Daniel Aaron Lazar

Gordon Brown is set to lead Labour into an election bloodbath so crushing it could take his party a decade to recover, according to the largest ever poll of marginal seats which predicts a landslide victory for David Cameron.

Eight cabinet ministers, including the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary, would be swept away in the rout as the Tories marched into Downing Street with a majority of 146, says the poll, conducted for PoliticsHome.com and exclusively revealed to The Observer. Seats that have been Labour since the First World War would fall.

Read on

Your first challenge is to read and contemplate a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon excerpted from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave from The Republic.

Consider various interpretations of the Allegory. What is Plato suggesting? What are his implicit assumptions? What does the Allegory state about the human condition and human potential? What does the Allegory suggest about Truth?

If you need some guidance to understand this dialogue between Plato and Glaucon, there are innumerable of resources available to you online. Just Google it, choose a scholarly site and study.

You are encouraged to write a piece in response to the Allegory and post it in the comments section below. You are expected to come to our gathering on Friday ready, willing and able to discuss this philosophical classic.

Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp’s mass wedding. “They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia”.

Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.

With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult.

But this organisation - known as “Nashi”, meaning “Ours” - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.

Read on

Breifing Essay on Ideology, Religion and Politics

Take this survey

The Political Spectrum

Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau Reading Responses

When Lyndon B. Johnson took office as president, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he began making daily recordings of his private conversations.Historian Michael Beschloss transcribed and edited the tapes’ contents and provided commentary on them in his book Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964.

The book sheds light on Johnson’s thoughts during the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, the creation of the Warren Commission to investigate it, the progress of the civil rights bill and the Gulf of Tonkin attack. And it illuminates Johnson’s decision-making process during his administration’s escalation of the Vietnam War.

Listen to the interview with Terry Gross

It’s Biden Time (from Slate’s John Dickerson)

Please read the official explanation of the AP Syllabus from the AP College Board.

Russia conducted airstrikes on Georgian targets on Friday evening, escalating the conflict in a separatist area of Georgia that is shaping into a test of the power and military reach of an emboldened Kremlin. Earlier in the day, Russian troops and armored vehicles had rolled into South Ossetia, supporting the breakaway region in its bitter conflict with Georgia.

The United States and other Western nations, joined by NATO, condemned the violence and demanded a cease-fire. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went a step further, calling on Russia to withdraw its forces. But the Russian soldiers remained, and Georgian officials reported at least one airstrike, on the Black Sea port of Poti, late on Friday night.

The War is on? (from NYT)

Read Slate’s c overage from the Same Day

James Traub Interview on NPR (very good) 

In Pictures from Foreign Policy Magazine

Condi Rice Gets Tough on Russia

No Cold War, but Big Chill Over Georgia

Malcolm Gladwell talks about the importance of stubbornness and collaboration in problem-solving, and how long it takes to master any challenge. Introduced by David Remnick. View it here

…

No expert has brought as much fresh thinking to the field of contemporary copyright law as has Lawrence Lessig. A Stanford professor and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society, this fiery believer foresaw the response a threatened content industry would have to digital technology — and he came to the aid of the citizenry.

As corporate interests have sought to rein in the forces of Napster and YouTube, Lessig has fought back with argument — take his recent appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court, fighting the extension of copyright protection from 50 to 70 years — and with solutions: He chairs Creative Commons, a nuanced, free licensing scheme for individual creators.

Lessig possesses a rare combination of lawerly exactitude and impassioned love of the creative impulse. Applying both with equal dedication, he has become a true hero to artists, authors, scientists, coders and opiners everywhere. View his Ted Talk Here

When Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine asked readers to vote for the world’s top public intellectual, one man won in a landslide: Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, an inspirational leader to millions of followers around the world and persona non grata to many in his native Turkey, where some consider him a threat to the country’s secular order. In a rare interview, Gulen speaks to FP about terrorism, political ambitions, and why his movement is so misunderstood.

See the list here