Most discussions, as the present, contain the unexpressed assumption that everyone wishes to avoid the disasters that extreme climate change will cause. Note, I wrote "extreme" climate change, because many of us realize that under the best of circumstances we shall have changes that will cause droughts, flooding, much suffering. Whether we have already passed the point of no return on extreme change seems to be unanswerable.

Most on the left assume, I think, that the delays and excuses for not having done anything serious about the fact of global warming come from greed and ignorance. Certainly, among our corporate rulers those qualities are well represented. Their are others, I believe, who are well informed and who do believe that disasters of drought, flooding, famine, disease are coming and will be evident in a decade and pronounced in a few decades.

With the great threat in prospect, how can there be so much complacency among the ruling elite of our country? I don't think it is complacency. Years ago, an executive of one of our large chemical manufacturers told me, his tongue loosened by several martinis, that environmental pollution is not important because most of us live too long and don't know what to do in our old age. I think the same attitude prevails about climate disaster: there are already far too many people on the planet, and disasters, famine, disease that would kill a billion people would not be a bad thing.

I think that among the corporate elite, the American ruling class, the failure to deal with global climate change realistically does not come from disbelief. I think they believe it but do not find the consequences unacceptable because they believe that there are too many people anyway.

In the disasters to come, major portions of the earth's human (and animal) population will die. The well-informed in the ruling class have a view today that is parallel to that of the exec I mentioned: the earth's population is too great.

I called this sort of thinking "Realwirtschaft." It is a companion to Realpolitik, which drives our imperialists. They go hand in hand and are the real underpinnings of our government's policies, towards global warming and global hegemony.

Alvin D. Hofer

St. Petersburg, FL

If Kristin Rizga surmises that youth organizers feel as though "they're sitting on a bus that's out of service" for the lack of attention on youth organizing following the Obama election, even more youth organizers feel as though they aren't even on the bus, despite their years of blood, sweat and tears. While we are proud of the work of the organizations highlighted in Rizga's article, to write an article on the state of youth organizing without including the work of youth organizers of high school age and younger from poor communities doing some of the most phenomenal work in racial, environmental and educational justice is to continue to overlook, overshadow and further marginalize the most affected communities and thus the most transformational leaders for our country's future.

Yes, the Obama election highlighted the power of young people to organize, but the attention paid to youth organizing around the election privileged college campus-based organizing. Local organizing groups working with low-income youth of color have been organizing for presidential elections and then some. For example, Youth United for Community Action's (YUCA) black and Latino youth organizers, all in middle and high school, fought a twenty-year battle to help shut down Romic Environmental Technologies Corporation, a facility that recycled hazardous waste in East Palo Alto, California. FIERCE has been organizing LGBTQ youth, predominantly of color, in and out of high school in New York City, and was recently appointed to the Mayoral Commission for LGBTQ Runaway and Homeless youth--a major coup.

While the mainstream began to wake up to the political power of young people as a result of the 2008 presidential campaign, organizations like these have been fostering the leadership of young people in effecting positive community change for a very long time. I am disappointed that Rizga's article and the entire Special Youth Issue continues to sideline these powerful youth organizing groups.

Supriya Pillai
Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing

Brooklyn, NY

I simply could not bring myself to read this entire article. I was interested in it because I had just finished Outliers. I actually enjoyed Outliers. I thought the concepts were simple but not obvious. However, I was dismayed that Gladwell did not seem to find any women who were Outliers. Except a mention of his family that he stuck into the epilogue. I am looking forward to the sequel to this book, Outliers, Women's Edition.

Coleen Martinez

Houston, TX

I am an assistant professor of economics and environmental studies at Amherst College. Ten years ago, I marched in the streets of Seattle, peacefully protesting the WTO. I was 23. I was amazed and inspired by the outpouring of solidarity in support of social justice and a fair system of global trade. Now many of the same groups and people are gearing up for a lively fight at the UN Climate Meetings in Copenhagen. According to Naomi Klein, Copenhagen will be a "coming of age" party for the global justice movement born in Seattle. If the Seattle activists truly wish to come of age, then we should shape rather than shut down market-based solutions to climate change.

