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Vol. 21 No. 2February 2010
Columns
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What Happened to Democracy?
Nobody seems to be talking about the reforms needed to clean up democracy. -
Fantasy-League Politics
The recurring dream of an independent candidate or party protects the status quo. -
Swagger Like Us
Should women amplify their aggression to mimic successful men? Or should they play up what supposedly makes them different? -
Fiscal Folly
We need more deficit spending on public investment and jobs now, then deficit reduction once recovery comes.
Culture
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American Taliban
The marriage between religious fundamentalism and market conservatism is as strong as ever. -
This Is How You'll Get There
Cars, roads, and parking could be transformed completely. The technology is there, but is society ready? -
Literature from the Underground
Does a new anthology devoted to a hip-hop classic elevate the genre to its rightful place as a literary form? -
Democracy's Faith-Based Troubles
Religion and rationality have been clashing for centuries. Is it possible to talk about this conflict without going nuts?
Departments
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Up Front
McCain on the stump; OMG, it's Peter Orszag; and The Question. -
The Chastity Ring-Around
The college abstinence-only movement sells itself as empowering and pro-woman. Too bad the usual rejection of marriage equality and reproductive rights still applies. -
The Bicycle Grief
In the quest for bike-friendly cities, are snobby cyclists their own worst enemies? -
Noted
Responses to Gabriel Arana's "Gay on Trial," Ann Friedman's "The Company We Keep," and a message from Prospect executive editor Mark Schmitt.
Special Report
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Digging Out, Planning Ahead
The federal government needs to do more to help states survive this downturn -- and plan for permanent anti-recession fiscal relief. -
California in Crisis
With a dysfunctional state government unable to act, the universities, schools, and roads that were once the model for the nation are crumbling -- if not collapsing. -
State Fiscal Gimmicks: A Budgetary Balancing Act
Phony budget accounting defers the day of reckoning -- but raises costs. -
A Tour of Six States
Snapshots of the fiscal crisis across the nation. -
Transparency For What?
The left, right, and center agree that they want more state budget data. But not all data improves policy. -
Reform Amid Fiscal Ruin
In some states, progressive leadership and grass-roots activism have turned crisis into opportunity for long-deferred tax reform. -
Buckeye Budget Blues
Ohio has all the reform elements in place -- except political will. -
Public Capacity and Public Trust
Can we reverse the vicious circle of frustrated citizens denying state government adequate resources -- and then resenting the lack of state services? -
Loosening Fiscal Straitjackets
Proponents say that caps on taxing and spending enhance democracy. In reality, they destroy accountable government -- but that can be changed.
Features
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Eric Holder's War
How the attorney general's relationship to his president, his adopted city, and his race are shaping the Justice Department. -
Underrating Reform
Even with its compromises, health reform is the most ambitious effort in decades to reorganize a big part of life around principles of justice and efficiency. -
The Ultimate Test Case
Obama has said he wants to change our very mind-set about foreign policy. Afghanistan is where he must prove it. -
Germany's Economic Engine
For years, economists said Germany was doing everything wrong. But today it's thriving, even in the wake of the global financial crisis.
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Vol. 21 No. 1December 2009
Columns
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Listening to Afghanistan
The U.S. intervention has never been and won't become a force for humanitarianism. -
Obama Year One
Obama was right to take on a wide range of tough problems, and no one should be shocked at the obstacles in his path. -
Machinery of Progress
It's not just about the president. His successes and failures are tests of the progressive infrastructure. -
Human Wrongs
With A Problem from Hell, Samantha Power changed the way we talk about liberalism and human rights.
Culture
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A Museum of One's Own
Can writers' former homes become tourist destinations? The odds are long and the payoff is low. -
Not Everything Has Changed
The women's movement may have changed everything for the American public, but in the home, the revolution has hardly begun. -
A Teachable Collapse
When it comes to understanding Wall Street, we need both narratives that show how it failed and analysis that makes clear there were alternatives.
Departments
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The Health-Care Ultimatum
Some progressives have called health-care reform without a public option worthless. Here's why they're wrong. -
New Year's Resolutions for Improving Political Dialogue
We've become a nation of screamers, not thinkers. Here's how to bring thoughtfulness back in 2010. -
I Love You, Man
Dueling "ex-gay" and gay-rights conferences have more in common than the attendees would like to believe. -
Noted
Responses to Gabriel Arana's "Gay on Trial," Ann Friedman's "The Company We Keep," and a message from Prospect executive editor Mark Schmitt. -
Up Front
2010 headline predictions; The worst tea party ever; Obama's secret reset button; and The Question.
