Autiello: Will True Christianity Please Stand Up?
Nick Autiello, Contributor
The notion that homosexuality is a sin and un-Christian is one that is less than a hundred years old. It is wrong, and has no basis in scriptural or historical reality.
SASSO: The Coming New Year
James Sasso, Associate Editor
As the tumultuous 2011 comes down to its final day, this column could contain an obnoxious summary of the year’s extraordinary events. Rather than once again discussing the protests around the world, the death of Osama Bin Laden, Fukushima, America’s political ineptitude, Europe’s demise or the increasingly frightful weather patterns, here I attempt to predict what 2012 holds in store.
SASSO: Kicking the Can
James Sasso, Associate Editor
For one of the first times in his tenure as Speaker, John Boehner has made a statement with which every American, Republican or Democrat, should fully agree; the two-month Senate bipartisan extension of the payroll tax cut fails to fix the nation’s problems sufficiently. Providing a short-term band-aid to a long-term dilemma contradicts what a responsible government should accomplish, but fits the pattern of contemporary American politicking.
CIOCCI: A Foolish Consistency
Mitt Romney is guilty of serial hypocrisy, Newt Gingrich is guilty of being a public intellectual constantly scrutinized by the media and others, and Ron Paul never ceases to remind me about one of my favorite quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
AKMAN: Jon Huntsman’s Meaningless Campaign
Josh Akman, Columnist
Jon Huntsman did not participate in the CNN Debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. Short of his family and small (and getting smaller) campaign staff, no one really noticed. In a bizarre and counterproductive effort to impress New Hampshire voters Huntsman skipped the debate to protest Nevada moving its caucus ahead of New Hampshire’s, which has always been the nation’s first primary. It’s bizarre because no one else skipped the debate. It’s counterproductive because right now, Jon Huntsman is polling 6% in New Hampshire.
SASSO: The 99% Rising
James Sasso
Associate Editor
For the past month a movement has grown out of Zuccoti Park in New York with the potential to grab at the very heart of America’s problems. “We are the 99%” is not simply a catchy phrase used by frustrated jobless Americans , but a commentary on the disgraceful economic inequality that has arisen in the United States since the 1970s.
SIEFF: On Fear and Democracy
Adam Sieff, Columnist
The reasonable man cannot doubt that there are likely subversive foreign agents among us, but nor can he allow himself to be seduced by epic conspirational fantasies. The conspiracies promoted by the far right pollute the quality of discourse that is essential to maintaining a mature democracy.
SIEFF: The Vocation of the Modern University
Adam Sieff, Columnist
In a world where we are required to determine the meaning of a good life on our own, the mark of a good university is not the instillation of belief, but rather the requirement that every belief is satisfactorily challenged.
SIEFF: The Cry of Our Age
Adam Sieff, Independent
Though we should not elect the Tea Party, we must learn from their experience. We must become the leaders we need, form the parties we desire, and forge the world we crave. It is the calling of our generation, the history we will make together.
SIEFF: Austerity and the American Economy
Adam Sieff, Columnist
European nations, facing crisis, have adopted extreme austerity measures and there is a growing call in the US for sharp reductions in funding. But not all austerity is created equal. Hopefully, we won’t find out the hard way.
SIEFF: On the Summer of Our Discontent
Adam Sieff, Columnist
The summer of reconciliation and return to robustness soon became the summer of our discontent. What began as a quest for firm and comprehensive energy reform quickly and sequentially was reduced to the pursuit of an infeasible carbon cap (then a utilities-only infeasible carbon cap) and then finally the flaccid and reactionary “spill-bill” that succumbed last week. Even with oil saturating the waters of Louisiana and conventional approaches to political economy failing to create jobs, the levers of democracy, some will say, failed the American people. But more accurately, it was those of us in Washington who have failed our nation.
SIEFF: The Defense Department’s Need for Clean Energy Innovation
Adam Sieff, Columnist
The Department of Defense–the country’s largest single consumer of energy–requires a comprehensive energy strategy that will improve national security and strengthen combat capability.
SIEFF: Energy Innovation and America’s Future
Adam Sieff, Columnist
The coming weeks are an opportunity to present a comprehensive energy plan that frames the toughest issues the country currently faces as components of a single problem facing all Americans: dependence on foreign carbon-based energy.
SIEFF: Poise and the President
Adam Sieff, Columnist
With oil flooding the Gulf and many Americans still out of work, the next two to three months will test President Obama’s deliberative style and his focus on economic recovery. He must not abandon either.
SIEFF: Radical Zionism Bad for Israel, Bad For Jews
Israeli policymakers, and Israel’s cheerleaders around the world, fail to understand that the recent behavior of Israel is not even in service of Israel’s interests, nor those of Jews in general.
SIEFF: A Return to Robustness
Adam Sieff, Liberal
A clock is ticking, and it is counting down the minutes before America blows a chance to reinvent and revitalize its economy for the twenty-first century.
SIEFF: Enfranchising “The Mainstream”
Adam Sieff, Liberal
For a word that is tossed around fairly frequently in public political discussion, and especially among conservatives, there seems to be little interest in actually understanding the emotions and ideas behind the “mainstream.” But when we look closer at its usage, we uncover a unity in the meaning of “mainstream” that sheds light on the current impasse in American politics.
SIEFF: We Must Not Be Enemies
Adam Sieff, Liberal
Instead of transforming the victims of market fluctuations and misguided economic policy into a partisan militia, why not help them? This nation needs jobs, not inflammatory partisanship, and it needs them soon.
SIEFF: On California Part 3: The Governorship
Adam Sieff, Liberal
On Thursday, a Daily Kos-Research 2000 poll released numbers on the state’s upcoming gubernatorial race: Jerry Brown (D) leads Meg Whitman (R), but only barely. Adam Sieff takes a closer look at this year’s California gubernatorial race and its longer term implications.
SIEFF: DAMN US ALL
Adam Sieff, Liberal
At the end of America’s glory, there will be no great war to romanticize, no great fiscal crisis or economic collapse to look back upon, and certainly no revolution to blame—only the faintest whisper, one word: “Why?”
SIEFF: How to Remember the Twentieth Century?
Adam Sieff, Liberal
Taking a look back at the twenty-first century – a century marked ultimately by the culmination of rationalization, as it led to world mastery, disenchantment and value pluralism.