Suzanne Nossel Responds  

The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran—bent on regional domination, aggressive toward Israel, and hostile to the United States—is as serious a threat as the United States has confronted in recent decades. For at least two key reasons, that threat will …







A Remembrance of Ellen Willis  

Ellen Willis, who died in November at the age of 64, was such a unique and wonderful set of contradictions—or seeming contradictions. She was a staunchly radical feminist who believed in pleasure, happiness, and freedom. She was a fierce polemicist …





Yitzhak Nakash Responds  

American advocates of military or other tough action against Iran have based their case on the argument that its hard-line government’s pursuit of a nuclear program constitutes a grave threat to peace and stability worldwide. In reality, the development of …



Mitchell Cohen Response  

Mr. and Ms. Left, tear down these words: Totalitarianism, Imperialism. No, I don’t mean that our voices ought not to roar against these bad, brutal things, just that we should stop using these terms. Once they had value; now they …



GEMAP Postscript  

In a move that took even some insiders by surprise, on June 20th the UNSC lifted timber sanctions on Liberia. Days beforehand, Global Witness issued a report imploring the UNSC to keep sanctions in place, convincingly documenting the new government’s …



Editor’s Page  

We have no articles in this issue about the Lebanon war. Nobody in his or her right mind would venture to do a piece now (end of August) to be read in mid-October—when there might be a stable cease-fire or …





Undermining Democracy  

We’ve had a long run at something like a democratic society, one that has steadily expanded the definition of who’s “in.” We’ve done this with wisdom and luck—and because of the unrelenting pressure of “the people,” organized in one way …



A War Against Boys?  

Doug Anglin isn’t likely to flash across the radar screen at an Ivy League admissions office. A seventeen-year-old senior at Milton High School, a suburb outside Boston, Anglin has a B-minus average and plays soccer and baseball. But he’s done …



China on the Capitalist Road  

In 2005, China experienced more than seventy five thousand public protests in rural villages and urban factories. These bursts of discontent appear to have made a deep impression on China’s party leaders. As in nineteenth-century Europe, the specter of revolution …