November 21, 2005 Issue

Cover art by: Cover art by Robert Grossman, cover design by Gene Case & Stephen Kling/Avenging Angels

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Feature

Bringing Down the Bully

The lesson of the defeat in California of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s referendum revolution is this: The American people will not forever be fooled. The negative message of the Republican right has lost its power to terrorize voters.
Robert Scheer
Oil Tycoons Grilled on Windfall Profits

Top oil execs were asked numerous questions at a Senate hearing on spectacular profits earned in the wake of tropical storms. But they had no real answers about how to ease the burden on ordinary Americans.
Ari Berman
The GOP Takes a Beating

As Democrats gloat over two gubernatorial wins and the defeat in California of Gov. Arnold’s intiatives, the GOP approaches off-year elections weighed down by Bush’s baggage.
Eric Alterman
This Time, Rove’s Tactics Failed

Democrats celebrate electoral victories in Virginia, New Jersey and California, they shouldn’t waste time gloating. They need to find effective candidates like Tim Kaine and Jon Corzine who will build momentum.
David Corn
Five Questions for Robert Greenwald

What motivated director Robert Greenwald to spend a year on a documentary detailing Wal-Mart’s impact on American life, culture and commerce?
Sam Graham-Felsen
The Soccer Star and the President

Who is Diego Maradona, and how did a former Argentinian soccer star become the nemesis of an American President?
Dave Zirin
Gas Price-gouging or Business as Usual?

As the Senate opens hearings this week calling energy execs to account for their windfall profits on gasoline and natural gas, the question must be asked: Is this price-gouging or just good old-fashioned capitalism?
Nicholas von Hoffman
Chávez and Maradona Lead Massive Rebuke of Bush

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Argentine soccer hero Diego Maradona led thousands in a massive rebuke of George W. Bush, his trade policies and his neoconservative agenda at the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata Argentina. Despite some sporadic violence, the protest focused on developing indigenous alternatives to US-led trade initiatives policies.
Jordana Timerman
The Virginia GOP’s Dirty Money

Republican candidates in Virginia do a lot of posturing on being tough on crime–but behind their self-righteous political ads, there is a hidden history of racism, questionable funding and sexual misconduct.
Max Blumenthal
Spin Control at Wal-Mart

A hard-hitting documentary, an embarrassing leaked memo on healthcare and abandonment by customers who don’t like its politics. It’s getting harder these days for Wal-Mart to put on a happy public face.
Liza Featherstone
All the King’s Media

The scandals suffocating the Bush Administration seem less like Nixon and Watergate and more like Louis XV and pre-Revolutionary France. They are harbingers of a potent cultural event that may jolt the public out of complacency.
William Greider
Before School

San Francisco recently launched universal preschool, designed to make young participants higher earners and better citizens when they reach adulthood. If successful, San Francisco’s initiative could make preschool as commonplace as kindergarten.

David Kirp
Toxic Recycling

Recycling electronics using US prison labor is a booming business, with a captive workforce paid pennies per hour for dangerous work that is largely unregulated. The human and environmental consequences of negligent handling and disposal of electronic waste are considerable.
Elizabeth Grossman
On the Wal-Mart Money Trail

As the nation’s wealthiest family, the Waltons could be a force for social good. But when they choose to spend their fortune lobbying for pet projects, tax cuts and charter schools instead of providing a living wage for their workers, they are dangerous (and costly) to the nation.
Liza Featherstone

Editorial

Passing the Torch

Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel takes on the role of publisher and general partner at the magazine, and Victor Navasky becomes publisher emeritus and a member of the magazine’s editorial board.
The Editors
Sheryl Swoopes: Out of the Closet–and Ignored

WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes has just come out of the closet. But why didn’t anyone care?
Dave Zirin
Ohio Voting

Peter Kuper
Faith and Fraud

The fictional world created by the Bush Administration over its five years in power is falling to pieces, with the blood-soaked folly in Iraq, a ruined environment, massive corruption and a basic failure to govern. Yet the faith-based President continues to fashion lies, and believe them.
Jonathan Schell
In Fact…

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The Editors
Assad on the Brink

The Baathist regime is the most opaque on earth, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must develop a strategy to save himself and his regime, as the UN investigation of the assasination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri unfolds.
David Hirst
Rise of an Opposition?

