Feature Archive

THE COMMISSION on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has been charged with taking on the federal budget deficit, even as the economy continues to suffer. Writes Jeff Faux, "If the Commission can rise above its origins as a sop to the deficit hysteria now gripping Washington," it could show how "the consistent and obsessive focus on the long-term fiscal imbalance has dangerously distorted the debate over the country's immediate economic needs." Photo: President Obama speaking at a town hall on economic recovery (White House/2009)

EUGENE GOODHEART takes on Obama's critics on the Left: "The liberal base seems incapable of imagining how radical Obama is being made to seem to those on the other side of the political spectrum...His tone of sweet reasoning, of temporizing and compromise, may be a necessity...Liberal disenchantment with Obama and the apathy that accompanies it only helps the Republicans and does a disservice to its own cause." Photo: Barack Obama (Pete Souza / White House / 2009).

THE NEW Sanctuary Movement, an immigrant-rights organization, faces many challenges as it "seeks to confront globalized economic injustices on a frequently fragmented local front." But as Daniel Schwartz reports, the NSM has begun to implement a strategy its predecessor successfully used decades ago: allowing immigrants to tell their own stories. Photo: New Sanctuary Movement Rally (Daniel Schwartz).

THE 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended Sudan's civil war rested on the promise of a self-determination referendum for the south. Now, as Eric Reeves writes, the Sudanese government has signaled that it will abort the January 2011 referendum. Unless pressure is put on Khartoum to allow the vote, "We will witness a truly national civil war, with unfathomable human suffering and destruction." Photo: Refinery at Port Sudan (Wikimedia Commons/Ryj).

OVER ONE hundred years ago, Europe and the United States took divergent approaches to the emerging problem of regulating toxic chemicals. Today, as Benjamin Ross writes, new legislation could bring the United States closer to the stricter, precautionary measures used across the Atlantic, providing "some real powers to control the chemical soup we live in." Photo: Chemical Inspection Site in the 1920s (FDA History Office).

The American obsession with youth has spawned a plethora of books on America's young, but to Nicolaus Mills, too "many of the books and essays we have about the young...refuse to let the young speak [about] themselves." Dissent asked nine young Americans to write, in their own words, about their experiences and the meaning of their social engagements. These contributors help "provide an important record of how our new century began as well as an indication of where it is headed." Photo: Corporation for National and Community Service.

IN THE wake of the Deep Horizon oil spill, government officials and BP have labored to stop the leak and deal with the resulting ecological disaster. George Sterzinger reminds us of the third task that lies ahead for the Gulf region--economic recovery--and offers a way to accomplish it: the development of an advanced biofuels industry. "And think of the irony: using onshore advanced biofuels to recover from an offshore oil catastrophe." Photo: Harvesting Sugar Cane (Mette Nielsen / Creative Commons)

"THROUGHOUT THE twentieth century," writes Julian Zelizer, "the interaction between the center of the Democratic Party and its liberal wing produced some of the party's shining moments." Since the 1970s, this relationship has unfortunately "been characterized by mistrust and suspicion"--but Obama "has the potential to revitalize the alliance that never came together between Carter and Kennedy." Photo: Kennedy and Carter in the Oval Office (Jimmy Carter Library / National Archives)

LABOR IS one of the Democratic Party's most reliable constituencies, and as Nelson Lichtenstein writes, "Every good unionist knows [that] solidarity is a great thing." But a study of American history shows that "when a Democratic administration is in power, the most potent and efficacious strategy for labor and its leadership is to be--and be seen as--a troublesome, even unreliable ally." Photo: John L. Lewis (right) with fellow UMW leaders (Alfred T. Palmer / Library of Congress / Wikimedia Commons).

WITH A UN climate change meeting coming in November, Senate leaders have proposed a bill to help limit U.S. CO2 emissions. While "many in the United States think the Senate proposal to cut CO2 emissions requires far too large a sacrifice," writes Darrel Moellendorf, the bill itself is inadequate, "[failing] a reasonable requirement of universalizability...There is little in this bill to inspire." Photo: UN official Yvo de Boer (Ng Swan Ti/Wikimedia Commons).

THIS APRIL saw the publication of Dissent editorial board member Paul Berman's The Flight of the Intellectuals, a "searing examination into the intellectual atmosphere of the moment" examining "how some of the West's best thinkers and journalists have fumbled badly in their effort to grapple with Islamist ideas and violence." Andrew F. March and Paul Berman debate the book, and Tariq Ramadan, here. Photo: Tariq Ramadan (Joshua Sherurcij/Wikimedia Commons).

FOR THE first time, German politicians have entered into a debate on their involvement in Afghanistan informed "by the knowledge that the country is engaged in a war," writes Cameron Abadi. While this has led to a more open discussion over their involvement in Afghanistan, no political figure has confronted the larger question at the heart of military policy: "what [Germany] might stand for." Photo: German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Wikimedia Commons).

SEIU PRESIDENT Andy Stern announced his retirement last month. Melvyn Dubofsky takes stock of Stern's successes and failures over the last fifteen years. His career, writes Dubofsky, exemplifies "a perpetual dilemma in labor history: the evolution of labor leaders from rebels to union administrators." Photo: Andy Stern (Joi Ito/Wikimedia Commons).

THE COLLAPSE of communism was freighted with ironies. "The sharpest of these," writes Michael Kimmage in his review of three new histories of communism, "is that communism [turned out to be] the historical midwife of capitalism. But in a similar contortion of theoretical logic, communism-which, for Marx, was rigorously internationalist-also [came to] serve as an agent of nationalism." Photo: A toppled statue of Stalin in Budapest, 1956 (Wikimedia Commons)

LAST MONTH, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law a set of new measures intended to help secure the state's border with Mexico. But, writes Katherine Benton-Cohen, the law fails to tackle the problems its purports to solve. "Checking the identification of every day laborer in Phoenix won't bring back Robert Krentz. [It] will only perpetuate hatred and stalemate." Photo: Nogales on Arizona/Mexico Border (Gordon Hyde /U.S. Army/Wikimedia)

CESAR CHAVEZ gave the United Farm Workers a religious sense of mission. But, writes Jeffrey Rubin, his leadership also led to the movement's decline. "Had Chavez been willing and able to delegate authority and relinquish control, then others could have run the union, and Chavez himself might have focused on building a broader poor people's movement."(Photo Credit: UFW leader Cesar Chavez / Joel Levine / Wikimedia Commons)

NUCLEAR WEAPONS have not only played a significant role in shaping American military and foreign policy, they have also helped legitimize an emerging security state at home. Writes Ward Wilson in his review of Gary Wills's Bomb Power, "Wills points to one of modern democracy's fundamental cruxes: [How] should a state balance the needs of security with the demand of transparency?" Photo: Nuclear Test Romeo ( U.S. Department of Energy)

WITH HIS Cooper Union address, Obama has at last made a start at the much-needed reform of our financial markets. "Obama," writes Jeffrey Madrick, has "awakened to what economic self-interest really means, [and] he has at last made a start in financial re-regulation...The bill that will pass will make a difference. It just won't be nearly enough." Obama in March (Pete Souza / White House)

IN THE January Citizens United v. FEC decision, the Supreme Court ruled that most restrictions on corporate election spending are unconstitutional. By allowing markets to influence the political process, argues Daniel J.H. Greenwood, "we lose democracy. Moreover, we will lose our markets."

IN A land of many disputes, perhaps no piece of territory is as intensely contested as what Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims the Noble Sanctuary. But, writes Michael Walzer, "It turns out that even extreme political disagreements can yield, at least for a few moments, to the demands of historical scholarship."