Klein rejects "market-based solutions" because she sees them as extensions of the same free-market principles that got us into the climate mess. Many others take the same view. The recent letter by social and environmental groups meeting in Belém (October 15) summarizes a prevailing view: "We reject the use of market-based mechanisms as tools to reduce carbon emissions based on the firm conviction that the market cannot be expected to take responsibility for life on the planet."

Is the free market to blame for the current climate crisis? Absolutely. You may hear spokespeople with a vested interest in the current system (or students who drop out after week five of introductory economics) claim that markets always result in the efficient allocation of resources. Obviously, this isn’t true. When a trade between a buyer and seller also harms others, markets fail because the price of the trade does not include the external damage it causes. This failure is at the heart of the climate crisis. The price of gas doesn’t account for the climate damage your driving will cause. The price of hamburgers doesn't account for clearing rainforests to plant soybeans needed to factory-farm livestock. Switching on the lights is cheap because coal producers don’t have to pay for their emissions. Why don't the prices of these everyday choices reflect their true costs? One simple reason: carbon emissions are free.

The activists inspired by Seattle and converging on Copenhagen can surely agree that pollution should not be free. If so, they should embrace market-based solutions, such as cap and trade. Even though they contain the word "market," these programs are not business as usual. They are an environmental regulation. A "cap" limits the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. The stricter the cap, the fewer emissions and the less damage we'll do to the planet.

What about the "trading" part? Trading sounds suspiciously like something that will benefit Goldman Sachs. Of course, we are not against trading at the local farmer's market--so maybe not all trades are bad. Let's think about trading carbon. From an environmental perspective, it doesn't matter where emissions happen because greenhouse gases mix throughout our atmosphere. So a power plant in Ohio requiring an expensive retrofit could buy permits from a power plant in Indiana that can make additional cuts more cheaply. With trading, we get the same reductions at lower cost. We also create incentives for firms to do the right thing and develop new technologies.

Cleaning up the planet requires that we find better ways to produce agriculture, energy and nearly every necessity of life. Right now climate-friendly alternatives are more expensive. Expensive energy and food may seem virtuous to activists, but the families hurt most by these higher prices are those who spend the highest share of their incomes on basic necessities. Aren't those the families we're supposed to be helping?

Although a cap-and-trade system can reduce the overall cost of cleaning up the planet, not all proposed solutions are equally fair. The initial allocation of permits matters--not for the overall bill--but for who pays more of it. Activists would advance social justice by demanding that governments auction off permits instead of giving them away. This would produce tax revenue for social goods like healthcare, green technology development or assistance to low-income families coping with higher energy prices. Rather than mobilize against market-based solutions, we should take advantage of them and also demand that the costs of cleaning up the planet do not fall on poor households or poor countries.

Seattle made global trade negotiations more transparent by focusing the world's attention on trade negotiations that favored developed countries. Activists in Copenhagen can further social justice by fighting for just and transparent allocation of emission permits. That would truly be a mature coming-out party for a movement that changed the world once in Seattle and could do so again. If I were in Copenhagen this December, I'd carry two banners: "Stop Free Pollution" and "Permits to the People."

Kate Emans Sims

Amherst, MA

I agree with Pollitt's basic thesis, but I disagree with her characterization of Howard Dean's efforts.

First, Stupak predates Dean's appearance on the national scene, much less his becoming head of the DNC, and second, Dean was not aggressively recruiting Democrats of the Neanderthal persuasion, that was Rahm Emanuel, who recruited people like Heath Shuler, and aggressively campaigned against antiwar Dem Christine Cegilis and for prowar (and eventual loser) Tammy Duckworth.

Why is Pollitt calling out Howard Dean, who simply looked for candidates, rather than Rahm, who aggressively worked to put forward right-wing candidates?

