tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-297172202012-01-20T10:20:49.028-05:00An archives of articles by Sam Smith, editor of the Progressive Review. More can be found at prorevflotsam.blogspot.com/ including an index by topic.TPRnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1131100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-46930324748054130902011-11-07T00:32:00.002-05:002011-11-07T00:32:41.117-05:00

Sam Smith March 2011 Not every change in national policy and events is announced with a new conference or presidential speech. A case in point is the rapid rise of apparent mental instability in the Republican Party. You used to just disagree with Republicans; now you have to worry whether your children will be safe in their proximity. Historians may peg 2008 - with Sarah Palin chosen to

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-11204373175714801142011-10-19T21:11:00.003-04:002011-10-19T21:11:11.617-04:00

ALTHOUGH DANA MILBANK has done some good reporting from the White House he continues to display a curious anti-Nader fetish, most recently making fun of Nader selling books on his website. Given that Nader, David Cobb of the Greens, and Michael Badnarik of the Libertarians were clearly the three most decent human beings in the race who got any notice, the question arises: why does Milbank so

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-17889383378258460822011-10-19T21:07:00.000-04:002011-10-19T21:07:07.550-04:00

 2005 - YOUR editor enjoyed lunch today with his wife at Jimmy T's five blocks down East Capitol Street from where George Bush and his capos were being given four more years to do damage to their country, its constitution, its culture, and its environment -- not to mention further mischief to the rest of the world. The inauguration was taking place on the opposite side of the Capitol and there

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-84666127064124351932011-10-03T19:16:00.000-04:002011-10-03T19:16:34.460-04:00

Sam Smith [This appeared in the Progressive Review during the Reagan administration. Not much has changed.] Our text for today is found in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel. When Samuel got old he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. As so often occurs with nepotism this didn't work out: the offspring taking dishonest gain and bribes and perverting justice. So the elders of Israel paid a

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-74454773291112738342011-09-21T18:41:00.002-04:002011-09-21T18:41:27.789-04:00

Sam Smith 2006 I would like to celebrate Martin Luther King Day but I can't get Bull Connor out of my mind. I look for reminders of Martin Luther King but they are either old and weary or in lonely, small places. Reminders of Bull Connor are all around us. The spirit of Bull Connor can be found in our foreign policy, in our police methods, in our treatment of the weak and the poor, in our

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-16553551853641174932011-09-21T18:37:00.000-04:002011-09-21T18:37:28.618-04:00

Sam Smith 2007 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S claim that this is the tenth anniversary of the blog - as well as some of the critical reaction to the story - led us to our archives to find what we could about our role in this tale. We've tried to avoid the word blog - preferring to call ourselves an online journal - but the phrase has a ubiquity one can't duck. The Wall Street Journal claimed, "We

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-44869996211268185362011-09-20T15:20:00.000-04:002011-09-20T15:20:37.387-04:00

Sam Smith 2009 One of the things you learn early as a writer is that the hardest parts of a story are the beginning and the end. The beginning of my story as a Washington journalist was over 50 years ago; the middle has encompassed all or part of one quarter of America's presidencies, and the end will come sometime this year. I will continue to edit the national edition of the Progressive

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-34269462884163304182011-09-20T15:16:00.000-04:002011-09-20T15:16:19.438-04:00

Sam Smith As I tried, for about the seventeenth time, to make sense of the healthcare negotiations, I suddenly realized that I wasn't watching a political debate at all; rather it was one of those conflicts you read about in other countries that are so hard to understand from afar - the sort in which militant and/or religious sects with hard to remember names and unpronounceable leaders engage

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-48617680654526979832011-09-20T15:13:00.002-04:002011-09-20T15:13:48.731-04:00

Sam Smith What corporate America wanted was nothing less than the Third Worlding of the US, a collapse of both present reality and future expectations. The closer the life and wages of our citizens could come to those of less developed nations, the happier the huge stateless multinationals would be. Then, as they said in the boardrooms and at the White House, the global playing field would be

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-67883759185831352472011-09-19T13:09:00.002-04:002011-09-19T13:09:57.844-04:00

Sam Smith 1982   Over the past 60 years only two Democratic presidential candidates have gotten over 50% of the vote: LBJ in 1964 and Jimmy Carter in 1976. For nearly a quarter of a century, beginning with the election of Reagan, the Democratic Party has tried to reinvent itself as a party of the modified right. The effort has been a disaster; all its candidates have gotten less than half of the

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-4848595065890781212011-08-28T17:38:00.000-04:002011-08-28T17:38:53.046-04:00

Sam Smith 2009 Even liberals and Democratic presidents are placing an inordinate amount of blame on teachers for the state of public education, adopting the classic right wing practice of attributing the faults of a system to its weakest elements, in this case teachers and students This distracts from such issues as who is responsible for running schools, who designs the curriculum, who

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-9699817534230774172011-08-19T22:38:00.001-04:002011-08-28T17:35:29.729-04:00

 80 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF A STRIVING BLACK COMMUNITY There are a number of things that make the story of black Washington different. Among them: - Washington has always been a colony. Thus even if the city's blacks would become equal to other DC residents, they would still not be equal to other Americans. Further, at a number of critical moments in DC history - such as during the Shepherd

