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&rsq uo;s column here.
For Americans who understand the importance of a cooperative US-Russia relationship, 2012 was a disturbing year. The attempted “reset” in relations—launched by the Obama administration in 2009—proved a failure, as Washington continued to develop unneeded missile defense installations near Russia’s border, Russia passed legislation imperiling the status of US-funded nongovernmental organizations working in the country and the bloody civil wars in Libya and Syria created new misunderstandings and diplomatic vitriol between Moscow and Washington.
Until now, very few US observers have had the foresight to warn of what we may now be witnessing—the onset of a new Cold War. My husband, Stephen F. Cohen, is one of the few: In articles in The Nation since the 1990s—see more recently his March 2012 article, “America’s Failed Bipartisan Russia Policy,” and his 2010 paperback, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives—he has repeatedly warned that unless US policy toward post-Soviet Russia changed, we risked plunging into a new Cold War.
That possibility emerged clearly last month when, in the space of a few weeks, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin both signed punitive bills into law: the United States’ Magnitsky Act and Russia’s adoption ban, or “Dima’s Law.” Both leaders signed with reluctance, but neither president proved willing to defy nearly unanimous legislatures bent on passing unwise legislation. As Russia experts Vladimir Sobell, Edward Lozansky and Cohen warned at TheNation.com, “The ‘Magnitsky Act’ violates the rule of law, contradicts American values and undermines US national security.” Framed by its supporters as a human rights bill that would punish officials implicated in the prison death of a Russian attorney, the law is actually more sweeping, a requirement that the executive branch punish individual Russians based on unproven allegations, without any due process.
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.
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.
The Perils of Pauline melodrama over the “fiscal cliff” will drag on as Washington heads toward another “debt ceiling” faceoff that will climax over the next eight weeks or so.
This farce captivates the media, but no one should be fooled. This is largely a debate about how much damage will be done to the economic recovery and who will bear the pain. There is bipartisan consensus that the tax hikes and spending cuts that Congress and the White House piled up to build the so-called fiscal cliff are too painful and will drive the economy into a recession. So the folderol is about what mix of taxes and spending cuts they can agree on that won’t be as harsh.
Largely missing is any discussion of how to fix the economy, to make it work for working people once more. Just sustaining the faltering recovery won’t get it done. We’re still struggling with mass unemployment, declining wages and worsening inequality. Corporate profits now capture an all-time record percentage of the economy; workers’ wages have hit an all-time low. A little constriction, or a lot, won’t do anything to change that reality.
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.
As 2012 draws to a close, there is a renewed urgency of our work here at The Nation as we face pressing issues like gun control legislation in the horrific aftermath of Sandy Hook and the negotiations in Washington over the so-called “fiscal cliff.” But first I want to thank you for your past support. Whether you read The Nation in print, on an e-reader or online for free, we still depend on extra donations to reach 500,000 readers every week. Your support—an act of solidarity—keeps the lights on, the presses running and reporters in the field.
Last month, we launched The Nation Builders, a new and improved version of our highly valued Nation Associates program, which provides 20 percent of the magazine’s revenue each year, enabling our brand of principled, intelligent, truth-telling journalism to thrive.
The Nation Builders is a community for Nation reader-activists committed to supporting our journalism, promoting our message and advancing the progressive agenda. This is a community that connects our valued supporters with vital reporting, new ways to network with one another, and activist tools to bring about real change.
The extraordinary expense of producing a host of groundbreaking, influential stories in 2012 has left our coffers badly depleted. Stories like the secret audio recording of a stop-and-frisk action in New York City from Ross Tuttle and Erin Schneider; Brentin Mock’s in-depth reporting for our Voting Rights Watch 2012 collaboration with Colorlines magazine; and Lee Fang’s work on money and politics, exposing that Paul Ryan requested the very Affordable Care Act funds he publicly denounced. And we have a remarkable band of feminist writers—covering the war on women this year were Katha Pollitt, Jessica Valenti, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Bryce Covert among many others.
I’ve come to believe that The Nation is not just a magazine or a website or a spirited community of readers. One must keep an eye on the long term and build institutions that can bend the arc of history toward justice, offer ideas that will become the seedbed for change, cover the individuals and movements working to improve people’s lives, and report on the dissidents, troublemakers and other freethinkers challenging the status quo. Our own annual Progressive Honor Roll, now in its eighth year, salutes those who have brought about real change during the past year—from those in Congress and state legislatures to activist movements and the media.
