http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/america/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:58:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3882/dixie_turning_blue/ Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's tepid keynote address to the Democratic convention Tuesday night was little noted and will not be long remembered. But it was important in signaling new Democratic political hopes in the South. For decades, following Richard Nixon's successful "Southern strategy" to win over white Democrats by playing on backlash to the civil rights movement, many national Democrats had written off the South -- and often with good reason, if wretched long-term consequences. But Bob Moser, author of the new book "Blue Dixie: Awakening the South’s Democratic Majority" and newly appointed editor of the muckraking Texas Observer, argues that Democrats in the rest of the country should put aside their stereotype of the South as uniquely racist… politics south Rachel Jefferson Fri, 12 Sep 2008 06:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3904/country_first/ Let's say that you enjoyed watching last week's Republican National Convention on television. Let's say you drank in the almost uniformly white faces and the regimented revivalism, you clapped when speakers belittled Barack Obama's work organizing impoverished communities, indeed, you cheered with Rudy Giuliani's zinger, "Drill, baby, drill!" Let's further stipulate that you were not at all discomfited by the convention's incessant "Country First" mantra that defines loyalty to America as lockstep fealty to the Republican Party. Let's say -- for sheer argument's sake, of course -- all of this is true. What, then, of the substance? Stripping away the partisanship, passion and propaganda, what about the veracity of the claim that the GOP puts this country first? Well, let's… election 2008 Republican National Convention nationalism Rachel Jefferson Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3909/you_cant_be_president/ In the late spring of 2007, I found myself in a Manhattan playground in the midst of what can only be described as a children's riot. Moving to protect my younger daughter from the mob, I wound up surrounded by kids firing squirt guns and hurling water balloons at a boy who appeared to be the target of an organized attack. The wild intensity of the conflict made me curious, enough to ask the boy, while he fended off his assailants from the upper platform of a jungle gym, to explain his plight. He shouted his reply: "They're rebelling against me because I'm the dictator!" So far so good, I thought. At least these 11- and 12-year-old Americans still understood… democracy elections presidency america Rachel Jefferson Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4158/contemplating_kings_legacy/ Unlike every other American holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day has ideas of peace and social justice at its core. Most civic holidays in the United States--like Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day--remember wars and the war dead. Labor Day's original purpose and meaning largely has been forgotten amid back-to-school sales and the smell of charred meat wafting from backyard grills. Thanksgiving invokes a nice sentiment, but its meaning is forever enmeshed with the European colonization of the New World and the plight of Native Americans. And inevitably, the spirit of Christmas that many strain to recover each year becomes buried under materialism. But how does one celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day? How does one enact or symbolize… Martin Luther King, Jr. Day American holidays civil rights Rachel Jefferson