Author Archives: David Futrelle

Even in the surreal, insular world of leftist propaganda papers, the Spartacist League’s Workers Vanguard is a standout.

Most of us, I suspect, greet news about the precise machinations of the European Community with all the enthusiasm we usually reserve for news about, say, Canada–we know it’s a big subject that we should probably pay more attention to, but it’s impossible to work up any real interest. Yet there are thousands if not […]

Norman Schwarzkopf and Camille Paglia demonstrate how the radical visions of the 60s can become their reactionary opposites.

Apparently the mood of the country has shifted. Fox TV thinks we’re ready to enjoy the wacky misadventures of six wisecracking survivors of nuclear annihilation.

If you find yourself chuckling as you read this article, ask yourself this: Where will you spend eternity? In heaven? Or in the lake of fire?

Vietnam POWs are a myth, argues H. Bruce Franklin–a myth that casts Americans as victims and thereby relieves our shame and guilt.

Vested Interests is a sprawling, fascinating discussion of cross-dressing, transsexualism, and other instances of gender ambiguity.

With the White City of 1893 the cultural elites of Chicago attempted to paper over their society’s class and cultural divisions. It didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now.

I realized that Gloria Steinem’s new book, Revolution From Within, was not merely bad but irredeemably bad when she let slip, about two-thirds of the way through, that she was in the habit of conversing with the liver spots on her hands. I had gotten used to this kind of loopiness, all too typical of […]

Greil Marcus’s obsessions may not always be interesting to readers, but they do save the author from much tedious research.

When Jesse Helms stands up in Congress to inveigh against pervert artists, David Wojnarowicz is one of those he has in mind. Wojnarowicz, who’s “queer” and an AIDS activist, is seemingly better known for the confrontations his work has provoked than for the work itself–he’s been a frequent target of the censorship crowd. “Some of […]

The medical metaphor of 1903 was neurasthenia, an effeminizing weakness that Teddy Roosevelt cured by strenuous exercise and military adventure. Today we might call it the wimp factor.