New debates, especially on the national security state, bring new vibrancy to our civic life. In death, even flawed politicians can do us that final service.
It’s Good to Argue About Dead Presidents
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Obituary
Goodbye, Carl Bloice
Conn Hallinan remembers Carl Bloice—an FPIF columnist, longtime journalist, and lifetime advocate for the dispossessed.
Remembering Mandela in Berkeley
A tribute to Nelson Mandela from San Francisco’s East Bay, birthplace of the U.S. anti-apartheid movement.
Chavez: Lest We Forget
Comparing Hugo Chavez’s accomplishments to his U.S. obits was like taking a trip through Alice’s looking glass. Virtually none of the information about poverty and illiteracy was included, and when it was grudgingly admitted that he did have programs for the poor, it was “balanced” with claims of soaring debts, widespread shortages, rampant crime, economic chaos, and “authoritarianism.”
I’ll Miss Hugo
Hugo Chavez put an end to the reign of neoliberal IMF policies that had impoverished the masses of Latin America and inaugurated a new order of resource nationalism and income redistribution that favored the poor and the marginalized.
Two Cold War Milestones
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il consolidated communist rule. Czech leader Vaclav fought against corrupt communists. Yet they had some things in common, besides dying a week before Christmas. They both abandoned careers in the arts to become reluctant politicians, and they stabilized their respective countries during difficult times.
Remembering Claudette Munson
Among the leaders of a movement to turn the end of the Cold War into economic opportunity was a mother of four in St. Paul, Minnesota, who had spent 14 years soldering circuit boards for nuclear submarines. Claudette Munson died of cancer on July 25.