Letters to the Editor
Sean SIberio
Published Letters: 155 Editor's Choice: 32
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I agree...
[Read the article: The U.S. homeowner and the global economy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree with The F79.
Economic interdependence has always made things much more risky. But it's not an especially new phenomenon. Lack of Mexican silver to bolster China's currency markets under the Qing dynasty caused deflation, and serious economic hardship, which then preceded unequal trade deals that sucked out what little currency they had onto the world market. There are reasons for why a country would want to economically close itself off like China did under most of Mao's rule, and history is one of them.
This interdependence also blows holes in many of the paleo-conservative arguments that somehow the "Yellow Menace" wants to see nothing else but America collapse unto itself. Barring Chinese bureaucrats being extremely inept (and they're almost certainly not) no one really wants to bleed dry the goose that is laying the golden egg. A collapse of American consumer spending would be disastrous for everyone involved.
Not unlike the collapse of specious real estate loans in Japan after the bubble economy, the sub-prime mortgage bust will hurt America, and obviously all the mortgagees, big time. But will it causes a tremendous and huge disaster? Probably not. Afterall, the top portion of the income tax bracket evidently keeps getting better off, so someone will be buying the luxury goods and vanity stuff.
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Well...
[Read the article: Much ado about tortillas and ethanol]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't have much to respond to, mostly because you pretty much have agreed that capitalization is an issue in most markets and industries, thus negating your previous position that it doesn't matter as long as trade is liberalized. So much for "free" (free of what? certainly not coercion) transactions.
Actually, Bakunin was an anarchist, which is to say, a real libertarian, who believed in both the destruction of private and governmental entities. I hate the police as it stands now. Making them hired hitmen, ala the mob, doesn't exactly make it any more appealing. Go ask people in Africa or Colombia whether they enjoy their "private" justice. I doubt there would be many takers for your rent-a-cop theories.
Your bit about evolution (why do capitalists have to give themselves the imprimatur of naturalness to everything they do?) is fairly off the mark, since evolution breeds diversity, not mono-culture. It's funny that we were talking about agriculture, where natural evolution pretty much created a wide variety and diversity of seeds and crops. Only under the very controlled monocrop forces have we lost such biodiversity.
While you claim no one is floating a boat over to Cuba, considering your hostility to American welfare-programs, they're not exactly coming over here for your free-trade utopia either, are they? And most immigrants crossing the border seem to generally want access to entitlement programs and well as other forms of welfare in order to get an assist up.
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Well...
[Read the article: Black rappers made him do it!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, first off, I direct people to the excellent documentary by Byron Hurt, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Ryhmes, which discusses the role of misogyny and homophobia in rap music, and its links to and essential defending of, conceptions that have always been held by white racists. The image of over-sexualized black women, rapacious males, and more have become, ironically, rallying cries for mainstream black rap today. In the film Chuck D laments the status of music, as does Talib Kweli and Mos Def, asserting that this kind of music has done nothing but essentially prostituted black men for white record moguls.
But getting to the issue at hand. Imus, like other shock jocks, will probably become nothing but a martyr for the good ol boys that listen to his radio show. It's not like a pantheon of leftist multicurturalists were tuning in to hear a guy drone on whilst wearing a cowboy hat. Righteous indignation on web-forums, while relieving frustration, has no practicable effect, and his losing his job will only pave his golden road status to some other broadcasting job, or a litany of books put out by conservative publishers. And THAT'S whats depressing about all this.
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Deflection all over the place!
[Read the article: Black rappers made him do it!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Deflection to the left, deflection to the right! I'm tired of knee jerk reactionaries who decry any criticism as "thought police", as if a guy earning millions on the radio is some sort of charity case. Getting your head served to you on a rhetorical platter is not thought policing, its called losing your argument. If you want to trade on volatile comments, than you need to withstand the heat it generates.
And pointing out that "rap influenced him" is a bumpkis excuse is not minimizing the importance or character of rap, but stating the plain truth; neo-nazi skinsheads use the n-word, and they have a vociferous knowledge of, and hatred for, black urban culture, but that doesn't make their use of the word "influenced by it".
Eitherway, another pundit will get away with no real damage to his career, publish a book or two decrying liberal abuse over one sentence, and start a college lecture tour to Young Republicans talking about the need to destroy affirmative action and making veiled refrences to lynching. Woo!