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-52446776051205897512011-08-16T15:21:00.000-04:002011-08-16T15:21:07.356-04:00

Sam Smith From an earlier campaign We are once again being treated to that remarkably self-serving and hypocritical myth that there should be no religious test for high office. For one thing, it's a lie: if you aren't religious, you don't get high office. For another thing, if you are religious, you spend a good deal of your campaign convincing some voters just how faithful you are

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-29119149888274500562011-07-23T23:24:00.000-04:002011-07-23T23:24:49.491-04:00

A CHART THAT APPEARED IN THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW, MAY 1992 The media tried to turn the Clinton story into Camelot II. Just the truth would have made life easier for all of us. And a much better tale as well.  Sam Smith COPYRIGHT 1998 THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW Updated January 2001 and periodically thereafter 1950s When Bill Clinton is 7, his family moves from Hope, Arkansas, to the long-time

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-21062401913092675812011-07-10T13:33:00.000-04:002011-07-10T13:33:02.200-04:00

 Sam Smith Filling some of the vast voids at the 2004 Democratic convention were repeated media references to Bill Clinton as the true savior of the Democratic Party. This myth has been one of the most destructive forces within the party. Here are some of the facts: Bill Clinton got 43.9% of the vote in 1992, while Michael Dukakis - the victim of another myth as the purportedly worst possible

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-40264953160337127352011-07-07T20:11:00.002-04:002011-07-07T20:11:40.934-04:00

An excerpt from 'Shadows of Hope: A Freethinker's Guide to Politics in the Time of Clinton" by Sam Smith. (Indiana University Press, 1994) Sam Smith The nature of politics has been affected by the decline of descriptive journalism in the wake of Watergate and by television's rise. Real reporters now prefer smoking guns -- stories that offer the potential of major victory or defeat, if

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-4444511043488002232011-06-28T19:42:00.000-04:002011-06-28T19:42:18.567-04:00

SAM SMITH From a talk given at an upper school assembly at Maret School, Washington, DC, September 2006 In my son Ben's senior year at Maret, he and a couple of friends visited a used clothing shop where one of them - Chris Friendly - found a pink suit and a pink fedora that he wore for his graduation. Chris and Ben were also featured with two buddies in odd poses in the Maret yearbook in a

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-25694336738691188382011-06-25T15:50:00.000-04:002011-06-25T15:50:32.030-04:00

Sam Smith 1995 Washington has become a city of barricades, a place where agents on rooftops scan the sky for missiles, and where metal detectors are turned so high they can find a nail in your shoe. It is a city of clearances, closed doors, need to know, a city that believes even Alice Rivlin should take a drug test. Washington is a town that will host an August conference on "Special Tactics

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-42386458814244361662011-06-22T14:39:00.002-04:002011-06-22T14:39:47.374-04:00

Sam Smith 2006 The death of the activist minister, William Sloane Coffin, propels a troubling question to the front of my mind: where have all the cool preachers gone? It may seem an odd query for a Seventh Day Agnostic but I have always tried to separate cause and character and have enjoyed a happy if inconsistent relationship with those of the cloth. Besides, we are all members of what

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-76300648617271683702011-06-20T17:56:00.002-04:002011-06-20T17:56:59.390-04:00

Sam Smith Back when JFK was getting ready to invade Cuba, the New Republic got wind of the CIA's training of Cuban exiles. Harvard professor Arthur Schlesinger was shown an advance copy of the article, which he promptly passed to Kennedy, who in turn asked (successfully) that TNR not print it. The New York Times also withheld a story on the pending invasion, which Schlesinger would later

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-25337766468222248642011-06-19T22:26:00.000-04:002011-06-19T22:26:48.603-04:00

Sam Smith 2004 One major differences between journalism today and when your editor started out 47 years ago is that there wasn't as much bragging, pomposity, hypocritical self-analysis and professional narcissism back then. Reporters, in fact, were among those most skeptical of their trade and the public readily endorsed their judgment. HL Mencken put it this way: "The average newspaper,

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-75997707980402832872011-06-13T23:34:00.000-04:002011-06-13T23:34:35.027-04:00

 Sam Smith As it tries to recover from the most expensive failure in American military history, the Pentagon has its eyes on an easier target. The beauty of this adversary is that it is not from an indecipherable culture, it doesn't speak a strange language and it doesn't scatter IEDs in the path of Hummers. In fact, it's not even armed and its headquarters, far from

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-70488898007618745252011-05-14T21:41:00.000-04:002011-06-14T21:41:46.143-04:00

Marion Barry and me SAM SMITH - Marion Barry and I split over a quarter century ago. I can't remember the exact issue, but it was one time too many that Marion had promised one thing and then done another. I first met Marion in 1966. We were both in our 20s and he was looking for a white guy who would handle the press. He had just organized the largest local protest movement in the city's

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-48053145064303125022010-01-04T12:12:00.002-05:002010-04-19T22:07:08.656-04:00

Sam Smith "An oligarchy," says Wikipedia, "is a form of government in which power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royal, wealth, intellectual, family, military, or religious hegemony. The word oligarchy is from the Greek words for 'few' and 'rule.' Such states are often controlled by politically powerful families whose children are heavily conditioned and

