How much power can employers exercise over their employees? And youre right that eight years of Obama in some ways gave us Trump. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. The chances of a poor American kid getting into one of the top Ivy League schools today are the same as they were in 1954. His article looks at the public face of Amazon as publisher, as warehouse manager, as e-reader innovator and as the apparent victor in the Department of Justice lawsuit that charged Apple and publishers with collusion. For example, in your Letter from Sudan, published in the magazine last year, you described the Sudanese politician Hasan al-Turabi right down to his flower-patterned polyester socks. Where do you get your inspiration? Bitter political fights between the parties in the nineties, all kinds of scandals and impeachment. I dont want to say too much for it. I think nationalism is destructive. His reference points all seem to go back to Roosevelt and Truman and trade unions. New Yorker staff writer George Packer is the winner of the 2013 National Book Award in Nonfiction for "The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America." He reported extensively on the Iraq war, both for the New Yorker and in his 2005 book . Virtually all of The New Yorker writers I spoke to said they supported the unions core economic goals, and believed the junior staff members deserve pay increases. They're scared of doing something that might look a little unsafe. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. And one of them is national service. I dont know enough to agree or disagree., But in terms of telling the story, it was helpful. These are all obviously pie in the sky, because people are trying to do this and right now, with Congress, it isnt happening. the democrats lost the white working class. George Packer is a staff writer for The New Yorker and (most recently) the author of The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America. Were nice. The Depression that ended Fitzgeralds Jazz Age yielded to a new order that might be called the Roosevelt Republic. In November 2013, The Unwinding received the National Book Award for Nonfiction. You are referring to Roosevelts jab at Woodrow Wilson in the years before America entered the First World War: A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force to the full is as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness. No one wants to come out in support of either righteousness or watery milk (I know I dont), but, unfortunately, Roosevelts cult of force doesnt answer the hardest questions of foreign policy, either. why is my cookies pen blinking purple is there mobile coverage across the nullarbor hillside funeral home obits Sarah Palin was the early warning sign that Free America was breaking up. purchase. Im really quite divided about this, Isaac. [3] In a 2022 talk for House of SpeakEasy's Seriously Entertaining program, Packer shared that his father took his own life when he (Packer) was twelve years old, calling it "the big event of my childhood. By Alexander Russo It's no simple task when journalists decide to write about their families' school choices and their children's classroom experiences. That dynamic's been entrenched for six, seven years now. He has tried to be reassuring, even as the prospect of putting out the print magazine without editorial staff members looms. But its in the bill, its in the law, because fairness demanded it. "The Betrayal," George Packer's latest narrative for the Atlantic, is a large and masterful work of journalism that should be read by everyone concerned over the crisis of American . He said it was misleading. Hillary Clinton stepping down as Secretary of State. Theres been nothing like it since the 1930s. On one recent Zoom call with union leaders, Mr. Wright, a former Teamster and longtime W.G.A. Have any of its members set up refugee camps, as Egypt, the most populous Arab state, did after the wars between Israel and Arab nations over Palestine? They have all kinds of identities. That dynamic poses a threat to both traditional, top-down media institutions and organized labor. $26. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. He also wrote about payments Amazon gets from publishers, often in the form of discounts -- information that is rarely shared. Ive read and heard that many Vietnamese felt abandoned at the end of the Vietnam WarI highly recommend Frank Snepps book Decent Interval, about the last days of the Americans in Saigon. Her passions are breaking up monopolies, regulating corporationsclass struggle, really. Once trust is built in the course of long conversations, the details that a story requires start to surface. But they were also suspicious of the NewsGuild, and began a parallel set of meetings with its rival, the Writers Guild of America, East. The New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm was asked during a libel case how compensation was set. In the message, a copy of which I obtained, Ms. Mohit said the union was in communication with the writers but could not be open and public with the fact that we are organizing the staff writers.. And underlying much of the 2021 labor tensions are political tensions. