Katrina vanden Heuvel | The Nation
This Week: Tragedy in Connecticut. Plus: Michigan's Labor Battle
TRAGEDY IN CONNECTICUT. Yesterday’s horrifying school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut should lead us to seek serious and honest solutions to the raging epidemic of gun violence in this country. George Zornick writes how there have been sixteen mass shooting in the US in 2012, leaving eighty-eight people dead. The violence happened at a wide variety of different places—but what remains predictable is the frequency with which they happen. Find out more on three common sense gun laws that can’t pass Congress. And Lee Fang writes about the NRA and whether the gun lobby represents gun manufacturers or gun owners. “As we consider the potential for reform,” writes Fang, “one of the first questions we should ask this time is who does the gun lobby really represent?”
MICHIGAN’S LABOR FIGHT. Thousands protested this week after Michigan legislators passed the so-called “right-to-work” bill for public employees—anti-worker legislation that was funded by the same conservative lobbyists responsible for attempts to curtail labor rights in Wisconsin. Lee Fang reports how pro-“right-to-work” groups in Michigan—like the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity and the right-wing think tank The Mackinac Center—were behind the efforts, greatly outspending their union counterparts. As John Nichols observed in his blog, an attack on unions is an attack on democracy itself. “By making it harder for unions to organize and to represent workers, ‘right to work’ laws make it easier for corporations to get their political allies elected,” he writes. Find out how you can take action to fight back against the bill, which —according to the Economic Policy Institute—would not create jobs but reduce wages and benefits for all workers.
JOSH EIDELSON WINS SIDNEY AWARD. We were very pleased at Wednesday’s announcement from the Sidney Hillman Foundation that Josh Eidelson is this month’s Sidney Award Winner for his Nation reporting on the historic Walmart strikes. The Sidney recognizes outstanding pieces of investigative journalism that promote social and economic justice. Over the Black Friday weekend, Eidelson—a former Nation intern—liveblogged the demonstrations for over twenty hours, providing historical perspective and deep insight on the significance of the action on the ground. “Eidelson owned the Black Friday beat,” said Sidney judge Lindsay Beyerstein. “No one could match the depth, breadth and timeliness of his reporting.” Read an interview with him here, and take a look at his award-winning blog. And check back for more as he continues to cover Labor v. Walmart for The Nation.
The GOP's Absurd Fear of All Things UN
Editor’s Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
At least they had the decency to wait twenty-four hours.
Last Tuesday, following the international day honoring the disabled, thirty-eight Senate Republicans voted down the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. With former Senate majority leader and disabled WWII veteran Bob Dole silently beseeching them from his wheelchair, Dole’s fellow Republicans railed against “cumbersome regulations” that could threaten American “sovereignty.”
This Week: How to Save the Democratic Party. Plus: Clash in Cairo.
SAVING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. “American progressives and principled liberals need to face an essential truth,” writes L.R. Runner. “The Democratic Party, as now constituted, is no longer an agency for realizing their ideals.” Runner, a regular contributor writing under a pseudonym, opens this week’s forum on “How to Save the Democratic Party” and how to transform it into an organization capable of bringing about desperately needed progressive change. Joining the discussion, among others, are Congressman Keith Ellison, co-chair of the the Congressional Progressive Caucus; historian Michael Kazin; NAACP president and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous; and Councilman Brad Lander, co-chair of New York City’s Progressive Caucus. I hope you’ll take a look at Runner’s piece here and that you’ll join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook. And for more on the left media, the Democratic Party, and President Obama, take a look at Dylan Byers’s article for Politico featuring interviews with Nation voices like Chris Hayes and Ari Melber—and I talk to Byers about fighting for progressivism in the long-term.
CLASH IN CAIRO. Nation Institute fellow Sharif Abdel Kouddous reports from Egypt this week where thousands of supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsi battled around the presidential palace; seven people were killed and more than 670 were injured in the violence. Protests erupted over two weeks ago when President Morsi issued a constitutional decree that would place him above judicial oversight. “The decree united Morsi’s fractured non-Islamist opposition and sparked some of the largest street demonstrations in Egypt since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak,” writes Kouddous. Read Kouddous’s report here to find out more. And watch as he reports live from Cairo on Democracy Now! where he says protesters were using the same kind of language against Morsi as they had against Mubarak.
