Category Archives: The Nation

March 28, 2010, 1:10 pm

Sunday Radical Roundup: Death, Taxes and Homocons

The Only One Missing Is The Mad Hatter: Today’s front page story in the New York Times on Tea Party activists reveals what we already suspected: that many of its leading activists are comfortably unemployed. Many key players at the local level are older people of retirement age who are supporting themselves on Social Security and Medicare: one actually retired so that she could pursue her activism full-time. This is why they are able to dedicate themselves to running off at the drop of a hat to make signs or protest the extension of health care to younger people who have failed to exercise the responsibility to stay, or be, employed at the jobs that would give them access to affordable insurance. Because they have already paid into these big government entitlement programs, senior activists explain, “they are getting what they deserve.” Hoo-hah!

But it’s still big government, right?…

May 10, 2008, 7:03 pm

Obama Nation

By Claire Potter

Some of the most insightful discussions of race and gender in this year’s endless contest for the Democratic nomination are in the May 19 edition of The Nation, which arrived at my house some time last week (why do magazines arrive long before the date on the cover? And how will future historians actually know when we knew the things in them, if the dates are wrong?) It is an excellent read, particularly if you would describe yourself as one of the following:

1. Someone who has already voted for Barack Obama, but without the enthusiasm that is seen on TV;

2. Someone who can’t get a grip on all of the racial discourses colliding around this candidacy;

3. Someone who is firmly convinced that Hillary Clinton is the better candidate, but will slap herself around on election day and vote for Obama if s/he has to;

4. Someone who can’t get a grip on what all the second wave feminists are up to…