The American Prospect articles from October 2004

The American Prospect archives from October 2004

George W. and human rights.(Prospects)
October 1, 2004... In his new book, Washington's Crossing, historian David Hackett Fischer recounts how humane treatment of prisoners was literally invented by George Washington on the battlefield in late 1776. Official British policy was to let field commanders...

Characterology.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... WHILE I BELIEVE MATTHEW Yglesias is absolutely correct in arguing that the president of the United States must be someone of intelligence and intellectual versatility ["The Brains Thing," September 2004], I was troubled by his contention that,...

Follow the money.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... DAVID SIROTA PERFECTLY outlines the costs imposed on society by our moneyed political system ["The Big Squeeze," September]. While the symptoms are obvious (high taxes; low wages; exorbitant drug, health-care, and energy costs), the cure is...

Americana re-examined.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... THE AMERICAN PROSPECT uses Norman Rockwell's famous painting Freedom from Want in Deepak Bhargava's "How Much Is Enough?" [September] to show abundance in action. However, much to the point of the article, it also shows the hard times for those...

All too familiar.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... "FOLLOW THE (SAUDI) Money" by Noy Thrupkaew [August], concerning "terrorism" in Cambodia, threw a sober, one might even say somber, light on a situation that is becoming all too commonplace. It seems that the Cambodian government arrested some...

Just wondering.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... I WAS MOST IMPRESSED BY Clay Risen's essay concerning executive orders, "The Power of the Pen" [August]. I have an expansive suggestion. The two most disastrous laws that Congress has passed since the Bush administration came to power are...

Minimal monitors.(Devil in the Details)(election in Afghanistan)
October 1, 2004... THOROUGH ELECTION MONitoring is a staple in countries recovering from long periods of civil strife. In post-conflict zones such as Bosnia, East Timor, and Haiti, large numbers of foreign experts and trained local monitors have been instrumental...

525, 526, 527 ...(Devil in the Details)(independent campaign organizations)
October 1, 2004... IF GEORGE W. BUSH TRULY believes that "shadowy 527" groups (independent campaign organizations established under Section 527 of the taxcode) are "bad for the system," the last few weeks must have driven him batty. New 527s are forming at a rate...

Will unions exist?(Devil in the Details)
October 1, 2004... AMONG THE ISSUES TO BE determined by the upcoming presidential election, there's the little item of the right of workers to secure a union. As things now stand, the Bush-appointed majority on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) may just...

While you were sleeping.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... It wasn't the oil, it wasn't the neocons, and it wasn't a dream of democratic transformation throughout the Middle East. It turns out that the decision to invade Iraq may have been based on a simple case of mistaken identity. As Donald...

Brave new words.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... FLI P-FLOP Something John Kerry does. Not to be confused with BOLD LEADERSHIP, which is the way to characterize George W. Bush's reversals when he opposed the creation of a 9-11 commission, then decided to appoint one, then opposed its...

Gitmo justice.(Devil in the Details)(detainees at Guantanamo Bay)
October 1, 2004... TO THE RELIEF OF MOST OF civilization, the Supreme Court ruled in June that the United States has an obligation to grant the roughly 585 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay (aka Gitmo) an opportunity to challenge their status before a "neutral...

The A-team: after six weeks of battering, John Kerry learned the importance of a tough and experienced communications operation. But did he learn it in time?(Dispatches)
October 1, 2004... UNLESS YOU SPENT THE SUMMER ORbiting with the Genesis space capsule, you know that John Kerry had a lousy August and a brutal early September. Thanks to the attacks of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the masterfully orchestrated...

Buckeye blues: Ohio has 19 percent of the nation's lost jobs since Bush took office. So why is Kerry in trouble there? Because the state has lost something else, too.(Dispatches)(social and demographic changes)
October 1, 2004... LORAIN, OHIO -- THE STEELWORKERS hall here is a musty monument to American labor's glorious past. On the walls are photos of Franklin Roosevelt signing the Wagner Act in 1935, and of Philip Murray, president of the United Steelworkers of...

Iraq the vote: this month, to prepare for next January's elections, monitors begin heading off to Iraq. Or at least to the parts of Iraq that are safe enough for elections.(Dispatches)
October 1, 2004... THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN determining the future of U.S. policy in the Middle East may not be the one happening on November 2. Sometime in the 10 days after the victor takes the presidential oath of office on January 20, another election...