In these times of exciting possibility, The Nation needs your support—at whatever level you can—to keep us strong and ensure that independent voices and ideas are heard and have an impact. Show your support for The Nation Builders—and for this journalism—by making a year-end contribution today so we can cover the critical stories of the coming year.
Thank you for all you do to make this a stronger Nation—and a more just nation.
AFTER NEWTOWN. Our editorial in this week’s issue calls on Congress to pass legislation banning assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. “Gun control advocates should not be intimidated: the political winds at their back are strong,” we write. But with no political will to ban the sale of handguns, we argue that its time to broaden the fight—and target those who profit from guns. George Zornick reports how Walmart, the top seller of firearms and ammunition nationwide, helped make the Newtown shooter’s AR-15 the most popular assault weapon in the country. Just as his story was going to press, Walmart pulled the weapon from its website. But don’t be fooled—as Zornick reports, the move is a public relations one: the retail giant never directly sold the AR-15 on its website, and it’s still on the shelves in about 1,700 stores nationwide. Click here for more on five assault weapons you can pick up at Walmart. And take a look at a clip of George Zornick talking to MSNBC’s Tamron Hall about his investigation.
Also this week, Lee Fang asks who the NRA really represents: gun manufacturers or gun owners? “In reality, the NRA is composed of half a dozen legal entities; some designed to run undisclosed attack ads in political campaigns, others to lobby and collect tens of millions of undisclosed, tax-deductible sums,” writes Fang. Find out more on how corporations who profit from unregulated guns are funding the NRA. And take a look at Todd Gitlin’s piece on the “unbearable elasticity of gun logic” and how for the gun lobby, Newtown was evidence that more guns are necessary.
PROGRESSIVE HONOR ROLL. We’re happy to unveil this year’s annual Most Valuable Progressives Honor Roll list from Washington correspondent John Nichols. From Bernie Sanders to Boots Riley, we celebrate nineteen activists, movements and politicians. Find out Nichols’s take on most valuable media moment, book, and music—and why he chose “Legalize it!” to be the most valuable big idea. Read about the courageous work of progressives like Senator Jeff Merkley, Governor Peter Shumlin, Esther Armah, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Voces de la Frontera and more here. “After a long election season and a hopeful outcome, there is still work to be done,” writes Nichols. “Here are some of the Americans doing it.”
THE GREAT WALMART WALKOUT. A new labor campaign against Walmart faces daunting odds—do workers have a chance at taking on the retail giant? Josh Eidelson, whose reporting on the Black Friday strikes won this month’s Sidney Award, reports on OUR Walmart, an organization of Walmart workers demanding respect, affordable healthcare, and a living wage. While it would take years for workers to be able to yield significant power, Eidelson notes that “in an era when organized labor is on the ropes, and when most victories are defensive or only partial, they’re making labor’s chief antagonist sweat.” Find out more from Eidelson on how strikes are still an effective way to organize—and what the Black Friday strikes mean for the future of the movement.
PROGRAMMING NOTE. On Sunday, I’ll be joining Cory Booker, Grover Norquist and others on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Tune is as we discuss the Newtown tragedy and the so-called “fiscal cliff.” Check local listings for time and channel.
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Editor’s Note: The New York Times reports today that President Obama plans to nominate Senator John Kerry as secretary of state. Here are some key questions he should be asked at his confirmation hearing.
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.
The nomination of a secretary of state gives the Senate the opportunity to probe the administration’s foreign policy priorities—and many of President Obama’s policies demand inquiry. Republicans like Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who have disgracefully sniped at UN Ambassador Susan Rice, have expressed few coherent reservations about our current course. Instead, it will be incumbent on Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—particularly Barbara Boxer (CA), Bob Casey (PA) and Tom Udall (NM)—to lead a responsible review.
Here are only a few of the questions that senators could ask the nominee.
● Presidential war making: Are there any limits to the president’s war powers in the so-called war on terror? Contrary to expectations, President Obama has broadened George W. Bush’s view that the congressional resolution authorizing pursuit of Al Qaeda after 9/11 gives the president the right to attack any suspect group in any country of the world for as long as there are terrorists—or essentially forever. That prerogative is said to include the power to identify, target and kill anyone—including US citizens—the president decides poses a terrorist threat to the United States.
