BLOG; AUTHOR ARCHIVE; VIDEOS; PODCASTS; PHOTOS; PRESS; Why Print Journalism Survives: George Packer on "The Unwinding," Charlie Hebdo, and More. The moment, of course, seems all the stranger, in that much of the conflict is playing out virtually, while everyone is working remotely. It doesnt happen in neighborhoods. Because I wanted to write about the whole arc of the war in their lives, I spent many hoursin a couple of cases, two full daystalking with them. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century. It was a white Christian-nationalist narrative that said, Your free trade, your immigration, even your corporations and monopolies have not improved a lot of towns, and rural areas have sunk and are in deep trouble, and have some of the same serious problems that the inner cities have had for decades. And so, when Trump came along, in 2015, he intuited in his reptilian way that the old, sunny, optimistic Reagan message didnt cut it, and that something more dark and nativist and ugly would appealthat people didnt want to hear how good things were. The writers in the room had been invited merely to a meeting to understand what the existing union drive meant for them, Mr. Taub said, and had no sense that they were secretly being organized. All rights reserved. Really, nihilism is the only word for it. In the best tradition of Carlyle and Swift, he spends much of the first half of the book . I feel the same about our country. @TangoMan I imagine that's what the Department of Water Resources dam management was worried about during the rains from 2/2 to 2/6 as they maintained the water level at 850 feet rather than flush a lot of valuable water down the river to get ready for the second half of the long set of storms from 2/7 to 2/10. Richard Armitage, when I interviewed him, placed the blame on a complete lack of accountability at the highest levels. Browse archives for February 04, 2015. George Packer, Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow and ASU Future of War Fellow, wrote a book, Our Man, about Richard Holbrooke and American foreign policy.Packer has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 2003. This seems like the only way that face-to-face interactions between Americans from wildly different backgrounds could happen. Some of the large pieces, which are chopped up and welded onto the rest in roughly 20-page blocks, began as articles in The New Yorker, where Mr. Packer is a staff writer. I have no hope that Congress or any of the Presidential candidates (and that emphatically includes the Democrats) will bring about a fundamental change in the way the United States defines its global strategy, or the way it projects its interests. There was some craziness there, but over all this was inevitable, and it had to happen, and this is how history functions? So theres affirmative action, theres diversity hiring, theres childrens health insurance. Regarding his abilities, the . Have we simply sent our least able people to that region? 467 pp. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. Say what you want, but Biden is . Instead, youll be speaking to them ideologically, and they might tune you out. They have roots in history, but they are shaped by new ways of thinking and living. What are celebrities, after all? The fourth America is also a rebellion. Ad Choices. His decency, his dignity, his ability to explain what democracy isIm not sure well ever see that again. And one of them is national service. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. 2023 Cond Nast. Were nice. The union includes 120 people and there are about the same number of staff and contributing writers. He has done more to pursue social justice than any President since Johnson. At the same time, you may not sell those policies through the frame of specific identities. The answer to your question depends on how much can be achieved by this movement. From the episode: Andrew Keen: One of the chapters [in your book] is called "Make America Again," rather . Id call that Real America. Im identifying, to some degree, with my parents, who were in their forties and on a college campus during the student revolution, and it was not an easy time. But Democrats are just as scared. By the whim of the editor, she replied. Were informal with waiters. F. Scott Fitzgeralds Great Gatsby is full of magazine spreads of tennis players and socialites, popular song lyrics, movie stars, paparazzi, gangsters and sports scandals machine-made by technology, advertising and public relations. 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 employees ultimately backed down, rejecting the notion of unionism for what seemed in part to be cultural reasons. Feb 04 2015. And if we have a politics that focusses on that, and tries to bring us closer to that, I think thats a healthier narrative than any of the four Ive described. Its the first time since Free America emerged, in the nineteen-eighties, that weve had a serious new political project as ambitious as thatof simply improving peoples lives in jobs, in working conditions, giving labor more power, breaking up monopolies, providing health care. None of them are original, and a lot of them are long shots. When you say that if liberals do not engage in a certain form of patriotism then that space will be taken over by the right, are you talking about winning votes? Biden didnt announce it as an important new policy development. But, really, Smart America takes on the parameters set by Free America: deregulation and free trade and open immigration. Every passing year makes that clearer. 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. 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. The Gazelle Project -- that was me, Melville Houses Dennis Johnson told Packer. But with Democrats it is harder. Neither of these issues is new. And it then felt like half the country, in 2015, responded to seven years of this by choosing a lunatic white nationalist to be its nominee for President. I still am looking for some way to describe us as a people, as Americans. Its the professional class. Can he save his country from collapse? 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. They reflect . Another way to describe those feelings is the inevitable result of the inequalities that your book sketches. The conversation made clear how inconsistent benefits and pay were among writers, and many left angry at Cond Nast over the opaque and uneven system. Or, to be more . In 1976, a group of employees got fed up with flat wages and, among other things, a 50 percent cut to the magazines annual psychiatric benefit, and brought in the union (then the Newspaper Guild) to set things right. And this is really the story of my adult life, from the late nineteen-seventies onward. There was a rebellion from below within Free America. The New Yorker staff writer George Packer answers readers' questions about his article " Betrayed," from the issue of April 2, 2007. Join our community book club. Theyve agreed on a $55,000 starting salary and are hashing out issues like caps on potential health care cost increases, people familiar with the talks said even as the Guild threatens a strike. purchase. 