Now for some bad news.(The Taxonomist)(tax policy)
October 1, 2004... Read my lips: I'll raise your taxes--a lot. Thus, paraphrased only slightly, speaks George W. Bush to Middle America. Yet many of his intended middle-class victims don't seem to hold it against him. Or perhaps they haven't been listening hard...

Long division: America is not split over the Vietnam War. But Karl Rove needs you to believe that it is.
October 1, 2004... AROUND ABOUT THE THIRD WEEK OF THE "SWIFT"-BOAT controversy, commentators began to note, in a tone of disapproving sadness, that the firestorm created by the accusations against John Kerry proved that three decades later, the nation was still...

2000, the sequel: in theory, the Help America Vote Act was Congress' attempt to prevent the catastrophes of the last election from happening again. In fact, it may have made things even worse.
October 1, 2004... SAM HEYWARD THOUGHT HE'D PAID HIS DEBT. A tall, soft-spoken 45-year-old man from Tallahassee, Florida, Heyward was convicted in 1981 of a felony for buying furniture he knew was stolen. He spent a year in a prison work camp and then tried...

Into the bright sunshine: the value of human rights in the United States.(Human Rights)
October 1, 2004... THE MOST OBVIOUS VALUE of human rights to the post-Holocaust world has been to set a limit on government power and shine a light on its abuses. The limit comes from the revolutionary idea, conceived in the immediate aftermath of World War II,...

The road to Abu Ghraib: how the United States played a large role in creating international human rights--and then abandoning them.(Human Rights)
October 1, 2004... FROM THE LAST, BEST HOPE OF earth to Abu Ghraib: What has happened to the vision of America as the land of justice? In countless ways, at home and in the world, this country has abandoned its commitment to the protection of human rights. ...

A lawless state: how to restore America's global standing as a beacon of freedom--both internationally and with its own citizenry.(Human Rights)
October 1, 2004... THERE'S A PARADOX AT THE heart of U.S. foreign policy: As the Bush administration asserts unilateral global power, the influence and respect of the United States hits rock bottom, and as the United States professes its desire to expand...

Rights in an insecure world: why national security and civil liberty are complements.(National Security)
October 1, 2004... ALMOST AS SOON AS THE PLANES CRASHED INTO THE TWIN TOWERS, SCHOLARS, pundits, and politicians began asserting that our most important challenge as a democracy now is to reassess the balance between liberty and security. As Harvard human-rights...

Inalienable rights: can human-rights law help to end U.S. mistreatment of noncitizens?(Immigrants)
October 1, 2004... THE UNITED STATES, FAMOUS AS A nation of immigrants, should also be infamous for its bouts of anti-immigrant sentiment. Often our intolerance has been fueled by national-security fears. At other times, Americans have made misguided...

Holding America accountable: why the United States should take human-rights obligations seriously.(U.S. Compliance)
October 1, 2004... ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, THE MOTHER OF THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN-RIGHTS movement, famously said: "Where do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home. So close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they...

On America's double standard: the good and bad faces of exceptionalism.(Double Standards)
October 1, 2004... WHEN THE UNITED STATES HOLDS TALIBAN detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without Geneva Convention hearings, then decries the failure of others to accord Geneva Convention protections to their American prisoners, it supports a double standard....

The partial rule of law: America's opposition to the ICC is self-defeating and hypocritical.(Human Rights)(International Criminal Court )
October 1, 2004... SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC IS IN THE dock for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. For all the delays and procedural maneuvering, his trial marks a milestone in the extraordinary development of international criminal law from Nuremberg...

Shame in our own house: how segregation and racism have fed U.S. resistance to international human-rights treaties.(Race)
October 1, 2004... IN ITS RELATIONS WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD, AMERICA STRUGGLES WITH A profound contradiction. On the one hand, our country has been a pioneer in the human-rights movement, providing much of the language and inspiration for international efforts...

Economic security: a human right reclaiming Franklin Delano Roosevelt's second bill of rights.(Economic Rights)
October 1, 2004... ARE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS FOREIGN TO AMERICAN TRADITIONS? Are they inconsistent with our laissez-faire freedom-loving culture? Consider a defining moment in out nation's history, when national security was also threatened and when an...