Special Report
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Industrial Policy: The Road Not Taken
In the 1970s, Wall Street and its economists defeated manufacturing. -
Losing Our Future
If we don't develop a national industrial policy for clean-energy production, the strategies of other nations will displace American companies and jobs. -
FDR Had It Right
If the economy is going to come back, we need to buy -- and make -- American. -
Playing Ourselves for Fools
The trading system America sold the world is killing U.S. industry. Here's a better way. -
The Plight of American Manufacturing
Since 2001, the U.S. has lost 42,400 factories -- and its technical edge. -
The Politics of Industrial Renaissance
Business and government may waver, but the American people want more manufacturing. -
The Great Industrial Wall of China
Beijing's mercantilism challenges America's market ideology and industrial future.
Features
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Gentrification Hangover
Can a new era of affordable housing be created from the wreckage of failed luxury real estate? -
On the Books
Could microloans help America's informal entrepreneurs become business owners -- and rescue urban economies in the process? -
The Ruse of the Creative Class
Cities that shelled out big bucks to learn Richard Florida's prescription for vibrant urbanism are now hearing they may be beyond help. -
The Work Around
How some supervisors of low-wage workers break the rules to make an unfair system a little bit fairer.
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Vol. 20 No. 10November 2009
Columns
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The Company We Keep
If each liberal "special interest" group is actually just in it alone, what's the point of a common ideology? -
Faster, Please
Democrats in Congress should focus on enacting job measures and health reforms that show voters immediate progress. -
Changing the Tone
Most citizens want to be heard, but we can't let an angry minority speak for them. -
The 1960s, Refracted
While published decades ago, the works of writers like Stanley Crouch and Lisa Jones are still ferociously in the present.
Culture
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Hard Times Revisited
Two new books show how the gap between the rich and the poor shaped the culture of the 1930s. -
Hope Against History
Early conflicts over colonialism and genocide explain many of the United Nations' modern-day failures. -
Read Local
Small book publishers are looking to communities of loyal readers to support them.
Departments
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Lunchtime Lessons from New Orleans
As the Gulf Coast struggles to redevelop, its children build a thriving food-justice movement. Nutrition advocates in Washington would be wise to pay attention. -
Up Front
The circular logic of cap-and-trade; Amtrak's gun check; and The Question. -
The Mammogram Mess
Last week, new guidelines for breast cancer screening inspired a panic. Will we ever be able to discuss effective health care reasonably? -
The Persecution Complex of Sarah Palin
We all define ourselves by our enemies -- but it can be taken too far. -
Push Comes to .GOV
How federal agencies learned to stop worrying and love Web 2.0. -
Debating the Public Option
The three founders of the Prospect discuss the perils and promise of a public-insurance option. -
Noted
Features
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Don't Blame the Billionaires
It's time for liberals to worry less about inequality. -
Gay on Trial
After state-level defeats, lawyers are taking the case for gay rights to federal court. -
One More Bubble to Go
We've relied on a robust dollar to see us through the crisis, but that cushion is about to disappear. -
Beyond Bars
The "tough on crime" era is coming to an end, leaving bloated prisons and blighted neighborhoods in its wake. But what's next? A parole agent uses a flashlight to inspect a GPS locater worn on the ankle of a parolee.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) -
Is Democracy a Dirty Word?
Obama is distancing himself from Bush's pro-democracy agenda. Activists are worried about the consequences. -
Fed Up With Federalism
Why isn't the stimulus working? States are sucking up funding faster than the federal government is pumping it in. -
Wall Street Meets Its Match
If Congress ends up with effective financial regulation, Sen. Maria Cantwell will deserve a lot of the credit.
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Vol. 20 No. 9October 2009
Columns
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Title IX Dad
Title IX, with all its limits, was a nudge that set off a chain of social transformations. -
Lessons Overlearned
Affordable health care is important, but right now making a living is more urgent. -
The Polanski Paradox
The epidemic of violence against women is a public scourge, but respecting survivors' wishes must be paramount. -
Harry, Louise, and Barack
Instead of being a big winner politically for Obama, industry-dictated health reform will be a political wash, at best.
Culture
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Will the Color Line Fade?
Racial distinctions may be blurring due to demographics and mobility, but discrimination and racism remain. -
Girls Just Wanna Have Fangs
A defense of the teen-girl fan base that has made the Twilight books and movies so wildly successful. -
He Kept the Flame
As his memoir reveals, the true Ted Kennedy emerged as he fought to keep the country from moving rightward. -
Beyond No-Fault Finance
Restoring stability and fairness requires thinking about the whole economy, not just Wall Street.
Departments
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Noted
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The Canadian Way of War
Can we learn to fight from our staid northern neighbors? -
Up Front
Telling term papers revealed; The North American Nut Tree in Fall; and The Question -
Can Human Rights Win the War?