As remarkable as the concept may sound after years of Democratic dysfunction, something akin to a two-party system appeared to take shape November 1, the week after Scooter Libby was indicted.
John Nichols
Intolerable Cruelty

If the US is to prevail in the war on terror, we must do it by distinguishing ourselves from the enemy. Torture and degrading treatment are as morally evil as terrorism, because they brutally disregard the value of human life.
David Cole
After the Libby Indictment

The CIA leak scandal has revealed the Bush crew’s dishonesty and hypocrisy. But don’t expect the Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald or Bush to ever explain what really happened.
David Corn
Showdown on the Court

The nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the US Supreme Court forces the debate the President and the Senate have tried so mightily to avoid: whether the Court should shift decisively and radically to the right.
The Editors
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Column

Lying with Intelligence

A newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document discrediting reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq disproves the Bush Administration’s claim that they went to war using the best available intelligence.
Robert Scheer
The Threat of Hope in Latin America

Across Latin America indigenous movements redrawing the continent’s political map, demanding not just “rights” but a reinvention of the state along deeply democratic lines.
Naomi Klein
Can We Talk?

Liberals need to find a means to bridge the gap between Americans’ belief in liberal solutions and their willingness to trust liberals to enact them.
Eric Alterman
Genes, Genius, Genies

The right has ushered in a moment of cult celebrity for the pre-born. But let’s not be seduced by this idea of personhood. Remember the poor and not-so-perfect post-born children of America? Aren’t they persons, too?
Patricia J. Williams
Scooter Libby: A Republican Nursery Rhyme

Catching small fry, letting the big fish go.
Calvin Trillin

Books & the Arts

Five Questions for Robert Greenwald

What motivated director Robert Greenwald to spend a year on a documentary detailing Wal-Mart’s impact on American life, culture and commerce?
Sam Graham-Felsen
Scooter Libby: A Republican Nursery Rhyme

Catching small fry, letting the big fish go.
Calvin Trillin
All the King’s Media

The scandals suffocating the Bush Administration seem less like Nixon and Watergate and more like Louis XV and pre-Revolutionary France. They are harbingers of a potent cultural event that may jolt the public out of complacency.
William Greider
The True Story of Equiano

Vincent Carretta’s Equiano, the African is the complex narrative of a Carolina slave who bought his freedom, married an English woman and published a memoir on his life as a seafarer and gentleman.
Robin Blackburn
The Power of Fear

Jill Lepore’s New York Burning paints a realistic portrait of a purported slave rebellion in 1741 and the hysteria that followed, a harrowing lesson of how abusers of power become haunted by the nightmare of retribution.
Russell Shorto
I Wonder As I Wander

Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost plumbs the mysteries of losing oneself and finding oneself in the realm of the utter unknown.
Michael Gorra
About a Girl

Breakfast for Pluto is the upbeat and whimsical fable of a girl in a boy’s body. Watching Claire Danes in Shopgirl will make you forget for a while that other actresses exist.
Stuart Klawans
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Letters

Web Letters

Nation online readers write back on Senate Democrats, lobbyist Jack Abramoff and WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes.
Our Readers
Letters

AFTER HE’S GONE…

Stockholm
Our Readers and Debbie Nathan

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November 21, 2005 Issue

Feature

The lesson of the defeat in California of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s referendum revolution is this: The American people will not forever be fooled. The negative message of the Republican right has lost its power to terrorize voters.

Top oil execs were asked numerous questions at a Senate hearing on spectacular profits earned in the wake of tropical storms. But they had no real answers about how to ease the burden on ordinary Americans.

As Democrats gloat over two gubernatorial wins and the defeat in California of Gov. Arnold’s intiatives, the GOP approaches off-year elections weighed down by Bush’s baggage.

Democrats celebrate electoral victories in Virginia, New Jersey and California, they shouldn’t waste time gloating. They need to find effective candidates like Tim Kaine and Jon Corzine who will build momentum.

What motivated director Robert Greenwald to spend a year on a documentary detailing Wal-Mart’s impact on American life, culture and commerce?

Who is Diego Maradona, and how did a former Argentinian soccer star become the nemesis of an American President?

As the Senate opens hearings this week calling energy execs to account for their windfall profits on gasoline and natural gas, the question must be asked: Is this price-gouging or just good old-fashioned capitalism?

