Its stuck in its original hierarchy, and that hierarchy has to be overthrown in order for justice to come. Browse archives for February 04, 2015. He is the author of The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, a New York Times bestseller, which won the 2013 National Book Award for non-fiction. 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. 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. So theres affirmative action, theres diversity hiring, theres childrens health insurance. In a new interview, staff writer for The Atlantic George Packer responds to critics of his controversial essay about education in Brooklyn. Smart America is the meritocracy. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Free America in the eighties, Smart America with Clinton in the nineties. New Yorker writer Packer (Interesting Times: Writing from a Turbulent Decade, 2009, etc.) I very much enjoyed this piece, because it seems to fit . Is it a failure of leadership? And as the labor movement seeks to level the playing field, will the stars go along? There was a rebellion from below within Free America. By Alexander Russo It's no simple task when journalists decide to write about their families' school choices and their children's classroom experiences. Justin is under the weather, his column will return Wednesday. There has been no progress in terms of higher education opening up to Americans of lower classes. Hes in a strong position. In "Our Man," Packer, who recently joined the Atlantic after years writing for the New Yorker, conducted more than 200 interviews and had exclusive access to Holbrooke's diaries and private . In his article, Packer outlines what he calls "four rival narratives four accounts of America's moral identity.". Mr. Remnick has told some writers that he is simply eager for the conflict to be resolved. 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. They have all kinds of identities. A new mood of activism has swept through the home of the mascot Eustace Tilley. A lot of people think of Just America as a response to Trump, too, which is why its interesting that youre defining it as just as much a reaction to Smart America. Mr. Remnick reports directly to Cond Nasts chief executive. Packer argues that seismic economic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, leaving the social contract in pieces and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. That dynamic's been entrenched for six, seven years now. By George Packer. Almost any Republican now can be slotted into the Reagan mold or the Trump mold, or theyre pretending to be one but theyre clearly the other. Is it tough enough to withstand this ordeal in Mesopotamia? I feel the same about our country. In 2003, two of his New Yorker articles won Overseas Press Club awardsone for his examination of the difficulties faced during the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, and one for his coverage of the civil war in Sierra Leone. Union activists tend to be less charitable, and feel hes trying to have it both ways. Many of the writers, it seemed, valued their independent contractor status. [5] He served in the Peace Corps in Togo.[2][4]. President Ashraf Ghani is an expert on failed states. Or, to be more . Simon & Schuster, 576 pp., $20.00. THE Roaring 20s was the decade when modern celebrity was invented in America. He was previously married to Michele Millon. 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. They are as intimate as they are grand, and they offer themselves for worship by ordinary people searching for a suitable object of devotion. Iraqs population is largely Arab, with the major exception being the Kurds. I dont much want to live in the republic of any of them, Packer writes. Away from the fun-house mirrors and the bullhorns of cable news and social media, peoples views are more nuanced and less easy to caricature. There is something sadly touching about this blog post from the New Yorker's George Packer that went up over the weekend (and quickly proceeded to . By Glynnis MacNicol Feb 1st, 2010, 10:40 am. It is a new aristocracy of credentials, and people are born into it. Across the board, American institutions have failed. The gathering was, many noted, probably the first time that so many of the magazines scattered staff members had ever been in one room, and someone invited the Magnum photographer Peter van Agtmael to document it. Its really early, and we dont know how much hes going to get done. It means were better. In the best tradition of Carlyle and Swift, he spends much of the first half of the book . I agree. Does Packer think thats viable? 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. It doesnt happen in neighborhoods. And that has left the most prominent writers mainly watching from the sidelines in recent weeks as a bitter labor dispute has consumed their beloved magazine. Ad Choices. As I read your article, I got a sickening feeling that we have been here before. 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. @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. On every trip to Iraq, I have met remarkable American individuals in military and civilian ranks, but, like most people I have talked to about Iraq, I am stunned by the level of general American incompetence there. Even when the result is considered a success, as in Nikole Writers for The New Yorker have been known to refer to the editor, David Remnick, as Dad, so there was something a little illicit about their decision to gather without him back in 2018 at a Windsor Terrace apartment. Gatsby, a mysterious bootlegger who makes a meteoric ascent from Midwestern obscurity to the palatial splendor of West Egg, exemplifies one part of the celebrity code: its inherently illicit. But other tensions revolve around the sense that the junior jobs only rarely offer promotions into the ranks of writers, and no clear career path. They also want to live normal lives, and they dont see that happening with an American departure. Its not smart to lose touch with the basic feelings of large numbers of voters if you hope to get those votes. The other thing that I hold some hope in, in lowering the temperature, is simply improving the material conditions of peoples lives through government. Id call that Real America. 