FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK, on May 22, 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson stood before that year’s graduating class at the University of Michigan and delivered the speech that launched his Great Society program. It is a sad commentary on both the state of our economy and our politics that a Democratic president giving a similar […]
Matt Talbot: Resisting empire
IS THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER? I would say that it is, and that the evidence for this view is overwhelming. We spend more on our military than all of our main rivals — combined. Our troops garrison the world, we have bases on every continent, our Navy rules the waves, and so on. […]
Matt Talbot: Democracy or empire? You decide
BEFORE IT GET TO THIS WEEK’S TOPIC, I want to mention something I wrote last week for which I would like to apologize. In describing the people with whom I served in the Army, I wrote: “Very few had more than a high school education; even fewer were widely read or thought deeply about U.S. […]
Matt Talbot: Anniversary of a broken covenant
So now we see how it is, this fist begets the spear Weapons of war, symptoms of madness Don’t let your eyes refuse to see, don’t let your ears refuse to hear Or you ain’t never going to shake this sense of sadness — Ray LaMontagne, “Hold You In My Arms” ELEVEN YEARS AGO, on […]
Matt Talbot: Money talks
FDR, QUOTING AN OLD ENGLISH JUDGE, liked to say that “necessitous men are not free men.” That is to say, if I control your access to the basic necessities of life, and in particular if I use that control to influence your behavior in ways that touch upon politics, can you really be said to […]
Matt Talbot: Overstating fear of government
I KEEP HEARING THOSE ON THE RIGHT SAY the biggest obstacle on the road to prosperity is a lack of confidence on the part of business owners — that the only thing preventing so-called “job creators” from hiring all those unemployed workers out there is the grim prospect of government action — that is, anything […]
Matt Talbot: Using the Dems’ majority to achieve enduring progress
AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL, the Democratic Party’s agenda is effectively crippled by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Because of Republican gerrymandering in the wake of the last round of redistricting in 2010, winning back the House is an uphill battle for Democrats in the best of years, at least for the time being. In my […]
Matt Talbot: Conscience, and history, as our guide
The past is never dead. It’s not even past. — William Faulkner BEING AN AMATEUR STUDENT OF HISTORY, it strikes me sometimes how much our perception of time is an elastic and uncertain thing. America, ever in love with the new, habitually discards anything with the slightest mustiness of age. There was a time not […]
Matt Talbot: Light in the darkness
IF I HAD TO CHOOSE A UNIFYING THEME OR NARRATIVE on the life of my dear brother Mark, I would pick a passage from the Gospel according to John: “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” My late brother Mark’s adolescence was troubled, matching, in a sense, the wider […]
Matt Talbot: Reducing the inequality gap, and unifying America
PLACES LIKE NEW YORK CITY AND THE BAY AREA always will be more expensive than other places in the country. It is easy to see why: Both New York and the Bay Area are global economic powerhouses, because they are international finance, media and technology hubs. Given the level of economic activity and talent in […]