Warren Goldstein

One of the truly wonderful things about earning a living as a historian is that I get to ponder what sorts of current events are genuinely "historic," and what seem to be, in historians' terms, just run-of-the-mill elections, disasters, scandals, athletic achievements, or social movements. Like my colleagues, I'm often...

3:46 AM, November 15--

As Sebastian told me from the Zuccotti Park Kitchen about 2:30 this morning, "Well, we didn't really expect the military-industrial complex to just go home, you know."

And they didn't. After holding off for nearly two months -- the anniversary is day after tomorrow -- the...

I loved just about everything about the march yesterday in lower Manhattan: the range of people: young to old, black, white, and brown (though I had hoped for a larger proportion of people of color), and not so well-off to pretty well-off. Great spirit, seriousness of purpose, and excellent signs...

Ok, after a week of trying to keep my emotional distance, I can't do it any more. There's something happening here. In New York, and in Boston, and Chicago, and San Francisco and Los Angeles and Denver and Seattle and please tell me all the other places. The fact that...

I confess. Rather than observing the nationwide moment of silence President Obama called for at 11 a.m. this morning, I wrote this post. Silence is the last thing we need right now. We need speech: forceful, civil, principled, intelligent speech about the intensifying connection between mainstream violent speech and...

Here's what I wrote yesterday afternoon in this space:

Beware, Americans. By tomorrow morning you will be hearing the "official" Jewish community parroting the IDF line, complaining about the nerve of those activists defending themselves in international waters from heavily armed soldiers enforcing an illegal blockade. Oh yes, and...

What were they thinking about?

Let's get this straight. Israel is enforcing a blockade against Gaza that is in blatant defiance of international law.

A flotilla of activists attempts to break the blockade and supply humanitarian aid to Gaza.

And Israeli commandos in international waters board some...

For years now I've found myself linked in the blogosphere with a number of namesakes. It's an odd set of coincidences, but I've followed their careers in a distant way. One is a sociologist studying religion and social theory, most recently (as far as I can tell) at...

I've been a big fan of Newsday, Long Island's largest daily newspaper, for more than twenty years. I became a fan when I lived in Riverhead, on the East End of the Island, and began writing for the paper's op-ed page. The combination of first-rate editing, unforgiving deadlines, and (gradually...

A little over nine years ago (December 12, 2000) the conservative majority on the Supreme Court intervened in the disputed presidential election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Throwing its own (new federalist) legal scruples to the winds, the majority twisted itself in legal knots in order to deliver...

Last October I flew to Sarasota, Fla., and arranged to stay at the home of a friend who was traveling at the time. She mailed me keys and an address.

I landed late and took a cab. When we pulled up in front of the house, which I'd never seen...

"All politics is local," the late Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil opined famously. And New Yorkers have been getting a large dose of the maxim in recent weeks, one out in the open; one not so obvious at all.

Evidently enjoying all the fanfare, New York City politicians and...

Long Island's daily Newsday invited me to write a piece about the local (and now national) controversy over the Mets' new ballpark being named for an incompetent bank in which taxpayers have invested $45 billion. Here's the piece, which turned into some thoughts about populism, politics, and the public...

There are far too many reasons to feel distress, sadness, and anger about Israel's massive air bombardment and invasion of Gaza--its shortsightedness; its counterproductive lethality; the self-righteousness of the so-called "friends of Israel" who have leapt to its defense; tasting the final, spoiled fruits of the Bush Administration's reign of...

Like many of you, since Election Night I have found myself frequently moved by the new reality we live in, now that the astonishing words "President-elect Barack Obama" have become commonplace in our media. These are not the kinds of feelings aging academics are supposed to have. So, prompted by...

5 PM Tuesday, November 4, 2008

I think Barack Obama is in the process of winning today -- so it's worth taking a moment to reflect on what his extraordinary campaign has already meant, and will continue to mean for American politics in the future.

Most simply...

For me the second-worst part of Wednesday night's Obama-McCain debate was realizing that my guy was never going to tear into his opponent, never even going to break a sweat as he explained good policy after good policy. Ok, I figured, he and his campaign must know what they're doing,...

Finally! No longer can anyone--from Friedmanite ideologues to the lords of the Federal Reserve, to GOP hacks, to neoliberal free-traders--say the words "free market" and U.S. economy in the same sentence with a straight face. It's going to cost the American people several trillion dollars, in lost pension funds, lost...

At first I was worried, when a friend wrote me that John McCain's VP choice Sarah Palin was a conservative anti-choice Christian, with a union-member husband, a son going to Iraq, and membership in the NRA. "A deeply cynical choice," I wrote back. "Sure," he agreed, but "she is going...

Ok. I'm 57 years old and cast my first vote in 1972--proudly, I will add--for George McGovern, but in the intervening 36 years I have rarely felt proud of my votes for Democrats, no matter how necessary they have been. There have been wonderful political moments: watching Geraldine Ferraro come...