Appeal to Reason: The First 25 Years of In These Times

by Craig Aaron (Editor), Robert W. McChesney, James Weinstein (Foreword)

In These Times, the national, biweekly magazine of news and opinion, has provided groundbreaking coverage of the labor movement, the environment, feminism, grassroots politics, minority communities, and the media for twenty-five years. Filled with new writing commissioned specially for this anniversary volume, images, and text highlights of the last quarter-century in the magazine, Appeal to Reason: The First 25 Years of In These Times showcases contributors to the magazine like Noam Chomsky, David Brower, and Alice Walker, to name just a few. But it also asks an important question: Where do we go from here?
For answers, Appeal to Reason turns to more than twenty leading progressive writers—including Barbara Ehrenreich, Juan Gonzalez, Salim Muwakkil, and Robert W. McChesney—who take a fresh look at the lessons of the past and suggest directions for the future. Exploring issues ranging from globalization and criminal justice to the environment and culture, Appeal to Reason lays a political and intellectual foundation for the debates, discussions, and movements of the next twenty-five years.

416 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2002

Reviews

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthology of news from an American newspaper written largely by leftist academics. But at least these selected pieces are actually a fairly low-ideology portrait of shocking events, unreported or begrudgingly reported by mainstream sources.

It’s way left of the Guardian and still undeluded. I’d never looked into the Contras scandal which In these Times scooped – if you don’t know, this was that time Reagan-funded murderers imported massive amounts of crack into the US using government money.

Even the Zizek(!) piece (on 9/11) is low-key, wise, and borne out by history.

Now, we are forced to strike back, to deal with real enemies in the real world … but whom to strike? Whatever the response, it will never hit the right target, bringing us full satisfaction. The spectacle of America attacking Afghanistan would be just that: If the greatest power in the world were to destroy one of the poorest countries, where peasants barely survive on barren hills, would this not be the ultimate case of the impotent acting out? Afghanistan is already reduced to rubble, destroyed by continuous war during the past two decades. The impending attack brings to mind the anecdote about the madman who searches for his lost key beneath a street light; asked why he searches there, when he actually lost the key in a dark corner, he answers: “But it is easier to search under strong light!” Is it not the ultimate irony that Kabul already looks like downtown Manhattan?

The only way to ensure that it will not happen here again is to prevent it from going on anywhere else. America should learn to humbly accept its own vulnerability as part of this world, enacting the punishment of those responsible as a sad duty, not as an exhilarating retaliation. Even though America’s peace was bought by the catastrophes going on elsewhere, the predominant point of view remains that of an innocent gaze confronting unspeakable evil that struck from the Outside. One needs to gather the courage to recognize that the seed of evil is within us too.

[Sheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book ever.