The Bell Curve has given genetic determinism new currency, but the science on which it rests is even less persuasive today than it was a century ago.
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Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Friends of Bill? Why Liberals Should Let Up on Clinton
In Clinton’s first two years, myopic liberals complained about his compromises and disparaged his accomplishments. Now there will be fewer accomplishments and bigger compromises. Insisting on purity could only make things worse.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Up From 1994
S ince Franklin Roosevelt, the central liberal credo has been the use of government to benefit ordinary people. That premise is now battered–fiscally, politically, ideologically. In 1994, swing voters rejected both the concept and the party of government. The 1994 midterm election is not yet the epochal realignment that prefigures a new governing coalition and […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Who Killed Campaign Finance Reform? (and How To Revive It)
On October 17, The American Prospect cosponsored a conference on campaign finance reform at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Only weeks earlier, reform legislation had died in Congress. Participants in the conference included representatives of public interest organizations and both Democrats and Republicans; the conference received financial support from the Arca, Schumann, and Joyce Foundations, […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Bank Failure: The Financial Marginalization of the Poor
In poor areas across the country, banks have been replaced with check-cashers and pawn shops. While both liberals and conservatives extol the virtues of savings, the recent trend encourages just the opposite.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Diary of the American Nightmare
T he Book of Revelations does not say whether the apocalypse will be televised. But if it is, WSVN in Miami will not have to interrupt its regular programming. It’s July 18 — the day of a visit by President Clinton to Miami — and WSVN, the nation’s most notorious tabloid station, is leading its […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Incredible News
The rise of infotainment and tabloid TV news reflects popular acceptance of the summons to turn news into play — which people are willing to do when they have given up on public life.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The People Vs. the Parties
Could either party nominate a full-menu libertarian or populist? Our national political logjam explains why artifice has become endemic.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
How Money Votes: An Oklahoma Story
Bill Brewster, junior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, works hard on behalf of the money that elected him. Unfortunately, he is emblematic of a system that skews politics away from the people.
Posted inAmerica and the World
Did the U.S. Military Plan a Nuclear First Strike for 1963?
Recently declassified information shows that the military presented President Kennedy with a plan for a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in the early 1960s.
