Between the Issues

As Michael Kazin, the Co-Editor of Dissent has recently pointed out in a Times Op Ed there has always been cultural a civil war in the United States In that Op-Edh he points to the Scopes Trial of 1925 as emblematic of that war, pitting a largely rural population of Biblical believers against “urban liberalism.”…

Decades ago, I read an article in The New York Review of Books that created a lasting impression. It was penned by the late, famed, Harvard biologist, Richard Lewontin. The piece began with Lewontin describing how he and the astronomer, Carl Sagan, had engaged in a debate with defenders of creationism in a large public…

The Budget Reform and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 had two goals: to prevent Richard Nixon from blocking the disbursement of appropriated funds, and to establish a budgeting process whereby Congress could assert long-term control over the relationship between government spending and taxation. The Act established Budget Committees, mandated annual budget resolutions, and created a…

Talking about the bloody absurdity of any war is depressing. Yet, there is no way to talk about politics in the Middle East without confronting the hideous and horrifying reality of the war. It looks like the wasting away of peace in this region of the world is accompanied by a sense of impending catastrophe.…

While I am not a historical determinist, I believe that history moves in ways that are broadly dialectical. Political currents that traverse one direction often change course and move in an opposite one, often eluding precise predictions. Mid-twentieth-century fascism reflected what was arguably the nadir of conduct in the entire career of humankind. Auschwitz was…

To start at the beginning, in which all of Trump’s hatreds are harnessed and become the deeply sick raison d’etre of Republicans everywhere. Here, nothing needs to be added: everything that has to be known about them was vouchsafed to us this week by the worthless specimen of cowardice Jodi Ernst, who should be in…

May 25th marked the hundredth anniversary of the Scopes Trial. On that day in 1925, a Tennessee science teacher, John Scopes, was indicted and convicted for teaching evolution. Recognizing that the issues that gave rise to the Trial remain stridently relevant today, I want to use this centenary occasion to take a deeper look. The…

The early days of Donald Trump’s presidency have featured a series of clashes with allies and other states. The first real squall between Trump and an ally was the notably ‘fiery’ dialogue with the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen regarding the acquisition / hostile takeover of Greenland, a contretemps that was described by senior European…

My Rationale for Paying Tribute to Leaders  Over the years, I have paid tribute in differing ways to national and global leaders. Even as I wrote about these leaders, I posed to myself the question why I dared write about people who were so important and well known that it did not need me to…

Like a dam bursting, it has finally happened: Donald Trump is called what he assuredly is – a fascist. The press has skirted around using the term to describe Trump, as it has danced around a robust depiction of Trump as a deranged, severely disturbed, mentally ill man. Donald Trump is a flagrant liar, a…