Tag Archives: Tea Party

Dickens Understood Resentment Well

By Robin Bates | Published: January 23, 2015

When resentment threatens to hijack our politics, we would do well to turn to Dickens’ “Little Dorrit.”

By Robin Bates | Published: August 13, 2014

Dashiell Hammett’s rough and tumble novels catch some of the spirit of today’s political battles.

By Robin Bates | Published: May 22, 2014

This Scott Bates poem captures the swagger of those who con their fellow Americans while trumpeting free enterprise and bootstrapism.

By Robin Bates | Published: April 11, 2014

Although Kipling’s “Jungle Books” sometimes read like a rightwing fantasy, there’s a progressive element as well.

By Robin Bates | Published: December 3, 2013

If “Huck Finn” has predictive value, the class tensions within today’s GOP will be papered over by racism.

By Robin Bates | Published: October 16, 2013

Can the Tea Party move beyond fantasies and deal with the world as it really is? Shakespeare and Yeats weigh in.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 8, 2013

Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “Lacuna” warns us what happens when surveillance of innocent people gets used to ruin careers.

By Robin Bates | Published: March 19, 2013

Often those most reliant on government help spend the most time talking about self reliance.

By Robin Bates | Published: February 11, 2013

Karl Rove and Barack Obama have both “created monsters” (in the Tea Party and drone strikes respectively). Mary Shelley would understand.