467 pp. He summarized what he saw as the consensus view in another WhatsApp message to colleagues. All rights reserved. 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. Many talk of him as an adored, slightly feared and somewhat distant father whose approval they always seek. Many writers have tweeted in support. I try not to use it for books more than I have to, he said, because I see a real value in walking into a bookstore and seeing things jump off the shelves.. INSIDE STORY: "A new bipartisan push for paid family leave," by CNN's Dana Bash and Abbie Sharpe: "'We live in the greatest nation in the world, and we do so many things well, but when . I dont know enough to agree or disagree., But in terms of telling the story, it was helpful. And, if there is a return to that, then Im happy. If Just America can reform policing, and make our criminal-justice system less barbaric, and close the wealth gap, and close the achievement gap, then Id say all the angst that comes from reading Twitter and the exchange of vitriol that goes on all the time in our culture and in our media will seem trivial. Packer, the author of the books The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America (2013) and The Assassins Gate: America in Iraq (2005) talked to me about what it was like to report his story. As I wrote in the piece, there is a sense among some of Iraqs neighbors that Iraqis, by allowing the Americans to overthrow Saddam and install a Shiite-majority government, have betrayed the Arab cause and represent a pro-Iranian Shiite front that threatens Sunni Arab countries. What are celebrities, after all? He has done more to pursue social justice than any President since Johnson. "To name a few," he went on, "Liana Finck, Emily . Can he save his country from collapse? That were two countries, and one of them is going to have to defeat, and in some ways destroy, the other? 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+. But it preceded him. They also have deep confidence in his ability to make their work better. And thats probably an inevitable outcome. [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. But politically, if that is its messageif identity is its messageI think its going to be an uphill battle. Politicians are always letting the public off the hookit might be the most unforgivably dishonest thing they do. Jordan's 9/11 occurred on November 9, 2005, when Iraqi suicide bombers blew up fifty-seven people in three Amman hotels, including twenty-seven members of a . Theres been nothing like it since the 1930s. But I felt that in the last few years, politically and culturally, things have happened that showed that there are divisions within, as well as between, those two big blocks of Americans. But I would like to call it Equal America, which is a deep, old American drive to be as good as anyone else, to have no one able to say, Im better than you. The ones I talk toand, for various reasons, its an extremely limited poolwant America to leave. And, if they dont hear it from the side that wants equality and inclusiveness, then theyre going to hear it from the side that wants hierarchy and exclusion. What accounts for the level of incompetence in the American administration of postwar Iraq? And unlike organizers in the 1930s, the NewsGuild has social media. In one recent Zoom call, writers even complained to Mr. Remnick of their fears of being bullied on Twitter if they diverge from union talking points. But there are other issues where I dont think this helps at all, either in politics or policy. Packer was born in California around 1960. What happened next was not exactly a scene out of Norma Rae. Emily Nussbaum, a television critic, said she would expect to be fired if she wasnt doing a good job, according to two people there. (April 29, 2013). Try for $0.00. That and time and a change in Washington will eventually, I hope, restore Americas good name. 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 George Packer (Togo 1982-83) In The New Yorker. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. By the whim of the editor, she replied. Join our community book club. Im afraid it will take years for America to recover its international prestige; at the very least, it will take a change of Administration. Carolyn Kellogg is a prize-winning writer who served as Books editor of the Los Angeles Times for three years. Theres an overlap. The Republicans exploited it. Its because of the courage and openness of the people I spoke with that I was able to tell this story. I still am looking for some way to describe us as a people, as Americans. The Gazelle Project targeted small independent publishers to extract better terms for Amazon -- as a cheetah would target a gazelle. No matter what happens, Mr. Remnick told writers on one recent Zoom call, he would not ask them to cross virtual picket lines. George Packer. BLOG; AUTHOR ARCHIVE; VIDEOS; PODCASTS; PHOTOS; PRESS; Why Print Journalism Survives: George Packer on "The Unwinding," Charlie Hebdo, and More. She joined the L.A. Times in 2010 as staff writer in Books and left in 2018. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. 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). It wasnt highlighted in the bill. Journalist George Packer's article in the March 26 issue of The New Yorker magazine is called "Betrayed: The Iraqis Who Trusted America the Most.". 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. 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. The book proposes my own narrative, although it doesnt claim it as a narrative. 