So Much To Cover

A list of upcoming topics…

Nathan J. Robinson

filed 25 September 2018 in

Here at Current Affairs, we have published commentary and analysis on a large number of topics. But the world is gigantic, and much has been left out. Honestly, I feel giddy and overwhelmed when I realize just how many serious issues humanity faces. Of course, as a magazine editor, I’m glad that there is no shortage of topics. I rarely suffer from “writer’s block,” since I never sit looking at a blank page and wondering what I can come up with to write about. I have a list of about 500 topics, all of which urgently need covering. I suffer instead from “writer’s panic,” where I stare at a blank page worrying about how on earth I can possibly write about all of the things that need writing about, and in what order I should do it. As soon as I begin an article on one thing, I get distracted by another. For a month now I’ve been trying to write an article about the collapse of Burlington, Vermont’s public internet service provider. But even though this is a fascinating and important story, it always gets shunted to the bottom of the list as more urgent news items flow in.

We are a tiny magazine, and a very under-resourced (a new euphemism for “poor”) one. That has meant that there are significant gaps in our coverage. In particular, people have pointed out that we are extremely weak on environmental issues and foreign policy issues. The lack of writing on climate change, sustainability, and “eco-socialism” is partly because I simply don’t have a scientific background, and this makes me very cautious about publishing material on scientific questions. I am not sure how to know whether submitted material is trustworthy, and we would need an editor with a strong background in the sciences for me to feel comfortable publishing articles about ecology. It’s similar with foreign policy: I do not consider myself an expert, and I would hesitate to edit content on subjects I have little knowledge of. I realize that the result of this is inexcusable: It means that a general “current affairs” magazine has gaping holes on some of the most important matters facing humanity. I intend therefore to fix it, but doing so requires finding people with the right background and the right sensibility. This is difficult, but we’re on it.

I recently invited readers to answer the question “What should Current Affairs be writing about? What would you be most interested in reading about?” These two questions do not mean the same thing. There are things that are important to write about that people are not very interested in reading about (e.g., suicide), and there are things people are interested in reading about that are not especially important to write about (e.g., paintings of Judith beheading Holofernes). I like to have a balance of the enjoyable and the obligatory, making everyone eat their broccoli but following it with a beignet.

Below, I’ve collected a fraction of the responses we received to our query. We will try to get to everything eventually. But I should add: Our ability to cover things, and the depth with which we can cover them, is directly proportional to the amount of financial support we receive from our readership. We are, as I am sure you are tired of hearing me say, entirely reader-supported and run on subscriptions and donations with zero dollars from advertisers. I often think about what this magazine could do if we had the budget of a New Yorker or even a New Republic, instead of the budget of a moderately successful vegetable stand or food truck. I am fairly certain that we could produce almost limitless quantities of human happiness. So much for the efficient allocation of resources under capitalism!

Here then are your suggestions, which as we become prosperous will all be assigned to top-flight writers, illustrators, and editors:

Harmful effects of advertising
Big pharma
Myanmar
How the welfare state should work in the context of open borders
California
What we think of intellectual property
Why housing costs are rising
“Analyze every season of American Horror Story through a leftist lens”
An advice column on “praxis”
“What artists are making the best anti capitalist electronic music in today’s scene, and what is their soundcloud”
Tenant organizing
Urban design
Successful models of just economies
“liberatory technologies and their potential for decentralizing power e.g. 3D printing, micro-manufacturing, free and open source software/hardware, vertical farming, commons-based peer-production.”
“The Upper Peninsula of Michigan and why it fucking rules”
Wombats
“Y’all never write about Canada smh”
injustices in the mental health system
Rojava
politics of video games
“How telecos & ALEC capture state legislatures to prevent municipalities setting up broadband networks”
interview Mariame Kaba
“Ethics in gaming journalism” HAH!
“Write about the actual state of our current voting system. A complete analysis. I would also love to read about possible solutions.”
Nestor Makhno
“I would love to hear a detailed breakdown of what you think ‘free speech’ should mean”
utopian socialist fiction like Iain M. Banks
Are street protests obsolete?
Panama papers follow through
“Foreign policy but no one cares about it”
The Japanese New Left
Film criticism
“The relationship between humor and power – essentially satire. Can humor be one of our tactics for attacking power structures? If so, how effective is it and how does it work? What’s the history of exposing the rich and powerful to ridicule? And stuff like that…”
“More stuff about ways the tech industry is changing our society. A lot gets written about it elsewhere but it’s mostly dreck.”
“formerly incarcerated people”
“More on geoengineering to buy us time. We have major decarbonization paths to find, but we are past being able to solve our problems using this approach”
Modern Monetary Theory
” How can every living visual artist have a dignified practice and the opportunity for their art to be seen?”
What would a fair and just world look like
“Profiles of non-college educated working class millennials. I’ve read so much about how young educated city dwellers have transitioned into adulthood in this economy, but very little about construction workers, nurses, etc”
“How to build solidarity with working class voters on material issues when their politics are otherwise racist etc and more broadly what leaving space for reconciliation, growth, forgiveness (abolitionism) looks like (at what point do we marginalise our racist working class Uncle?”
oil politics
A dunk on Tucker Carlson would be cool
The alarming growth of violent ethno-nationalism globally. Hindutva, Israel, etc.
The various major types of democratic consultants and their class interests
“More profiles of leftist YouTube may initially sound a bit selfish, but fuck there are some amazing people besides myself that deserve a huge push that most media is never going to give them” — This is from lefty Youtuber Peter Coffin @petercoffin
More about the global south
“Being sympathetic to cultural conservatives who feel like cultural conservatism is comforting.”
A series on ways us vastly ignored regular people can be politically effective with a 9-to-5 gig daily schedule
“The extent to which leftist organizations and grassroots communities put value in new age and often anti-science beliefs. i’m thinking of many people out in california who believe in healing crystals and astrology”
District attorney races
Whether any “model” of unionism, no matter how sexy, can overcome the need for policy change that facilitates the right to organize and actually grow union density.
Ta-nehisi coates
Thomas sowell
Intersections of border militarization and the epidemics of missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada and the US
“How Batman is a leninist”
State of American jails and prisons
Liberal fetishization of experience
What voter suppression looks like
Obama’s total failure to address the great recession in any meaningful way, while still managing to propagandize his loyalist supporters into thinking that he did something
“A cultural obituary for Robin Leach, host of the grotesque, early trumpian era (’80s) ‘Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous’ TV show. Trump was a guest at least once.”
“If America pulls back and stops being world’s policeman (ie the left stops US Imperalism) is it really better for humanity if China, Russia, Saudis, Iran, EU step up to fill regional vacuums?”
Tackling global poverty/health, and the surrounding philanthropy, careerism, CSR
War in Yemen
Environmental racism
“How are wages and salaries determined or decided? Why is it that some work which is crucial to the everyday functioning of society only “merits” $8/hr. while some execs make $10,000/hr. (or more)??? How do different people & ideologies consider these justified?”
“The logistics of single-payer healthcare would be good. How would the system work for the user, what’s the deal with the ‘wait times’ we often hear about, what difficulties would America face in implementing such a system, etc.”
Universal basic income
Specific takedowns of Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens and Steven Crowder
Mexico’s new president.
Myths about Venezuela
Evolution (biology) and socialism
Hollywood movies with an intended or unintended socialist message
What does a socialist vision for a decarbonized world look like?
Business news
Advice for how to win centrist or right wing friends and relations over
Coverage of great leftist ideas and how they could be implemented similar to your Lefty Shark Tank segments but in print
More utopianism please!
