The October Issue

Cover By Tim Bower

Volume 69, Number 10

Editor’s Note Matthew Rothschild

Letters

Comment Katrina Compounded

No Comment

Columns

Nat Hentoff salutes the McCain mutiny.

Ruth Conniff explores Rick Santorum’s America.

On the Line

Cover

Our Al Qaeda Problem Sasha Abramsky

Much of the activist left’s response to September 11 and the London attacks has been woefully, catastrophically inadequate.

Features

Iraqi Unions Defy Privatization David Bacon

The labor movement is now the biggest secular institution in Iraqi civil society—and the one most opposed to Bush’s schemes.

The Rose Revolution Shows Its Thorns David Zane Mairowitz
While Bush hails Georgia as a “beacon of liberty,” alarm bells are already sounding.

Interview

Randall Robinson Amitabh Pal

“The insult of segregation was searing and unforgettable. It has left a great scar, and will be with me for the rest of my life,” says the founder of TransAfrica Forum and the author of Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land.

Culture

An Uplifting Voice of Hip-Hop Jeff Chang

In a musical genre usually delivered in the first person, the most common word in Talib Kweli’s music may well be “we.”

Poem Jay Rogoff

Will Durst calls it unintelligent design.

Books
Anne-Marie Cusac reviews The Death of Innocents, by Sister Helen Prejean, and Executed on a Technicality, by David R. Dow.

Molly Ivins has one word for people who say they’re not interested in politics.