United States Archives - Page 23 of 73

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The Perils and Promise of Collective Memory

Reflections on Imagination and Forgetting

December 7, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

“We should remember with caution, even as we must proceed boldly.” This is the way I have already tried to succinctly summarize my approach to “gray memory” earlier this year. I know that memory holds great promise, as Milan Kundera once put it: “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of ...

The Perils and Promise of Collective Memory

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Racism, Thomas Farr, and the Legacies of George H. W. Bush

Bush was no Trump, but he helped pave the way for Trump

December 5, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Late last week Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina declared that he will vote against President Trump’s nomination of Thomas Farr to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals, effectively killing the nomination in the Senate. Scott is the first African-American from South Carolina to ever serve in the ...

Racism, Thomas Farr, and the Legacies of George H. W. Bush

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What Will it Take to Save the Children of Yemen?

A march of backpacks against bombs

November 29, 2018 • by Jeremy Varon

I sifted through the children’s backpacks laid at the Isaiah Wall, across from the United Nations, looking for one labeled with the name of an 11 year-old boy. That’s the age of my son, and carrying it would help me feel closer to the lives we were mourning. I found ...

What Will it Take to Save the Children of Yemen?

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Making America Good Again

A few notes of thanks as Purple Wednesday closes a two-year run

November 21, 2018 • by Claire Potter

As I wrote that day, The message of The Poseidon Adventure was that we must not give in to despair, even in our darkest hour. In order to save our own lives, we must come to terms with, and fight back against, the new reality. The challenges faced by those on The Poseidon are ...

Democracy

Not from the Left, Nor from the Center – But From Below

By mobilizing at the grassroots, Democrats successfully outflanked the GOP by crafting resistance into a coherent agenda

November 20, 2018 • by Sidney Tarrow

But these were only the most visible -- and the most national -- expressions of a wave of movements. Much of the energy that produced the Democratic victories of November 2018 rose up beneath the radar of the national press. As Lara Putnam and Theda Skocpol wrote in a New Republic article ...

Not from the Left, Nor from the Center – But From Below

Democracy

Not Knowing What We’ve Got Til It’s Gone

We need to both defend liberal democratic norms and institutions and address their fault lines

November 14, 2018 • by Leo Casey

In my contribution to the Dissent Magazine discussion of the “Crisis of Democracy” which provided the inspiration for our reflections in this symposium, I put forward the argument that attacks on the citizenship rights of racialized ‘others’ are central to Trumpism and other variants of the populist authoritarianism of the far right that have taken ...

Not Knowing What We’ve Got Til It’s Gone

Democracy

The Crisis of Democracy is a Crisis of the Left

A capitalism transformed by a strong version of social democracy should be our political goal

November 13, 2018 • by Michael Walzer

It is a crisis for democracy when the left is weak and unable to mobilize its natural constituency. All I want to do today is to unpack that sentence. Why is this a crisis? Democracy requires some degree of equality, but capitalism and neo-liberal economic policies produce inequality: a steady pressure ...

The Crisis of Democracy is a Crisis of the Left

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The Blue Eraser

You can’t draw a blue wave with a red pencil

November 11, 2018 • by Peter Alexander Meyers

Picture five pencils. On a table. Two are red. Two are blue. One is green. Move one of each color to the center. Set two aside. First put the green with the red. Take a breath. Next put the green with the blue. Repeat this a dozen times. Two dozen. ...

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Civilization or Barbarism?

The American election results viewed from the radical center

November 9, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I voted! My vote was more a ritual offering to my political commitments, than a set of democratic decisions. It was as if I live in a one party state. I affirmed my support for the party. With my community, my friends and neighbors, my students and colleagues, and my family and loved ...

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A Few Quick Take-Aways

Reflecting on the 2018 midterm election

November 9, 2018 • by John Lawrence

A short blog on the election; it will take a little while to fully digest the results. But some results seem clear and important to note. Obviously, the major news of the day is the Democratic resurgence in the House, with Democrats winning back the majority they lost so spectacularly in ...

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Still Fighting Jim Crow in Georgia

Stacey Abrams is not just battling Brian Kemp, she is battling history

November 6, 2018 • by Robin Morris

In 1964, Clara Curtis worked as a poll watcher at her local Cobb County, Georgia precinct. She had been working to establish a Republican Party in a state where the Democratic party had a stranglehold on local and state politics. Curtis watched each voter drop a ballot into the wooden ...

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Why Americans Aren’t Always Free — To Vote

A Short History of Voter Suppression in the United States

November 2, 2018 • by Amanda Brickell Bellows

As the 2018 midterm election approaches, several states have passed new laws regulating voter identification, poll locations and hours of operation, and voter registration and eligibility. Advocates of these laws argue that such legislation is necessary to prevent voter fraud or simplify the voting process, while opponents contend that these laws restrict voter access and reduce turnout. Debates ...