“Definitely a philosophical and economic basis of producing money and its evolution into society today. What gives these paper/plastic pieces value, and how was it different in the past? What are their pros and cons? I have become interested in “fractional reserve banking” and the fact (appearance? Help from experts please) that our financial system allows private parties to create the money supply and profit from this service, as well as profiting from providing credit to the public for infrastructure projects. Why do we outsource this fundamental government service (a currency) to private entities? Public banks are being talked about and proposed more and more in the US as one way to countermand some of these issues.”
Management consultants – like McKinsey and Company – and how the propagate capitalist order through economism
Hunting
Public School Curriculum
Raising Children
Gardening
Boxing
Cooking
Left politics in Rural areas
The environmental impact of shrinking National Parks and Monuments
how “networking” is bad for society
The impact on the economy of rich people hiding their incomes to avoid paying taxes.
History of neoliberal identity politics
A collection of recent local labour- or socialism-related news stories from all over the country that haven’t been picked up by the national media
Why did Mitterrand and the Meitner plan fail? How do you deal with a capital strike?
“The good and lighter side of the African American Existence, like how serious we are abt playing spades, our go to group dance the bus stop and having the right potato salad at the cook out”
“I feel like the news that the government was seriously talking about forcing regime change in Venezuela was just brushed off by everyone so something on that, possibly contextualized by the hell we wrought on Latin America from these practices in the past”
How to separate smart frugal living from both giving up on basic pleasures and from tips that already presume a middle-class level of wealth.
What universities are planning to do about current and future sexual assault/domestic violence victims based on DeVos’ proposed changes to Title 9
Basic law and basic economics for dummies (through a leftist lens)
Community organizing (how-to, profiles…)
The personal is political / interpersonal relationships
Tourism
Define your moral foundations. Are you consequentialists, deontologists, etc.
“Would really like to see some ideas about sustainable, socialist agricultural operations. I live out here and i’m desperate for some ideas about how we can change the ag industry as socialists.”
“I hear so much about mostly unnamed (except for Mark Penn) consultants/strategists who misdirect Democratic candidates. I want to know specifically who these people are so they can get called out and candidates who use their services shamed”
Stories of successful grassroots / community led efforts to rebalance power, across different sectors / scales
Nature of expertise, healthy v. unhealthy skepticism
“Eco-socialism, post-carbon realities, etc, but since you’re so good at tearing down false prophets how about through examining techno narcissism and its proponents like Elon Musk?”
Israel-Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Russia
Is foreign military intervention ever acceptable
More about animals
Free trade
Effective altruism
How to run mega-corporations socialistically
The awareness of how most people in society are depoliticized and how we should structure our political advocacy and activities around that.
Why junk social science is bad for democracy
Direct democracy and how it can be practically implemented in the near-future through (for example) participatory budgeting programs, worker self-management in enterprises, neighbourhood assemblies, student assemblies in which the student body decides their own curriculum.
New tech and its radical possibilities for building a more libertarian socialist economy and polity, e.g., 3D printing, micro-manufacturing, vertical farming, free and open-source software/hardware, commons-based peer-production.
Organising. How to organise. Theory of organising. An organiser’s todo list. Shel Trapp’s books basics & dynamics of organising, but for a modern zero attention span age.
“I’d love to read a piece on the media’s coverage of mental health and disorders. I’ve noticed a troubling cycle revolving around any celebrity meltdown where you see media pile-on and public mockery, and when suddenly something horrible happens (institutionalization, suicide, overdose, etc.) there’s suddenly this horrified reversal and grief as if they had no hand in more or less bullying. It was particularly interesting this year when Kanye publicly announced he was diagnosed with Bi-Polar Disorder; several of my friends who struggle with it felt empowered to have a figure of such profile champion them and were horrified of how it was used to further mock and attack him by several publications.”
Videogames and animation, and their progressive potential as a part of culture.
Social struggles in parts of the world outside North America and Europe, e.g., South Asia and Africa.
Meaning of patriarchy
Socialist origins of computer technology (GNU Foundation, EFF, ARPA, etc.
What socialists can do on the local/state level that is socialist in a fairly conventional sense of the word, meaning collective ownership type things.
“I think a series on what a socialist state would actually look like if implemented in America would be pretty cool. A lot (myself included) of leftists know exactly what’s wrong with the capitalist state, but don’t have a solid, effective alternative if asked for one. Your recent podcast ep talked about it for a bit in regards to prisons: Abolish Prisons! OK, but what next? What would a country without prisons actually look like?I think there are a lot issues that could be tackled: prisons, open borders, drug legalization, housing as a right, etc.”
Domestic suppression of BDS at state and more local levels, China’s One Belt One Road project and its implication for laborers in western China and Central Asia, growing relationship between US police and IDF, what is at stake in Brazil’s contested electoral process, Cuba’s ongoing process of constitutional reform..
I think regular short book and film reviews would be nice. There isn’t really a good place for lefty culture coverage that isn’t hot takes anymore.

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