Lead Us Not into Temptation
Shortly after George W. Bush announced the creation of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives–launched on January 29 to facilitate a new era of partnership between the government and religious groups–the nation’s airwaves were filled with assertions about the unique capacity of religious organizations to solve our most intractable social problems. “Study…
Why Jesus is Not a Regulator
One of the primary goals of President George W. Bush’s new White House Officeof Faith-Based and Community Initiatives is “to eliminate unnecessarylegislative, regulatory, and other bureaucratic barriers that impede effectivefaith-based and other community efforts to solve social problems.” Bush has saidthat America needs more “faith-based treatment” for addiction and juveniledelinquency and that he would like…
Faith-Based Favoritism
I’m not gracious enough to resist saying, “I told you so,” when I see rivalreligious groups fighting over federal funds. Only a few weeks after PresidentGeorge W. Bush announced a federal initiative to fund sectarian religiousorganizations, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was reportedly pressuring theadministration–with some success–not to underwrite the Nation of Islam.According to The New…
Be Careful What You Pray For
George W. Bush has takenpains to emphasize that his plans for faith-based initiatives are broad enough toencompass all religious sentiment. But if the experience of one college newspapereditor is an indicator, tolerance has its limits. The point was made clearrecently when the U.S. Secret Service paid a visit to the editorial offices ofthe Stony Brook…
Comment: Party Poopers
Not long ago, the Democrats were taking comfort from their five-seat gain inthe Senate and their 50-50 tie. But the Senate, it’s now clear, is far from trulytied. On the John Ashcroft confirmation vote, Republicans held all their troops andeight Democrats defected, four of them northern liberals. On the outrageous voteto scrap new safety standards…
Payback Time
If you would strike at the king, said Machiavelli, kill him. The underlyinglogic here applies to democracies as well as monarchies. If you put your all intobringing down a presidential candidate and come up short, expect him to come atyou–hard. And that pretty much describes organized labor’s current predicamentwith George W. Bush. Though the percentage…
City of Tomorrow
Even by the fast-forward standards of California politics, where term limits bump off the entire state legislature every eight years, Antonio Villaraigosa has had a meteoric career. In the early 1990s, he was an organizer for the teachers’ union, a county supervisor’s delegate on the L.A. transit board, and president of the American Civil Liberties…
High-Rise Hellholes
In the category of good intentions gone awry, it is hard to beat the Americanpublic housing program. Public housing was born in the 1930s when liberal pressure groups helped starta quintessential New Deal program that was intended not just to help the poor butto put the construction industry back to work. After a couple of…
Not Your Father’s Foreign Policy
In its first months, President George W. Bush’s new foreign-policy team has gotten the wrong rap–an inane one that deflects attention away from the serious questions. Since November the press has been abuzz with the supposed insight that Bush’s appointees are “retreads” from previous Republican governments. Yet this conceit has obscured the far more important…
Good Press for Dictators
Somewhere in Africa, a dictator sits in his presidentialpalace, alone and forlorn. Just recently, he deployed troops to quell anopposition rally and a few unarmed civilians were killed. Nothing out of theordinary, really; but this time the international press have descended on hiscapital. Foreign governments are calling for democratic reforms. And embarrassedinternational financial institutions, which…
The Executive-Class President
We are so used to a politics of blurred class interests in America that clarityis actually confusing. Throughout our history, the major parties have beeneconomically heterogeneous, and the basic tenets of the American creed havedenied any legitimacy to class as a basis of political action–except, that is,for measures in aid of the great, sprawling middle…
Cornering the Airwaves
As the U.S. Senate gears up for a vote this spring on the campaign finance reform bill drafted by Arizona Republican John McCain and Wisconsin Democrat Russell Feingold, it would do well to consider a lament from one of its recent escapees: “Today’s campaigns function as collection agencies for broadcasters,” Bill Bradley observed a few…
Crime and Rehabilitation
Pat Barker may be the most important progressive novelist to reach full artistic maturity in the past 10 years. The more famous she becomes, however, the less frequently do critics acknowledge her as an ardently political writer. Border Crossing, her ninth novel–this one a crime thriller set in contemporary, urban England–is likely to cement the…
Between Law and Justice
In a modest hotel room, Bobby Esposito and Cynthia Bennington, two young assistant district attorneys, have just made love for the first time. For the high-toned Bennington, the occasion is a breakthrough. “I’ve never had an orgasm before,” she tells Esposito. He’s pleased, but his mind is elsewhere. He’s worried about inequities in the system.…
Taking Care of Business
There’s no longer any countervailing power in Washington. Business is incomplete control of the machinery of government. If corporate America understoodits long-term interest, it would use this unique moment to establish in thepublic’s mind the principle that business can be trusted. But it’s doing justthe opposite. Every industry and every major company is cashing in…
Cherny Speaks
The Next Deal: The Future of Public Life in the Information Age, by Andrei Cherny. Basic Books, 268 pages, $24.00. John Stuart Mill, in his essay on Coleridge, remarks that “a knowledge of thespeculative opinions of men between twenty and thirty years of age is the greatsource of political prophecy.” If Mill is right, then…
White-Collar Woes
White-Collar Sweatshop: The Deterioration of Work and Its Rewards in Corporate America, Jill Andresky Fraser. W.W. Norton and Company, 278 pages, $26.95. While working through the 1980s and 1990s as a financial journalist, JillAndresky Fraser was bothered by an apparent paradox: She observed the “buoyantoptimism” of corporate executives and business boosters enjoying a rising stockmarket…
