Contributions by:

Charles Noble

How Bush Won

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Is it really the case that, as the British tabloid the Daily Mirror famously put it, nearly 60 million Americans were simply too “dumb” to understand the implications of reelecting George W. Bush? It seems so. Even though few Americans had personally benefited from the regressive social and economic policies of the president’s first term,…

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What John Kerry Won’t Say About The “two Americas”

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Campaigning with a running mate who has made his lament about the existence of “two America’s” his political trademark, John Kerry promises to create real opportunities for ordinary Americans. But a careful reading of the 2004 platform suggests just how much further the Democratic Party has to go before it has a credible response to…

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The Never Ending War On The Welfare State

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Commenting on the administration’s decision to create a new drug benefit for seniors, one highly-respected liberal columnist recently observed that “political considerations seemed to be pushing George W. Bush further and further into the New Deal way of life.”[i] But Bush’s obvious ploy to pick up senior votes should be cold comfort to anyone who…

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Why Capitalism Needs The Left

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Capitalism is a marvelous thing, a wondrous machine that has carried human societies to previously unimagined wealth. No other economic system, no matter how lofty its ambitions, has come close. Capitalism has done what clerics and moral philosophers once thought impossible: turned our self-interest, even our greed, into the motor of social progress. Free markets,…

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Goodbye to all that? The Very Uncertain Future of the American Welfare State

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The American welfare state, at least in the form that we’ve known it since the New Deal, is under siege. Tax phobic voters, Tea Party governors, deficit “hawks” – all are trying to tear it down. All repeat the same mantra: “we” can no longer afford “out-of-control” entitlements spending. Worse, few Democrats seem willing to…

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