GUNS, VIOLENCE, & THE NFL. When Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher committed suicide after killing Kasandra Perkins last Saturday, Bob Costas drew fire for pointing to a problem of “gun culture” in the United States on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Our sports editor Dave Zirin published an interview with Costas asking him to respond to criticism that a sports show wasn’t the “right forum” for a discussion on guns. “I’d say close to 100 percent of those who feel that way do so simply because they disagree and didn’t want to hear the particular thing I had to say,” Costas told Zirin. Read that interview here, and also take a look at Zirin’s article on murder, suicide and the NFL. Jessica Valenti weighs in as well in her piece “Kasandra Perkins Did Not Have to Die,” arguing that the media made excuses for, even lauded, Jovan Belcher, hesitating to call what happened domestic violence. “When the media reports domestic violence murders as random tragedies—or when individuals say the perpetrator must have ‘snapped’—they enable a culture of violence against women,” writes Valenti.
Must-See Farmworker Video Takes on Food Industry Hypocrisy
This piece is cross-posted from Huffington Post.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the remarkable farmworker organization in Florida that I have written about many times over the years as they continue to win victory after victory in their Campaign for Fair Food, has done it again.
This time they have put together a must-see video that is mandatory watching this holiday season:
This Week: Labor v. Walmart. Plus: Fracking and Our Food
LABOR V. WALMART. As Walmart workers participated in an unprecedented strike wave against the retail giant last week, Josh Eidelson has been the go-to reporter for the most up-to-the-minute, in-depth coverage. If you missed his blog on Black Friday, take a look—Eidelson blogged in near real-time for over twenty hours, covering strikes on the ground and providing updates from around the country. He also was the first to report that Walmart clothing was manufactured at the site of the tragic factory fire in Bangladesh that killed 112 workers. Visit his blog for more, and be sure to read his latest piece on Walmart warehouse workers—and why they say Walmart is directly responsible for rampant wage theft.
FRACKING & OUR FOOD. This week’s cover story is an in-depth investigation by Elizabeth Royte on the disturbing effects of hydraulic fracturing on our food supply. In northern Pennsylvania, half a herd of 140 cattle died when exposed to fracking wastewater. “Cattle that die on the farm don’t make it into the nation’s food system,” writes Royte. “But herd mates that appear healthy, despite being exposed to the same compounds, do.” Royte follows North Dakota rancher Jacki Schilke, whose cows stopped producing milk for their calves, lost from sixty to eighty pounds in a week and had their tails mysteriously drop off after fracking began near her land. Schilke herself is in poor health and has been diagnosed with neurotoxic damage and constricted airways. For more on this, please take a look at Elizabeth Royte’s investigation, “What the Frack Is in Our Food?,” produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.
FALL BOOKS. Last week we were pleased to publish The Nation’s annual Fall Books special issue. On the fiftieth anniversary of William Faulkner’s death, novelist Joanna Scott writes about the Modern Library’s reissue of six volumes of his fiction. “Faulkner’s fiction contains, among its treasures, fury, laughter, tenderness, hatred, incongruity, ugliness and [beauty],” writes Scott. “Taken all together, it is a motley thing, ragged, unkempt and strange, and always stubbornly persistent in its artistry.” And Thomas Meaney considers the legacy of Lyndon Johnson in his essay on Robert Caro’s The Passage of Power—and how LBJ’s brilliance as a politician lay not in his idealism but in his opportunism. I hope you’ll take a look at our Fall Books issue for more from Robert Boyers on Louise Glück, Alexandra Schwartz on Zadie Smith, and Aaron Thier on Edward P. Jones.
Governor Cuomo's Choice
Democrats are still celebrating big Election Day victories, and not just in the White House. The party took back many state legislative seats seized by Tea Partiers in 2010, and added to majorities in already blue states. In California and Illinois, Democrats achieved legislative super-majorities, removing some of the last obstacles to enacting a progressive agenda in two of our largest states.
Progressives should also get to celebrate in New York State, another of the biggest and the bluest. After all, Democrats appeared to have won a narrow State Senate majority of either 32-31 or 33-30, pending recounts. Instead, individuals and factions within the Democratic ranks are threatening to caucus with Republicans in exchange for committee appointments and legislative pork, effectively keeping the GOP in charge despite the clear choice made by voters on Election Day.
