Browsing PBH By Articles

China’s Quest For A New Economic Model

The Article: As Economy Slows, China Looks For A New Model by Frank Langfitt in NPR.

The Text: If you followed American media in recent years, you might have thought China was taking over the planet. Recent titles at the book store have included Becoming China’s Bitch and When China Rules the World.

“They are the world’s superpower or soon will be,” Glenn Beck used to intone on Fox News. “They always thought America was just a blip.”

And when the city of Philadelphia postponed an Eagles football game a couple of years ago because of a blizzard forecast, then-Gov. Ed Rendell said America — unlike China — was becoming a nation of “wussies.”

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The Christian Role In Toxic American Partisanship

The Article: How Christian fundamentalism feeds the toxic partisanship of US politics by Katherine Stewart in The Guardian.

The Text: Mix It Up at Lunch Day is one of those programs that just seems like a nice thing to do.

The idea is that on one day of the school year, kids are invited to have lunch with the kind of kids they don’t usually hang out with: the jocks mix with the nerds, lunch tables are racially integrated, et cetera. Sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center as part of their Teaching Tolerance division, it arose out of a broad effort to tackle the problems of bullying in the schools and bigotry in society – and it appears to have been effective in breaking down stereotypes and reducing prejudice. Over 2,000 schools nationwide now participate in the program, which is set to take place this year on 30 October.

You can argue about how permanent its effects are, or whether other approaches might be better, but the idea of making new friends in the lunchroom seems utterly benign. Right?

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Six Important Policies Neither Obama Nor Romney Endorsed

The Article: Silences Louder Than Their Words: Effective Economic Policies Neither Candidate Advocates by Richard Wolff in Truth Out.

The Text: This presidential election arrives five years into a severe economic crisis that both Republican and Democratic policies failed to end. The latest unemployment rate (7.8 percent) is not even halfway back to the 2007 level of 5 percent, from the crisis high of 10 percent. Jobs have not recovered, but corporate profits and the stock market did, thanks to huge government bailouts. Average real weekly earnings of most workers fell 2.4 percent from October, 2010, to the present – during what business, media and political leaders enjoyed calling a “modest recovery.” That 2.4 percent real wage drop means that workers lost the equivalent of six days’ wages (one week and one day) per year between late 2010 and now. Income and wealth inequalities thus deepened further across the crisis. No end of these developments is in sight.

Do Obama and Romney (O and R) debate alternative policies to overcome this enduring economic crisis, given the failed policies to date? No. First, they exclude smaller party candidates who do advocate some alternative policies. Second, they exclude key alternatives from their statements and arguments.
Here are a few of those alternative policy options that O and R agree to ignore.

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Purging The Moderates

The Article: The excluded middle in The Economist.

The Text: WATCHING television advertisements for John Barrow’s re-election campaign, it is hard to tell whether he is a Republican or a Democrat. In a studiedly folksy manner, he explains how he rejects the nostrums of both parties. He is a strong ally of the National Rifle Association, which irks Democrats. He refuses to turn over Medicare to private insurers, as many Republicans would like. He bucked both parties by voting against the “Wall Street bail-out”. He has voted at times with, and at times against, both Barack Obama and Eric Cantor, the leader of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. “John’s independent, all right,” a grey-haired woman in a house-dress avers. “John will work with anyone to bring jobs to Georgia,” declares a jowly man in a baseball cap.

As it happens, Mr Barrow is a Democrat. As his ads suggest, he is a moderate who often goes against the party line—most notably when he voted against Mr Obama’s health-care reforms. More doctrinaire Democrats dismiss him as a “Republicrat”. His Republican opponent, meanwhile, has dubbed him “Barrobama”, arguing that his claims of centrism are mere posturing. Partisans on both sides agree on one thing about him, however: that he will struggle to win re-election. The Republicans who run Georgia’s state legislature removed a lot of Democrats when they redrew his district last year, leaving it with a decided Republican slant.

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The Castles In America

The Article: Who says America doesn’t have castles? in The Economist.

The Text: THIS morning I read of the altercation in Montana that led a homeowner to shoot and kill a jealous husband. Brice Harper had a relationship with Dan Fredenberg’s wife. The wife insisted it was only an “emotional” affair, but no mind: an angry, intoxicated and unarmed Fredenberg charged into Mr Harper’s Montana garage, where Mr Harper shot him dead.

The Kalispell, Montana police are not charging Mr Harper with any crime. The reason is the “castle doctrine”, newly added to Montana law. If someone has merely “reasonable belief” that he will be assaulted, even by an unarmed assailant, in his home, he may use deadly force in response. The traditional arguments quickly flow from both sides: from the police and gun-control advocates, that this is a “license to kill”, from the pro-gun lobby, that it deters crime.

What struck me was not the usual arguments, but the word “castle” attached to the legal doctrine in question. As it happens, last night I was reading Steven Pinker’s “Better Angels of Our Nature”. As those who have heard of the book know, Mr Pinker argues that violence (both war and homicide, and assault to boot) have declined precipitously in almost all corners of the world. He sets out to explain why.

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