The American Prospect articles from October 2008

The American Prospect archives from October 2008

The American collision.(PROSPECTS)(presidential election, 2009)
October 1, 2008... EARLIER IN THIS ELECTION CYCLE, MANY OBSERVERS suggested that if Barack Obama and John McCain became their parties' nominees, they would each moderate the polarizing tendencies in American politics. In the wake of the two parties' national...

Yes, tax the fat cats.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AS SOMEONE IMPLICATED in a number of attacks made in "Obama vs. the Fiscal Fear-Mongers" [September 2008]--I am one of the authors of the report, "Taking Back Our Fiscal Future"--I'd like to set the record straight....

The three gender tiers.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... ANN FRIEDMAN ASSERTS ["The Generation Trap," September 2008] that "young women on modern college campuses are unlikely to know someone who has had a back-alley abortion." They're also unlikely to know any women whose job options are restricted...

Correction.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Correction notice)
October 1, 2008... Correction: In "Obama vs. the Fiscal Fear-Mongers" [September 2008], Robert Kuttner excerpts from an address Jonathan Fanton made to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, not the Council on Foundations.

From the executive editor.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Editorial)
October 1, 2008... "FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS," JOHN ADAMS SAID, AND J. yet they have seemed timid in the last decade, perhaps cowed by the Bush administration's contempt for the "reality-based community." Should we just mimic the shouting and disdain for...

Bill Kristol, gold-star feminist.(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AFTER A FEW MONTHS OF TACTICAL WAVERING, WEEKLY Standard editor William Kristol has found his inner feminist. The day after the Iowa caucuses, Kristol thanked Barack Obama for preventing a "Clinton Restoration."...

Lipstick.(Up Front)(Republican National Convention)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... By the final night of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, the Prospect began to pick up a groundswell of media opinion. Our colleagues just couldn't bring themselves to go down onto the convention floor again and talk to the...

Paris or Cindy?(Up Front)(Paris Hilton or Cindy McCain)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Over the summer, John McCain has had his fun trying to make Barack Obama out to be a celebrity on par with heiress Paris Hilton. But McCain's Obama makeover is more revealing of his own tastes than of Obama's: After all, he married an heiress...

The question: who is your fantasy presidential-debate moderator?(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... "My second-grade teacher. If your answer didn't satisfy her, she'd hit you with a yard stick she called 'Mr. Smiley.'" --Baratunde Thurston editor, The Onion [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Stephen Colbert, in character." --Robert...

Parody.(Up front)(John McCain)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... FROM: Steve Schmidt TO: McCain '08 Staff and Allies Friends, I gather that some of you are feeling uncertain over how to respond to press inquiries into the recent statements and actions of our candidate. These talking points...

We're all Chicagoans now.(THE OUT YEARS)(government programs)
October 1, 2008... FOR YEARS, THERE'S BEEN A QUIET ARGUMENT IN progressive circles about the appropriate design of the social contract, the public programs that ensure health care and economic security. Originating with the "New Democrats" of the 1990s, a...

Taking the initiative.(COMMENT)(ballot initiatives)
October 1, 2008... DESPITE THE PARANOIA OF LIBERALS AND THE SELF-aggrandizement of the religious right in the wake of the 2004 election, John Kerry did not lose because of antigay marriage initiatives on the ballot in 11 states. Polling consistently shows that...

Channel changer: for years, liberals thought they could catch up in media by playing by conservatives' rules. Rachel Maddow's success proves it's better to just change the game.(Biography)
October 1, 2008... "I think I have a fear in general about whether being a pundit is a worthwhile thing to be," Rachel Maddow tells me over dinner at a Latin restaurant in lower Manhattan. It's more than the ordinary self-deprecation of someone who just got her...

The fence to nowhere: the Minutemen promised their supporters a high-tech border barrier. Instead, they got a five-strand barbed-wire fence and a bunch of radical splinter groups.(Minuteman Civil Defense Corps)(Organization overview)(Report)
October 1, 2008... Jim Campbell was a contractor before he became an Arizona retiree, so he happens to know a little about getting construction projects completed. He also happens to be avidly involved in efforts to stem what he and thousands of others see as an...

Meet the next treasury secretary: the most difficult economic challenge of the next administration will be to overhaul America's collapsing financial system. Who will lead that effort?
October 1, 2008... One weekend last March, Timothy F. Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, fielded a panicked phone call from Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz. Bear was nearly out of cash, owing some $80 billion, mostly in short-term loans,...

The economic crisis in Black and White: narrowing America's racial divides and expanding opportunity for all.(THE COLOR OF OPPORTUNITY)
October 1, 2008... Today, the U.S. economy is facing one of its greatest challenges in decades. The recent seven-year economic expansion netted a record for producing the fewest jobs since Herbert Hoover was president. The median income for American households...

Understanding the Black-White earnings gap: Why do African Americans continue to earn less despite dramatic gains in education?(THE COLOR OF OPPORTUNITY)(Report)
October 1, 2008... Today, African American men working full time and year round have 72 percent of the average earnings of comparable white men. For African American and white women, the ratio is 85 percent. And during good times and bad, the black unemployment...