Republican candidates in Virginia do a lot of posturing on being tough on crime–but behind their self-righteous political ads, there is a hidden history of racism, questionable funding and sexual misconduct.

A hard-hitting documentary, an embarrassing leaked memo on healthcare and abandonment by customers who don’t like its politics. It’s getting harder these days for Wal-Mart to put on a happy public face.

The scandals suffocating the Bush Administration seem less like Nixon and Watergate and more like Louis XV and pre-Revolutionary France. They are harbingers of a potent cultural event that may jolt the public out of complacency.

San Francisco recently launched universal preschool, designed to make young participants higher earners and better citizens when they reach adulthood. If successful, San Francisco’s initiative could make preschool as commonplace as kindergarten.

Recycling electronics using US prison labor is a booming business, with a captive workforce paid pennies per hour for dangerous work that is largely unregulated. The human and environmental consequences of negligent handling and disposal of electronic waste are considerable.

As the nation’s wealthiest family, the Waltons could be a force for social good. But when they choose to spend their fortune lobbying for pet projects, tax cuts and charter schools instead of providing a living wage for their workers, they are dangerous (and costly) to the nation.

Editorial

Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel takes on the role of publisher and general partner at the magazine, and Victor Navasky becomes publisher emeritus and a member of the magazine’s editorial board.

WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes has just come out of the closet. But why didn’t anyone care?

The fictional world created by the Bush Administration over its five years in power is falling to pieces, with the blood-soaked folly in Iraq, a ruined environment, massive corruption and a basic failure to govern. Yet the faith-based President continues to fashion lies, and believe them.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE…

The Baathist regime is the most opaque on earth, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must develop a strategy to save himself and his regime, as the UN investigation of the assasination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri unfolds.

As remarkable as the concept may sound after years of Democratic dysfunction, something akin to a two-party system appeared to take shape November 1, the week after Scooter Libby was indicted.

If the US is to prevail in the war on terror, we must do it by distinguishing ourselves from the enemy. Torture and degrading treatment are as morally evil as terrorism, because they brutally disregard the value of human life.

The CIA leak scandal has revealed the Bush crew’s dishonesty and hypocrisy. But don’t expect the Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald or Bush to ever explain what really happened.

The nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the US Supreme Court forces the debate the President and the Senate have tried so mightily to avoid: whether the Court should shift decisively and radically to the right.

GET UNLIMITED DIGITAL ACCESS FOR LESS THAN $3 A MONTH!

Column

A newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document discrediting reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq disproves the Bush Administration’s claim that they went to war using the best available intelligence.

Across Latin America indigenous movements redrawing the continent’s political map, demanding not just “rights” but a reinvention of the state along deeply democratic lines.

Liberals need to find a means to bridge the gap between Americans’ belief in liberal solutions and their willingness to trust liberals to enact them.

The right has ushered in a moment of cult celebrity for the pre-born. But let’s not be seduced by this idea of personhood. Remember the poor and not-so-perfect post-born children of America? Aren’t they persons, too?

Catching small fry, letting the big fish go.

Books & the Arts

What motivated director Robert Greenwald to spend a year on a documentary detailing Wal-Mart’s impact on American life, culture and commerce?

Catching small fry, letting the big fish go.

The scandals suffocating the Bush Administration seem less like Nixon and Watergate and more like Louis XV and pre-Revolutionary France. They are harbingers of a potent cultural event that may jolt the public out of complacency.

Vincent Carretta’s Equiano, the African is the complex narrative of a Carolina slave who bought his freedom, married an English woman and published a memoir on his life as a seafarer and gentleman.

Jill Lepore’s New York Burning paints a realistic portrait of a purported slave rebellion in 1741 and the hysteria that followed, a harrowing lesson of how abusers of power become haunted by the nightmare of retribution.

Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost plumbs the mysteries of losing oneself and finding oneself in the realm of the utter unknown.

Breakfast for Pluto is the upbeat and whimsical fable of a girl in a boy’s body. Watching Claire Danes in Shopgirl will make you forget for a while that other actresses exist.

The stakes are higher now than ever. Get The Nation in your inbox.

Letters

Nation online readers write back on Senate Democrats, lobbyist Jack Abramoff and WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes.

AFTER HE’S GONE… Stockholm

AFTER HE’S GONE…

Stockholm