For four decades, the AFL-CIO’s international presence was notable less for its promotion of labor rights than for its Cold War ferocity. At global conventions, for instance, the labor federation’s protocol required AFL-CIO representatives to stand up and leave the room whenever members of insufficiently anti-Communist unions like Italy’s CGIL entered. The labor federation’s Latin […]
Simon Rodberg
Simon Rodberg is a writing fellow at The American Prospect.
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Short Items
Department of Stunning Revelations Ashcroft vows to let laws prevail Headline in The Boston Globe, January 17, 2001 Key to pardon is access: Many who get presidential action have connections Headline in The Washington Post, January 22, 2001 Amazon Man Has there ever been a more compulsively didactic politician than the […]
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Blame Government First
The exploding Firestone tires on Ford vehicles set off significant aftershocks in the media and government. While the car company and the tire manufacturer blamed each other, the Senate Commerce Committee took both companies to task at a high-profile September hearing. Even Republican senators called for increased regulatory power and funding. One could almost sense […]
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No “Justice,” No Peace:
Darryl King was the very model of a model inmate. While serving 25 years for murdering a police officer — he continues to protest his innocence — he earned a college degree, taught disabled inmates, opened a law library, and served as commander of his prison’s chapter of the American Legion. Since his 1995 release, […]
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Bubba and Elvis
Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in the Land of No Alternatives, by Greil Marcus. Henry Holt and Company, 248 pages, $25.00. E ven now, it is an indelible image: Bill Clinton in sunglasses blowing “Heartbreak Hotel” through his saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1992. It was the meeting of politics and […]
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Bowling Together
Diners, Bowling Alleys and Trailer Parks: Chasing the American Dream in the Postwar Consumer Culture, by Andrew Hurley. Basic Books, 409 pages, $27.50. The lunch counter in my college town is called the Yankee Doodle, and its best moments come just after the 6:00 a.m. opening. Late-night partiers straggle in before bed, thesis writers on […]
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A Treaty on Tobacco?
The American public may think that Clinton-era lawsuits reined in Big Tobacco. After all, settlements with the industry have resulted in $240 billion for state governments and a stream of ads about the hazards of cigarettes. But the Marlboro Man and his compadres still ride roughshod over public-health policy around the world. In the past […]