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-35496602197926810642009-12-06T10:43:00.006-05:002010-02-06T00:14:59.713-05:00

Sam Smith  One thing is clear as the climate change debate chugs along: we need to teach math better in our schools. And it wouldn't hurt if journalism schools taught some math as well.  For example, it is apparent that those who argue that one good snow storm destroys the case for climate change never got a good introduction to odds and averages. An exception seems to be baseball. I have

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-25610789761703151802009-12-02T23:44:00.004-05:002009-12-05T00:07:36.214-05:00

I grew up part Jewish. It was hard not to if you lived in a New Deal family where your father was involved in things like starting Americans for Democratic Action. My own introduction to politics came as a pre-teen stuffing envelopes for the local ADA director Leon Shull as he helped organize the removal of Philadelphia's 69-year-old Republican machine. Shull was one of

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-7737532170287152432009-12-02T23:40:00.003-05:002009-12-05T00:08:38.161-05:00

ThLast night, browsing through Sartre before bedtime, I came across this: "Existentialism isn't so atheistic that it wears itself out showing that God does not exist. Rather it declares that even if God did exist, that would change nothing. . . Not that we believe that God exists, but we think that the problem of His existence is not the issue." It struck me as I read

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-16268308701554747992009-09-24T21:25:00.002-04:002009-12-05T00:10:17.103-05:00

 The following was written in 1978 after the election of Marion Barry as mayor of Washington DC.  TO THE NEW MAYOR: 1. If the people had expected you to be infallible they would have made you Pope. They only elected you mayor. It's not a question of whether you'll make mistakes but how you make them

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-88994585321605599522009-01-13T14:49:00.004-05:002010-01-31T23:26:11.822-05:00

BY SAM SMITH The Progressive Review, June 2005 The financial problems of several of Washington's museums has got me thinking more about museums than I usually do. I don't rank as a museum expert, still I suspect I'm somewhere in the middle of the pack of those the experts are trying to attract. I love some museums, couldn't care less

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-20170844172490191432008-12-20T13:17:00.006-05:002009-12-05T00:33:58.496-05:00

Sam Smith From the March 1996 issue of the Progressive Review   The nomination of General Barry McCaffrey as drug czar symbolizes the nation's dramatic retreat from the principle of separation of military and civilian power. It further demonstrates the degree to which the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 -- which outlaws military involvement in civilian law enforcement -- is being

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-4426338853890513562008-10-21T20:09:00.001-04:002009-12-05T00:01:50.597-05:00

From the Progressive Review, April 2001   URBAN sociologist Claude S. Fisher writes that "our species has lived in permanent settlements of any kind for only the last two percent of its history." As late as the 1850s, just two percent of the world's population lived in cities of more than 100,000, by 1900 only about ten percent. By the end of the last century,

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-36262908375397863772008-05-07T15:59:00.006-04:002009-12-07T00:35:26.308-05:00

FIFTY YEARS ago, America was just a decade past the last major war it would ever win. The length of the average work week was down significantly from the 1930s but real income had been soaring and would continue do so through the 1970s. We had a positive trade balance and the share of total income gained by the top 1% of the country was only around 8%, down from 24% in the 1930s. As Jermie D.

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-23686736359443912052008-04-17T23:01:00.001-04:002008-04-17T23:03:13.251-04:00

My worries over being named president of the John Eaton Elementary School parents association in the mid 1970s were aggravated by reminders that I would be the first man to hold the post. I recalled a Howard University professor telling me how he had integrated a bowling league in the 1950s only to find that he

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-62987684193932451342008-04-03T16:41:00.000-04:002008-04-03T16:42:23.925-04:00

During the Clinton years, liberals and their organizations developed a postmodern indifference to moral issues when the Clintons were involved. This virus turned into an epidemic under Bush and hurts us still. Your editor attempted to deal with the issue in this article:SAM SMITH, PROGRESSIVE REVIEW, 1999 - Both the contemporary right, which views moral issues as immutable absolutes handed down

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-8022358737472689382008-02-28T09:13:00.001-05:002008-02-28T09:13:27.534-05:00

1998I figured that if I was going to be part of the vast right wing conspiracy, I better find out something about it. So in the best fashion of post-modern journalism, I decided to take a poll. I didn't really know how to take a poll but I estimated that if interviewing 450 people across the nation could tell one how popular the president is, then interviewing six people would take care of a

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-59540328081073640482008-02-26T00:02:00.001-05:002008-02-26T00:02:29.776-05:00

BILL CLINTON: OUR FIRST POSTMODERN PRESIDENT Sam Smith The following is an excerpt from "Shadows of Hope: A Freethinker's Guide to Politics in the Times of Clinton" by Progressive Review editor Sam Smith, written after just one year of the Clinton administration and published by Indiana University Press Not all the myths of the Clinton campaign were for

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-65077973489821696502008-02-22T20:34:00.000-05:002008-02-22T20:35:11.173-05:00

2005The other day I got a call from a student working on a college paper about Coffee 'n Confusion, a Washington coffeehouse the local police had tried to close down in the late 1950s as an offense against the community's welfare. I had covered the story as a radio reporter and still had the tape of Texas lawyer Harvey Rosenberg's magnificent plea for unfettered artistic