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? For example, do we get rid of standardized testing because there are disparate outcomes between groups? Maybe publishers need to think disruptively and not be victims., Maybe, he added, they should think a little more like predators., [For the Record, 1:15 p.m. PST Feb. 10: An earlier version of this post misquoted author George Packer as saying, Maybe publishers need to think destructively and not be victims. He used the word disruptively, not destructively.], Join Carolyn Kellogg on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. 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. the 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.. George Packer is an award-winning author and staff writer at The Atlantic.His previous books include The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America (winner of the National Book Award), The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, and Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century (winner of the Hitchens Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography). Mr. Remnick declined to be interviewed, but said in an email that his two goals were that we achieve our highest editorial ambitions and that we work together with fairness, adding, Ill be glad to see us sign a foundational contract that memorializes our commitment to both., Many of the writers I spoke to said they saw Mr. Remnick as caught between an uncompromising union and an ailing parent company. Our Man George Packer 2019-05-09 From one of America's greatest non-fiction writers, an epic saga of the rise and fall of American power, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, told through the life of one man. What I hear when I travel these days is hostility not just toward the U.S. government but toward the country and its people. I dont want to say too much for it. But the alternatives to American power will be even less appealing. (April 29, 2013). Across the board, American institutions have failed. But why does neither of them appeal to you? One of the things Packer mentions is the Gazelle Project, referencing Stones book. The New Yorker staff writer George Packer answers readers questions about his article That gets back to the question of whether were trying to make good policy or win elections, right? He told his colleagues that after years of reporting from Iraq, he had . 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. Amazon is good for online shoppers, but is it good for books? 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. Because I think the two things that have driven us to the state of frenzy were in right now are, one, the rise of a multiracial, multicultural America in the last half century and, two, the decline of industrial America into the postindustrial service economy, which has been so bad for so many people. I have a list of qualities that I think apply to most of us, that foreigners immediately pick up as American traits. But the other chunk of the story is how much Gutekunst wants to see more of Love in the regular season. Simon & Schuster, 576 pp., $20.00. But youre right: in politics, its barely got a toehold. But somehow, maybe because of where he comes from or what kind of career hes had, he doesnt feel like a very modern figure. Some 20 of the writers, many of them marquee names, were getting together to decide how to react to the surprise announcement that their less heralded colleagues fact checkers, copy editors, web producers, social media editors were forming a union and demanding raises. ), None of us want to do anything that could jeopardize the magazine we love. 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. Ad Choices. Im in favor of putting together an exit strategy for Iraq, but Im also sure that if we were to leave most of the territory in the near future, the country would erupt in bloodshed of a scope that we havent seen in a long time. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Packer, George (February 11-18, 2013). Its more like a bunch of instincts and prejudices. But it made focusing on the companys chief executive redundant. THE Roaring 20s was the decade when modern celebrity was invented in America. As I read your article, I got a sickening feeling that we have been here before. Were arrogant. It means were better. I had this idea about the way international organizations go into Bosnia or Northern Ireland or Israel and just get the warring sides to build a school together, or put on a play together. People in Japan are calling Goto's murder their 9/11. In July 2013 the New Yorker Festival released a video entitled Geoffrey Canada on Giving Voice to the Have-nots, of a panel that was moderated by George Packer. One lingering quibble is that your sense of liberal righteousness strikes me as the milk-and-water variety that Theodore Roosevelt warned against. That is Bidens project. 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. The New Yorkers union, for instance, tweeted and then deleted its solidarity with Palestinians from the river to the sea, a phrase that some interpret as threatening violence. George W. Bush has not said anything about Iraqi refugees, probably because they represent a political embarrassment, and the rest of the government has been extremely sluggish in addressing what is now a crisis. 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. She changed a bit during the campaign, but I think of her as something of a throwback. Does Packer think thats viable? Thats where its strongest, and at this point its dominant. A deal was finalized late last month. Ryan Costello, a centrist wonk, ran for Congress to solve problemsbut his colleagues fell in line with Trumps parade of resentment. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. 2,141 likes. Everyone I met on my last trip feared a wider catastrophe without American troops. His essays and articles have appeared in Boston Review, The Nation, World Affairs, Harper's, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, among other publications. 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. The editor, William Shawn, responded with pained, elegant letters, warning that collective bargaining would undermine the friendly, gentle, free, informal, democratic atmosphere that made The New Yorker special. Stones book of her as something of a throwback people in Japan are Goto. 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