Jeffrey Cavanaugh

Jeffrey Cavanaugh is a former MintPress political analyst and columnist specializing in international relations and US policy. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations, specializing in International Security and Conflict. He has worked as a political science and public administration lecturer at Mississippi State University.

The Racial Shift In The Class Of 2026

The racial makeup in American schools is shifting toward majority-minority. Is what we’re leaving to the Class of 2026 something we should be proud of?

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh
Dana Redd, Paymon Rouhanifard, Chris Christie

As American students head back to school this year many teachers and parents will likely not notice a subtle change in the makeup of the nation’s classrooms. Last year, approximately 51 percent of America’s public school students were white, while blacks, Hispanics, Asian and Pacific Islanders, and children of mixed-race couples constituted 49

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ISIS Is Doomed — Unless We Intervene Further

Despite ISIS foolishly trying to show its strength through a beheading, the prospects for the group going forward are decidedly grim — unless, of course, the U.S. adds boots on the ground to its military power in the sky.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh
Islamic State

ISIS A video circulated by ISIS radicals last week purportedly showed kidnapped American war correspondent James Foley being beheaded by his captors. This video has shocked the world. As terror tactics go, onscreen beheading is something sure to stir up fear and anger, and as a propaganda device, it can’t be beat. Given that subtlety is clearly

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Ferguson Reveals Racists In Libertarian Clothing

There are two kinds of libertarians: true believers in the constitution and racists hiding behind the constitution. Determining what kind of libertarian someone is, though, is as easy as asking his or her opinion on Ferguson.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh
Police Shooting Missouri

The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, has once again highlighted the bitter divisions between left and right and black and white in America. As might be expected, the usual suspects on both sides have lined up to support their view of events and lambast the other side’s interpretation of what went on between Mr. Brown and the police

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Growing National Unrest Has Many Worried, Even Capitalists

“You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.”

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh
Police Shooting Missouri

A few days before the dramatic events in Ferguson, Missouri, demonstrated so dramatically what decades of institutionalized inequality can do to a population, the economists at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services issued a report highlighting the dangers growing inequality holds for America’s long-term economic growth. More a research note

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The Police Are Here To Preserve Disorder

Every Mayberry has a SWAT team and authorities are eager to unleash riot police on the public. This wasn’t the case 50 years ago, so how’d we get here?

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh
A member of the St. Louis County Police Department points his weapon in the direction of a group of protesters in Ferguson, Mo. on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014.

Forty-six years ago, at the height of the U.S. presidential election season, the Democratic Party met in the Windy City to nominate their candidate for the nation’s highest office. As any student of history knows, America was a divided place then: Vietnam was in flames; the Democratic Party was splintering under the weight of a hopeless war led by

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The Tea Party’s Tet?

Something like a mini-Tet and its aftermath are currently playing out in Republican politics, a realm in which the Tea Party and the GOP are going at it, hammer and tongs.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh
Paul Ryan

Forty-six years ago in the long-lost country of South Vietnam, a giant American army sure of its ability to defeat a rag-tag group of black-pajama-clad insurgents was bitterly  surprised to be defending itself on every front from an enemy known to history as the Viet Cong. Out of nowhere and all across American-occupied South Vietnam, guerrilla

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The Ebola Crisis And What We Might Learn From “Idiocracy”

Solutions to problems like Ebola might be forthcoming, but treating erectile dysfunction is more lucrative, so that’s the priority.

Jeffrey Cavanaugh
By Jeffrey Cavanaugh
(Photo/Global Panorama via Flickr)

In the dystopian comedy “Idiocracy,” written and directed by master satirist Mike Judge, an average present-day American wakes up in the distant future after being put into a long-term deep-sleep by the U.S. Army. Supposed to only sleep for a full year, human error and bureaucratic incompetence leave our hapless hero forgotten in a box until he

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