With the release of SiCKO in 2007, Michael Moore took discussions of single-payer, government-sponsored health care from the fringes of national political debate to center stage. But it should be obvious by now it will take more than a movie to get the insurance companies out of the health care system. It will also take
Category: Politics
Socialist Kshama Sawant’s Win Signals New Openings for Political Change The city of Seattle has long benefited from the fresh ocean breezes that flow in from Puget Sound. Now, a different kind of breeze is sweeping through the state of Washington. It’s the air of political change represented in economist Kshama Sawan’ts new position as
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, OR REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM? If there weren’t already enough problems involved in the start-up to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), here come the Little Sisters of the Poor to further complicate matters. Whatever charity work the sisters do, their lawsuit challenging the contraception mandate in the new health care law reveals the fanaticism at
WHEN WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR., DEBATED THE MARXISTS Not long ago I watched an online video segment from conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr.’s old TV public affairs program, Firing Line. The year was 1968 and Buckley’s guests were two socialists, Fred Halstead and Paul Boutelle, who were then running as the Socialist Workers Party (SWP)
If mainstream politics is a petrified forest, there are signs of life at the grassroots. The way American politics works now, presidential election campaigns run on a perpetual cycle, beginning again almost as soon as they end. Yet despite the drawn out nature of political campaigns, they increasingly resemble rote public relations exercises in which
MARK HARRIS 