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-88905648447959542162008-02-20T20:40:00.000-05:002008-02-20T20:41:06.825-05:00

1994Early in the republic the capital discovered the seven deadly sins, soon grew weary of them, and has spent the subsequent decades developing variations. Congress has often set the pace. Its favorite vice is not that of the White House, namely the usurpation of democracy, but rather its neglect. The days of legislative tyranny by a Sam Rayburn or a Lyndon Johnson

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-11531465650315344282008-02-19T16:07:00.001-05:002008-02-19T16:07:33.038-05:00

Sam SmithIF there has been one constant in my journalistic life it has been Fidel Castro. Even Teddy Kennedy had just been admitted to the Massachusetts Bar when I covered Castro for the first and only time. And though I would never actually see him again, Fidel would ceaselessly reappear like some ghost of revolutions past, casting a mysterious and malicious spell on American politicians and

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-3367794958851194702008-02-18T13:38:00.002-05:002008-02-18T13:40:47.644-05:00

SAM SMITH, THE IDLER, 1965 - Senator Gaylord Nelson was in the midst of a campaign speech last fall when he suddenly halted. He looked out at his audience and announced: "Ladies and gentlemen. This is the first time either you or I have heard this speech and, frankly, I don't agree with it." He finished his address speaking off-the-cuff. The occasion brought a rare moment of truth to the nation's

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-8078231848632288342008-01-22T23:09:00.000-05:002008-01-22T23:14:25.499-05:00

Atlas Shrugged is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should. - Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, writing in 1957 to the NY Times about a critical review of Ayn Rand's

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-86901771793420923052007-11-29T20:35:00.000-05:002007-11-29T20:38:16.213-05:00

2007The 2008 presidential campaign has already revealed the slim odds that anyone elected to the White House from either party will help bring America back to life, back to its constitution, back to its ideals, back to sanity and back to reasons for enthusiasm and pride in being an American.The job thus remains a largely non-electoral one, much as it was the first time around

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-76879128979595583202007-11-13T15:32:00.000-05:002007-11-13T15:33:12.217-05:00

After many months of research and development, the Progressive Review is pleased to report the first details of its forthcoming daily newspaper: USA Tomorrow.The design of a daily newspaper is the result of - among other things - tradition, market surveys, the prejudices of the owner and the editors' attempt to figure out what these prejudices are. It can be, by consequence, a product that nobody

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-17701212753378720232007-11-07T16:56:00.001-05:002007-11-07T16:56:51.883-05:00

1981I learned the other day that I had survived more than two decades as a writer without ever fully understanding what a predicate was: My ten-year-old explained it to me. I was glad he understood it, but I wondered whether he still would when he was forty-one and how many times he would get to use the information between now and then. I am wondering again for now, a few days later, I have

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-88620599304448247372007-11-06T21:42:00.001-05:002007-11-07T16:56:34.259-05:00

2004Listening to Diane Rehm the other morning as she and her panelists turned the horrors of Abu Ghraib into just another matter of politics, policy and process brought to mind the question: what if the prisoners had been Jewish and the time 70 years ago and the place Germany? How would Diane Rehm have handled that story?It is not just our arguments, but our words, that reveal us. For example,

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-45999532613535449902007-11-05T13:26:00.001-05:002007-11-05T13:26:49.519-05:00

2003 The memorial service for Gene McCarthy ran a bit long, considering it was a tribute to a man who had once suggested reducing the number of commandments from ten to four. And it was disturbing to see Bill Clinton shamelessly delivering a tribute to a man of integrity, especially one who had once suggested, as a reform, that "we fire all the Rhodes and Oxford scholars and everyone from

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-15818154549060687372007-11-01T13:46:00.001-04:002007-11-01T13:46:59.932-04:00

I don't know for sure that you're out there at all, but from what I read and hear there's a pretty good chance, so I thought I would pass this along.You may be tapping my phone, scanning my e-mails and collating my other electronic ephemera, but you don't know me.Any writer can tell you this: you don't reveal character or describe an individual by just dumpster diving for data. Your efforts are

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-46770925943990201262007-10-31T15:23:00.000-04:002007-10-31T15:24:20.913-04:00

[From Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual, WW Norton, 1997]Here are a few questions that may help you find out what's right and wrong with your community's schools. Add or subtract points for any statment that is true:1. THE PRINCIPALis seen regularly in classes finding out what's going on . . . +10is seen regularly in hallway in conversation with students . . . +5is seldom seen in

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-44631904950495808602007-10-25T15:22:00.000-04:002007-10-25T15:23:46.409-04:00

1986This spring I graduate again from high school, this time vicariously, and one of the major lessons of this return trip has been a deepened appreciation of the role that sports and other extra curricular activities play In education. I no longer think of them, in fact, as extra-curricular at all. The category seems oddly discriminatory and, despite the skill with which academia bedizens its

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-30649403186575932712007-10-24T11:12:00.001-04:002007-10-25T15:22:40.517-04:00

