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Vol. 9 No. 39July 1998
Features
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The Turnout Imperative
Low voter participation favors conservatives. If liberals want to avoid a reprise of 1994 in 1998, they have to make turnout a top priority -- and fortunately some are already hard at work. -
Rampant Bull
Are liberals failing to rise in defense of their greatest legacy? As calls for privatizing Social Security grow louder, the time has come for a bold new defense of universal social insurance. -
Ballot Blocks
Poor people are typically democracy's missing persons. But the patterns of low-income voting show what really motivates the voters on election day. -
After Genocide
The fate of one town, Brcko, almost derailed the Dayton Accords. Now Brcko's reconstruction has become one of the most daunting ventures in peacekeeping ever attempted by the United States. -
Essay: Age of Irony
Taking irony seriously may seem like missing the point. Today's ironic sensibility is never serious. But the old masters of irony had serious fun cutting through cant and pretension. -
The Clash of the Samuel Huntingtons
It's one of the fundamental dilemmas of foreign policy: Should American democracy be for export? Samuel P. Huntington makes a powerful case -- for both sides. -
Sacramento: Bowling Green Elementary
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How Low Can You Go? Viagravated Assault
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The Care Equation
Women used to do all the unpaid work of caring for the kids of aging parents. Although career barriers have fallen, women won't have real equal opportunity until America recognizes its crisis of caring. -
Le Sueur-Henderson: Minnesota New Country School
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Boston: Renaissance Charter School
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Devil in the Details
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Charter Conundrum
In exchange for autonomy from school districts, charter schools promise to achieve measurable progress in children's performance. But the movement is based on a dubious premise. -
State of the Debate: The Color of the Law
Race and crime commingle dangerously in the American psyche. Now that crime rates are declining, might color-blind justice finally be achievable? -
Screening Out Sex
When the Supreme Court overturned the Communications Decency Act, it was a triumph for civil liberties. Now new forms of censorship threaten to cut off young people's legitimate access to sexual information in cyberspace.
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Vol. 9 No. 38May 1998
Features
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A Liberal Tax Revolt
Liberals ought to start playing offense on taxes. Progressive tax policy can be good politics. -
How Low Can You Go? Made of Sterner Stuff
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Reform Beyond the Beltway
While Congress is deadlocked, real campaign finance reform is moving ahead in the states. -
Of Our Time: My Dinner with Bill
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The Porter Prescription
Michael Porter, management consultant extraordinaire, has now brought his theory of competitive advantage to the inner city. Bold new ideas -- or an old elixir in a new bottle? -
Below the Beltway: The Irresponsible Elites
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Party Decline
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Old Party, New Energy
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When Should Kids Go to Jail?
For nearly a century, childhood has been a mitigating condition in the eyes of the criminal law. Now that legislators want to try more children as adults, we need to be careful about throwing the baby out with the jail key. -
The Broken Engine of Progressive Politics
The gears of the American change machine -- presidents, parties, and social movements -- no longer work together. A new view of America's major political transformations, from Jefferson and Jackson down to the current disarray of progressive forces. -
State of the Debate: Dolly and Madison
The cloning debate has highlighted moral questions that are likely only to become even more difficult as biotechnology advances: What should be the line between permissible and impermissible genetic interventions? Is our bedrock belief in human equality about to break down? -
Morning in Miami
It's not only the pope who believes the U.S. should lift its embargo. A growing number of Cuban Americans think the old hard-line strategy to oust Castro just isn't working. -
Behind the Numbers: The Great Surplus Debate
Three views of what to do with the budget surplus. -
Unchecked and Unbalanced
Kenneth Starr's behavior as independent counsel follows a pattern set in other investigations: the problem lies in the incentives and unchecked power of the office.
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Vol. 9 No. 37March 1998
Features
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State of the Debate: The Other American Dilemma
Anthony Lukas's last book is a powerful tale of what used to be "class warfare" in America -- and a lesson about why so many people have had a hard time telling that story. -
The Buses Don't Stop Here Anymore
All over the country, public transit systems are losing ridership. As Chicago's story makes clear, the real source of the problem is the sprawling and balkanized shape of America's metropolises. -
Behind the Numbers: The Real Electorate
New census data about who voted in 1996 paint a very different picture than did the initial reports from exit polls. -
Why Liberalism Fled the City ... And How It Might Come Back
The strongholds of municipal liberalism are gone; the coalition of immigrants, unionists, poor people, and neighborhoods has been replaced by alliances between tough-on-crime Republican mayors and organized business. But the seeds of a revival are there. -
Essay: The God of the Digerati
Wired magazine says with new technology we'll all be like gods and should get good at it. That apparently means feeling no restraint -- if something looks good, do it, buy it, invent it, become it. Where have we heard this before? -
March of Folly:
Supposedly, NAFTA will lead to increased movement of goods and services between Mexico and the United States -- but not to more movement of people. That, however, reflects a fundamentally mistaken view of migration. A better understanding should reframe our entire immigration policy. -
The Wrong Enemy
Some liberals worry that trade with low-wage countries will depress American wages. But globalization not only helps lift Third World people out of poverty; it also benefits American consumers and workers. Instead of pursuing protectionism, domestic policies should assure that the benefits of trade are equitably shared. -
Labor's Stake in the WTO
Before the WTO was founded in 1995, labor supporters lobbied hard against it. But now, the WTO may be the last, best hope for arresting global erosion of labor rights. -
Controversy: Should Buckley Be Overturned?
