John Iduh Blog

After reading this text, join Ransford to get more Think for a minute about an orange. When you squeeze it as hard as you can, what comes out? Orange juice, of course. But the question is, why does juice come out when an orange is squeezed? The answer is, because that is what’s inside.   Now, does it matter who does the squeezing? Does it matter how you do it, what instrument you use, or what time of the day you do it? No. When you squeeze an orange, what always comes out is what’s inside. Similarly, when you squeeze a person—that is, put pressure on them of any kind—and anger and hatred and stress and depression come out, it isn’t because of who is doing the squeezing or when they do it or how they choose to do it. It’s because that is what’s inside that person. If you don’t have it inside, it can never come out, no matter what your circumstances are. When somebody cuts you off on the freeway and you’re mad as hell, it isn’t because they cut you off that you’re so upset; it’s bec...

  From the Ransford School of Political Science , Online The defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 and the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991 enticed scores of Western commentators to relegate ‘‘ideology’’ to the dustbin of history. Proclaiming a radically new era in human history, they argued that all political belief systems had converged in a single vision: liberal capitalism .  This dream of a universal set of political ideas ruling the world came crashing down with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Indeed, the very rationale for the ensuing ‘‘Global War on Terror’’ was built on the notion of ideological diversity and incompatibility. Let us consider, for example, President George W. Bush’s 2007 televised address to the nation in which he unveiled his administration’s new ‘‘surge’’ strategy in Iraq by invoking the specter of an expanding ‘‘radical Islamic empire’’ ready to ‘‘launch new attacks on the United States at home and abro...