Urgent Times
Introduction
These are Urgent Times. The times are urgent with the Iraqi War-with the enormous suffering it bestows upon the Iraqi population and the poor of the American population, whose children, bearing the marks of “otherness,” have been taken to fight this War. These are Urgent Times with the ever-expanding prison-industrial complex and the acute distress it causes our communities according to Human Rights Watch, if present trends of imprisonment continue uninterrupted, one person in every twenty of our generation will serve time in prison. These are Urgent Times with global warming, the melting of the polar ice-cap, the resulting shortage of fresh water, and the inevitable suffering of Water Wars and poverty. These times are urgent with the plundering of the federal budget, and with the hardships an ever increasing and escalating budget deficit causes through its effects upon social welfare programs, education, health care, and jobs. These are Urgent Times for the Nation and for the World; but also it is the Urgent Time of our generation. These are the struggles that will define our generation, whether we address them as a group or not. Whether we accept it as our mission or not, these times are ours in which to live.
Suggested Reading
Do We Treat America's Wartime Detainees Better Than Migrant Children?
Migrant children fleeing violence in their native countries have experienced severe psychological trauma before and after entering the country when we separated them from their families and placed them in detention facilities, and some families remain separated.
U.S. Elections 2020: Where and How Do We Draw a Constitutionally Permissible Line to a Candidate's Inflammatory Political Rhetoric?
"It's important to note that scholars have long observed that political discourse and political events can contribute to the frequency of bias incidents. In fact, this phenomenon has a name today. It's called the Trump Effect."
The Muslim Ban Revisited: Trump v. Hawaii Two Years Later
The discriminatory laws, practices, and policies promised and delivered by President Trump have social, political, and economic ramifications. First, they reinforce misconceptions about Islam as an inherently violent religion. Second, they breed intolerance, fear, and hostility among the general population
There is a National Emergency at the Southern Border: True or False?
Experts discuss legal developments and related ramifications one year after President Trump declared a national emergency at the U.S. Southern Border with Mexico in order to build a wall.