Continuing the debate from "Watch What You Wish For: The Perils of Reversing Buckley v. Valeo," by Alan B. Morrison -
The IMF and The Asian Flu
The International Monetary Fund casts itself as valiant superhero, swooping in to rescue troubled countries from self-inflicted financial disaster. In fact, the demands for austerity it has recently imposed on fundamentally sound economies in Asia and elsewhere have made their problems much worse. -
Of Our Time: Globalism Bites Back
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New Page, Old Lesson
A few years ago educational standards and national testing seemed on their way. But the push for standards has set off predictable reactions from different quarters. Ironically, testing now may be downgraded in importance. -
Devil in the Details
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Are U.S. Students Behind?
The conventional wisdom is that American students perform woefully compared to their foreign peers. Not so: America's kids stack up far better than the critics allow. But there is much to learn from experience abroad about improving our schools.
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Vol. 9 No. 36January 1998
Features
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Screening a La Carte
Instead of a single TV rating system, why not let the PTA and the Christian Coalition -- and anyone else -- create their own? -
Shoot the Messenger
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Will Free Speech Get Tangled in the Net?
When the Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act, cyberlibertarians breathed a sigh of relief. But keeping government out of the censorship business may not be enough to assure freedom online -- censorship may now be privatized. -
Of Our Time: Rescuing Democracy From "Speech"
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Watch What You Wish For
In pursuit of campaign finance reform, many seek to reverse the precedent established by the Supreme Court in 1975, protecting campaign expenditures as free speech. But if the Court's ruling is overturned, the general protections of the First Amendment might be severely narrowed. -
Of Our Time: The Loophole We Can't Close
There may be no way to limit spending that is both constitutional and effective. -
Harder Than Soft Money
The explosion of issue advocacy -- money spent by individuals and independent groups to support political causes -- threatens to make even an outright ban on "soft" money irrelevant. Worse, much of what passes for "issue advocacy" is really covert campaign financing. Still worse, it can't be regulated. -
How Low Can You Go?
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Why States Can Do More
It used to be that leaving states to their own devices meant rampant pollution, as each state relaxed regulation standards to attract business. No longer. -
State of the Debate: The Chicago Acid Bath
A skeptical inquiry into the work of Richard Epstein and Richard Posner. -
Can Cities Escape Political Isolation?
As federal funding dwindles, we need new economic arrangements and political coalitions to unite city and suburb. -
Essay: A Multicultural Nationalism?
Cross-national group loyalties can neither be wished away or erased. Yet the idea of the American nation is worth defending against multicultural attack. Herewith some ground rules for a culturally diverse nation. -
Below the Beltway: Activist Trouble
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Behind the Numbers: When States Spend More
Surprisingly, even without federal mandates, the states have both increased and equalized school outlays. There is a political lesson here -- about coalition building and grassroots activism. -
Apologists Without Remorse
Most leftists have accepted that the Soviet Union was an evil empire after all. Such contrition is conspicuously absent, however, from conservatives who defended apartheid.
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Vol. 8 No. 35November 1997
Features
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State of the Debate: Work and the Moral Woman
Women today are buffeted by the demands of family, career, and feminism. Are these demands sometimes morally incompatible? -
Can Liberals Tell a Credible Story?
If Democrats want to be more than bit players in the Reagan movie, the liberal story needs new characters, new images, and stronger language about opportunity, wealth, and inequality. -
Behind the Numbers: Polluted Data
In one case after another, both corporate lobbyists and academics have overestimated the costs of environmental regulation. Herewith the surprising explanation of why they've been consistently wrong. -
Controversy: The Virtues of Humiliation
Continuing the debate from "The Shaming Sham," by Carl F. Horowitz (March-April 1997). -
The Disenfranchised
Thirteen states deny the franchise to ex-felons who have already paid their debt to society. These laws are all too reminiscent of the Jim Crow South. -
Of Our Time: The Missing Options
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Long Live Community
"Bowling alone" may not only be hazardous to the body politic. It may also be dangerous for the body. Why social cohesion has survival value. -
Devil in the Details
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Unholy Alliance
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Controversy: Can't We Grow Faster?
Continuing the debate from "The Speed Limit," by Alan S. Blinder, and "Why We Can Grow Faster," by Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison (September-October 1997). -
An Emerging Democratic Majority
The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats are now merely the reflecting "moon" of American politics and Republicans the "sun." But demographic and voting data suggest the Democrats could create a new majority without sacrificing progressive concerns. -
Can the Churches Save the Cities?
"Faith-based activism" is very much in vogue, and some church-run programs may be effective at alleviating urban ills. But funding these programs with government money raises troubling constitutional issues. Is there a reasonable middle ground? -
How Low Can You Go?
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Democratic Possibilities
Emphasizing work and family could revitalize the Democratic Party. But only if progressives seize the moment. -
State of the Debate: The Libertarian Conceit
Political excess in the twentieth century gives libertarianism understandable appeal. But caveat emptor; the path from Isaiah Berlin does not lead to Charles Murray. -
Metropolis Unbound
Traffic congestion, unaffordable housing, water and air pollution, social segregation -- these are the everyday costs in suburb and city alike of the geographic expansion of cities. But North America also offers alternative models and policies that show us what cities and neighborhoods could become.
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