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.
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.
ENDING THE WAR ON DRUGS. I hope you’ll take a look at this Video Nation interview featuring Eugene Jarecki, director of The House I Live In. “I can’t underscore just how disastrous this drug war has been,” says Jarecki. After forty years, a trillion dollars, and 45 million drug arrests, it’s time for a change. Watch Jarecki explain how to end the war on drugs—and how we need to start talking about drugs and addiction as a public health matter and not a criminal justice issue. For more, take a look at Jarecki’s Nation article, “Voting Out the Drug War.”
NATION INTERNS. On Tuesday Nation Research Director Kate Murphy took our 2012 Fall interns to an early-morning Democracy Now! taping. “It was a great glimpse at how an independent television news program operates,” said intern Stefan Fergus. “After the show, Amy Goodman came out to speak with us, and we discussed our impressions of the media and the mission of DN!.” And they even got a shout-out on the air. After panning to our interns in the green room, Goodman remarked, “Speaking of Nation interns, last night on the plane back from Oslo, Norway, covering the Nobel Peace Prize, I was on the plane with the British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who was representing Britain at the Nobel Peace Prize. I asked him ‘How does being an intern at The Nation‘—which he was—‘prepare you for being the deputy prime minister of Britain?’ ” Watch that episode for more. For information on The Nation’s internship program click here—and take a look at the some of the great work of former Nation interns.
SCOTT SHERMAN & THE NYPL. Scott Sherman’s reporting on the New York Public Library and its Central Library Plan had a huge impact this year as opposition to the controversial plan intensified. This week the Design Observer Group’s “Lunch With the Critics” bestowed upon Sherman the Blue Ribbon for Public Advocacy for “leading the charge to hold the New York Public Library accountable for its renovation plans.” Read Scott Sherman’s investigation here.
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.”
No matter that Democratic Senator John Kerry patiently and eloquently explained that the treaty would in no way impact US law but merely encourage other countries to adopt our own standards and make life easier for disabled Americans abroad. Or that the treaty—signed by 154 countries and ratified by 126—was modeled on the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act, a billchampioned by Dole and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. Or that the treaty itself was drawn up by that notorious UN-hugger George W. Bush. Or even that eight Republican senators voted to ratify it, including increasingly rabid Obama foreign policy critic John McCain, who listed two dozen supportive veterans organizations before noting that the treaty was about “American leadership in the world.”
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.
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.
PROGRESSIVES PUSH CUOMO. The Wall Street Journal took note of my blog from last week, in which I called for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to push for a Democratic majority in the State Senate. “Liberal critics such as the Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel and MSNBC host Chris Hayes have warned that Cuomo’s neutrality could hurt campaign finance reform, marijuana decriminalization and an effort to raise the state minimum wage.” Read my piece here, and take a look at Chris Hayes’s critique of the governor—and what’s at stake for progressive reform in New York.
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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:
Here's an extended excerpt from the CIW's website in which they explain their reasons for putting this remarkable video together:
The holiday season is upon us, which means it's time again to gather around the table with loved ones to celebrate another year of life together, of new beginnings and old friends, of triumphs and of the challenges ahead.
The holiday table unites us, and reminds us that—no matter how high, or low, our day to day lives may take us—in the end, we always make our way back to those whom we love the most, and when we are with them, the world feels right.
Love is the essence of the holidays. Love for our parents and their parents, love for our children and their children. Love for our friends, and love for all men and women with whom we share this fragile world. The holiday table reminds us that, in the end, we are all family, and that we can only truly enjoy the bounties that life gives us if we all enjoy them together, as one.
No one knows this better than Publix. Its holiday commercials are a tour de force in touching that place deep inside each of us that loves not just our families and friends, but our fellow man, too, regardless of the divisions that may separate us in our daily lives. Publix commercials never fail to remind us just how much we have to be thankful for, and how powerful an emotion our love can truly be.
But love without goodwill is an empty emotion. And, sadly, the holiday season has become an annual reminder that Publix—a company founded by a man, George Jenkins, who famously said the words "Don't let making a profit stand in the way of doing the right thing"—is a company that has lost its way. Like any family, the families who own and run Publix gather around their holiday tables and reflect on their joys and struggles. For the families who run Publix, among those joys, year after year, are soaring profits. Yet they inexplicably continue to turn their backs on the farmworkers who make those profits possible.
