archive

Political engagement, activism and liberalism

From Time, A Time To Serve: In a changing society facing all manner of new challenges, volunteers are helping bind America together. Why the U.S. and the next President should make a new commitment to national service; and National Service? Puh-lease. Michael Kinsley thinks the call for compulsory national service is naive. What we really need is better free-market capitalism.   Good Intentions, Bad Idea: It's not easy to knock H.R. 1671 and S. 960, the House and Senate bills that would establish the U.S. Public Service Academy. Political Engagement 101: Research suggests that political engagement can be taught. Targeting Deliberative Democracy: A review of Diana C. Mutz's Hearing the Other Side and Andrew Perrin's Citizen Speak

A review of Activism, Inc: How the Outsourcing of Grassroots Campaigns is Strangling Progressive Politics in America by Dana R Fisher. An interview with Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. To surprise and dissent: At Heathrow, a potent demonstration of the new tactics of protest (and more).  Passport, or carte blanche to raise hell? An increasing number of activists are blending tourism with aggressive advocacy abroad. In the process, they may be taking their liberty for granted. 

E.J. Dionne Jr. on The Liberal Moment: The American left has its greatest political opening since the 60s, and its greatest philosophical one since the 30s. Mutiny on the Manifesto: Spineless scalawags are sabotaging the most promising leftist doctrine in decades. Don't let them. The guilt-free liberal: It's hard to sympathise with former liberals who completely misrepresent liberalism. They need a broader outlook. What's left, right and wrong? Although the terms of political debate have shifted over the last 25 years, some core values have remained the same.