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Vol. 7 No. 29November 1996
Features
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Liberty, Community, and the National Idea
Is a renewed emphasis on the value of community the answer to our political woes? Not if it's defined in purely local terms. -
Of Our Time: A Liberal Dunkirk?
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Will Class Trump Gender?: The New Assault on Feminism
"Goodbye, feminism," say some critics who insist that women can prosper as rugged individualists. Funny thing, the new antifeminists sound a lot like the old laissez-faire conservatives. -
How Low Can You Go?
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A Secure System
A former commissioner of Social Security explains how to save it. -
The Other Edmund Wilson
Today there is no shortage of writing about literature or of literature about writing. But there used to be writing that was about both. -
The Aging Opportunity: America's Elderly as a Civic Resource
The aging of American society is almost always seen as a problem, but the elderly may be our only growing natural resource -- provided we create new ways to mobilize their civic energies. -
Conceding Success
Several recent studies show that two major undertakings of progressive government -- environmental regulation and public education -- have been far more successful than widely believed. -
The Balanced Budget Trap
Absolute budget balance has become orthodoxy; a constitutional amendment to enforce it may pass Congress even if Democrats win the elections. But look at the costs. -
Yes, Union
Labor's message to liberals: Rumors of our irrelevance have been much exaggerated. -
The Great Social Security Scare
Advocates of privatization are using the financial stress of the baby boomers' retirement to undo the advances that Social Security has brought. Relieving the financial pressures, however, has become a phony excuse for privatization. -
Eyes on the Street: Community Policing in Chicago
It's now the favorite remedy for urban crime, but a visit to the front lines in Chicago suggests how hard it is to make community policing work. -
Of Economists and Liberals
A reply to Robert Kuttner, "Peddling Krugman," September-October 1996. -
Multimedia and Multiple Intelligences
New multimedia technology could do a lot for children if educators recognize diverse intelligences that schools traditionally haven't favored. -
Devil in the Details
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Vol. 7 No. 28September 1996
Features
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Fighting the Establishment (Clause)
The Rutherford Institute portrays itself as merely interested in defending the rights of religious Americans. A closer look reveals a more sweeping and questionable agenda. -
Damage Report
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Motor Voter or Motivated Voter?
The Motor Voter law was supposed to dramatically increase turnout and give marginalized groups more voice in politics. Unfortunately, getting these groups to register doesn't do any good if you don't give them reason to vote. -
Who Won the Cold War?
Is it high time for liberals to apologize to the anticommunist right, which correctly gauged the red menace from the start? Sorry, the credit belongs to a brave band of liberal cold warriors beginning with George Kennan. -
Is God a Republican?: Why Politics Is Dangerous for Religion
The Christian Coalition has made a dangerous gamble by associating faith with the Republican Party. If God blesses us only as Republicans or Democrats, both politics and religion are in trouble. -
State of the Debate: Peddling Krugman
Paul Krugman criticizes supporters of government activism as nothing but policy peddlers and economic illiterates, but describes himself as a liberal. What is MIT's prodigy really up to? -
Back from the Dead: Neoprogressivism in the '90s
The conservative revolution turned out to be less than a mandate. Can the various factions that call themselves progressive get behind a common vision? -
Private Heroism and Public Purpose
Working- and middle-class voters remain economically anxious. But in the absence of a convincing narrative that connects to their lives, many are concluding from their condition that the only remedy is rugged individualism. -
Starting Small, Thinking Big
Society needs to help the very young, long before formal schooling begins, or the battle for the next generation will be lost. -
On the Politics of Virtue
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Take the Initiative, Please: Referendum Madness in California
Ballot initiatives were supposed to make government more responsive to the people. In California, a series of referenda has had just the opposite effect. -
How Low Can You Go?
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Is God a Republican?: Why Politics Is Dangerous for Religion
The Christian Coalition has made a dangerous gamble by associating faith with the Republican Party. If God blesses us only as Republicans or Democrats, both politics and religion are in trouble. -
Devil in the Details
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Delivering for Young Families: The Resonance of the GI Bill
The problem isn't that old folks get too much money from government -- it's that young families get too little. Recalling the GI Bill and the politics of generational solidarity.
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Vol. 7 No. 27July 1996
Features
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Social Compact, Version 2.0
Responsible companies promise to uphold higher values. Yet the new economy makes it harder than ever for companies to take on a broader social role -- that's why we invented government. -
Children in the Digital Age
There's trouble in Cyber City, and pornography is the least of it. -
Return of the Native
Isolationism is rising among Republicans along with antigovernment fervor. Is Bob Dole -- as Newt Gingrich says -- another Bob Taft? -
Back to Class
Are Americans really just unrealistic whiners? -
How Low Can You Go?
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The Economics of Despair
Young adults today earn half of what they would have made 20 years ago. Herewith an explanation, and a prescription, by three labor economists. -
Was Welfare Reform Worthwhile?
