(Image courtesy Yale College Council for CARE)
THE MORAL CAVALRY TO THE RESCUE: SOFT IMPERIALISM IN THE SOAPY WORLD OF AMERICAN VIEW OF OTHERS.
(Counterpunch)
Laura Agustin de-constructs the moral world of journalist Nicholas Kristof, one of many operators in a “rescue industry” not content to leave all the self-congratulatory opportunities to Oprah Winfrey. In the name of humanity (as in anti-prostitution assaults against “human trafficking”) the celebrities who ply this trade make assumptions of cultural imperialism that could be the white man’s burden in rescuing natives from their sub-human ways as men on horseback (or armed with celebrities’ wealth) rush into desperate situations to re-establish human decency. If pictures and stories of Kristof hobnobbing with the downtrodden of the world are not strong enough fare for your vicarious rescue taste, he has even created a Farmville-like Facebook game in which you can rescue people from Darfur as he has rescued child prostitutes from Thailand.
`
CAN BRITISH TOWNS RECOVER FROM ECONOMIC DOLDRUMS—ONE POP-UP STORE AT A TIME?
(UK Independent)
This question is addressed in UK Independent article reporting the fact, as high vacancy rates prevail in downtown commercial area (what Brits call “high streets”), the economy is beginning to recover somewhat by arrangements in which short or no lease deals are made between landlords and proprietors of “temporary” businesses being operated on their premises. The article cites those who believe that such stop-gap revivals of commercial activity may be the key to the ultimate economic revival of British “high streets.”
`
TEFLON TEACHERS: NEW YORK POST JOINS THE OFFICIAL ASSAULT ON NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS.
(New York Post)
Post writers use the “teflon” tag-line in reporting the “scandalous” news that 100 NYC teachers were brought up on disciplinary charges last year, but only 70 of those were formally charged and only a “paltry” 31% of those 70 were found guilty of the charges. The Department of Education is outraged, the state’s Governor and the city’s Mayor, pushing for “accountability” in the public schools (or maybe better still there replacement by pristine charter ones), are presumably dismayed. Nobody here makes any point about the possibility that teachers, like other people in difficult employment situations, are often charged when the charges are baseless. Better to just label the exonerated as “teflon” (fire-proof).
`
“WHAT A BEAUTIFUL COFFEE TABLE!” “YEAH, ITS MADE OUT OF SPIRIT WOOD.
(Indian Country Today)
Native American tribes are beginning to realize that there would be a better market for products from the timber that abounds in their homelands if they but better “branded” it. In this vein, one company called SpiritWood is doing just this, so branding a lumber product that might have come from any more prosaic tree name such as maple or pine. Given the vanity market for “native” products, they may be on to a good idea.
`
THE HUMILIATION OF IT ALL: MIAMI VOTED ONLY THE SECOND RUDEST CITY IN THE U.S.A.
(Miami Herald)
In a poll by readers of a travel magazine, NYC was voted “rudest” to tourists and Miami only second rudest. Miami did, however, beat out Washington D.C. and Boston in the voting, and some visitors to south Florida may be asking for a recount.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Quote of the day...
This (out of control growth in government) is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the federal government. Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.
Tim Thomas, goaltender for Boston Bruins hockey team, declining invitation to Bruin players for White House meeting with President Obama to recognize their winning of the Stanley Cup.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Do you receive the daily headlines in the form of an early-morning e-mail? If you don’t and you would like to receive them, just send a note to sunstateactivist2@yahoo.com and you’ll be enrolled in the “Progressive breakfast club.”
would I like a total rethinking of foreign policy? Yep, but it will not happen in isolation from economic policy, from energy policy
in the meantime, what about the lives that in this case could be saved with minimal collateral damage (I hate that phrase, but it is appropriate)?
There are a number of problems with Kristof.
He gushes with praise over the major powers choosing to engage in war for humanitarian reasons, yet admits that there is no consistency at all. But if there is no consistency, what makes him so certain about the reasons. They may be his reasons, they may be yours, but the point of highlighting inconsistency is to question those very reasons of the people making those decisions.
The reason Kristof doesn’t make sense is because he’s asking: to intervene or not to intervene. When it comes to situations where things have not gotten as bad as in this case, when it comes to countries that the US has a great deal of leverage over (i.e. client states), there are a host of other things the US can do other than bombing. Are we doing those things? Or are we actively supporting multiple human rights violating autocratic regimes as they seek to put down their local Arab Spring? The answer is the second one.
. I am baffled for how Kristof can be so effusive in his praise for powers that are (as best) doing the right thing in one place and the wrong thing in many others.
It is not Capitalism or Corporations that I hate, it is the fact that both work for the few at the exclusion of the whole. Humanity will need a functioning both to emerge into a sustainable future. Both Capitalism and Corporations must work for the good of the whole before profits can be taken for the few. It is that simple IMO. Kristof is a fully functioning corporatist with a terribly flawed view on the world. His utopia is a world where corporate elites save the “downtrodden,” as you say, by the simple goodness of their heart… BS.
Kristof is a totally worthless apologist for corporations and neo-cons. Just like the rest of the Times.