Today's Liberal News

I Crossed Back Into a State of Denial

Cole Burston / Bloomberg / GettyOn the Fourth of July, I drove across the border from the United States into Canada. Two months later, I drove the other way. Both times, I crossed at the same point: just east of Lake Ontario, amid the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River. Both times, I was driving a rented U-Haul, carrying household effects I was swapping between city and vacation house. And there the similarities stopped.

A New Theory of Western Civilization

Tim EnthovenAround 597 a.d., Pope Gregory I dispatched an expedition to England to convert the Anglo-Saxon king of Kent and his subjects. The leader of the mission, a monk named Augustine, had orders to shoehorn the new Christians into Church-sanctioned marriages.

The Emotionally Challenging Next Phase of the Pandemic

A weary friend of mine—another working mom—recently texted to say she couldn’t decide which aspect of daily life during the coronavirus pandemic was worse: “the insanity or the monotony.” Either way, the misery will not end when 2020 does. The new year will inherit many of the same problems that have become so grindingly familiar in 2020.

Hate the Sin, Not the Book

This might seem a very strange time to publish a book recommending that we read the voices from the past. After all, isn’t the present hammering at our door rather violently? There’s a worldwide pandemic; a presidential election is about to consume the attention of America; and if all that weren’t sufficient, we are entering hurricane season. The present is keeping us plenty busy.

The Books Briefing: Imagining Black Futures

The death of Chadwick Boseman last week revealed the ability of art to imagine new, daring possibilities for the future. In his roles as T’Challa, Jackie Robinson, and James Brown, Boseman expertly portrayed Black icons and heroes, providing visions of hope by embodying individuals who challenged power narratives. That is, in many ways, the core of Afrofuturism, a tradition represented in a long line of books written by Black writers such as Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany.

The Warning Signs of a Combustible Presidential Transition

LATROBE, Pennsylvania—President Donald Trump has long signaled that if he loses reelection, it would surely be illegitimate. With his base primed to believe that victory is the only acceptable outcome, the post-election period could be the most combustible in memory.

“We Are the 99%”: Occupy Wall Street Activist & Author David Graeber, Dead at 59, in His Own Words

Upon the death of acclaimed anthropologist and anarchist David Graeber, we feature his 2011 interview on Democracy Now!, two days after the Occupy encampment began. Graeber helped organize the initial Occupy Wall Street protest and was credited with helping to develop the slogan, “We are the 99%.” “The idea is the system is not going to save us; we’re going to have to save ourselves,” says Graeber.

“Death Is on the Ballot”: Lessons for the US, 50 Years After Allende’s Socialist Revolution in Chile

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the election of socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile, a significant moment in the history of political revolutions. We speak with Chilean American author, human rights defender and poet Ariel Dorfman, who was cultural and press adviser to Allende’s chief of staff in the last months of his presidency, about how the revolution used peaceful means to bring about radical change in Chile and beyond.