Sam SmithURBAN sociologist Claude S. Fisher writes that "our species has lived in permanent settlements of any kind for only the last two percent of its history." As late as the 1850s, just two percent of the world's population lived in cities of more than 100,000, by 1900 only about ten percent. By the end of the last century, however, about half the world's humans lived in cities. In America,

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-5287326291823026032007-10-23T09:11:00.000-04:002007-10-23T09:12:01.051-04:00

[50 years ago last summer, your editor covered his first story in Washington. Throughout the year, the Review will exhume some of his writings. This article appeared during the Clinton years.]Sam SmithYou are probably not a liberal anymore if:You think the elimination or reduction of social services is a reform.Accept the idea that Social Security and Medicare must live within the limits of an

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-65062424918752199042007-10-22T15:04:00.000-04:002007-10-22T15:05:24.204-04:00

[From the DC Gazette in the 1970s] It was nice to learn the other day that the National Labor Relations Board agrees with me that journalists are not "professionals." The ruling came in a labor dispute over which union reporters and other newspaper workers should join. The NLRB probably didn't mean to, but it nonetheless struck a small blow for freedom of the press -- and the rest of the country

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-77307409710942600952007-10-21T22:44:00.001-04:002007-10-21T22:44:56.052-04:00

1991About a half dozen years ago, I started hanging out with traditional liberals again. It wasn't that my views had changed, but I had become fascinated with a conundrum of left-of-center politics.The old liberals, and their natural allies such as the large labor unions, had the power, visibility and ground troops, but were stunningly devoid of ideas. Myriad other progressive groups, meanwhile,

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-51704858877851653692007-10-17T14:44:00.000-04:002007-10-17T14:45:04.126-04:00

2001THERE seems to be some confusion in Washington these days as to the nature of victory. To help the Beltway discourse, the Review provides some handy hints to determine whether you've won or lost:- If, in the course of battle, you not only destroy your enemy but greatly harm yourself, as well as the people whom you are purportedly rescuing, that is not a victory but a disaster.- If you are

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-82793323640198250312007-10-16T11:41:00.001-04:002007-10-16T12:48:07.224-04:00

[From Shadows of Hope, 1994]In 1816, Columbus, Ohio, had one city councilmember for every hundred residents. By 1840 there was one for every thousand residents. By 1872 the figure had dwindled to one to every five thousand. By 1974, there was one councilmember for every 55,000 people.The first US congressional districts contained less than 40,000 people; my current city councilmember represents

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-33951254848298356662007-10-15T10:12:00.000-04:002007-10-15T10:13:30.120-04:00

[C-SPAN broadcast in 1999 the first rally in opposition to the Bosnian war with one exception: your editor's speech. C-SPAN even left in the part where a singer announced, "I'm the warm-up act for Sam Smith" but the speech itself was cut. Here's the speech.]I am a native of this place. You might even call me an ethnic Washingtonian. For two centuries, this little colony of America has been denied

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-47873617211797028182007-10-11T14:52:00.000-04:002007-10-11T14:57:48.175-04:00

2002MEDIA BIAS is not limited to bad politics; it includes bad math, typically manifested in an inability to count above the number two. According to the mass media, our world is one giant 'Crossfire' show divided into pro and anti, liberal and conservative, war and appeasement, free market and socialism. When such bifurcation fails because of the number of participants - as in sports, Democratic

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-51170729734692729142007-10-10T14:14:00.000-04:002007-10-10T14:15:16.332-04:00

All along your editor has thought his problem was that he didn't speak opaquely and complexly enough to make it with the Washington crowd. Now the Amazon text rating system has proved otherwise. As reader CH put it, "I'm laughing my ass off. I first found out about this feature at Jorn Barger's weblog, Robot Wisdom. His example is James Joyce's famously difficult Ulysses which only requires a 7th

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-84122509456792460052007-10-09T15:25:00.000-04:002007-10-09T15:27:37.704-04:00

A history of the Iraq War told entirely in official liesSam Smith[Although it would take much of the media and prospective Democratic presidential candidates much longer to discover that they had been deceived, Harper's was on to the case early and asked your editor to write a history of the Iraq war told entirely in official lies. The story ran in the October 2003 issue, about six months after

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-42837941845130016642007-10-04T13:58:00.000-04:002007-10-04T13:59:40.693-04:00

2004Reader Chas Edwards used the right word when he described your editor's appearance on the Bill O'Reilly show as a "smackdown," for television of this variety has far more in common with professional wrestling than with professional journalism. And like a professional wrestler I went on the show knowing full well that I was the designated loser. Bad Bubba O'Reilly was to show his infinite

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-46853459879217295842007-10-02T13:17:00.001-04:002007-10-02T13:17:35.003-04:00

2006Just because we are able to speak and write doesn't mean we have to, As someone once said, what this country needs is more free speech worth listening to. Accumulating verbiage without regard to its content is more likely to lead to indigestion than understanding.Speak United States. Avoid the private languages of academia, bureaucracies, technocracy and corporations.As an English teacher

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-40200975106989104432007-10-01T11:03:00.001-04:002007-10-01T11:03:33.763-04:00

1. The Ten Commandments outlaw killing and adultery but that doesn't seem to bother your colleagues as much as gay marriage. Why do you think the Ten Commandments are less important to them than gay marriage?2. Would you accept a compromise in which we outlawed not only gay marriages but support of deadly wars or cheating on your wife? If not, why not?3. The Ten Commandants say "You can work

