When Raymond Williams died suddenly in 1988, at the age of sixty-six, the tributes were generous and admiring to the point of being fulsome, and he was hailed as, among other things, the greatest socialist thinker of his time in …
Editors: Nicolaus Mills (Affirmative Action Symposium, Fall1995) is correct to point out that “[t]he left needs to acknowledge all that affirmative action cannot do…” and that “liberals [should] worry more about…undoing [the past] altogether [rather than compensating for it].” Affirmative …
The Baffler is a Chicago-based political and cultural journal produced by a circle of writers, activists, and musicians in their twenties. But you knew that already: for the last few years, the buzz surrounding the magazine has been difficult to …
I was in Kazakhstan not long ago, on a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to assist the Kazakh Parliament with its drafting of an electoral law. The trip was going smoothly until a critical moment occurred. …
In the last year the American focus on Cuba has shifted from emigration to trade. The threat of unwanted landings of hundreds of thousands of boat people has abated. Nearly all the Guantinamo refugees have been transferred to Florida without …
I thought it was only the corporate breed who cut to “the bottom line.” At any rate, Joel Rogers protests too much. The purpose of my comments on the New Party was not to bury what is clearly the wisest …
The Arguments section has been the liveliest part of the last few Dissents (and judging from readers’ responses, the most popular). The actual arguments have focused, several times now,on race and politics in America, and so we decided to treat …
Recently I found myself discussing the dawning of contemporary feminism with two young women—one a first-year student at Brandeis and another a senior in high school about to enter Brandeis. My cousin—the high school senior—was writing her senior thesis on …
Graduate students go on strike at Yale. The California Board of Regents strikes down affirmative action in the University of California system. Massive student marches clog lower Manhattan. Each of these incidents—and many others—testifies to a deep and wrenching, if …
Sometime in late 1992, there was a rally in Little Rock, Arkansas, where President-elect Bill Clinton was busily sorting through résumés and position papers. Although the rally drew about a thousand people, it was little noted in the major media; …
In my activist bones something always makes me yearn to support a demonstration or a march. And certainly, given the unrelenting attack on public policies that benefit the majority of blacks, there is an urge to applaud any nonviolent action …
The welfare state has always been under attack—by socialists, as something that falls short of socialism; by free marketeers, as socialistic. For twenty years, knowledgeable observers have been predicting its demise. What is its condition today? Is it moribund, or …
The Zimbabwean novelist Chenjerai Hove has said, “In hard times the artist will blend images of despair with those of hope. In good times the writer will depict the madness of over-eating at the expense of cultivating other values.” In …
You all know the phrase “a ballplayer’s ballplayer,” which describes someone whose qualities are best appreciated by people in the game. Manny was a socialist’s socialist, a dissenter’s dissenter. Only people close to the magazine can even begin to understand …
After the 1994 election, two kinds of stories began to appear describing relations between the new Republican congressional majority and business groups. One kind depicted business leaders licking their chops, anticipating tax relief and relaxed regulation. As the GOP majority …
