The view from Seats 17 and 18, Row G, Main Section 26, down the left-field line at Yankee Stadium, is terrible. The left-fielder, when not obscured by the foul pole, is the only player who is easily recognizable. Everyone and …
The extraordinary thing about the Labour landslide on May 1 was that it was utterly predictable and utterly unexpected. Because Britain had been forced to retreat ignominiously from the exchange rate mechanism of the European Community in September 1992—devaluing the …
When Erica Jong’s hymn to Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared in the Nation last November, it was only the latest in a series of feminist tributes to the First Lady. In a March 1993 double salute to Mrs. Clinton and the …
Generating political action from private resources poses some sticky problems for the democratic left. We value grassroots political action—so we like the idea of electoral campaigns and other forms of politicking as populist, participatory activities. But we also deplore the …
If any left-wing points of view still reach the broad American public, it’s usually by some accident of mass culture. Bruce Springsteen rose to fame independently of his Guthrie-like sentiments for the poor and oppressed (the more they dominate his …
Laredo, Texas, the busiest land port between the United States and Mexico, offers an intimate view of the marriage between illegal narcotics and free trade. Along the Rio Grande, U.S. law enforcement officials refer to the North American Free Trade …
This spring, the senior administrators and faculty of Yale University are being called to the witness stand to answer federal charges that they illegally threatened graduate students engaged in a strike for union recognition. The trial, in a courtroom of …
There are three serious flaws in all the current proposals for campaign finance reform. First, none of them will redress the growing crisis of political representation that leaves most poor and working Americans without an adequate voice in the country’s …
Hillary Clinton is neither a saint nor a monster. Although I share Zelda Bronstein’s distaste for feminist sycophancy, I think she fails to grasp—amid all the disappointments—what is genuinely laudable about our First Lady. Blaming Hillary Clinton for “losing” the …
Democratic politics in my version of utopia looks different from Michael Walzer’s version in at least one way. When thousands of energetic citizens take part in a presidential or congressional campaign, they might help organize a rally, update a web …
It was a foregone conclusion that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) would become law. A majority in this country believe that gay marriage is wrong and demeaning to the institution of marriage, and our politicians do a reasonably good …
The curious, but essential, dimension of the Ralph Ellison literary myth is that he published only one novel, and that his entire authority as a writer and intellectual rests on this one work. The success of the book made Ellison …
ARRESTED VOICES: RESURRECTING THE DISAPPEARED WRITERS OF THE SOVIET REGIME, by Vitaly Shentalinsky. Translated by John Crowfoot. Martin Kessler Books, The Free Press, 1996. 322 pp. $25.00. Vitaly Shentalinsky is a Russian poet, journalist, and historian, now in his early …
Zelda Bronstein thinks I’ve been too easy on Hillary Rodham Clinton. Maybe that was so in 1992, when I published articles in Glamour and in the Nation that explored the extent to which criticism of HRC was motivated by sexism …
Are we all condemned to choose between Margaret Thatcher and Leonid Brezhnev? Is there a path that is neither Social Darwinism nor ideocratic bureaucracy? In some parts of the world, the third path seems to be the return to the …
