Just Dignity
Works Discussed in this Essay: Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence, by Martha Minow. Beacon Press, 224 pages, $15.00. Coming to Terms: South Africa’s Search for Truth, by Martin Meredith. PublicAffairs, 400 pages, $27.50. Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New…
Technology We Hate
Technology is driving the big changes in society faster now than at any time since the decade after World War II. Back then, a raft of discoveries–atomic power, jet transportation and rocketry, television, mass immunization, and early steps toward reliable birth control–had enormous political, cultural, and demographic impact around the world. Now, there are two…
Liberalism and Catholicism
In the years immediately after World War II, American liberals split apart over their attitudes toward communism. Those who called themselves progressives rallied around the presidential campaign of Henry Wallace in 1948, despite evidence aplenty that the Communist Party was disproportionately calling Wallace’s shots. Others, including the founders of Americans for Democratic Action, fashioned themselves…
The Wrong Side of History
In assessing Roman Catholicism’s role as a source of the advancement of progressive social change, what is to be made of the Church’s age-old and continuing exclusion of black Catholics from the priesthood? That is an admittedly rhetorical question, premised on a half-truth, since the Church excludes only some blacks from the priesthood, which keeps…
God’s Word
When Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura dismissed religion as a “sham” and a crutch for weak-minded people, the pundits pounced. Ridiculing Ventura, commentators like E.J. Dionne hastened to praise religious belief and the strong-minded leaders it produced, like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. The governor’s approval ratings declined; he repented and vowed to behave:…
The Firewall Next Time
Harry Dent assures me that George W. Bush is going to win big in South Carolina on February 19. “He’s Mr. Handsome,” the South Carolinian recently told me, “got a gorgeous wife, good family. And he believes in Jesus Christ. That’s pretty strong down here.” Dent should know. A longtime adviser to the state’s nonagenarian…
Disappearing Candidates
“I am the Democrat who can beat Rick Santorum,” says Bob Rovner in his introduction to hotel-lobby chatter at a Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee meeting. The hotel is not even in Harrisburg, the Democrats having forsaken downtown. It’s off a bypass of the interstate east of Harrisburg. “I’m the best Democrat. I’m a fresh face,…
The Rorschach Candidate
What, exactly, does George W. Bush think about homosexuals? Sifting through his campaign detritus, curious voters will find neither a stock denunciation (à la Gary Bauer) nor a pro forma statement of support (à la Bill Bradley). Though he refuses to meet with the Log Cabin Republicans, Bush can point to a number of openly…
The Real Thing
With party rivals who seem more authentic than they are, George W. and Al G. are each reinventing themselves as the Real Thing. Before, George W.’s every move and utterance was carefully scripted in advance, tested by focus groups, polished by political consultants. See him once, he’s charming. See him a second time, he’s still…
Finding the Lost Voters
Al Garcia is one frustrated Democratic campaign manager. A criminal defense lawyer by trade and a 20-year veteran of Minnesota politics, he ran two candidates for the state assembly in 1998. Both were in Anoka County, ground zero of the Jesse Ventura vote. One candidate, Jerry Newton, a decorated Vietnam veteran and small-business owner, fiscally…
Golden Zip Codes
From the high-rises of New York’s Upper East Side to the mansions of Beverly Hills, the wealthiest Americans are opening their wallets to invest in presidential politics. Candidates Bill Bradley, George W. Bush, Al Gore, and John McCain are all overwhelmingly and disproportionately dependent on wealthy and white contributors to finance their campaigns. While the…
Comment: Diminished Expectations
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to clean out my study. I am something of a pack rat. I have research files on every book and major article I’ve written going back to the 1970s, mostly sorted by topic. Throwing away outdated material under such headings as “budget,” “unemployment,” “savings rate,” and “inflation,” I…
Whose Risk, Whose Security?
At the opening of the twenty-first century, the United States seems to be leading the world toward embracing risk and rejecting security. Images of risk-taking as the ticket to success saturate contemporary culture, making extreme sports athletes and high-tech entrepreneurs the heroes of the 1990s. Replacing government protections with market challenges has become a central…
Give War a Chance
Work Discussed: Vietnam: The Necessary War. A Reinterpretation of America’s Most Disastrous Military Conflict, by Michael Lind. The Free Press, 314 pages, $25.00. American dominion over the world is the value on behalf of which Michael Lind justifies and upholds the Vietnam War, which he sees as a lost battle in the Western…
End of the World, Amen
Tales of the cataclysm have long been a cinematic staple, and since the movie industry is perpetually on the lookout for ways to turn a profit from the zeitgeist, this seems an especially apt moment for such films. Two have been brought out this season: End of Days, the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, and the…
Other People’s Money
It is not without significance that the title of the hit TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contains no question mark. It’s not so much a challenge as a chipper invitation, as in, “Who wants candy.” Not only does the show correctly assume that everybody wants to be a millionaire–what’s not to want?–but,…
This is Your Brain on Art
Antidrug crusaders probably made their biggest mass-media splash with their famous television advertisement comparing a cooked egg to a brain fried by drugs, ending with a deadpan voice asking, “Any questions?” Now, a campaign sponsored in part by White House “Drug Czar” Barry R. McCaffrey’s Office of National Drug Control Policy emphasizes that parental supervision…
