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Fred Siegel

By Fred Siegel 3/19 7:02pm

Law & Disorder

US-CRIME-POLICE-SHOOTING-PROTEST

Yusef, Amadou and Kimani: East Flatbush Shooting Injects Race Into Election

Last year, when the cops who were part of a street narcotics unit shot and killed unarmed teenager Ramarley Graham in the Bronx after kicking in the door to his grandmother’s apartment, it was a clear-cut case of police failure. But it never became a citywide story, let alone a national cause.

By contrast, the recent shooting of 16-year-old Kimani Gray in East Flatbush led to days of scattered street violence, an Occupy influx, extended posturing on MSNBC and widespread press coverage.

The difference this time? An election, and post-Bloomberg anxiety. Read More

By Fred Siegel 12:00am

Radical Professors: The New Brain Trust?

When Howard Dean hit New York several weeks ago, he made two stunning but characteristic comments. Speaking with fervor at the final D.N.C. forum prior to his election as party chairman, he explained to the assembled flock that he didn’t just disagree with Republicans on specific issues, but rather that “I hate the Republicans and Read More

By Fred Siegel 11/22/04 12:00am

Iraq in the Cold Light of Day: A Post-Election Refresher

America’s Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies, by George Friedman. Doubleday, 354 pages, $25.95.

The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, by Gilles Kepel. Harvard University Press, 336 pages, $23.95.

America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, by Anatol Lieven. Oxford University Press, 274 Read More

By Fred Siegel 4/02/01 12:00am

Outdated New York Review : Radical Chic Forever

Almost everyone knows a sad sack who can’t move on. He’s the

college athlete who’s still wearing his faded championship jacket long after

his brief triumph. The New York Review of

Books is a magazine version of that guy. A cutting-edge publication in the

1960′s, when the street fighters at Elaine’s signed on to the Read More

By Fred Siegel 10/23/00 12:00am

Getting It Wrong on the Giuliani Era

In his biography of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, author Wayne Barrett executes a feat of virtuoso revisionism. He simply excises the David Dinkins mayoralty rather than deal with the disastrous riots and rampant unemployment that helped lead to Mr. Giuliani’s victory in 1993. In “The Real Rudy,” the lead essay in the Oct. 19 issue of Read More

By Fred Siegel 3/13/00 12:00am

New Sharpton? Only to Old Fools

When it comes to race, liberal politics in New York has become a theater of the blind. At the Apollo Theater on Feb. 21, Al Gore and Bill Bradley spoke repeatedly about the Republicans’ moral failure to condemn the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina State Capitol. They are, of course, entirely right, even Read More

By Fred Siegel 12/20/99 12:00am

New York City on the Edge

Ric Burns and his collection of talking heads and writers gave us a history of New York in film and print. But, argues FRED SIEGEL, they celebrate the New York that almost went bankrupt. And if they have their way, New York’s end-of-century glory will disappear with the end of the Giuliani administration.

Three powerful Read More