Tag Archives: Modest Proposal

Stewart Should Learn from Jonathan Swift

By Robin Bates | Published: November 6, 2013

Jon Stewart may be one of our leading satirists, but satire comes up short in handling this country’s healthcare crisis.

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Swift and Food Stamp Cuts

By Robin Bates | Published: September 17, 2013

What would Jonathan Swift say to GOP radicals who seek to cut food stamps.

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If They Lose, Irish Can Turn to Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: January 5, 2013

Even if they lose the national championship game, the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame have Ireland’s poetic legacy to fall back on.

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The NRA’s Modest Proposal

By Robin Bates | Published: January 2, 2013

The NRA’s call for armed guards in every school sounds like Swift’s “Modest Proposal”–only the NRA is serious.

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Obama, Idealist or Realist?

By Robin Bates | Published: December 28, 2010

2010 in Review There was an interesting dust-up last week amongst conservative intellectuals following the release of some more Richard Nixon tapes. Henry Kissinger can be heard making the following cold-blooded remark about Soviet Jews in 1973: “Let’s face it: The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign […]

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Mothers “Dropping” Babies?!

By Robin Bates | Published: August 9, 2010

First, congratulations to Elena Kagan for being the fourth woman chosen to the U. S. Supreme Court. I have written about Kagan’s love for Pride and Prejudice here, as well as the reasons why, given a choice, it’s better to have a Pride and Prejudice lover than a Wuthering Heights lover on the Court (click […]

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Bush, Obama, and Gulliver’s Travels

By Robin Bates | Published: June 3, 2009

I return for one last time to Swift, who provides invaluable perspectives for understanding contemporary politics. Swift was a shrewd student of political dynamics. His satire is often an allegorical depiction of real life people and incidents, and if one knows one’s history, one can read parts of Gulliver’s Travels as a roman à clé, […]

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