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. And that was a really potent story that Reagan told, and that the Republican Party lived by for decades, and to some extent still does. He summarized what he saw as the consensus view in another WhatsApp message to colleagues. Its really early, and we dont know how much hes going to get done. The article, Packer said, kept eluding me. "To name a few," he went on, "Liana Finck, Emily . He doesn't theorize about it. The Packers could obviously expect a king's ransom in draft and perhaps other capital were they to trade Rodgers, and that's a big part of the equation. Can he save his country from collapse? Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. But somehow, maybe because of where he comes from or what kind of career hes had, he doesnt feel like a very modern figure. The author of The Assassin's Gate (2005), The Unwinding (2013), and a recently published biography of Richard Holbrooke, Our Man, Packer has written for bastions of liberal thought from the New York Times Magazine to The New Yorker in a distinguished, decades-long career. Carolyn Kellogg is a prize-winning writer who served as Books editor of the Los Angeles Times for three years. Packer was a columnist for Mother Jones and was a staff writer for The New Yorker from 2003 to 2018. His uncle, George Huddleston, Jr., succeeded to his father's seat in the House of Representatives from 1954 to 1964. Persuasion doesnt work. Its all particularly personal at The New Yorker, where the campaign has pitted a culture built on personal relationships and deep trust against a group of employees who reject the idea that they should be subject to the whims of any boss, no matter how benign. . Here I was re-creating what Iraqis told me had happened months or years ago, and I kept pressing them to be as specific as possible, which often ran up against their desire not to be identifiable. Its like loyalty to whats yours. Its also a gateway into the real money books, movies, speaking gigs or other opportunities in the broadening economic landscape for brand-name writers. But the support Mr. Remnick retains among the signature writers is deep. Exactly. But politically, if that is its messageif identity is its messageI think its going to be an uphill battle. Under The New Yorkers structure, even some of the best-known writers are considered contractors, and their bosses had given them the impression that health insurance was not a possibility. To me, he embodies it. The President and his new national-security adviser, John Bolton, are in an especially bad position to respond to the atrocities in Syria. One of the things Packer mentions is the Gazelle Project, referencing Stones book. And thats Sanders, as well. Republicans arent united with one another, never mind with Joe Biden. Add that to the extreme difficulty of Iraqis emigrating to the West (Sweden is the exception), and they are basically unwelcome all over the world. A war on this scale puts a whole country to the test, like a human body thats been slack for a while and then is suddenly exerted to the limits of its strength. The Talk of the Town. Can the rightward forty-five per cent of the country at this point be talked to? George Packer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, is the author, most recently, of "The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America.". You write, Because people still live their lives in an actual place, and the nation is the largest place with which they can identify. Well be lucky if we do. We actually kind of like the feeling that we need to continue to earn our place, wrote Mr. Davidson, who is no longer a staff writer but still contributes to The New Yorker. Gutekunst feels his kicking leg will be plenty strong a year removed from the knee scope he had last spring, and with the minor back injury behind him as well. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. But, really, Smart America takes on the parameters set by Free America: deregulation and free trade and open immigration. The book is kind of a quarrel with myself because, on the one hand, I am in a state of utter disgust and rage at the Republican Party, and its lies, its conspiracies, its racism, its cynicism. 89 (1): 31-32. They wanted to hear how bad things were. By Glynnis MacNicol Feb 1st, 2010, 10:40 am. Ad Choices. The editor, who is 62, has also said he doesnt plan to follow the example of William Shawn, who ran the magazine until he was nearly 80 and the institution had become a kind of museum of itself. Its because of the courage and openness of the people I spoke with that I was able to tell this story. Can you do things in your rhetoric or in your politics to make your party less toxic for the six percentage points of people between forty-seven per cent and fifty-three per cent? Ben Rhodes was the Presidents speechwriter, foreign-policy adviser, and confidant. Id call that Real America. Hes in a strong position. The midterm elections are the last obstacle to Trumps consolidation of powerand the greatest obstacle to voting is the feeling that it doesnt matter. They might even be repelled by it. Packer is married to writer and editor Laura Secor. To me, its a kind of reparations, and