Despite the tremendous strides made by the Fair Food Program in recent years—progress made possible thanks to tens of thousands of consumers, dozens of Florida tomato growers, and eleven multi-billion dollar food corporations that have joined farmworkers at the Fair Food table—Publix refuses to do its part to help farmworkers live a dignified life for the backbreaking, essential work they do day in and day out. In the words of the CIW's Lucas Benitez, "Publix doesn't want us at the table. They want us under the table."
No matter what your faith or philosophy, the holiday season is a time to remember that no one was born into this world to suffer, and that, in some real way, the suffering of one diminishes us all. This year, let's remind Publix of the true meaning of love, a love that goes beyond the bottom line and embraces all the people that make up Publix's extended family, including the farmworkers that put food on their shelves and the consumers who ask their favorite grocery store to make that food Fair Food.
To do so, you can click here to sign a Change.org petition to Publix today. Ask Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw to ensure that his company "be part of a proven model to address the root cause of farmworker poverty across Florida, and demonstrate that it values the hard work of farmworkers who make possible the food we share this holiday."
The CIW frames the video in terms of its ongoing campaign to bring Florida's wealthiest company, Publix (a Fortune 500 member with over $25 billion in revenue last year), into the Fair Food Program. But Publix is hardly alone in turning its back on what has developed into the most exciting progress for farmworkers in over a generation. In fact, the vast majority of supermarket companies—including Kroger, Stop & Shop, Giant, and Safeway—have refused to join the program, continuing to choose profits over the people whose backbreaking, undervalued labor makes their profits possible.
The Fair Food Program is a groundbreaking partnership among farmworkers, growers, retail purchasers, and consumers in which participating buyers agree to: 1) pay a penny more per pound for Florida tomatoes to improve farmworkers' sub-poverty wages and 2) to only buy from growers who comply with the CIW's Fair Food Code of Conduct. Through a twelve-year long campaign, the CIW has successfully convinced eleven multi-billion dollar retail food corporations—including fast-food giants McDonald's, Burger King and Subway and grocery chains Whole Foods and Trader Joe's—to join the program. That market power has helped raise farmworkers' wages—with over $8 million in Fair Food bonus funds flowing through the program since January of 2011 alone—and establish important new rights for workers, eliminating abuses from sexual harassment to slavery in Florida's fields.
The program has won important changes for workers, and has received impressive support from veteran observers of the food industry along the way. Eric Schlosser, the author of the best seller Fast Food Nation, told me on the eve of the CIW's victory in the Burger King campaign back in 2008:
This may be the most important victory for American farmworkers since passage of California's Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975. That bill heralded a golden age for farm workers. But the state government apparatus it created, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, got taken over by the growers in the 1980s and watered down the reforms. In Florida, the Coalition has chosen a different path, avoiding government and putting pressure on the corporations at the top of nation's food chain. The strategy clearly works and can be emulated by other workers in other states. In the absence of a government that cares about the people at the bottom, here's a way to achieve change.
But without the supermarkets' support, the CIW's ability to deepen and institutionalize the changes it has begun to make will be blunted. So this holiday season, help make farmworker poverty and abuse history. Click here to sign the petition and, in the words of Immokalee's courageous farmworker movement, "ask Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw to ensure that his company be part of a proven model to address the root cause of farmworker poverty across Florida, and demonstrate that it values the hard work of farmworkers who make possible the food we share this holiday."
From farmworkers to warehouse employees, low-wage workers across the U.S. are fighting back against corporate America. Find out more about the movement here.
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.
Perhaps it was inevitable that a parliamentary rule named after pirates would metastasize into an untamed menace.
Throughout its unlikely history, the filibuster has been—depending on the moment—lauded and scorned and even immortalized by Hollywood. A Senate relic, dry as parchment, has gained the sort of colorful reputation normally reserved for troubled starlets (or troubled generals).
Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposes, as others have in the past, to finally rein in the beast. It won’t be easy. Previous efforts to change the filibuster have failed in the face of opposition from whichever party is in the minority and fearful of losing their right to stand up to—and in the way of—majority will.
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.
For more on the fight to reform the filibuster, check out John Nichols’s take here.
