Heriberto Araújo and Juan Pablo Cardenal warn that the real threat from China has little to do with their military.
By buying companies, exploiting natural resources, building infrastructure and giving loans all over the world, China is pursuing a soft but unstoppable form of economic domination. Beijing’s essentially unlimited financial resources allow the country to be a game-changing force in both the developed and developing world, one that threatens to obliterate the competitive edge of Western firms, kill jobs in Europe and America and blunt criticism of human rights abuses in China. ...
Government support, through hidden subsidies and cheap financing, gives Chinese state-owned firms a major advantage over competitors. Since 2008, the West’s economic downturn has allowed them to gain broad access to Western markets to hunt for technology, know-how and deals that weren’t previously available to them. Western assets that weren’t on sale in the past now are, and Chinese investments have provided desperately needed liquidity.
in short, China has proven that they can relentlessly grind down western capitalism by exploiting the same characteristics that allowed western capitalism to economically crush communism. Western corporations aren't the agents of any government. They can be — easily — turned into economic weapons. This is your big red "read it all" choice for this morning.
Let's go see what other threats are looming this morning.
The Washington Post rolls it's eyes at GOP claims of "court packing."
Sure, it would take a little chutzpah for Mr. Obama to nominate three D.C. Circuit judges at once. The move dares Republicans to filibuster confirmation of the appointments or to turn tail. It would also cheer liberals who want to flip the conservative tilt of the D.C. Circuit, not merely to see well-qualified judges serve.
But it would take gall for Republicans to filibuster qualified nominees to bona fide openings on the D.C. Circuit on the grounds that Mr. Obama is trying to pack the court. That logic could be used to criticize any nomination that might upset the ideological disposition of an appeals bench. The president doesn’t just get to appoint judges to vacancies when the stakes are low.
Julian Assange, the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, looks at a new book by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen and opines on how Google's cheery motto masks a desire to become the techno-cultural might behind America's actions abroad.
The authors met in occupied Baghdad in 2009, when the book was conceived. Strolling among the ruins, the two became excited that consumer technology was transforming a society flattened by United States military occupation. They decided the tech industry could be a powerful agent of American foreign policy. ...
“The New Digital Age” is, beyond anything else, an attempt by Google to position itself as America’s geopolitical visionary — the one company that can answer the question “Where should America go?” It is not surprising that a respectable cast of the world’s most famous warmongers has been trotted out to give its stamp of approval to this enticement to Western soft power. The acknowledgments give pride of place to Henry Kissinger, who along with Tony Blair and the former C.I.A. director Michael Hayden provided advance praise for the book.
I don't necessarily agree with Assange's assumption of evil in this government plus tech pairing, but in light of the Araújo and Cardenal article, is this the fight we're really facing for world domination: Google against China? Is state-allied technology the answer to state-managed capitalism? (And hey, boys and girls, for 100 points, state-managed capitalism is not fascism because...?)
The New York Times highlights the very real effects of Republican grandstanding in the Senate.
A United Nations report, “The State of the World’s Children,” underscores the moral bankruptcy of Senate Republicans who blocked ratification of a treaty to help disabled people around the world. ...
A United Nations convention would ban discrimination against persons with disabilities and accord them the same rights as those without disabilities. It has been ratified by 127 countries and the European Union. President Obama has signed it, but, in December, the Senate, though supporting the convention by a hefty 61 to 38, fell five votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for ratification.
This was mostly because Senate Republicans caved in to far-right ideologues who contended, erroneously, that the convention would infringe on American sovereignty, usher in socialism, and allow United Nations bureaucrats to prohibit home-schooling or wrench disabled children from their parents’ arms.
According to the Tea Party, anything the United Nations does, anything other nations do, hell, anything our nation does, is intrinsically evil, and necessarily the first step in an Vast Evil Conspiracy. Never forget that the real threat isn't disease or discrimination; what's really hurting these kids is government gun grabbers taking away their right to buy bulk quantities of assault rifles without a background check.
James Marsh wants a little less jingoism with his baseball, please.
I am a Methodist minister and a Washington Nationals fan. I was there on Opening Day in 2005 at old RFK Stadium, and I try my best to plan my summer around Nats home games. I have only one issue with the ballpark experience, and it’s not with the beer prices. It’s with “God Bless America.” ...
One hot Sunday afternoon last season, I did not rise for “God Bless America.” In a beer-soaked tone of voice that wasn’t pleasant, a gentleman several rows behind me told me to stand up. I reminded him that I don’t have to.
This incident made me think more about the question: I love this country and don’t want to live anywhere else. But being pressured to stand up at a baseball game for a song that’s essentially a prayer seems, well, un-American. It feels like being pushed into the river for a baptism I didn’t choose. It’s an empty ritual, and one that I think doesn’t hold much theological water.
I'd like to argue that we drop the song for another reason: it's a crappy song. How about singing a verse or two of "This land is your land" or maybe just "America the beautiful." I can never get past
O beautiful for patriot dream, That sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam, Undimmed by human tears. without actually tearing up.
Leonard Pitts looks at arguments that start "I know this may seem racist, but..."
It seems Bill has an idea. Given that “all of the radical terrorists have been Muslims,” he wants the government to mount a program to surveil every follower of Islam who immigrates to these shores. We are, claims reader Bill, “faced with a population who swears an oath to God to kill Americans — not Canadians, not Mexicans, but Americans.” It is, he says, “time we protect ourselves.” ...
Bill’s point is clear enough. And his anger is understandable, coming as it does after the Boston Marathon bombing and the savage butchering of a British soldier by Islamic extremists. Predictably, the UK has suffered a rash of right-wing demonstrations and attacks on mosques ever since Lee Rigby’s death. One suspects there’d be no shortage of sympathy for Bill’s suggestion — and for measures even more draconian — both there and here.
But I find myself thinking about white boys.
Consider: This nation’s recent history is stained by repeated acts of school violence. From Newtown, Conn., to West Paducah, Ky., to Santee, Calif., to Eugene, Ore., to Conyers, Ga., to Pearl, Miss., to Jonesboro, Ark. to DeKalb, Ill., to Littleton, Colo., we have seen scores of people killed and injured. The violence has been random, large scale and indiscriminate, identical to terrorism except that it has no political motive. And the profile of the assailants is virtually always the same: white boys and young men from suburban, small town or rural communities.
Doyle McManus thinks the Tea Party only hurts the ones who love them.
The "tea party" is back and is brewing trouble for the Republican establishment.
After the GOP debacle in the 2012 election, when Republicans not only failed to win the presidency but blew a chance to take over the Senate, party leaders paused to consider what had gone wrong.
The Republican National Committee issued a scathing report warning that the party was in "an ideological cul-de-sac" and resolved to act friendlier toward women, minorities and low-income voters. Strategist Karl Rove said the lesson was to nominate more moderate candidates and set about raising money to do just that.
But tea party and other conservative leaders, undaunted, drew the opposite conclusion.