Category: Politics

social opportunity is on the run too. in early december, businessweek noted that significant social mobility had dropped by two thirds from 1978. the nation poses the question if you wanted to create a caste society how would you go about it… One thing you would definitely do is get rid of the estate tax, so that large fortunes can be passed on to the next generation. More broadly, you would seek to reduce tax rates both on corporate profits and on unearned income such as dividends and capital gains, so that those with large accumulated or inherited wealth could…

when i was in moscow, i knew many people who had lived through the stalin period. mainly the parents and grandparents of my friends. it was a fearful time and people did what they could not to be fingered. they never knew who might report them, what the consequences might be of a loose word here, an incautious observation there. as one of the writers from the nation boldly notes, this seems to be the direction that the united states is taking now. As a legal concept, can someone explain the difference between George W. Bush’s “enemy combatant” and Josef…

on my flight back to canada for a family funeral, i have at last come across something to give me a sense of pride in my nation. a happy change from the regular despair at the consumer morass and wretched architecture of modern day north america in its canadian iteration which makes up every trip back across the atlantic. the international herald tribune, as imperialist a rag as pravda, saw fit to take notice of canada in its lead story. canadians had almost become americans before 9/11, they note. but american jingoism, intolerance, christian bigotry and aggressive military action has…