Republicans in the State Senate have long been the main obstacle to progressive legislation, consistently stymieing the efforts of the State Assembly—to safeguard reproductive health, micro-stamp guns, to crack down on fracking, to hike the minimum wage. They’ve even been hostile to newer progressive elements of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s agenda, like his call for public financing of elections.
It's Time to End the War on Drugs
Editor’s Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
With his final election behind him, and the final attack ads safely off the air, President Obama now returns to his regularly scheduled programming—governing. Yet, the chatter about his second term agenda, from deficit reduction to immigration reform, ignores one critical issue: ending our nation’s inhumane, irrational—and ineffective—war on drugs.
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The Budget Deal We Deserve
Watch too much “mainstream” news, and you might think our choices are as cramped as our political debates. Partially restore our Clinton-era tax rates, or leave them be? Privatize Social Security, or just slash its benefits? Extreme austerity, or the “moderate” variety? In these debates, even short-term wins don’t stanch long-term losses. The discourse keeps shifting to the right, the money keeps flowing to the rich, and the poor keep bearing the burden.
Fortunately, there is an alternative.
While too many pundits and politicians insist we need an austere “Grand Bargain” to avert a “fiscal cliff,” the Congressional Progressive Caucus is laying out a fair bargain full of smart and humane approaches. The CPC’s “Deal for All,” first introduced as a congressional resolution in July, rests on four main planks: No benefit cuts for Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. “Serious revenue increases,” including higher income taxes on the rich and fewer loopholes for corporations. A plan to “significantly reduce” spending on defense. And investments that promote real growth.
This Week: Feminists for the Win. Plus: The Petraeus Legacy.
FEMINISTS FOR THE WIN. In this week’s issue, Jessica Valenti argues that not only are feminists winning the culture wars but media coverage during the election showed a widespread acceptance of “feminist outrage.” “All of the sudden, women’s anger at the attempted defunding of Planned Parenthood or a male politician’s comment about rape wasn’t the mark of bitter ‘man haters’; it was an understandable reaction from smart, engaged women.” Read more of Valenti’s analysis of this cultural shift in her piece, “Feminists for the Win.” While there are reasons for feminists to be optimistic, this week was also marked by tragedy in Ireland, where Savita Halapannavar died during a miscarriage after being denied what could have been a life-saving abortion. In her piece, “When ‘Pro-Life’ Kills,” Katha Pollitt notes that “if you think it couldn’t happen in the United States, you haven’t been paying attention.” Valenti writes powerfully about the message Savita’s death sends to women: “You are nothing.” Check out her take here, and find out what you can do to fight back. To get all the latest stories from The Nation’s feminist writers like Jessica Valenti, Katha Pollitt, Melissa Harris-Perry, Ilyse Hogue, Bryce Covert and others delivered straight to your inbox, I hope you’ll sign up for our weekly Feminist Roundup e-mail.
THE PETRAEUS LEGACY. On ABC’s This Week last Sunday, I argued that we should be paying less attention to the personal scandals of General Petraeus and more to his failed counterinsurgency programs and escalation of drone warfare. Jeremy Scahill reports that the scandal has revealed something much more significant—that the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command have battled to control the US’s growing global wars. “Petraeus, an instrumental player in this power struggle, leaves behind an agency that has strayed from intelligence to paramilitary-type activities.” Read more from Scahill in his piece, “The Petraeus Legacy: A Paramilitary CIA?”
LEE ATWATER & THE SOUTHERN STRATEGY. In a Nation exclusive, Rick Perlstein unveils a recording obtained by James Carter IV—the researcher who brought us the 47 percent video—that confirms Lee Atwater’s infamous 1981 interview about how Republicans win votes by appealing to racial anxieties. Instead of using blatantly racist language, Atwater talks about a strategy of coded racism that addresses issues like forced busing, states’ rights, and cutting taxes. You can listen to the full forty-two-minute interview with the Republican strategist here. And take a look at Al Sharpton’s interview with Carter on MSNBC for more on how the modern GOP continues to use Atwater’s strategy—perhaps to its detriment.
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