Political Education for Everyday Life
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Bad Subjects seeks to revitalize progressive politics. We challenge progressive dogma by encouraging readers to think about the political dimension to all aspects of everyday life. We seek to broaden the audience for leftist and progressive writing through a commitment to accessibility and contemporary relevance. more »
editorials more »
Michael Jackson's life is one story in the history of Black struggles in 20th Century "America." read » Good News
The author asks why must the violence in Gaza continue read » Blockheads on the Meltdown Clearing the Air: Progressives and the Presidency Pondering the possible implications of a Barack Obama Presidency for American progressives read » An Uncomfortable Sympathy
The Congestion Coalition?
more editorials Mistranslating the Mexican Election Names Like Mohamed
South Dakota vs. Women
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featured articlesI’m Just a Wizard Laboring in a Violent and Softcore Consumer Culture: A Historical Look at the Changing Culture of Consumption in Digital Games
Dexter at the Tea Party
Tales of the Urban Rats, Circa 1982
Brooks and Gump Have a Tea Party
The Obama Administration and the Rule of 'Opposite Day!'
Soul Utility Vehicles: Aretha, Obama, and General Motors
Cubrebocas and the Viral Chupacabra: A swine flu report from Cuernavaca, Mexico
Activism on Campus: My First Year
A Case of Self-Defense: Antonin Scalia and Gun Control
Does Dove Really Love Our Humps?
recent issue more »
reviews more »Unable to Leap Tall Buildings and Much Smaller Objects: Why Americans Don’t Embrace The Adventures of Tintin
The Dude Abides
The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson
The End of America
Notes on Rewatching "Do The Right Thing"
The Revolution of Everyday Life: Sam Mendes' Dead End Revolutionary Road
Waltz With Bashir by Kim Nicolini
Conviction directed by Brenda Truelson Fox
Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher
Little Brother's The Minstrel Show
The Lennon Files: The Revolution That Wasn’t
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On one January evening, I got a call from a friend who was weeping like a child. As she choked back the tears, Dawn broke the tragic news to me.
One aspect of American politics that I’ve become increasingly obsessed with of late is what seems to be an ongoing separation of “liberals” from “Democrats.” 
Many on the left have criticized Stuart Towensend's cinematic recreation of the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. But the film may actually have done a better job of capturing the event by dispensing with a unified viewpoint than it could have by aspiring to get all the facts right.
If the Obama presidency signals the dream of a post-racial America, then the shooting of an unarmed Black man in Oakland signals the continuous nightmare of racial violence.
Bankers and our banks, solid as a rock.
I can’t help but feel some sympathy for a man who fought for and achieved a nation’s freedom only to see his home continent re-conquered, a re-conquest that has meant untold wealth, just not for Africa. In this rise and fall, Mr. Mugabe seems to have broken with reality. I can only wonder if Mugabe’s insanity is a sane reaction?
In a recent article published in the Washington Post, two of the Reason Institute’s hired research monkeys tried to debunk some of the so-called myths that we associate with suburbia, automobile use, and car culture. The holes in these arguments are about as big as the profit-oriented loopholes that think tanks like the Reason Institute build into their ill-founded policy recommendations.
When discussing the war on Iraq, immigration or other important topics, students, friends and family often seek insight by asking "What Would Dr. King Do?" On this Dr. King Day federal holiday I thought it appropriate to think about the answer to this question using Dr. King's words.
With networked gameplay and great downloads came the potential for virtual assets to be bought and sold, along with all of the other content.
Perhaps this lone vigilante Dexter, who cleans up—that is, ritualistically kills and dismembers the mess that our system of justice creates and cannot clean up itself—and who constrains his own personal freedom only in the way he personally chooses, who chooses to accept the family as the only legitimate bridle on his personal freedom, is the hero the Teabaggers seek?
The Urban Rats were a short lived, loosely-knit San Francisco based collective of young artists, students, filmmakers, musicians, and political activists trying to figure out how to make politically relevant and engaged urban street art.
David Brooks wrote of his accidental epiphany on race while jogging from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol, Saturday, September 12. It was during his run that he, like Forrest Gump, “found himself” at the center of a history-defining moment.
Up is down, black is white, hate is love, war is peace, and nuclear power is 'green'.
On January 20, 2009, President Barack Obama was inaugurated, and a great African-American singer performed. One might allegorize the American automobile industry, especially General Motors Corporation, in the personage of one notable woman of Detroit, Aretha Franklin.
The fear of the virus is ebbing, anxiety over the threat of new political chupacabras is growing, and people are living with the reluctance and acceptance of being a nation under viral siege.
I knew I had to get away from home. I needed to be free of my family so that I could truly speak for what I believed in.
The Supreme Court continues to veer into reactionary territory with its 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v Heller. The casualty was stronger gun control.
When read in the current American cultural context, what passes on the surface as a redefinition of beauty, is in many ways subtly reaffirming the dominant and damaging trope of the 20th century that says the female body is imperfect unless it is sculpted to meet cultural and commercial needs.
As Tintin fans around the world wait in giddy anticipation of the 2011 release of the new 3D Tintin film directed by Steven Speilberg and Peter Jackson, many Americans find themselves asking the question: Who is Tintin?
Why, in a culture so driven by the market rule of Winners and Losers, of the beauteous bounties of Darwinian capitalism, are we so fond of “dilapidated” Losers? The Dude, played by Jeff Bridges, looked “increasingly heroic relative to the dysfunctional world around him.” What increases my interest is the Dude’s reappearance in the 2009 film The Men Who Stare at Goats.
In this book, British journalist Jon Ronson ventures in US intelligence agencies and their experiments in remote viewing of a distant location without direct or technologically-mediated sensory input.
This 2008 film by Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, based on Naomi Wolf's book of the same name is a fine reconstruction of the decline of republics into dictatorships, which all follow a simple pattern of ten steps.
Spike Lee's 1989 movie was recently screened in mid-Michigan. Attention to three things in it help us appreciate and contextualize the film.
Kate Winslett and Leonardo DiCaprio: the great reunion. In Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road, a dramatic critique of alienation and cooptation of creative, free activity in liberal democratic consumer societies.
The song and video, "Amerika," by Thief Sicario helps us think about what it means to be "American" in the 21st century.
The 43-minute story of three radical non-violent activists who take the proliferation of nuclear arms in this country personally, and are willing to pay with their lives.
The book is written in such a way that the reader truly experiences Hornbacher’s manias and depressions right along with her. And where her perception of time is confused, ours is as well.
In an era of hip-hop that can literally make you wonder if your I.Q. has just dropped upon listening to it, Little Brother are a refreshingly heady bunch.
After 25 years of litigation, the FBI finally disclosed the handful of still-classified pages in its John Lennon files.
