Cornbread and Roses
Bob Moser : With his campaign to eradicate poverty in America, John Edwards has shed his Clinton Lite image. But to truly redefine the Democratic party and win the 2008 presidency, he has a long way to go.
John Nichols and Marc Cooper analyze big wins by Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey and California, Bob Moser assesses John Edwards's political fortunes, Chris Toensing reviews Anthony Shadid's moving Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War and liberal hawk George Packer's The Assasins' Gate.
Bob Moser : With his campaign to eradicate poverty in America, John Edwards has shed his Clinton Lite image. But to truly redefine the Democratic party and win the 2008 presidency, he has a long way to go.
Eyal Press
:
As the site of a trial on including intelligent design in biology
textbooks, Dover, Pennsylvania, is a focal point of a national debate
on science and religion. But a look at the town and its residents show
that the battle may not be so clearly defined.
Jeremy Scahill : Stewart Simonson is a former Amtrak corporate attorney with zero medical experience. So why is he in charge of emergency health and bioterrorism in the federal government?
Richard Appelbaum & Peter Dreier : With a new wave of activism against sweatshops sweeping college campuses, student interest in the morality of their clothing choices can set a standard for the rest of us.
Doug Ireland : Fires and rioting in France are the result of thirty years of government neglect and the failure of the French political classes to make any serious effort to integrate Muslim and black populations into the French economy and culture.
: In 2005, The Nation declared it would only support candidates who made a speedy end to this war a major campaign issue.
:
The cynical restructuring plan for bankrupt Delphi Automotive calls for
massive wage and benefit givebacks for 51,000 American workers.
Governors of affected states must craft strategies to minimize loss of
jobs and income.
John Nichols
:
Democratic gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey gave the lie to
the GOP contention that "conservatism is on the march." But infighting
among Dems doomed electoral reform in Ohio, gay marriage is still
illegal in Texas and there's a long way to go to mid-year elections.
Victor Navasky
:
As Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel becomes the latest in a long
line of publisher/owners of The Nation, Victor Navasky looks
ahead to his new role as publisher emeritus and member of the
magazine's editorial board.
Marc Cooper
:
Buoyed by their defeat of Schwarzeneggar's "referendum revolution,"
Democrats and organized labor are now energized to defeat the
governor's re-election bid next year.
David Sirota
:
Joe Biden buoys up Samuel Alito's nomination by tamping down
speculation of a filibuster. But California's George Miller convinced
the President to revoke an executive order that would undermine
prevailing Gulf Coast wages.
Chris Toensing : Anthony Shadid's Night Draws Near is a moving account of life in Iraq before and after the US occupation. Liberal hawk George Packer's The Assasins' Gate delves into the history behind humanitarian intervention.
Charles Glass
:
Four works trace the intertwined history of Lebanon and Syria and the
interplay of political radicalism, military strength and miseries of
war and murderous political intrigue.
Alexander Cockburn
:
Shades of Iran/contra: Since the indictment of I. Lewis Libby,
Washington is abuzz about presidential pardons. If officials who
violate the law and lie about it know with certainty the will escape
legal sanction, we no longer have a government.
Katha Pollitt : Maureen Dowd has done her best to declare feminism dead. But by insisting that men are scared of spunky successful women, it doesn't occur to her that she is promoting, rather than reporting on, the problem she describes.
Robert Scheer : As President Bush denounces his critics and proclaims war without end in Iraq the central front in a new cold war, he fails to acknowledge that he is responsible for handing Al Qaeda a new home base.
Ari Berman : Most Americans want immediate action to pull out of Iraq, but Senate Republicans passed a measure today that essentially lets the White House off the hook.
Patrick Mulvaney : As demonstrators gather at Fort Benning, Georgia, this weekend for an annual protest against the School of the Americas, the spotlight will be on increasing dismay in Congress and among the American public over the Bush Administration's policies on torture.
Emily Lodish : E-cycling used computers to the Third World may sound idealistic, but in reality it's just a new way to dump toxic waste.
Françoise Mouly : As media attention focused on rampaging youths setting afire the poor suburbs of France, verbal conflagrations raged among politicians and elected officials on how to respond to the threat.
Nicholas von Hoffman : Flu vaccine is in short supply this season, and the reason is that drug companies can't make as much money protecting us from disease as from developing expensive treatments for niche illnesses.
Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith : The Senate last week approved a measure that would allow government officials to essentially bypass the courts and lock up people suspected of terrorism without trial. Will cooler heads prevail?
Sharon Lerner : If Samuel Alito is confirmed to the US Supreme Court, his impact on limiting reproductive rights would be certain and swift, due to his record and to two key abortion rights cases making their way to the Supreme Court.
Medea Benjamin & Gayle Brandeis : It's easy to slap a magnet on your SUV and feel like you're supporting American soldiers fighting a brutal, far-off war. But the way to really support them is to work to extricate us from the conflict.
Cover by Gene Case & Stephen Kling/Avenging Angels