Matthew G. Saroff

Owings Mills, MD

The November 16, 2009, Newsweek cover asks "How we could have won in Vietnam." This ignores the reality--we did win in Vietnam. Let's review the facts. When America invaded Vietnam, the country was divided between North and South and engaged in a bloody civil war. The government of South Vietnam was a corrupt aristocracy and the government of North Vietnam was an armed Communist regime. Since the US withdrew in 1974, what has happened? Vietnam is now a united country that has enjoyed thirty-five years of peace. It has a fairly competent, honest government. The standard of living is much higher and Vietnam is now a favored trading party of the US. It poses no threat to any country. Russian-style communism collapsed and no dominoes fell.

What would have happened if we had succeeded in keeping the country divided? Probably Vietnam would resemble Korea. Korea is still a divided country. The US has thousands of troops stationed there at considerable cost. North Korea poses a threat to its neighbors and the US. North Koreans live in abject fear and poverty.

So which outcome constitutes "winning": a peaceful, prosperous Vietnam or a divided, armed and dangerous Korea?

The lesson for Afghanistan is to declare victory, hold a ticker-tape parade, and get out. Let the Afghans settle their civil war themselves. Maybe thirty-five years of peace will do for them what fifty-plus years of winning did not do for Korea.

Alyce J. Bowers

Ridgway, PA

Hayes is right, and Frier and Casey are right too. The public is frustrated; their voices were clear in the last election, but little has changed. Our political system must incorporate the accountability and decisiveness that are essentials for modern management. What corporation, non-profit, or other institution has two boards of directors? What other institution requires a super-majority for every decision?

I don't expect we'll eliminate the Senate until the world changes. But a president, using the bully pulpit, could campaign against the filibuster and perhaps even lead his party to change the Senate rules to eliminate it. This is exactly the kind of imaginative "change" the voters thought they were getting from the outsider Obama, and the reason for their disappointment in him.

Would a modern organization allow five committees to propose conflicting versions of a major policy initiative? No, it would create a single committee (a "project team") to produce a reasonable proposal. President Obama should have asked Congress to appoint a Joint Select Committee to develop a healthcare proposal for both Senate and House to consider, and it would have been done in ninety days.

Our president is going to have to directly manage Congress for productivity if our nation is to make any progress against modern problems like unemployment and climate change. "Productivity" is doing the people's business in a way the majority of people want it done. At present, Congress is an extremely low-productivity, low-accountability institution--that has to change.

Vince Slupski

Seattle, WA

The problem with the filibuster as practiced today is simply that it isn't.

The mere threat of a filibuster is enough to cause capitulation.

Make them actually filibuster, let CSPAN and the twenty-four-hour news report that this or that Senator stood in front of the microphone reading the Bible aloud in order to stop the majority from voting. Let their constituents then decide if this is something that want in a representative, or if, perhaps, they need someone who will vote yes, or no or abstain, but let other voices be heard.

Right now it costs nothing to obstruct legislation. How many senators would be willing to risk their positions and visibly prove to the voters just how important insurance company profits really are to them?

Patrick RichardsFink

St. Cloud, MN

Respectfully, praising the Senate as the "world's greatest deliberative body" and calling for the banishment of the filibuster are incompatible. The Senate is deliberative precisely because its rules call for the ability of a principled minority to obstruct a narrow majority. The intent behind the extra-constitutional filibuster is to prevent a transient and narrow majority from writing sweeping legislation that forever alters the fabric of our country.

If the country truly needs "social democratic reform," it is up to the Democrats to prove this to the public, and make the "obstructionist" GOP pay the political price. Given that the dials are moving largely in the GOP's direction, I think their attempts to pass a radical restructuring of the healthcare sector on a narrow majority are actually anti-democratic.

The filibuster, and the deliberative nature of the US democratic process as a whole, are designed to make sure that there are true mandates for change, and not a capricious and willy-nilly rule by latest fad.

