Innehållsförteckning för December 14, 2015 från The Nation

@thenation.com Sanders, Denmark, and Debs In Eric Foner’s “Letter to Bernie Sanders” [Nov. 16], he suggests that Sanders refer to America’s radical history rather than Denmark’s, mentioning Eugene Debs at length. When Sanders ran for governor of Vermont in the early 1970s on a third-party ticket, he argued successfully that he should have the same television time that the Democrats and Republicans had. Rather than speaking about his candidacy, Sanders presented a half-hour documentary on Eugene Debs to educate Vermont’s voters about a past that had been buried, as well as to delineate the tradition out of which his candidacy sprung. I don’t know why Sanders hasn’t mentioned Debs, except to suggest that for most Americans, alas, Denmark is more recognizable. BOB BUCKEYE MIDDLEBURY, VT. I agree and disagree with…

In 1963, while preparing for his speech atthe March on Washington, John Lewis saw a photo in The New York Times of a group of black women demonstrators in Rhodesia holding signs that read: one man, one vote. The 23-year-old chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) adopted the phrase as a rallying cry against the disenfranchisement of black Americans in the segregated South. “‘One man, one vote’ is the African cry,” Lewis said at the Lincoln Memorial. “It is ours, too. It must be ours.” Following the March on Washington, SNCC made “One man, one vote” its official slogan. At the same time as Lewis’s speech, “One man, one vote” was being debated before the nation’s highest court. For decades, elected offices in many places were not based…

Vienna “The refugees are showing us the best of Austria,” a Viennese friend told me over tea last month in one of the cozy cafés near St. Stephen’s Cathedral, “and also the worst.” The best would be the many ordinary people who have responded with help to the extraordinary, unprecedented wave of humanity that flowed across Austria’s eastern borders this fall: food and water, clothes and blankets and diapers. At Vienna’s main train stations, volunteers provided weary travelers en route to Germany with meals and, for some, a place to sleep. Even the right-leaning tabloids were full of heartrending stories from the temporary camp at Spielfeld on the Slovenian border, where people were freezing at night in the open air. Nor is this limited to Austria: “Do you know who…

Rock Hill, South Carolina Picturesque winthrop university buzzed with pride andenergy on the first weekend in November, when the “First in the South Democratic Candidates Forum,” moderated by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, came to campus. State Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter buzzed too, but with a different kind of dynamism. The veteran Orangeburg Democrat, who is staying neutral in the primary, was working to redirect the spotlight from the Hillary Clinton–Bernie Sanders–Martin O’Malley show and shine it on a town hall she had convened on “the New South,” a term she uses with a little bit of irony. Cobb-Hunter was a leader in the long fight to remove the Confederate flag from State Capitol grounds, and it was only after the massacre of nine members of Mother Emanuel AME Church by a white…

After 9/11, French President Jacques Chirac rejected the “war on terror” proposed by George W. Bush, urging the United States to treat terrorism as a form of crimi-nality. His refusal to go along with Bush adviser Karl Rove’s Orwellian use of language is perhaps the only thing that Chirac will be remembered for, but in some ways it’s legacy enough. In contrast, after the November terrorist at-tacks on Paris, President François Hollande, a Social-ist, made the grave error of announcing that France is now at war. Actual states should not grant such legitimacy to small bands of violent criminals, and the deployment of the language and techniques of war is the best way to lose a campaign against them. The language of war elevates terrorists to the very status to…

The right is pretty clear on what it wants to do with the Fed. Ted Cruz openly talked in a presidential debate about bringing back the barbaric relic of the gold standard, and the House GOP wants to tie the hands of the Fed, preventing it from doing anything. The left is less clear. Though there have been some notable exceptions, like the activists in the Fed Up campaign, the left has generally lacked a clear and specific agenda for the Federal Reserve. Some have assumed that the Fed’s actions after the 2008 crash benefited banks, ignoring the pretty clear lobbying that the financial industry has done recently to raise interest rates. Some have assumed that the Fed’s low interest rates have hurt people who save or encouraged risky investments,…

Students at Princeton University recently rebeled against the school’s worship of Woodrow Wilson, its leader from 1902 to 1910. Citing his comments disparaging African Americans and racist policies that Wilson later instituted as president of the United States, a group called the Black Justice League demanded, among other things, that Wilson’s name be removed from the prestigious School of Public Policy and International Affairs. After a campaign in which he pledged “absolute fair dealing” for African Americans, Wilson quickly reversed course as president, permitting segregation in the offices of the federal government. In a 1913 editorial titled “The President and the Negro,” The Nation asked: “Is the ‘New Freedom’ to be accepted as preaching political doctrines whose truths are no longer truths when they meet the color line?” The editors…

and Bialik Sky—have mercy. When flechettes fly forth from a shell, shot by a tank taking Ezekiel’s chariot’s name— When their thin fins invisibly whiz, whiffling the air like angels’ wings— their metal feathers guiding them in— When their hooks rip through random flesh in a promise of land with its boring sun— Is it like the priests’ release in Leviticus? The male without blemish and dashed blood? The limbs in pieces? The tents of meeting? The burnt offering? Does it hasten deliverance? Or summon Presence? Is its savor pleasant? As the rage unfurls in a storm of flame and the darts deploy in a shawl of pain? Does it soar like justice?Contain a God? Expose a Source? What will is known? Does it touch a throne? Can we see…

680K People in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database of “known or suspected terrorists” 280K People on the watchlist with no recognized terrorist affiliation 900 Records added to the Terrorist Screening Database per day 89% People identified in NSA-intercepted conversations leaked by Edward Snowden who were not the targets of surveillance “The facts show mass surveillance doesn’t protect us from terrorist attacks.” Senator Ron Wyden (DOregon), on calls to expand government surveillance following the Paris attacks…

In the 1930s, people in the United States and Western Europe offered dozens of reasons why the Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany should not be welcomed. Their rhetoric has been revived by the GOP in rejecting Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS and a many-sided war. So… who said it: Republicans in 2015 talking about Syrians, or xenophobes in the 1930s talking about Jews? 1“The refugee has got to be checked because, unfortunately, among the refugees there are some spies, as has been found in other countries.” 2 “This could be one of the great tactical ploys of all time.” 3 “I don’t think it would meet the part of wisdom. Our conditions here at home prohibit accepting an influx of population.” 4 “If there is a rabid dog running around your…

Manju das stood over a pot in her nephew’sfood stall, which spilled onto the pavement of a busy, dust-choked thoroughfare in interior West Bengal. She poured in some oil followed by a handful of dried chilies and mustard seeds. Two small onions went in next. “You know the cost of onion?” she asked, averting her face from the pungent fumes. “Eighty rupees a kilogram. When onion costs what meat should cost, how can we survive?” It was the winter of 2013, and the rate of inflation for food prices in India had reached a record 14.72 percent, pushing poor families another rung down the ladder of insecurity. Only a year earlier, Das and her son had owned their own food stall, which they’d built using the money she saved during…