Rebecca Gordon
Rebecca Gordon is the author of the new book American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes and previously, Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States. She teaches in the philosophy department at the University of San Francisco. She is a member of the War Times/Tiempo de Guerras collective. You can contact her through the Mainstreaming Torture website.
Articles by this author
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Views Monday, July 15, 2019 I Had an Abortion and Now I'm Not Ashamed I have never said this publicly before, but in December 1974 I had an abortion. I was 22 years old, living in a cold, dark house in Portland, Oregon, spending my days huddled in front of a wood stove trying to finish my undergraduate senior thesis. I did not want to have a baby. I didn’t know what... Read more |
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Views Thursday, June 06, 2019 Clemency for the Lowly, Free Passes for the Mighty Memorial Day has come and gone and President Trump did not issue his pardons after all. There was substantial evidence that he was planning to use the yearly moment honoring the country's war dead to grant executive clemency to several U.S. soldiers and at least one military contractor. All have... Read more |
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Views Thursday, May 02, 2019 Autocrats and Uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa “Al-Shebab,” said my student Jerry early in the fall 2010 semester. “We’re calling our small group al-Shebab. It means ‘The Youth.’” From his name alone, I wouldn’t have guessed his background, but he was proud of his family’s Egyptian roots and had convinced his classmates to give their group an... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, March 26, 2019 Turning Our Backs on Nuremberg Events just fly by in the ever-accelerating rush of Trump Time , so it’s easy enough to miss important ones in the chaos. Paul Manafort is sentenced twice and indicted a third time! Whoosh! Gone! The Senate agrees with the House that the United States should stop supporting Saudi Arabia in Yemen (... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 07, 2019 From Mowing the Grass to Cutting the Flesh I’ll never forget the first time I saw my own menstrual period start. I was seated on the floor in a circle of women, legs bent in front of me, soles facing each other, a mirror resting on my feet. The flashlight directed at the mirror illuminated my vagina, which was held open by a plastic... Read more |
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Views Monday, February 11, 2019 The Uses of a Well-Regulated Militia by an Unregulated President A young friend is seriously considering joining her state’s National Guard. She’s a world-class athlete, but also a working-class woman from a rural background competing in a rich person’s sport. Between seasons, she works for a local farm and auctioneer to put together the money for equipment and... Read more |
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Views Thursday, January 10, 2019 Confronting "Alternative Facts": A Twenty-First-Century Incredibility Chasm In one of the Bible stories about the death of Jesus, local collaborators with the Roman Empire haul him before Pontius Pilate, the imperial governor of Palestine. Although the situation is dire for one of them, the two engage in a bit of epistemological banter. Jesus allows that his work is about... Read more |
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Views Thursday, December 06, 2018 Life at Trump Speed: On Mental Whiplash and Forgotten Outrages I took my first hit of speed in 1970 during my freshman year in college. That little white pill -- Dexedrine -- was a revelation. It made whatever I was doing absolutely fascinating. Amphetamine sharpened my focus and banished all appetites except a hunger for knowledge. I spent that entire night... Read more |
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Views Thursday, October 11, 2018 All Eyes on Nevada: A Chance to Swing the Senate It’s what campaigners say every November, I know, but this year’s election really is as important as it gets. Will U.S. voters choose to halt the progress of Donald J. Trump’s slow-motion coup? Or will the tide just continue rolling over us? So much depends on what happens in Nevada -- a state that... Read more |
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Views Monday, September 10, 2018 Holding the Line on Torture Sometimes the good guys do win. That’s what happened on August 8th in San Francisco when the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association (APA) decided to extend a policy keeping its members out of the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The APA’s decision is... Read more |