[news video expired/removed] No, that’s not the new Bruce Willis movie. That’s the spectacle we’re witnessing now of general strikes in Greece in response to proposed austerity measures designed to keep the country from the fiscal abyss — and maybe dragging down other European Union members with it. But Americans shouldn’t be too smug. Despite some very substantial differences in political culture and economic vitality, the United States is showing early signs of the mass hysteria, the widespread delirium tremens...

Vatican Radio in Rome turned to Kishore Jayabalan, Director of Instituto Acton, ment on a recent Italian court ruling which held three Google executives criminally responsible for a YouTube video depicting a teenager with Downs Syndrome being bullied. Vatican Radio’s short article on the matter is here; the audio is available via the audio player below. [audio: ...

In this week’s Acton Commentary, I review a new book by economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy. Text follows: A rare growth industry following the 2008 financial crisis has been financial mentaries. An apparently endless stream of books and articles from assorted pundits and scholars continues to explain what went wrong and how to fix our present problems. In this context, it was almost inevitable that one Joseph E. Stiglitz would...

On Monday, Acton Founder and President Rev. Robert A. Sirico took to the airwaves of the BBC and squared off against Oliver Kamm of the London Times in a spirited debate over the merits of Michael Moore’s latest “documentary,” Capitalism: A Love Story. Audio from the BBC3 show Nightwaves is available via the audio player below. [audio: ...

Nina Shea In the next issue of Religion & Liberty, we are featuring an interview with Nina Shea. The issue focuses on religious persecution with special attention on the ten year anniversary of the fall munism in Eastern Europe. A feature article for this issue written by Mark Tooley is also ing. Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington D.C. In regards to Shea, the portion of the interview below is exclusively for readers of...

Popes in Rome have attempted to steer the Catholic flock away from the “seductive” forces of socialist ideologies threatening human liberty, which since the late 1800s have relentlessly plucked away at “the delicate fruit of mature civilizations” as Lord Acton once said. From Pius IX to Benedict XVI, socialism has been viewed with great caution and even as major threat to the demise of all God-loving free civilizations, despite many of their past and present socio-political and economic “sins.” In...

In today’s Acton Commentary, I examine the overtures President Obama has been making lately to usher in “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.” I call for in part a “level playing field” for nuclear energy, which includes neither direct subsidy from the government nor bureaucratic obfuscation. The key to the latter point is to avoid the kind of breathless concern over the countries involved in the manufacture of ponents for elements of the stations....

Saturday February 27 was the second anniversary of the death of the conservative giant William F. Buckley, Jr. I first saw Buckley in person when Ole Miss hosted Firing Line in 1997. I read National Review in High School even though I admit I did not always understand some of his words at that age. It was a wonderful reminder of the importance of intellectualism and conservatism, and that I still had a lot to learn. The political left too...