathy." (Image: Sean Toyer, Flickr creative commons, 2009)

What is it that makes Lisbeth Salander, the heroine of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, such a compelling character? "I think it's her gender ambiguity," writes Judith Lorber, "that pulls in different readers, women and men, young and old." (Image: Luca Borrelli, 2008, Flickr creative commons)

"Today," writes Nicolaus Mills, "the only way affirmative action in higher education can save itself from losing still more public support is for it to become far more inclusive in practice. It needs to reach high-school students who for a variety of reasons - not just because of their race or ethnicity - have been disadvantaged in the struggle to get into college." (Photo by Yoichi Okamoto, at President Johnson’s Howard University commencement speech, 1965, LBJ Library)