Farooq Hassan has a new article:
In a historical context, we have yet to conceptually realize the philosophical foundations of the 2008-2009 public affirmation of the country’s [Pakistan] judiciary. I do not recall a single modern historical precedent wherein the elected government of the day was almost swept from its incumbency by popular revolt that resulted [...]

In the Depression era, a question was posed: Are you for the Money or the People?
Today, we need to reflect on the lack of meaningful change and the seemingly unchangeable ancien regime of 20th century America.
The Boston Globe ran a front page story on how Corporations invested $100 million per month for ten months, [...]

On Tuesday, the Obama administration issued its Open Government Directive. It calls on Federal Agencies to publish data that had not been previously available and to use open formats that can be more easily downloaded, searched and analyzed.
It also called on Federal Agencies to create portals, in the form, http://www.agency.gov/open and http://www.whitehouse.gov/open [...]

If we cannot provide public educational excellence to our own citizens, nor universal healthcare, nor rebuild cities such as Detroit, nor sustain a robust Main Street, nor provide meaningful, well paying jobs to all who want them, how can we be expected to provide any of these basics foundations of a civil society to anyone [...]

The news about the H1N1 flu pandemic is turning out to be very interesting in unexpected ways.
It is critical to understand that, starting in 1980 with Pres. Reagan, our public health infrastructure has been eviscerated. After all, if the government can do no good and is by definition “the problem”, why pay for a public [...]

In 1776 Thomas Jefferson wrote:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the [...]

By: Dr. Farooq Hassan
It is an end of an Era: No words can really describe the impact of the sad news on the morning of August 26th, 2009 of the passing away of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. President Obama described him as the greatest Senator of our times. That he was certainly, but to me [...]

It was with some reservation that I attended an Organizing for America event to discuss President Obama’s Economic Recovery Plan. A week or so ago, Zephyr Teachout wrote Organizing for America Will, and Should, Fail which raised some very important issues about the direction Organizing for America needs to be heading if it is [...]

By: DR FAROOQ HASSAN
Dr. Hassan has a new essay in The Nation:
Every morning at my Harvard’s library desk I go through press reports on Pakistan. I regret to say that no country in the World has as bad things written about it as Pakistan does. While some of these critiques, ridicules or even sarcasm could [...]

Author: Aldon Hynes
In 2001, Robert Putnam published a seminal book on the decline of civic engagement. Entitled Bowling Alone, it traced the decline in participation in a wide range of community organizations, from voting and church attendance to bowling leagues. The election of Barack Obama with massive citizen involvement and the hope [...]