Top U.S. military officials are starting to sound like human-rights advocates when it comes to detention policy in Afghanistan. -
Can Reason Win the Drug War?
Stoner jokes aside, the debate over America's drug policy is sounding increasingly sane. -
All These Governors
Do the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey say anything about the Democratic Party's future?
Special Report
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Grand Solution or Grab Bag?
Community colleges are being asked to provide everything from second chances to vocational education. Is America ready to help them succeed? -
Saying Yes in Syracuse
A battered industrial city is leading the way in preparing all schoolchildren to succeed in college. -
Rationing College Opportunity
Many more young people could succeed at college if given the chance. But public policy has been raising hurdles rather than increasing access. -
The Graduation Gap
America needs to do a much better job of increasing its college enrollment and graduation rates, especially for less advantaged students. -
It's Not Just Education
If we want more economic opportunity and equality, a better-skilled work force is only one element among many. -
Our Two-Class System
The recession has worsened already widening inequalities of access and affordability in higher education. Could it also trigger a new grand bargain? -
The High Cost of Working Hard
Why students need to work less and study more. -
Can Community Colleges Rise to the Occasion?
Yes -- with fundamental internal reforms and a new vision of their role in higher education. -
Ideas From the Other Washington
Policy reforms to increase student success.
Features
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The Innovation Administration
The White House assumes that newer ideas are always better, but that's not necessarily the case. -
Twilight of the Op-Ed Columnist
Are syndicated opinion writers a dying breed? -
Let's Make a Deal
A look at the lobbying groups that shelled out the big bucks to influence health-care reform. -
Constant Comment
How Kathleen Parker became America's most-read woman columnist. -
The Obstacles to Real Health-Care Reform
How a series of roadblocks and compromises shaped the health-care debate -- and why the battle doesn't end when Obama signs a bill. -
The Myth of Too Big to Fail
Breaking up sprawling institutions won't be enough to clean up our financial mess.
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Vol. 20 No. 8September 2009
Columns
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Bipartisanship in One Party
The Democratic health-reform proposals are built around ideas Republicans used to favor. -
Integrate Expectations
The Obama administration is pressuring suburbs to end segregated housing but ignoring their history of segregated schools. -
My Model City
To a kid imbued with the idealism of "reform," Dahl's was a bracingly sanguine view of machine politics. -
Opposite Day
Obama decided that if everything Carter and Clinton did turned out wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.
Culture
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A Darwin for the Divine
Evolution and religion are compatible if we accept that even our cultural development displays inbuilt direction. -
The Moral Equivalent of Anti-Slavery
Gender equality in developing countries may be the premier human-rights struggle of the 21st century -- but first the rest of the world has to care. -
What to Do About the Court?
Not much. An activist Supreme Court may strike down laws, but it can also give them political legitimacy. -
What's Killing Conservatism?
Self-destruction is inevitable when a rigid ideology of disdain for government fully comes to power. -
Winning With the Economy -- or Without It
Candidates running with the economy against them have a tougher go, but it's possible to win by changing the conversation.
Departments
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Evasive Maneuvers
Journalists learn what to do if they're captured in Afghanistan -- or rural Virginia. -
Noted
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Up Front
Special Report
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Dark and Bitter
Food workers increasingly exist in a legal limbo with no protections for wages, benefits, job security, or life and limb. Why are employers like Hershey off the hook? -
Decent Work
How government can get back on the side of promoting good jobs. -
The Good War and the Workers
World War II defense contracts raised labor standards. Government could use the same leverage in peacetime. -
Which Side Is Government On?
Millions of contract workers whose salaries are ultimately paid by government live in poverty. Uncle Sam should demand high standards, not pay as little as possible. -
Good Jobs, Healthy Cities
Eight steps city governments can take to promote good jobs. -
Forgotten Corners of the Economy
As unemployment rises, the illegal treatment of day laborers only worsens. Where's the government? -
Government Paves the Way
A decent work agenda for the Obama administration. -
Stuck on the Low Road
Deregulation turned truck driving from a good job into a bad one. Now, thanks to local organizing and government action, there's a better road. -
Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers
Rebuilding our economy on the back of illegal working conditions is morally untenable -- and it is bad economics.
Features
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Childbirth at the Global Crossroads
Women in the developing world who are paid to bear other people's children test the emotional limits of the international service economy. -
See Jerry Run. Again.
California, still living with the consequences of Jerry Brown's first governorship, is poised to elect him again. -
Refugees of Diversity
One man's journey into the whitest -- and fastest growing -- communities in America. -
How Detroit Went Bottom-Up
Outsourcing has made the automotive industry so co-dependent and fragile that one company's downfall is every company's concern.
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