Harold Meyerson

By some standards, it’s been a rocky year for urban progressivism. In Los Angeles, not only did Antonio Villaraigosa’s bid for mayor come up short, but something of a rift between the local black and Latino communities emerged during the campaign. In New York, last week’s Democratic primary for mayor......

While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down --Edgar Allan Poe Now is the season of our antidepressants, of Prozac and Paxil and whatever it takes to get through the night. Not that the anthrax assaults should be terrifying unto themselves: They seem more the work......

WASHINGTON — Never mind that Pearl Harbor is an imperfect analogy to our current situation. The more serious problem is, can anyone envision an end to this conflict that resembles in the slightest the surrender on the battleship Missouri? There is no Hirohito who can go on the radio and......

WASHINGTON, D.C. — All that is solid melts into air, Marx wrote, but he didn’t mean in one terrible morning. Not in a savage decomposition of glass and steel and concrete, nor of the people, the thousands of people, on whom it all imploded. America has suffered a huge wound;......

If one definition of a neurosis is a wholly mental construct that impedes real-world action, then the Social Security lock box is one whopper of a national neurosis. Social Security came into existence in 1935, and up until two years ago, no such thing as an untouchable lock box even......

Elsewhere on this site, the Weekly endorses Denise Robb for the 4th District City Council seat left vacant by John Ferraro’s death. Nothing against Denise Robb, mind you, but I disagree. (Well, come to think of it, one thing against Denise Robb, who is an articulate and personable progressive activist......

Twelve years ago, when I came to the Weekly, L.A.’s poor came into view only during calamities: A downtown high-rise caught fire in the middle of the night, sending the janitorial work force -- apparently, all new arrivals from Mexico and Central America (what had happened to the black janitors?)......

Now here’s a governing coalition. As the accompanying map makes clear, Jim Hahn put together a one-time hodgepodge of an Election Day majority. He ran strongest in the city’s most heavily African-American council district (the 8th, Mark Ridley-Thomas’), while his second best district was L.A.’s most Republican (the west Valley’s......

I. Sucker-Punched The future is on hold here, at least for a few more years. Give Jim Hahn credit: He organized one last victory for the old Los Angeles. In a city that’s increasingly young and Latino, Hahn put together enough older white and black support to defeat Antonio Villaraigosa......

The days dwindle down; the Hahn fear offensive ratchets up. With the race for mayor in its final week, the image the Jim Hahn campaign wants to leave voters with is a crack-cocaine pipe being held up to a flame. This inflammatory imagery, followed by a grainy shot of Antonio......