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 Shoe Resistance: A Pictorial
California Proposition 8: a Stain on Freedom's Flag
Reply to "California's Proposition 8: a Stain on Freedom's Flag." Saddened and disturbed by Tim Barrett's article, I found it problematic for several reasons. read » Clearing the Air: Progressives and the Presidency Pondering the possible implications of a Barack Obama Presidency for American progressives read » Michael Rossman 1940-2008: Activist, Graphic Archivist
An Uncomfortable Sympathy
Global Warming The Congestion Coalition?
more editorials Mistranslating the Mexican Election Names Like Mohamed
South Dakota vs. Women
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featured articlesBrooks 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
Tears of Hope: Obama and Personal Politics
The Pluggs
As Bushnight Ends: Approaching Obamorning in America
A Case of Self-Defense: Antonin Scalia and Gun Control
Bush Protested in London
Does Dove Really Love Our Humps?
recent issue more »
reviews more »The Revolution of Everyday Life: Sam Mendes' Dead End Revolutionary Road
Waltz With Bashir by Kim Nicolini
Ron Asheton 1948-2009: Why Stooges Guitar Ruled Eartha Kitt 1927-2008: Catwoman Schooled the Lady Bird
Odetta & Larry
April 4, 1968 by Michael Eric Dyson
Conviction directed by Brenda Truelson Fox
Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher
Go, Go, Go and Get Back to Black
Little Brother's The Minstrel Show
The Lennon Files: The Revolution That Wasn’t
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In giving Barack Obama the Nobel Prize for Peace, the world has faith again in the ideals of our nation. Now it's time for Obama, and for us, to make a serious commitment to the pursuit of peace."
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.
"This is a farewell kiss, you dog!"
A decisive majority of voters chose a brilliant and eloquent African‑American man, bearing a message of hope and cooperation, to lead us as President. Yet at the same time, California voters stripped rights from a minority group, rights only recently granted by the state Supreme Court.
For a repository of our activist history, we are indebted to this individual who conducted himself with flair and commitment to his final day. 
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?
Talking heads, thick blockheads with this year's opinions...
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.
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, 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.
I've heard people try to describe this strange euphoria since the election in a number of ways. For me the experience is a little more personal: it is the tears of hope my little brothers shed on November 4th. 
The man of action depicted in a meditative moment.
Electrical impatience about the new President.
Ten scattershot impressions from campaign's end, celebration and inauguration's dawning during the last three months of 2008.
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.
On the last 'leg' of his 'Farewell Tour' of much of the industrialized western world, President George Bush's visit was greeted in London by scores of people outraged over everything from the civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan to global climate change.
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.
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 Stooges' guitarist has fallen, so the resurrected Punk band is no more.
In 1968, entertainer Eartha Kitt spoke truth to power during a misbegotten war, and paid the price.
The song and video, "Amerika," by Thief Sicario helps us think about what it means to be "American" in the 21st century.
We mourn the noble folksinger Odetta, and applaud her short-lived interracial creative project 55 years ago.
In a book subtitled Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How it Changed America, Dyson writes “Only by turning to his death and martyrdom can we size up the work that remains to be done and address the suffering and hardship that too often many of the folk he loved continue to face.”
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.
Prior to the 2008 Grammy Awards, I assumed Amy Winehouse was the British version of our Britney Spears—a performer (rather than an artist) with a substance abuse problem rising to stardom through the cult of personality, public controversy, and indecent exposure.
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.
