From
The Nation,
a 7400-word discussion of Raul Hilberg, author of
The Destruction of the European Jews, and Hannah Arendt, author of
Eichmann in Jerusalem, their relationships to each others' scholarship as well as to their complicated Jewish identities.
posted by cgc373
on Apr 6, 2010 -
20 comments
Such are the contradictions that seem to riddle not just Gladwell's thinking but the thinking on Gladwell's thinking, and perhaps even the thinking on thinking on that, and it is precisely these slippery but substantive contradictions that have allowed Gladwell to tout his revolutionary "big ideas" without couching them in anything so mundane as a logical, well-supported or otherwise sound argument. Gladwell for Dummies.
posted by defenestration
on Nov 5, 2009 -
102 comments
Last year, one of the last of the independent magazine distributors, Independent Press Association,
went out of business (and took many smaller magazines along in its wake), and those who have survived, like
Punk Planet, now depend on its subscription base for revenue. Now,
a proposed postal hike, which favors magazines with larger circulations, could be the final nail in the coffin for some of the little guys.
posted by pfafflin
on Apr 20, 2007 -
26 comments
A Letter to the American Left By Bernard-Henri Lévy.
"Nothing made a more lasting impression during my journey through America than the semi-comatose state in which I found the American left.
I know, of course, that the term "left" does not have the same meaning and ramifications here that it does in France.
And I cannot count how many times I was told there has never been an authentic "left" in the United States, in the European sense.
But at the end of the day, my progressive friends, you may coin ideas in whichever way you like. The fact is: You do have a right. This right, in large part thanks to its neoconservative battalion, has brought about an ideological transformation that is both substantial and striking. "
posted by mountainmambo
on Feb 11, 2006 -
84 comments
Running on Fumes -- a fascinating essay by
the Nation's Sasha Abramsky on what rising gas prices will do to poor exurban communities.
posted by digaman
on Oct 4, 2005 -
165 comments
Why Bush Left Texas Growing evidence suggests that George W. Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in 1972 for substantive reasons pertaining to his inability to continue piloting a fighter jet. A months-long investigation, which includes examination of hundreds of government-released documents, interviews with former Guard members and officials, military experts and Bush associates, points toward the conclusion that Bush's personal behavior was causing alarm among his superior officers and would ultimately lead to his fleeing the state to avoid a physical exam he might have had difficulty passing... If it is demonstrated that profound behavioral problems marred Bush's wartime performance and even cut short his service, it could seriously challenge Bush's essential appeal as a military steward and guardian of societal values. It could also explain the incomplete, contradictory and shifting explanations provided by the Bush camp for the President's striking invisibility from the military during the final two years of his six-year military obligation... There's that elephant in the living room again.
posted by y2karl
on Sep 15, 2004 -
101 comments
Let's Make Enemies ...The CPA has also confirmed that after June 30, the $18.4 billion the US government is spending on reconstruction will be administered by the US Embassy in Iraq. The money will be spent over five years and will fundamentally redesign Iraq's most basic infrastructure, including its electricity, water, oil and communications sectors, as well as its courts and police. Iraq's future governments will have no say in the construction of these core sectors of Iraqi society. Retired Rear Adm. David Nash, who heads the Project Management Office, which administers the funds, describes the $18.4 billion as "a gift from the American people to the people of Iraq." He appears to have forgotten the part about gifts being something you actually give up. And in the same eventful week, US engineers began construction on fourteen "enduring bases" in Iraq, capable of housing the 110,000 soldiers who will be posted here for at least two more years. Even though the bases are being built with no mandate from an Iraqi government, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations in Iraq, called them "a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East." ...
posted by Postroad
on Apr 2, 2004 -
69 comments
Good Bye, Horatio Alger The other day I found myself reading a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. It said that we are becoming a society in which the poor tend to stay poor, no matter how hard they work; in which sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago. The name of the leftist rag? Business Week, which published an article titled "Waking Up From the American Dream." The article summarizes recent research showing that social mobility in the United States (which was never as high as legend had it) has declined considerably over the past few decades. If you put that research together with other research that shows a drastic increase in income and wealth inequality, you reach an uncomfortable conclusion: America looks more and more like a class-ridden society. And guess what? Our political leaders are doing everything they can to fortify class inequality, while denouncing anyone who complains--or even points out what is happening--as a practitioner of "class warfare." So how
do you move on up in the
jobless recovery, anyhow?