International holdout: around the world, empowering women is considered essential. So why isn't America on board?(Human Rights)
October 1, 2004... TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO this December, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a global "bill of rights" that is both visionary and comprehensive....

Domestic abuse: how the U.S. government is violating Native Americans' human rights.(Human Rights)(domestic application of international rights standards)
October 1, 2004... PICKSTOWN, S.D.-- SANDY WADE WAS 6 WHEN SHE was sent away to St. Paul's Indian Mission, a boarding school overseen by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on the Yankton Sioux reservation. At first, things weren't so bad. She got three meals...

From the front lines: a review of recent reports on human rights.(Human Rights)
October 1, 2004... EARLY IN THE CLINTON ADMINistration, the United Nations Human Rights Commission was holding hearings in New York on the compliance of various member states--including, for the first time, the United States--with the International Covenant on...

What we expect from America.(Human Rights)
October 1, 2004... U.S. LEADERSHIP WAS CRITical in building the global human-rights agenda from the ground up, beginning with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. More than half a century later, that agenda and the movement it inspired are in need of...

Idiot boxed: one big reason Bush won Florida? Television (prematurely) said he did. By 2001, red-faced network news honchos promised big changes for 2004. Now we're here. And guess what?
October 1, 2004... THERE WAS PLENTY OF HUMILIATION TO GO AROUND IN the aftermath of the 2000 elections. Vote counters and ballot designers, election boards and state legislatures all came in for heavy criticism. But special ignominy was reserved for the five...

Health care's big choice: as family premiums push $10,000, Bush and Kerry promote radically different proposals.
October 1, 2004... The American health-care system is again at a point of critical change as a result of escalating costs and a gathering movement among employers, insurers, and policy-makers to revamp the structure of health insurance. Like the spread of managed...

Good medicine: Medicare does need changes. But its expansion is the key to eventual universal coverage.
October 1, 2004... ACROSS THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM, ALARM BELLS ARE ringing about Medicare, America's giant health program for the aged and disabled. To conservatives, Medicare is a huge, Kremlin-esque bureaucracy destined to soak up more and more of the American...

Ernesto goes to the movies: The Motorcycle Diaries, brought to the screen by Robert Redford, shows us the young, pre-revolutionary Guevara. Call it soft socialist realism.(Film)(Movie Review)
October 1, 2004... HE WAS, PER JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, "the most complete human being of our age." Not to be outdone, Susan Sontag eulogized him as "the clearest, most unequivocal image of the humanity of the world-wide revolutionary struggle unfolding today." He, of...

Vexations of the heartland.(What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America)(Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts From the Heart of America)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? HOW CONSERVATIVES WON THE HEART OF AMERICA BY THOMAS FRANK * METROPOLITAN BOOKS * 320 PAGES * $24.00 HOMEGROWN DEMOCRAT: A FEW PLAIN THOUGHTS FROM THE HEART OF AMERICA BY GARRISON KEILLOR * VIKING * 237 PAGES...

Top gun.(War and the American Presidency)(America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... WAR AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY BY ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER JR. * NORTON * 224 PAGES * $23.95 AMERICA RIGHT OR WRONG: AN ANATOMY OF AMERICAN NATIONALISM BY ANATOL LIEVEN * OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS * 304 PAGES * $30.00 IT HAS BECOME A...

Who killed Camp David?(The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... THE MISSING PEACE: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE FIGHT FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE BY DENNIS ROSS * FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX * 864 PAGES * $35.00 THE HISTORIC CAMP DAVID TALKS during the summer of 2000 failed, so the conventional wisdom goes, because...

Can't swallow it anymore.(On The Take: How Medicine's Complicity With Big Business Can Endanger Your Health)(The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind The Cost Of New Drugs)(Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, And Costs Of Prescription Drugs)(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... ON THE TAKE: HOW MEDICINE'S COMPLICITY WITH BIG BUSINESS CAN ENDANGER YOUR HEALTH BY JEROME P. KASSIRER * OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS * 288 PAGES * $28.00 THE $800 MILLION PILL: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE COST OF NEW DRUGS BY MERRILL GOOZNER *...

Where are the rational greedy bastards?(The Last Word)(prospect of another George Bush term )
October 1, 2004... Why is big business so enthusiastic about another Bush term? Yes, corporations have gotten a few fat tax breaks and regulatory rollbacks, and more face time with the president than do White House security guards. But on the issues that count,...