Month: March 2022

*** NYTimes: Covid, Russia and Economy Put the ‘China Model’ to the Test

Covid, Russia and Economy Put the ‘China Model’ to the Test nyti.ms/36Du8hc

“But China’s political-campaign-style regulatory crackdown has done its damage. Mass job cutting, once rare in China, is happening in tech, real estate, education and online games, some of the industries that were hit the hardest by the crackdowns. Posts about unemployment are shared widely as a gloomy sentiment grips the educated middle class.

“Standing at this historic turning point, we look back to the Golden Age,” read an online post about China’s four decades of economic transformation and dreams of individual prosperity. “We all thought it would be our future,” it said. “It turned out to be an illusory dream.””
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**** NYTimes: What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?

What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate? nyti.ms/3tYGlWF

“Within Russia, the war has already served Putin’s political purposes. Many in the professional middle class — the people most sympathetic to dissidents like Aleksei Navalny — have gone into self-imposed exile. The remnants of a free press have been shuttered, probably for good. To the extent that Russia’s military has embarrassed itself, it is more likely to lead to a well-aimed purge from above than a broad revolution from below. Russia’s new energy riches could eventually help it shake loose the grip of sanctions.

This alternative analysis of Putin’s performance could be wrong. Then again, in war, politics and life, it’s always wiser to treat your adversary as a canny fox, not a crazy fool.”
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**** NYTimes: We’re in a Fossil Fuel War. Biden Should Say So.

We’re in a Fossil Fuel War. Biden Should Say So. nyti.ms/37X3PCR

‘”This narrative has not been out there — that this war is why we need to get off of fossil fuels,” said Leah Stokes, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies environmental politics. “More groups need to be connecting the dots, making the case that true energy independence is about running on sunshine, because sunshine is free and abundant and cannot be controlled by dictators.

I’ll let her have the final words: “I started to think about the parallels between climate change and this war and it’s clear that the roots of both these threats to humanity are found in fossil fuels,” Krakovska said in the interview. “Burning oil, gas and coal is causing warming and impacts we need to adapt to. And Russia sells these resources and uses the money to buy weapons. Other countries are dependent upon these fossil fuels; they don’t make themselves free of them. This is a fossil fuel war. It’s clear we cannot continue to live this way; it will destroy our civilization.’”


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NYTimes: How Are We Still Debating Interracial Marriage in 2022?

How Are We Still Debating Interracial Marriage in 2022? www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/opinion/mike-braun-loving-virginia.html

“As it stands, as Ron Brownstein wrote in The Atlantic last year, there is already a “great divergence” between “the liberties of Americans in blue states and those in red states.” And as Republican-led states ban abortion, ban books, restrict the teaching of America’s racial history in schools and trample on the rights of transgender people, this will only get worse.

Senator Braun’s mistake was not that he misunderstood the question; it’s that he understood it all too well. The world he and his colleagues are working toward is one in which the national government defers the question of civil and political rights to the states. And it is in the states, free from federal oversight, where people like Braun can exercise real control over what you might do, how you might live and who you might love. It’s freedom for some and obedience for the rest.”
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