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-9327081250805889542007-09-30T12:30:00.000-04:002007-09-30T12:31:32.139-04:00

1990William Penn may have thought he had settled the matter. Arrested in 1670 for preaching Quakerism, Penn was brought to trial. Despite Penn's admitting the charge, four of the 12 jurors voted to acquit. The judge sent the four to jail "without meat, drink, fire and tobacco" for failing to find Penn guilty. On appeal, however, the jurors' action was upheld and the right

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-53488157227483843752007-09-28T15:02:00.001-04:002007-09-28T15:02:49.254-04:00

Washington's subway system is considering removing some if not most of the seats from its cars, thus converting its rolling stock into high capacity freight cars for those it used to consider its valued customers. In one concept there would be just 16 seats in a car for 225 passengers.While we have become accustomed to the disrespect of citizens by the police, airport screeners and so forth, we

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-40275916411847549782007-09-27T16:36:00.001-04:002007-09-27T16:36:31.047-04:00

SAM SMITH, 2004 - It is now almost three years since the World Trade Center attack. During this period we have invaded two Muslim countries and moved far closer to the apartheid regime of Ariel Sharon. We have not taken a single important step to reduce hatred of the U.S., respond to justified complaints of the Muslim world, or create forums where current conflicts can be explored instead of

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-9916183705943180792007-09-26T15:51:00.001-04:002007-09-26T15:51:24.260-04:00

SAM SMITH, 1989 - In pre-revolutionary Connecticut, being a common scold was a felony. Despite the currently overcrowded conditions of our prisons there is much to be said for reviving this offense, for few characteristics of our time have been more burdensome than the noisy priggishness that has come over the land.For some years we had a woman in our neighborhood who had the disconcerting habit

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-34032232585994664342007-09-25T13:19:00.000-04:002007-09-25T13:20:29.983-04:00

2006Phil Hart said the Senate was a place that did things 20 years after it should have. The same could be said of much of the rest of Washington. In fact the yet-to-be accomplished U.S.-Iranian negotiations are now at 27 years and still counting.The common presumption is that such tardiness is a function of politics. In fact, it is more a product of culture, a culture founded on infantile

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-70437678740169640782007-09-24T20:37:00.002-04:002009-12-02T23:35:30.196-05:00

1979I have to confess something. I have strayed from the civic abstinence I promised on these pages a while back. I have once again joined a committee. But it's just a small committee and I think I can handle it. If not, drive me home and I'll never do it again. Promise. The committee is called the DC Community Humanities Council. Fifty states and Puerto Rico have such

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-75073995036901505362007-09-10T10:06:00.000-04:002007-09-10T10:07:37.228-04:00

2005Upon reading the lead story in today's Washington Post the thought occurred that if I weren't a dissident journalist I'd make a hell of a good member of the establishment. The thought quickly dissipated even though my futile arguments that the president needed multiple sources of intelligence information rather than having it all filtered through one assistant had now been recommended by an

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-34974421698811742022007-06-06T21:42:00.000-04:002007-06-06T21:43:30.647-04:00

SAM SMITH1977From a graduation speech delivered at Washington's John Eaton public elementary school in 1977. At the time, the school went through the 8th grade.' The title of my speech is "The Future Lies Ahead." This pretty much sums up what people are meant to say at graduations, so I thought I would take care

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-71363388518181753922007-06-06T21:39:00.000-04:002007-06-06T21:41:42.074-04:00

SAM SMITH1998Some journalists would have us believe that there was a time -- before Drudge and the Internet -- when journalism was a honorable activity in which no one went looking for a restroom without first asking directions from at least two sources (unless, of course, one of the sources was a government official), in which every word was checked for fairness, and in

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-40167956577905829532007-06-03T23:18:00.001-04:002007-06-03T23:18:42.512-04:00

The original version appeared in the December 1994 Progressive Review I was recently described in an otherwise kind article in Washington’s City Paper as a "political gadfly." This was neither the first time nor will it be the last. It has happened to me so often that I was able to tell the writer

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-2979236396954822382007-06-03T23:15:00.002-04:002011-07-18T15:53:02.140-04:00

This article appeared in the DC Gazette in the 1970s. Nothing much has changed. IT'S almost over. Our autumnal orgy of orchestrated injury, our paean to triumph at any cost, the pageant of American Darwinism. Football season.I treat football season like February. I avoid it whenever possible. But, like February, one must leave town or face it at some point. It looms nightly as a desert to cross

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-25720252884425642112007-06-03T23:12:00.000-04:002007-06-03T23:13:27.342-04:00

MORE ON FASCISM NOTE: Some of these symptoms are found in non-fascist countries where they should be treated as serious warning signs. On the other hand, fascist states - unlike democratic nations - have many, if not all, of these symptoms. Your president asserts the right to ignore part or all of laws passed by the national legislature.

