Rebecca Gordon

Rebecca Gordon writes about political philosophy, theories of justice including questions of race and gender justice, and their application in the world. An adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco, she is the author of Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 Period Oxford: 2014 (Oxford: 2014). She received her MDiv and PhD from Graduate Theological Union.

Employment

Can Biden-Harris make a Counter-Revolution against Reaganism and Restore Dignity to Work?

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – A year ago, just a few weeks before San Francisco locked itself down for the pandemic, I fell deeply in love with a 50-year-old. The object of my desire was a wooden floor loom in the window of my local thrift shop. Friends knowledgeable on such matters examined photos I took […]

Climate Crisis

Time to Roll up our Sleeves and Fix this: Trump left us with Heightened Climate, Nuclear Danger

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com) – If you live in California, you’re likely to be consumed on occasion by thoughts of fire. That’s not surprising, given that, in last year alone, actual fires consumed over four and a quarter million acres of the state, taking with them 10,488 structures, 33 human lives, and who knows how many animals. […]

Joe Biden

The Rubble of Empire: Doctrines of Disaster and Dreams of Security as the Biden Years Begin

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – How can you tell when your empire is crumbling? Some signs are actually visible from my own front window here in San Francisco. Directly across the street, I can see a collection of tarps and poles (along with one of my own garbage cans) that were used to construct a makeshift […]

Afghanistan

It’s almost 20 Years since 9/11; Can we finally End our Constant, Disastrous Wars?

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com) – It was the end of October 2001. Two friends, Max Elbaum and Bob Wing, had just dropped by. (Yes, children, believe it or not, people used to drop in on each other, maskless, once upon a time.) They had come to hang out with my partner Jan Adams and me. Among other […]

Donald Trump

In a Looking-Glass World, Our Work is Just beginning

Rebecca Gordon

By Rebecca Gordon | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – In the chaos of this moment, it seems likely that Joe Biden will just squeeze into the presidency and that he’ll certainly win the popular vote, Donald Trump’s Mussolini-like behavior and election night false claim of victory notwithstanding. Somehow, it all brings another moment in my life […]

Democracy

Their Germs and Guns, our Steel: Canvassers Risk it All for America

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – “Look, folks, the air quality is in the red zone today. The EPA says that means people with lung or heart issues should avoid prolonged activity outdoors.” That was J.R. de Vera, one of two directors of UNITE-HERE!’s independent expenditure campaign to elect Biden and Harris in Reno, Nevada. UNITE-HERE! is […]

Epidemics

Essential Work suddenly Valued during Pandemic: Why does it Pay so Little, Cost so Much?

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – In two weeks, my partner and I were supposed to leave San Francisco for Reno, Nevada, where we’d be spending the next three months focused on the 2020 presidential election. As we did in 2018, we’d be working with UNITE-HERE, the hospitality industry union, only this time on the campaign to […]

African-Americans

Can Making Black Lives Matter Rescue a Failing State?

Rebecca Gordon

By Rebecca Gordon | – ( Tomdispatch) – You know that feeling when you trip on the street and instantly sense that you’re about to crash hard and there’s no way to prevent it? As gravity has its way with you, all you can do is watch yourself going down. Yeah, that feeling. I had […]

Donald Trump

OK, Boomer: The Trump Administration’s Generational Lies Deepen America’s Fissures

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – These days, teaching graduating college seniors has me, as the Brits would say in the London Underground, “minding the gap.” In my case, however, it’s not the gap between the platform and the train I’m thinking of, but a couple of others: those between U.S. citizens and our government, as well […]