Articles and Op-Eds: 2005

Articles and op-eds by New America fellows and staff are available below. To jump to another year's archives, please use the links at right.

You choose: Civil Liberties or Safety?

  • By
  • James Pinkerton,
  • New America Foundation
December 29, 2005 |

This will be remembered as the year in which mass surveillance became normal, even popular.

Revelations about the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping rocked the civil liberties establishment, but the country as a whole didn't seem upset. Instead, the American people, mindful of the possible danger that we face, seem happy enough that Uncle Sam is taking steps to keep up with the challenges created by new technology.

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Movie Magic: Metapolitics vs. Message Politics

  • By
  • James Pinkerton,
  • New America Foundation
December 28, 2005 |

"If you want to send a message, call Western Union." That's an old joke in Hollywood, dating back to the days when Western Union was a big deal. The idea is that the movies should be about making money, not making political or social points.

The old chestnut is being proven again in this Christmas season. Currently, the two movies duking it out for tops at the box office are avowedly apolitical: The Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong.

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An 'Amen' to Spielberg's Violent Prayer for Peace

  • By
  • James Pinkerton,
  • New America Foundation
December 27, 2005 |

Steven Spielberg, America's most influential filmmaker, doesn't just make movies. He makes statements--and takes risks, as with his latest movie, Munich.

The 59-year-old director has reached a point where leaving a legacy is more important than making another billion. Amistad was a message movie about civil rights. Saving Private Ryan was an ode to The Greatest Generation. And Schindler's List made the Holocaust vivid for an increasingly post-literate public.

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Rebirth Rising from a Rain of Fire

  • By
  • Gregory Rodriguez,
  • New America Foundation
December 25, 2005 |

Dresden -- Once you've seen its curlicued, domed outline and experienced its uplifting, bright, pastel interior, it's hard to understand why some Dresdeners were opposed to the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche, the 18th century Protestant cathedral that was destroyed by the infamous Allied firebombing that devastated this city in February 1945.

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Rent-a-Researcher

  • By
  • Jennifer Washburn,
  • New America Foundation
December 22, 2005 |

Earlier this month, Sheffield University in Britain offered $252,000 to one of its senior medical professors, Aubrey Blumsohn. According to a copy of a proposed settlement released by Blumsohn, the university promised to pay him if he would agree to leave his post and not make any detrimental or derogatory statements about Sheffield or its employees. For several years, Blumsohn had been complaining of scientific misconduct. His concerns primarily revolved around a $250,000 research contract between Sheffield and the Ohio-based Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals.

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A Public at Risk Will Surrender Rights

  • By
  • James Pinkerton,
  • New America Foundation
December 22, 2005 |

As they attack George W. Bush on the surveillance issue, Democrats are proving themselves to be either really principled or really stupid, at least in terms of their electoral futures. I am having a hard time figuring out which it is--although I have a hunch.

Many top Democrats seem convinced that "snoopgate" is a big winner for them. E-mailing his million or so closest friends, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean asks, "Did George Bush break the law?" The presumption is that Bush is guilty, of course, but Dean needs money now to launch his own investigation.

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Buckley at 80

  • By
  • James Pinkerton,
  • New America Foundation
December 22, 2005 |

If, as Carlyle believed, "The history of the world is but the biography of great men," then William F Buckley--80 in November--rates a place in the history of our time. Fifty years ago, Buckley, the New York city-born heir to a Texas oil fortune, started a magazine with the express purpose of making his historical mark.

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Union Dues

  • By
  • Joel Kotkin,
  • New America Foundation
  • and Harry Siegel
December 21, 2005 |

It may be tempting to view the New York transit workers' strike as a local story. After all, the local narrative--the nation's largest city shut down at the whim of an arrogant and reckless union--is pretty compelling. But, in fact, the transit strike is part of a national phenomenon: In cities across the country, voters may cast ballots, but it's really the public employees who rule.

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Focus on the Victims--Not on New Orleans

  • By
  • Joel Kotkin,
  • New America Foundation
December 21, 2005 |

Without question, there is a role for the federal government in the rebuilding of lives in the devastated Gulf Coast. That's where the emphasis belongs--on people, not on buildings, or even places.

This notion came to me recently as I was discussing the future of New Orleans with a group of evacuees in Houston. Sherby Guillory, a displaced student at Tulane, had this to say about what he saw as the current emphasis on rebuilding the physical charms of his city.

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Outside View: Neocon Optimism on Iraq

  • By
  • Steven Clemons,
  • New America Foundation
December 21, 2005 |

Happy days are here again. Or so say William Kristol and Robert Kagan, the co-helmsmen of America's neoconservative establishment. In their upbeat Weekly Standard assessment of the Dec. 15 Iraq parliamentary elections, they ridicule "sour experts" whom they assert are going far out of their way to explain why "the peaceful election of a national assembly for a fully self-governing Arab democracy was not a turning point." But the election, according to Kristol and Kaplan, was no less than an "eruption of democracy in the heart of the Arab world."

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