posted by y2karl
on Jan 1, 2004 -
118 comments
This may not make as effective a sales pitch as "weapons of mass destruction," but with two oil men in office, it can't be ignored as a possible ulterior motive to war in Iraq. Am I a cynic or should we be asking if this "preemptive" war is really about what they are saying it's about?
posted by karlcleveland
on Sep 23, 2002 -
7 comments
India's slide into facsism... An essay in The Nation by India's Arundhati Roy — novelist, essayist, activist — lays down the facts around a very troubling assertion: people-heavy, nuclear-armed, legitimacy-seeking, proto-super-power India is quickly becoming a fascist state.
posted by silusGROK
on Sep 18, 2002 -
14 comments
The End of Empire? "You can't sustain an empire from a debtor's weakening position--sooner or later the creditors pull the plug. That humiliating lesson was learned by Great Britain early in the last century, and the United States faces a similar reckoning ahead."
posted by homunculus
on Sep 9, 2002 -
39 comments
Bubble Wrap: The Nation vs. The Weekly Standard "Back in the '60s, the left was the home of humor, iconoclasm, pleasure. But over the last two decades, the joy has gone out of the left -- it now feels hedged in by shibboleths and defeatism -- while the right has been having a gas, be it Lee Atwater grooving to the blues, Rush Limbaugh chortling about Feminazis or grimly gleeful Ann Coulter serving up bile as if it were chocolate mousse"
posted by owillis
on Aug 30, 2002 -
9 comments
Is a 'Pax Americana' possible? And if it
is possible, is it a good thing or a bad thing?
It depends on who you ask. And if not the US, then who?
Europe has neither the force of arms nor the political cohesiveness.
China seems to be the only other contender, but it begs the question: should America even
try to mediate world disputes, or intervene when (and
only when) our national interests are at stake?
posted by mrmanley
on Aug 14, 2002 -
28 comments
The God Squad Christopher Hitchens gives (another) one to organized religion, and reminds us of the important role that the Islamic world played in preserving Western Civilization.
posted by Ty Webb
on Apr 3, 2002 -
7 comments
This article in "The Nation" bemoans the fact that the U.S is dissing its new best friend Russia, and that the recent entente cordiale is under threat.
This article at the the Institute for War and Peace Reporting suggests that the U.S could, perhaps, be a little more selective in choosing its friends.
I have often wondered if the west would have stood for Russia or the U.S.S.R using force on a scale to that which we have recently witnessed in Afghanistan or Chechnya. It looks like they have become our sons of bitches.
posted by Fat Buddha
on Mar 29, 2002 -
3 comments
The Cost of an Afghan 'Victory' an article from 1999 asks
Did the founders of US policy in Afghanistan during the Carter Administration (1977-1981) realize that in spawning Islamic militancy with the primary aim of defeating the Soviet Union they were risking sowing the seeds of a phenomenon that was likely to acquire a life of its own, spread throughout the Muslim world and threaten US interests?
posted by LeLiLo
on Sep 16, 2001 -
3 comments
So we think we're free? Bill Moyers tells us that we're in the grip of the mega-corporate media who know how to lavishly butter their own bread. And if we like jam? Too bad.
posted by caraig
on Apr 22, 2001 -
3 comments
"You don't have to burn books now," says Thomas. "You just press the delete key." Two unabashedly
partisan reports of the Bush administration's clandestine campaign to "tighten up" anything from online government sources dealing with the development of Alaskan mineral resources.
We've done the debate on Alaska, but what about the ability to amend online records? The old administration's sites are meant to be preserved by law, but plenty appears to have been deleted in the name of "polishing":
"We changed value-laden words like 'destroy' to 'impact.'"
Newspeak in action? Should government-run sites be required to carry a Changelog?
posted by holgate
on Apr 14, 2001 -
7 comments
Gore's Connection to Occidental Petroleum goes much deeper than an investment in a mutual fund. From the article: "...the Clinton Administration has been quietly helping the company--a generous donor to the Democrats in recent years--to win support in Colombia for its drilling plans."
posted by snakey
on Oct 28, 2000 -
34 comments