Sub-prime as a Black catastrophe: first came racial redlining. Then came racial targeting of toxic and predatory loans. Both spelled economic disaster for African Americans.(THE COLOR OF OPPORTUNITY)(Viewpoint essay)
October 1, 2008... No other recent economic crisis better illustrates the saying when America catches a cold, African Americans get pneumonia" than the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. African Americans, along with other minorities and low-income populations, have...

Black women: the unfinished agenda: African American women made great progress in education and entering into previously forbidden occupations--but their gains in earnings mysteriously stopped.(Viewpoint essay)
October 1, 2008... We occupy many of the seats on the 5:30 P.M. Metrolink train from downtown Los Angeles to San Bernardino. We are behind the counters at the Department of Motor Vehicles and on both sides of the desks at the Department of Social Services. We...

Women of color: the persistent double jeopardy of race and gender.(Viewpoint essay)
October 1, 2008... Because women of color are both women and racial minorities, they face a double jeopardy--lower economic opportunities due to their race and their gender. This double jeopardy is reflected both in the jobs available to them and in their lower...

African Americans and immigrants: the common good: are foreigners "taking Americans' jobs"? Or are employers once again exploiting cheap labor and vulnerable people?(Essay)
October 1, 2008... America's current heartburn over immigration policy has focused on, among other things, the impact of immigrants on African American workers and other low-wage, uneducated workers. This superficial analysis is summed up by the cry, "They are...

Regular work in an irregular economy: ending the temp agencies' control of low-wage labor markets.(Viewpoint essay)
October 1, 2008... Imagine that you are a young person trying to find your first full-time job in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a small city about 35 miles southwest of New York. You don't want to work in a restaurant or a fast-food joint, because they won't give...

Unionization and black workers: trade unions are still a key path to higher-quality jobs and greater dignity at the workplace.(Report)
October 1, 2008... In much of the media coverage of the presidential campaign, unions and the black community are portrayed as separate groups without common members or common interests. In fact, black workers are disproportionately union members. In 2007, 12.1...

Race, place, and opportunity: where we live influences our life chances. Too many blacks still live in concentrated poverty.(Viewpoint essay)
October 1, 2008... We live our lives trying to gain as much opportunity as our circumstances will allow. Space and place have always been important to pathways (and roadblocks) to opportunity, but they became even more important for the distribution of...

What to expect when you're expecting a majority.(At the Races: Developments beyond the presidential contest are shaping the future of the Democratic Party--and the country.)
October 1, 2008... No one expected Chris Van Hollen to be the next Rahm Emanuel. During Emanuel s five years as a congressman and his tenure as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), he earned a place in Washington mythology as a...

Five questions about the new electorate.(At the Races: Developments beyond the presidential contest are shaping the future of the Democratic Party--and the country.)(Viewpoint essay)
October 1, 2008... For a decade, Democrats have heard promises that a durable electoral majority was just around the corner. It's easy to construct such a majority on paper: Racial minorities and young voters (those born after 1978) turn out at record levels,...

It's the green economy, stupid.(At the Races: Developments beyond the presidential contest are shaping the future of the Democratic Party--and the country.)
October 1, 2008... It's populist out there. Way populist. The dominant ideology among this year's Democratic candidates for seriously contested Senate and House seats might be called neo-Bryanism. Where once William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic...

2008: five races to watch.(At the Races: Developments beyond the presidential contest are shaping the future of the Democratic Party--and the country.)
October 1, 2008... SENATE: [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] North Carolina Who: Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) vs. State Sen. Kay Hagan (D) Why: Hagan, a state senator from Shelby, North Carolina, is the underdog for a seat that's gone Republican every year...

From pop charts to politics: is hip-hop's mainstream success hindering its political future?(Essay)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN LATE JULY, A CROWD GATHERED in front of the News Corporation building in Midtown Manhattan to see hip-hop star Nas--perhaps the only rapper left who maintains both impeccable street cred and an easy fluency in...

Dirty rotten scoundrels.(The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule)(Book review)
October 1, 2008... THE WRECKING CREW: HOW CONSERVATIVES RULE BY THOMAS FRANK Metropolitan Books, 369 pages, $25.00 THOMAS FRANK'S WIDELY DISCUSSED What's' the Matter with Kansas opens with a paradox, namely that "the poorest county in America isn't in...

The way to the new world.(nonfiction)('Coming Clean: Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coil', 'Earth, The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming', and 'Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - And How it can Renew America')(Book review)
October 1, 2008... HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED: WHY WE NEED A GREEN REVOLUTION--AND HOW IT CAN RENEW AMERICA BY THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 438 pages, $27.95 EARTH: THE SEQUEL--THE RACE TO REINVENT ENERGY AND STOP GLOBAL WARMING BY FRED KRUPP...

Audacity in Harlem.(Whatever it Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America)(Book review)
October 1, 2008... WHATEVER IT TAKES: GEOFFREY CANADA'S QUEST TO CHANGE HARLEM AND AMERICA BY PAUL TOUGH Houghton Mifflin, 304 pages, $26.00 IT'S VINTAGE NEWS THAT POOR KIDS, especially poor black kids, fare badly in America. Whether the measure is high...

Back to school, back to court.(THE CLOSER)(disparities in education)(Essay)
October 1, 2008... THE BIGGEST THING THE NEXT PRESIDENT CAN DO is something that's hardly been mentioned in this campaign: nominate federal judges who might one day toss out the system of the local funding of our schools. The only way to really improve...