Defending Progressivism
Less than two years after the beginning of a “new progressive era” in the United States, progressives face the midterm elections saddled with massive political baggage. This may seem like nothing new. Since the term gained currency in the early twentieth century, Russell Kirk, James Ceaser, Jonah Goldberg, and other conservatives have claimed that American progressives share intellectual territory with Marxists, Nazis, and other radical, intolerant atheists. Largely by their rhetorical force, they have converted progressivism into utopianism, bureaucratic technocracy, corporatism, emotivism... More
The Never-ending Mosque Story, Cont’d.
The uproar over the proposed Islamic Center—that notorious mosque-incorporating Islamic Center—in lower Manhattan (“at Ground Zero,” in the vernacular) will likely last till the November election and then some: the meat’s too red for the hard Right to give up, and judging from the Stop-the-Mosque appeals zooming into my inbox, the fundraising potential must be considerable. Whoever was of the opinion that such culture wars would phase out after the 2008 election must surely have reconsidered by now.
Let’s be plain: the atmosphere has been overheated by one, and one only, source of c... More
Beyond the Bridge
THE CHANT, “oo-ch-kuh! oo-ch-kuh!” first hit the south side of the bridge over the Ibar River just before noon on the last Sunday in May. Muffled by distance and city traffic, the letters—Albanian for “KLA! KLA!”—were nonetheless clear. Everyone in the city of Mitrovica knew that Kosovo Liberation Army veterans would march to the bridge, which both spans and symbolizes the divide between the city’s Albanian-populated south and its predominantly Serbian north, to protest the legitimacy of the local elections the Serbs were holding in the north that day. As for how many veterans would show, o... More
Beyond the Bridge
IN THE afternoon of my first day in Mitrovica, I met a retired teacher named Destan and his former student, Lulzim, in front of the city’s cultural center, a hulking three-story edifice built by Marshal Tito that sits at the foot of the south side of the bridge, and which had just been renovated to accommodate the conference. Later in the week, it hosted a primetime American Idol-like competition between eight youths—four Albanian and four Serbian—which was broadcast live across the country; it opened with an Albanian girl belting out an impassioned version of Amy Winehouse’s song, “Rehab.”... More
The Relativist
Next
By James Hynes
Reagan Arthur, 2010
THE LIBERAL mindset has a secret appeal: the pleasure of being all things to all people can rival the evident satisfactions of dogmatic certainty. In Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter, Frank Bascombe, one of the most seductively unreliable narrators in postwar American fiction, explains his inclination to “see around the sides” of his every emotion:
If I was mad or ecstatic, I always realized I could just as easily feel or act another way if I wanted to—somber or resentful, ironi... More
What's Right with This Picture?
The recent Time magazine cover showing a young, facially mutilated Afghan woman named Aisha, accompanied by the tagline “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan,” has been accused by many commentators in the press and the blogosphere of manipulating emotion, guilt-tripping readers and viewers, and foreclosing discussion. But in fact the photo, taken by South African photographer Jodi Bieber, did the opposite and is, in a sense, a model of how photography can be used. The cover—though not, interes... More
Europe's Disoriented Right
AT NO time since the Second World War has Europe been so firmly in the grip of right-wing leaders. From old hands like Angela Merkel in Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy in France, and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, to the recently elected David Cameron in the UK, the center Right now governs the biggest European countries. Even the figureheads of the EU—including the presidents of the European Commission, the European Council, and the European Parliament—have an impeccable conservative political pedigree. The only notable left-wing holdout, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain, will likely be defeate... More
Smashing the State—of New Jersey
ON APRIL 27, thousands of students walked out of New Jersey schools. Holding signs that read “Stop Education Cuts” and “Dream Killers,” they were out to protest Republican Governor Chris Christie’s proposal to sharply cut education spending. An eighteen-year-old recent graduate organized the walkout on Facebook; the event she posted had 18,082 confirmed guests and 15,021 “maybe attending.” A lot of people showed up.
Christie was elected on a no-new-taxes, get-tough-on-public-employees platform, so the policies he has implemented since taking office in January should come as no surpr... More
Remembering Tony Judt
Tony Judt, who passed away this weekend, always struck me as an old-fashioned historian, in the best sense of the phrase.