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. This is an excellent question, and a huge one. Am I really prepared to say its over? Anti-Americanism is as old as the Republic, largely a European horror at the rise of a commercial power that seemed to have no cultural greatness. How do you understand that? The Democrats did all they could in the early Obama years to find some common ground, even with large majorities in Congress. Peeling back all the ways Amazon and publishing are entangled, Packer said, took forever., Although Packer shines a critical light on Amazon, he said he believes that the company has provided a seductive level of customer satisfaction; he himself is a customer. Why ISIS Murdered Kenji Goto. Nobody was interested in a union rep coming between them and Mr. Remnick on editorial decisions. Working as the kind of writer that Brooks has sometimes been, but going far beyond that, he takes you into the lives of real Americans, at least one or two of whom will resemble any likely reader of the book, as they discover, sickeningly, that they're ensnared and blocked by forces beyond their . There was some craziness there, but over all this was inevitable, and it had to happen, and this is how history functions? The nineteen-sixties are on my mind a lot. His award-winning biography, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, was released in May 2019. On Saturday afternoon the primary participants of The New Yorker's delightful and addictive "Campaign Trail" podcast collected for a live version of same, sort of like when Monty Python did The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. And maybe we needed that. Projects on that scalewhich is where national service comes in againseem like a better way than just attempting to give a big speech in the Obama mode, saying, There is no Red America, there is no Blue America, because that doesnt work. In their place, four rival narratives have emerged, four accounts of America's moral identity. We found out last year we had something really big to do. A labor movement revival began when Gawker employees joined the W.G.A. This is a really important impulse and corrective that were going through right now. It has an aggressive quality. But somehow, maybe because of where he comes from or what kind of career hes had, he doesnt feel like a very modern figure. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. They loom larger in times like now, when inequality is soaring and trust in institutions governments, corporations, schools, the press is falling. 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. They have little faith that the U.S. can achieve it, but even less that their own government and security forces can. David Remnick at the American Society of Magazine Editors Ellie Awards ceremony in Brooklyn in 2019. he had erred and limited the action to one store, severance agreements that require confidentiality and nondisparagement, interferes with employees right to organize. Well, I agree. They sat in a big circle and, like the millennials only a few of them are, shared details of their own compensation arrangements. But the other chunk of the story is how much Gutekunst wants to see more of Love in the regular season. An organizer for the NewsGuild who was present, Nastaran Mohit, told the writers she had avoided involving them in the original organizing drive because she knew how close many of them were to management, and she was worried theyd snitch. Packer doesn't preach about this. Then it took on a new, more global life in the years between the fall of the Soviet Union and the attacks of September 11th, as a book by your compatriot Josef Joffe, berpower, arguesa reaction against the sole superpower. 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. And Mankoff responded accordingly: "What I absolutely take satisfaction in is that, as I leave as cartoon editor, I leave The New Yorker and my successor with a bumper crop of new and talented cartoonists who came in under my tenure," Mankoff told the Washington Post's Michael Cavna. Paperback, 434 pages. Amazon can be difficult to write about -- the company would not confirm to the New Yorker facts as simple as how many employees it has in Seattle or how many Kindles it has sold. Because of the difficulties of working in Iraq and the concerns Iraqis have about their safety, this story presented logistical challenges. Were arrogant. Fitzgerald intuited that, with the old restraining deities of the 19th century dead and his generations faith in man shaken by World War I, celebrities were the new household gods. [6], Packer was a Holtzbrinck Fellow Class of Fall 2009 at the American Academy in Berlin.[7]. He really doesnt. And Just America has rightly said, Thats not working for a lot of Americans who still are second-class citizens.. To me, its a kind of reparations, and a necessary one. The New Yorker staff writer George Packer answers readers' questions about his article " Betrayed," from the issue of April 2, 2007. Thats where its strongest, and at this point its dominant. And its also becoming more illiberal. And in a way you can see they have followed each other in power from one decade to the next. Or is there something about Americans that limits our capabilities in this type of project? Did you get any sense, from the Iraqis you interviewed, of their opinion of an American exit strategy? Those opportunities now also include newsletter platforms like Substack, and a new start-up called Puck, a digital magazine in which star writers get a cut of the subscription business and a share of the company. All rights reserved. Why did ISIS . In the quarter-century after World War II, the country established collective structures, not individual monuments, that channeled the aspirations of ordinary people: state universities, progressive taxation, interstate highways, collective bargaining, health insurance for the elderly, credible news organizations. 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