Matthew Calvey

Boston, MA

I assume that the lack of clarity in this article is intentional: some sort of meta commentary that says "writing about Gladwell is so convoluted that in writing about writing about Gladwell I have no choice but to make my writing extra muddy." This is a shame, because when you tease out the author's points, she is correct on every one. To wit:

1) Yes, Gladwell does aim for the shallow and facile thesis, ideally one that "surprises" anybody who has never given the issue more than ten minutes of thought.

2) Because his conclusions are so shallow, Gladwell has no problem gleefully contradicting himself down the road.

3) Conclusions drawn from limited data, or from anecdotal evidence, no matter how well written, are often wrong.

4) Clever packaging is more important than quality content, whether you are selling books or toothpaste or securitized mortgages.

I just wish that Ms. Tkacik had made these points in a more straightforward and robust fashion, although I do love the way she turns a phrase: "Which is to say, every time Gladwell begins to close in on a conclusion of real meaning or intellectual impact, he clicks his heels and returns to the mental Melrose Place of quippy clichés," for example, is brilliant.

Here is a blog entry that further takes Gladwell to task.

Steve Crane

thoughtbasket.com
San Francisco, CA

I have to agree with Vincent Sheffer's letter. I haven't read any of Gladwell's work, and after reading this review, I may not bother, but even if Gladwell is peddling yet another brand of anti-intellectualism, he is saying something that people need to hear: we are not each of us utterly self-made. The fantasy Marlboro Man mystique in the US does incalculable damage to our society, our economy and our democracy. Far too many people believe that their success or failure in life is due solely to their own efforts and decisions, and that any set of circumstances can be overcome on the way to the top. That this is obviously not the case to me or Vincent Sheffer or the author does not mean it is obviously not the case to a great many people who buy into the conservative mythology, almost universally to their own detriment. People need to cut themselves some slack for their failures and stop hero-worshipping CEOs.

Jason Spicer

Washougal, WA

I'd like to thank Sharon Lerner for her thoughtful piece on women's reproductive health issues in healthcare reform. Ms. Lerner underscores the very important point that women's preventive healthcare coverage is in everyone's best interests. It prevents infertility, cancer and abortions. More than 90 percent of the care that Planned Parenthood health clinics provide every day is primary and preventive, including wellness exams, cancer screenings, immunizations, contraception and STD testing and treatment.

Unfortunately, the process of crafting a healthcare reform package has provided a platform for single-issue advocates to advance their extreme, ideological agenda at the expense of tens of millions of women. As Lerner points out in her piece, there are lawmakers who treat birth control and other basic women's health services as a proxy for advancing their views on abortion.

Ms. Lerner's article provided an incomplete view of Minnesota Senator Franken's position on women's health and national reform. Remember, Senator Franken, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee (HELP), wasn't added to the committee until after it finished work on its healthcare reform bill. Since his arrival in the Senate, he has been a champion for women's reproductive healthcare. Senator Franken is actively working to strengthen the women's health provisions of the Senate's health reform bill by supporting Senator Mikulski's women's health amendment and engaging in ongoing discussion with local and national women's health advocates. At the October 15 hearing of the HELP Committee, Senator Franken was the only senator to clearly state that a reformed health system must include access to affordable family planning services.

Senator Franken is an unwavering ally of the women's health community. In his short time in the Senate, he has been a strong voice for women's issues. He has championed the Jamie Leigh Jones amendment to ensure that victims of sexual assault and rape have their day in court, and that no federal funds would go to companies who require arbitration in cases of rape and sexual assault. He's introduced the "Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act" to address the backlog of rape kits, which is estimated to be as high as 500,000.

Senator Franken has stated that women's health is fundamental to our nation's health. His words and actions make it clear that women's healthcare must include access to contraception and safe abortion services.

Sarah Stoesz
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota

Minneapolis, MN

As a woman who relies on fertility awareness and barrier methods to avoid pregnancy, I'm always wary of how "birth control" in political discourse often actually means "hormonal contraception."