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-48225590774516431342007-06-01T21:30:00.001-04:002007-06-01T21:49:09.847-04:00

From "Multitudes: An Unauthorized Memoir" By Sam Smith So I ended up much as I started: the kid they sent to right field because he couldn't or wouldn't play the game right. I didn't plan it this way. I didn't want it this way. In truth, a large part of

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-31381015525187118742007-06-01T21:28:00.002-04:002011-08-10T12:31:25.176-04:00

From "Multitudes: An Unauthorized Memoir" by Sam Smith San FranciscoI long avoided San Francisco because I considered earthquakes one hazard I could easily eliminate. That was before both my sons took up periodic residence there and gave me the courage and purpose that I lacked. Now, my 17-year affair with the Bay Area is being interrupted as my youngest son pursues his dreams, along with far

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-10290415777993727742007-06-01T21:26:00.000-04:002007-06-01T21:52:38.732-04:00

From "Multitudes: An Unauthorized Memoir" By Sam Smith I first became aware of the potential of third parties reading about the Dutch Provos in the 1960s. Teun Voeten would write much later in High Times: The Provos set the stage for the creation of

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-66412733965675060842007-06-01T21:25:00.001-04:002007-06-01T22:07:32.784-04:00

From "Multitudes: The Unauthorized Memoirs of Sam Smith" When I was a radio newsman in the late 1950s, I would sometimes snag the late or early shift and have to drive from my apartment on Capitol Hill the hundred blocks or so out 16th Street to Silver Spring. The streets were dark, silent and empty and I would turn on a black radio station and listen to The

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-87717715297509550722007-05-24T20:33:00.000-04:002007-05-24T20:34:33.096-04:00

THE ROAD GROWS SHORTER SAM SMITH - It is not easy to recognize fascism if you haven't been there before. Our eyesight is blurred by everything from cultural optimism to psychic denial. But news of the NSA's mass spying on American's phone records - in number of victims, at least, perhaps the most broadly illegal and unconstitutional act in our history - makes it all

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-30837259493034907002007-05-24T20:22:00.000-04:002007-05-24T20:28:18.071-04:00

From "Multitudes: An Unauthorized Memoir" by Sam Smith Time zones OCTOBER 1999 When I moved my office four blocks closer to downtown I knew I was going to be in a new neighborhood. What I soon found out, however, was that I was also in a new time zone. In my old digs, three blocks of old row buildings north of Dupont Circle on

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-62399468126775436652007-05-23T00:24:00.000-04:002007-05-23T00:26:59.714-04:00

Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of that remarkable moment when this country began to turn its back on values that had sustained it throughout its first two centuries - values that included balancing power and wealth with concern for, cooperation with, and compassion towards others in the community we called America. In their place came a psychotic faith in the

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-65208511436094495102007-05-23T00:21:00.001-04:002007-05-23T00:21:40.758-04:00

The 60th anniversary observance of Auschwitz brings back a question that periodically lurks in the corner: how much do we really learn from evil? It is widely assumed in this country that humanity is significantly improved by such things as Holocaust studies, international war crimes, and showing teens scary films about driving. There is, however, far more faith than

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-15147015792595143592007-05-22T20:36:00.000-04:002007-05-22T20:40:24.916-04:00

From "Multitudes: the Unauthorized Memoirs of Sam Smith Shortly before I left the Coast Guard, the Spar's crewmembers were presented the Defense Service ribbon in delayed recognition of the fact that at some point whatever had been going on in Vietnam had turned into a war. We were

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-27957981132496006092007-05-16T17:20:00.000-04:002007-05-22T20:34:04.775-04:00

From Multitudes: The Unauthorized Memoirs of Sam SmithFor every American male of my age there lay waiting just behind the blind curve of the future the attention of his draft board. There were, to be sure, a number of ways to deflect this attention. One could get married, but I had no such prospect. One

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-72315394203302899462007-05-15T23:30:00.000-04:002007-05-15T23:33:49.007-04:00

THE AUTHOR (L) CONFERS WITH MARION BARRY DURING A BASEBALL GAME AT GUY MASON REC CENTER. BARRY WOULD LATER REFER TO THE AUTHOR AS A "CYNICAL CAT"Name change 1984 For some years now, most of the matter in the DC Gazette has not been about DC. The meat of this journal has been progressive politics and social issues of more than local

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-24550733998086759162007-05-15T23:26:00.000-04:002007-05-15T23:27:53.466-04:00

Sam SmithTHE word from the Secretary of State that what this country really needs is "rebranding" provides further confirmation that America itself has become a derivative, a socio-political version of those financial instruments Roy Davis has described as having "no intrinsic value, but derive their value from something else . . . The

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-77216186028353575282007-04-28T17:41:00.000-04:002007-04-28T17:47:43.713-04:00

AUTHOR IN APPALLING 1970s WEAR, SPEAKING AT A PARTY FOR HIS BOOK, "CAPTIVE CAPITAL," AT THE AFRICAN MUSEUM. JULIUS HOBSON AND JO BUTLER AT LEFT; GWEN REISS, MUSEUM DIRECTOR WARREN ROBBINS AND BOB BERG AT RIGHT. Moving into the 70s Memory can fool us. Up close the 1960s often lacked the romance that time has given them. After all, at the end of the

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-41075215885619256562007-04-28T17:33:00.000-04:002007-04-28T17:36:46.975-04:00

1997At the end of the Cold War, a top Soviet official promised America one last horrible surprise. We are, he said, going to deprive you of an enemy. The official turned out to be more perceptive about American politics than many in Washington. In at least one Pentagon office there is still a sign that reads: WANTED: A GOOD ENEMY.