a necessary one. The ones I talk toand, for various reasons, its an extremely limited poolwant America to leave. The basic division that I began to see begins with libertarianism, which I call Free America, which is Reagans America. The easiest-to-understand element of the dispute involves the wages of the production employees, the group that includes everyone from fact checkers to social media editors. The Democrats lost the white working class. That doesnt mean it ignores racism, discrimination, disfranchisement, and the history of all of these. Have we simply sent our least able people to that region? February 3, 2015. Its stuck in its original hierarchy, and that hierarchy has to be overthrown in order for justice to come. But there was a rejection of perhaps some of the things he stood for, and perhaps of the multicultural, multiracial America that he embodied, by forty-six per cent of the country. In his new book, Adam Hochschild remembers a time when a crusade for democracy abroad released a demonic spirit of intolerance and violence at home. We are blunt. How do you understand that? The younger generation of employees is to the left of its elders on issues of substance. Maybe this says that the Democratic Party is about to undergo something big. But I mean it in a larger sense. Joe Biden was elected last year with more votes than any candidate ever, and it doesnt seem to me that he fits into any of these Americas exactly. Im afraid it will take years for America to recover its international prestige; at the very least, it will take a change of Administration. A new generation discovers that its hard to balance work with a well-lived life. None of them are original, and a lot of them are long shots. But it preceded him. Prior to coming to The Times, Kellogg was editor of LAist.com and the web editor of the public radio show Marketplace. Johnson, one of the publishing industrys rare Amazon critics, pushed back against Amazons predatory practices. Packer, George (2001). I agree. (April 29, 2013). In their place, four rival narratives have emerged, four accounts of America's moral identity. I think its illiberalism is mostly in our culture: in media, in universities and schools, in philanthropies, arts organizations. It took Amazon a little while to decide they werent going to cooperate with me, he said. THE Roaring '20s was the decade when modern celebrity . And Obama was also trying to put forward an idea of America that is patriotic, that is aware of its flaws, and that says the arc of history bends toward justice, and so on. The House report describes both a catastrophe and a way forward. The lesson is not to embrace one or the other; its to combine them with wisdom. While he was working on the article, Brad Stones book The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon was published -- a book Packer said he found to be excellent. Rosa sat so Martin could walk so Obama could run, so we could all fly. It was a really optimistic picture of incremental but inevitable progress. New Yorker writer George Packer's 2013 book, "The Unwinding," tells the story of the modern United States through the eyes of a few Americans including Jeff Connaughton, who worked as a . G eorge Packer's incisive, deftly argued book about the moral and political quandary of the United States begins and ends with his declaration: "I am an American." The statement is self . Like many Germans of my generation, I am fully aware of the fact that we owe the U.S., and it breaks my heart to see a good friend choose the path of (self) destruction. And we can get into the reasons why, but I think its both increasingly illiberal philosophicallywhich scares me, since we have so much illiberalism in our society right nowand its politically perverse and fails to understand American voters in some basic ways that it needs to if it wants to make real change. One thing thats been said is that people on the left claim to speak for women, or people of color, and then, when it comes to the ballot box, Joe Biden overwhelmingly beats all the other Democrats with Black voters. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. The book achieves this mainly by tracing the lives of various individuals from different backgrounds through the years. ), None of us want to do anything that could jeopardize the magazine we love. 1960) is a US journalist, novelist, and playwright. The companys lawyers werent happy either, with the name at least, compelling the project to be called the Small Publisher Negotiation Program., Packer also included a suggestion from super-agent Andrew Wylie that publishers stop selling their books to Amazon altogether. BLOG; AUTHOR ARCHIVE; VIDEOS; PODCASTS; PHOTOS; PRESS; Why Print Journalism Survives: George Packer on "The Unwinding," Charlie Hebdo, and More. George Packer (Togo 1982-83) In The New Yorker. Publish date: January 15, 2008; Language: English; ISBN: 9781436147613; 4.06 (2619 ratings) Regular Price: 29.99 USD. These are gross generalizations, but I think they have some truth to them. All rights reserved. Why did ISIS . Say what you want, but Biden is . Is it a failure of leadership? Jane Mayer came from Washington, and Lawrence Wright flew in from Austin, Texas. And, if Im