I think it would be great if birth control were provided at no cost to the consumer. All methods of birth control, including OTC methods such as condoms and sponges. Including classes on fertility awareness. And including prescribed barriers such as diaphragms and caps.

The language of the article, which exclusively associates birth control with doctor's visits, implies that only common prescription methods (pill, patch, ring, shot and Mirena) are counted as birth control. If such language made it into a national health bill, women who chose hormonal methods would get their birth control paid for entirely by the goverment. Women who chose barrier methods or fertility awareness would bear the entire cost themselves.

Hormonal methods, while the best option for many women, are over-hyped. Institutionalizing such methods as "best for everyone" by making taxpayers cover the entire cost--but leaving women 100 percent responsible for cost if they choose any other method--is an idea I oppose.

Virginia Brock

Rock Island, IL

We've just had the Fort Hood psychiatrist shootings. We've heard that seventy-five suicides have happened at Fort Hood in the recent past. We know that suicides happen as an alternative to war-zone duty. Does Kilcullen have a ready list of his age group to be the soldiers in this Long War?

My 9-year-old grandson won't be given up to the death lists that run in New York Times and other chroniclers of the lost-to-war. When he's 19 in ten years, I won't let him go. I'll be of the same mind as the Russian mothers who went to Chechnya when that conflict broke loose sometime in the early 1990s.

I and other grandmothers and mothers will say "no" to turning children over as canon fodder. Mr. Kilcullen must make available his list of old-timers who want to go and trudge and suffer mentally and physically, kill and be killed.

Even then--what's the point of so much destruction? I think he lives apart from the reality that every human being is loved by someone.

I'll stop now. I could continue.

Lynn Chong

Sanbornton, NH

It is significant that the filibuster is a Senate tradition, a rule, and not a requirement of the Constitution itself. Even the aristocratic-minded founding fathers, who used "democracy" in a perjoritive sense and constructed a system of checks and balances precisely in order to frustrate the "majority faction"--the mob--stipulated only a limited number of issues requiring a super-majority vote in the Senate. These include ratification of treaties, impeachment of a president, confirmation of judicial nominees and approval of constitutional amendments to send to the states.

The last of these is significant, because without meaning to, the Senate, by its promiscuous use of the filibuster in recent years, has effectively adopted a constitutional amendment on its own that institutionalizes minority rule.

John C. Calhoun would cheer. It was his idea, after all, just before the nation broke apart in civil war, that our federal union could persist only so long as each region of the country was given what amounted to an absolute veto on legislation that offended it. He called this his theory of "concurrent majorities" and he offered it as a way for the Southern slave states to effectively maintain both their social system based on human bondage and their control of the national government--powers they enjoyed since the founding, even as they were slipping away as the North grew in wealth and power and numbers.

History repeats itself. Because the filibuster is a Senate rule this deliberative body has adopted for itself, it is the product of a particular institutional culture that may have already passed away--a tradition of civility, collegiality and comity in which inter-party rivalry was tempered by loyalty to the deliberative nature of the institution itself. In this culture, the filibuster would be seen as the last resort of a minority party protecting itself against the encroachments of a majority into its established rights.

But the filibuster is a time bomb waiting to detonate in a political environment as partisan and polarized as ours, when senators of one party are actually prohibited, and severely punished by their base, for cooperating on any matter with colleagues on the other side. That is a reflection of the fact that the GOP is now a social protest movement led not by political leaders but by cultural figures like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, who must follow the mob if they hope to have any influence at all.

The filibuster as it stands today is a recipe for permanent institutional gridlock, for growing impatience and frustration and disillusionment by the public with our democratic process, and in times of crisis an invitation for a desperate public to turn to more extreme parties and demagogues perfectly willing to dispense with democratic niceties in exchange for "getting things done."

Perhaps this radicalization of our democracy has been the hidden strategy of our obstructionist and authoritarian-minded conservatives all along.

Ted Frier

Boston, MA