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Of Our Time: Taking Care of Business
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Social Change One on One: The New Mentoring Movement
The evidence is in: Mentoring kids from single-parent families has dramatic benefits. So why aren't we doing more of it? -
Below the Beltway
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Computer Clubhouses in the Inner City: Access Is Not Enough
A new kind of learning community shows how children from any neighborhood can become "technologically fluent." -
Drift or Mandate?: The 1996 Elections
The voters' decision in November will determine whether the late 1990s usher in America's "fourth Republic." -
The Starbucks Solution: Can Voluntary Codes Raise Global Living Standards
Starbucks, Wal-Mart, and Levi Strauss say they will do the right thing all over the world. That's better than if they made no commitment, but it may not be much.
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Vol. 7 No. 26May 1996
Features
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Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files II
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Straight From the Sixties: What Conservatives Owe the Decade They Hate
Apocalyptic intemperateness, paranoia, a loathing of compromise, a demonization of the enemy -- where have we run into this before? -
Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files II
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Goldwater's Glitter
Conservatives hail Barry Goldwater as a forerunner; liberals appreciate his belated moderation. But Goldwater wasn't the paragon a new biography makes him out to be. -
Rewarding Work: Feasible Antipoverty Policy
A higher minimum wage and the earned income tax credit fit like puzzle pieces, each compensating for the other's flaws. Together they are our best bet to fight poverty. -
Of Our Time: After Solidarity
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Social Security on the Table
Must we destroy Social Security in order to save it? -
Toward a More Perfect Union: New Labor's Hard Road
The labor movement has new life, but faces immense obstacles. Here's what it can accomplish. -
Connecting with E.M. Forster
A futuristic fantasy from early in this century offers us a hellish version of life on the Internet. -
The Corrosive Politics of Virtue
Decrying moral failure is an old American tradition that goes back to the Puritans. But the moral diagnosis is wrong -- and it brings pernicious political consequences. -
Devil in the Details
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Cooked to Order
When two economists showed that a higher minimum wage would have little adverse effect on jobs, did the fast food industry try to spike the data and poison their reputations? -
Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files II
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The Biggest Deal: Lobbying to Take Social Security Private
Privatizing Social Security would create an enormous financial bonanza. So guess who's spending millions to change public perceptions and national policy. -
Welfare Reform as I Knew It: When Bad Things Happen to Good Policies
"I'll look forward to reading your book on why it failed this time," Senator Moynihan told me on my first visit as cochair of the Clinton working group on welfare reform. Herewith, the first installment. -
"F" Is for Fizzle: The Faltering School Privatization Movement
Entrepreneurs promised they could rescue public schools and turn a profit too. Reality intruded. -
The Fleece Police
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Saving Their Assets: How to Stop Plunder at Blue Cross and Other Nonprofits
Huge nonprofit corporations are now being converted to for-profit companies, to the immense benefit of corporate insiders. But they can't take charitable assets with them. A victory in California shows what the public should insist upon.
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Vol. 7 No. 25March 1996
Features
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The Surrender of Economic Policy
As long as the big choices in macroeconomic policy are off the table, other efforts to raise living standards will not make much difference. -
Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files
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How Low Can You Go?
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The Crusade That's Killing Prosperity
The Federal Reserve's crusade against the ghost of inflation has driven unemployment much higher than the official numbers suggest. It's not technology that's keeping down wages -- it's the policy of America's politically insulated central bank. -
Devil in the Details
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Restoration Fever
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How the West Is Won: Astroturf Lobbying and the "Wise Use" Movement
How corporate developers have used grassroots organizing to disguise their attack on environmental protection -- and how activists in one state stopped them. -
Storylines: Get Me Rewrite
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Wither the Democrats
The Democrats still haven't found a way to tap America's discontent. Some new political books suggest how they can. -
We'll Talk About That: Can Liberals Do Radio?
Liberals do movies, rock and roll, talk TV, even local talk radio. So why no liberal Rush? -
Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files
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Passions of Crime
Getting tough on crime has always been popular. Now there's also big money in it. Crime policy today is a study in irrational passions and rational interests. -
Orbit of Influence: Spy Finance and the Black Budget
America's huge budget for electronic reconnaissance might have come in for scrutiny after the Cold War. But the few in Congress who are supposed to watch over the world of spy finance are also big beneficiaries of it. -
Global Villagers: The Rise of Transnational Communities
A new breed of immigrant community is breaking down national borders and confounding traditional notions of citizenship. -
Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files
Couch-Potato Democracy? -
The Ultimate Self-Referral: Health Care Reform, AMA-Style
Why did the American Medical Association support Newt Gingrich's proposals on Medicare? Not for the reasons the media suggested. -
Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files
Robert Putnam Responds -
Animal House Meets Church Lady
One moment it's frat-boy humor; the next, it's the old verities. Limbaugh, P.J. O'Rourke, and other comedians of the right love to have it both ways. -
Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files
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