First, he liked big, ambitious themes. Lots of historians today write textbooks that cover broad geographical areas and time periods, but they generally distinguish these efforts from their “serious” work, while carefully calibrating their sentences to fit the comprehension of ill-educated adolescents and the dreary correctness of curriculum committees. Very few historians take on a massive subject like post-war Europe, read everything they can find on the subjec... More
Infrastructure, Deficits, and Global Recovery
A TALE of two episodes in the life of a bridge tells us a lot about the dilemmas facing governments around the world. The Bay Bridge linking San Francisco and Oakland was originally built between 1933 and 1936 at a cost of $77 million. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the eastern span had to be rebuilt. The project began in 2002 and is supposed to be completed in 2013, with cost estimates now running at $6.3 billion. Despite our technological progress, replacing just half of the old bridge will take four times longer and cost five times more, after adjusting for inflation, than the in... More
My Neighbor, The Cleaner
IT’S HARD to make generalizations about a huge and diverse country like China. For every one hundred bad things that happen, there are one hundred good things. Actually, I think the ratio is more like two hundred good to one hundred bad. Western journalists tend to focus on the bad news; that’s what they’re supposed to do. As a result, Westerners often get skewed impressions of China. My relatives and friends usually become more sympathetic to the country once they visit and meet kind and warm-hearted Chinese people. Of course, some foreigners remain bitter and cynical. To be honest, there’... More
Reply: How Being Troublesome Pays Off
MELVYN DUBOFSKY’S comments are highly useful to those of us who want labor to become a more powerful and influential force in American politics. Like any good critic he gets us to make distinctions, clarify evidence, and think about the use and abuse of historical analogy.
In my essay, “Labor’s Role in the Obama Era: A Troublesome and Unreliable Ally?” I left something important unsaid because it is so unfortunately obvious. We do not live in an era of working class mobilization, strikes, demonstrations, ... More
Labor's Role in the Obama Era: A Comment
The following is a response to Nelson Lichtenstein’s June 7 web article, “Labor’s Role in the Obama Era: A Troublesome and Unreliable Ally?” Click here to read Nelson Lichtenstein’s reply.
FOR NEARLY forty years now the labor movement in the United States has been on the defensive and in decline. But for a brief moment, it appeared that the election of Barack Obama might offer labor an opportunity to revive. ... More
Living with Diversity: For a Politics of Hope without Fear
Europe is in turmoil. And we are told to be afraid – for our safety, our culture, our jobs, our freedoms, our comfort, our future. We are told that there is no alternative – to the loss of job security, to diminishing salaries and prolonged working lives, to turning our neighborhoods, our cities and our countries into fenced camps protected from designated enemies – the immigrants, the poor, the culturally, religiously, and ethnically different.
Is this the way forward in a Europe that is now home to millions of people from different backgrounds, many religious and cultural disposit... More
What is State Failure?
FOREIGN POLICY magazine issues a Failed States Index once a year in conjunction with the Fund for Peace. A number of indicators are used to determine state failure: demographic pressures, the presence of refugees and internally displaced people, group grievances, human flight, uneven development, delegitimization of the state, human rights violations, an unaccountable security apparatus, failing public services, economic decline, elite factionalizing, and external intervention. The More
To the Deficit Commission: First Puncture the Myths
PRESIDENT OBAMA created the Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in February to address concerns about the federal budget deficit. If the Commission can rise above its origins as a sop to the deficit hysteria now gripping Washington, it could make a major contribution to both economic policy and democratic decision-making in our country. To do so, it must confront the myths that dominate the debate over the projected federal fiscal deficit. To fail in this basic task would be a major disservice to the nation.
The current national debate—as reflected in Congress, the media,... More
Arizona's Immigration Law: Unintended Consequences and Victimization
ARIZONA’S CONTROVERSIAL anti-immigrant legislation is scheduled to go into effect July 29, and whether you approve of it or not, you can be sure that it will make many criminals happy.
Professional predators often seek out individuals who won’t be believed if they dare to report crimes: those with mental health issues, disabilities, economic difficulties, or other actual or perceived characteristics that isolate or disenfranchise them. But few targets are more tempting to a predator than a person who simply won’t report at all. Hence, immigrant populations are great places to ... More
Searching for a New Sanctuary Movement
OVER THE past several months, largely provoked by Arizona’s draconian immigration law, SB1070, and slow movement by legislators in Washington D.C., immigrant-rights activists have increasingly turned to various forms of civil disobedience. Hundreds of individuals have been arrested this spring across the country in various forms of public protest, in an attempt to inspire solidarity and call the nation’s attention to the continued injustices and inefficiencies of the broken immigration system.
The New Sanctuary Movement (NSM), a growing network of assiduous coalitions across the cou... More
Sudan's Next War and the Failure of U.S. Leadership
It is no overstatement to declare that the fate of the nation-state of Sudan hangs precariously in the balance. If the National Congress Party (NCP) regime in Khartoum refuses to allow free, fair, and timely conduct of a self-determination referendum for the people of southern Sudan—scheduled for January 9, 2011—then war will follow. And it will not be confined to the south of the country, as previous civil wars have largely been. Peoples of the peripheral regions of Sudan have... More
The Hundred Years' War over Toxic Chemicals
In America, chemicals are innocent until proven guilty. It’s a rule that’s been in place for one hundred years and still applies to compounds used every day in industry and in your home.
This may be changing at last. In April Congressman Henry Waxman, chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, made regulation of toxic chemicals a priority by proposing the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010. A companion bill was introduced in the Senate by Frank Lautenberg.
Under Waxman’s legislation, the Environmental Protection Agency would at last gain some real powers to control the che... More