wrong, then Id be actually quite happy. Trump threw a great deal of accelerant onto smoldering discontent. Ad Choices. The New Yorker staff writer George Packer answers readers' questions about his article " Betrayed," from the issue of April 2, 2007. Free America in the eighties, Smart America with Clinton in the nineties. And the reasons are complicated, but I think the basic one is that most Americans do not identify, fundamentally, as members of identity groups. George Packer. Compare that to the several hundred Iraqisalmost all of them refugees from the Saddam erawho have been allowed to immigrate to the United States over the past few years. And I think were going through something not unlike that: a generational conflict in which the young think the old have sold them out, and the old think the young are arrogant and foolish. Human Rights in North Korea to Stay on UN Security Council Radar,US News is a recognized leader in college, grad school, hospital, mutual fund, and car rankings. The financial crisis of 2008 was years in themaking and has had a lasting impact onAmerican political life. Its been the most dominant narrative in our society. Far creepier, however, are the some of the more "complex" explanations for Bales's crime, notably one proffered by Iraq war supporter and neocon-enabler George Packer, in the New Yorker, who denounces "the smugness of the antiwar crowd" and instructs us to avoid "easy condemnations." After all, says Packer, montreal bypass to new brunswick map; mark bouris byron bay house; are belvita breakfast biscuits good for diabetics; is hello alice grant legit; the squad fs19 mods; famous muslim tennis players; google street view caribbean ranges across the country to chronicle the time when "the coil that held Americans together in its secure and sometimes stifling grip first gave way." "I am the empire at the end of the decadence." Thus said the French poet Mallarm. Its as if he didnt experience the late sixties and the seventies in the way, say, Bill Clinton did. And it says, Were all individuals. We all have a chance to make it. In his new book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal, George Packer writes that the United States is in a state of disrepair, brought about primarily by the fact that inequality undermined the common faith that Americans need to create a successful multi-everything democracy. The book opens with an essay on the state of the U.S. during the pandemic, and then offers sketches of four different visions of the country: Free America, of Reaganism; Smart America, of Silicon Valley and other professional lites; Real America, of Trumpist reaction; and Just America, of a new generation of leftists. I still am looking for some way to describe us as a people, as Americans. "I am a black woman -- let's not forget," she told the New Yorker. The New Yorker staff writer George Packer answers readers questions about his article patriotic feeling has to be tapped if you want to achieve anything big. It would be giving young people a chance, whether through military or civilian ways, to serve the country and one another, and to get to know one another across all the lines that divide us. And Just America: its a necessary slap in the face to my generation and to the complacency of most Americans, who dont want to know the history of race in this country. And if you bloc them that way, if you create monoliths, you will end up not speaking to their actual, as people say, lived experience. 40 Lightfoot must have known what was coming on Tuesday because she laid down the race/woman card over the weekend. Is a Woman Ever Going to Win the White House? One point of view is that you have to be aware of racism and different identities and different inequalities if you want to take the step of improving everyones life. Neither idealism nor toughness has withstood the ordeal in Mesopotamia. It doesnt happen in schools. We are divided that way. Smart America is the meritocracy. Chambers-like. But I have also come to believe that Iraq represents a larger failure than just that of individuals in the Bush Administration or the Administration as a whole. [5] He served in the Peace Corps in Togo.[2][4]. In 2003, Packer was awarded two Overseas Press Club awards, one for his 20,000-word examination of the difficulties faced during the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq and the other for his coverage of the civil war in Sierra Leone. You have expressed Iraqi opinions in your own words. George Packer. His 2021 book Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal describes the fragmentation of American society in recent decades into four mutually antagonistic "four Americas": "Free America" (economically liberal), "Smart America" (educated, affluent and socially liberal), "Real America" (white rural precariat) and "Just America" (urban, progressive and economically disadvantaged). To me, thats like saying Do we stop looking at the data on poverty because there are disparate outcomes among different groups? No. He told his colleagues that after years of reporting from Iraq, he had requested and received health insurance before the birth of his first child. 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