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-75551349219745756602007-04-18T18:25:00.000-04:002007-04-18T18:26:30.318-04:00

For nearly one and three-quarter centuries, the city of Washington had served as house-servant to the national government, garbed in gaudy livery that veiled its menial status. Washington did not participate in the Union, it waited on it. It staged a pageant of democracy without sharing in that which was being portrayed. To most of the eighteen

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-41994212766859304922007-04-18T18:22:00.001-04:002007-04-18T18:22:52.901-04:00

From the Progressive Review, April 1992 Global dumbing, according to the thesis I have been considering lately, involves the virtually imperceptible but steady deterioration of the aggregate human mind -- as well as of its institutions -

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-1171429418986878922007-02-14T00:03:00.000-05:002007-02-14T00:09:20.556-05:00

From the March 1995 Progressive ReviewThe premise here is simple: when the plane crashes, find out why.Simple it may be, but few in federal Washington even seem to notice that the country they came to rule has crumbled around them and fewer still would accept the notion that it might be useful to inquire as to the cause of this disaster. The disaster, of course, is that of the country -- not that

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-1171428697075808792007-02-13T23:46:00.000-05:002007-02-13T23:56:43.533-05:00

Encomiums to the wonders of market forces fill speeches and media reports. One National Public Radio reporter even went so far as to describe a form of government called market democracy, apparently a blend of the Bill of Rights and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. In fact, most free workers in this country were self-employed well into the 19th century. They were thus economic as well as

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-1166755950346314092006-12-21T21:50:00.000-05:002006-12-21T21:52:30.376-05:00

Some things we might shareThe following appears is from the Great American Political Repair Manual by Sam Smith1. We seek to be good stewards of our earth, good citizens of our country, good members of our communities, and good neighbors of those who share these places with us.2. We reject the immoderate tone of current politics, its appeal to hate and fear, its scorn for democracy, its

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-1161909095416034542006-10-26T20:29:00.000-04:002006-10-26T20:31:35.420-04:00

Sam SmithThis was the chart used to riff some comments at a performance by the punk rock group Blowback on March 10,2006 at the Club Asylum in DC's Adams MorganWHEN he was 25, Colin Wilson wrote The Outsider, a book about those who see too deep and too much. I suspect some of you are here tonight.Wilson tells of a Jean Paul Sartre character who lives alone in a hotel: "There is his ordinary life,

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-1161223998382941402006-10-18T22:12:00.000-04:002006-10-18T22:14:51.086-04:00

By Sam SmithWashington has become a city of barricades, a place where agents on rooftops scan the sky for missiles, and where metal detectors are turned so high they can find a nail in your shoe. It is a city of clearances, closed doors, need to know, a city that believes even Alice Rivlin should take a drug test.Washington is a town that will host an August conference on "Special Tactics and

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-1160448160790069612006-10-09T22:40:00.000-04:002006-10-09T22:42:40.803-04:00

SPEECH BY SAM SMITHAT US CAPITOL RALLY,OCTOBER 26, 1999I have three objections to our current system of campaign financing.The first is literary. Being a writer I try to show respect for words, to leave their meanings untwisted and unobscured.This is alien to much of official Washington which daily engages in an activity well described by Edgar Alan Poe. Poe said, "By ringing small changes on the

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-1159501515711140812006-09-28T23:44:00.000-04:002006-09-28T23:45:15.726-04:00

From the Progressive Review, January 2000The review recently cited a column by Dick Case of the Syracuse Herald American which revealed that the practice of redlining mortgage loans for American cities began in the Roosevelt administration, far earlier than is generally realized. A former Syracuse city planner, Emanual Carter, who had come across the practice while reading "A Prayer for the City"

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-1159407123506104612006-09-27T21:30:00.000-04:002006-09-27T21:32:03.526-04:00

The French students who drew a connection between contemporary economics and autism have made one of the more profound observations of our time. Technically, the kind of autism exhibited by leading economists - and (although the students did not note it) leaders in politics and media - is called higher functioning autism or Asperger's Syndrome. Here are some professional descriptions:"Asperger's

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-1164070586331279022006-09-26T19:49:00.000-04:002006-11-20T20:03:32.013-05:00

On September 13, 1971, 500 New York state troopers stormed Attica Correctional Facility on orders from Governor Nelson Rockefeller to end a four-day standoff following a prisoner revolt that included the taking of hostages. The police fired 2,200 bullets in nine minutes and before it was over 29 inmates and ten guards were dead and at least 86 others were wounded. One year later, there was a

TPRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29717220.post-1153844461957880822006-07-25T12:19:00.000-04:002006-09-27T23:22:21.046-04:00

Future historians seeking to discover why America so easily surrendered its democratic traditions and constitutional government in 2001 will find plenty to study in the rise of a liberal aristocracy that became increasingly disinterested in such values. Like all aristocracies, it existed primarily to protect itself, had an impermeable faith in its own virtue, and held in contempt those who did

TPRnoreply@blogger.com