The Duck of Minerva

Tweets of the week #4

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by Rodger Payne

6 October 2014, 0024 EDT

This was another busy week in global politics and I’m going to highlight some of the best tweets in my Twitter feed. Before starting, however, I will acknowledge that this post is late.

I believe my excuse is pretty good as it involves lots of late night baseball. I grew up in Kansas rooting for the local team — and the Kansas City Royals are in the playoffs for the first time since winning the World Series in 1985. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, the Royals won three consecutive extra inning games. All ended after 1 am Eastern Time. I then had to read for 30 to 45 minutes after the long and exciting games just to unwind enough to sleep.

None of those victories featured  the longest game of the week. As DC residents know, the Washington Nationals lost to the San Francisco Giants 2-1 in the 18th inning. I caught a bit of that contest:

Turning now to global politics, perhaps the biggest news of the week involved the protests in Hong Kong. How about one tweet for analysis and another for a startling picture?

I’ve actually seen a number of impressive photos from the protests. Here’s why those visual images matter:

https://twitter.com/zackbeauchamp/status/518083081077792768

As might be expected, the Chinese government has been trying to stifle this dissent:

At least early in the week, leading western states made sure to signal their disinterest:

Next, the latest from the Middle East and the war against ISIS/ISIL. First, reporters are pressing the administration about its overall Syria policy. This exchange is from last week’s “60 Minutes”:

Second, the alliance grew, at least on paper, to include Turkey:

But third, the threat also seems to be growing as ISIS moves closer to Baghdad:

https://twitter.com/caidid/status/518531261317394433

In case you are wondering about the legality of the US use of force, here’s what a constitutional law scholar and former lawyer for the State Department in the Obama administration says:

Before closing, I’d like to post a few tweets that might spark some conversation in class. Like this tweeter, I too am fed up with analysis like this:

And this is a loaded tweet on the value of economic sanctions:

Finally, given the news about the failures of the Secret Service, a thought about the safety of America’s nuclear force:

 

Rodger A. Payne is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville. He serves on the University’s Sustainability Council and was a co-founder of the Peace, Conflict, and Social Justice program. He is the author of dozens of journal articles and book chapters and coauthor, with Nayef Samhat, of Democratizing Global Politics: Discourse Norms, International Regimes, and Political Community (SUNY, 2004). He is currently working on two major projects, one exploring the role of narratives in international politics and the other examining the implications of America First foreign policy.

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