A recent article in The New York Times by David Brooks, “Globalization Is Over. The Global Culture Wars Have Begun,” discusses the decline of globalization generally and Western values specifically around the world. I agree with much of what Brooks writes but found myself picking one nit. He states: “This
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Views from the Beltline: The authoritarian Americans
Why are Americans so much more authoritarian than Canadians? According to a survey by American business intelligence company Morning Consult, the U.S. has twice as many right-wing authoritarians as Canada and more yet than other Western countries. The table on the right shows the survey results for low and high
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Smalls vs. Amazon as David vs. Goliath
The recent success of employees at Amazons’s New York fulfillment centre in forming a union might be the best example of David defeating Goliath since the biblical incident. The union, spearheaded by Christian Smalls, a former Amazon employee and now president of the union, is the first Amazon union in
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Americans and big lies
Watching “The Plan to Overturn the Election” on American public TV’s Frontline the other evening, I was once again amazed by how many people can believe a lie that is so big and so wrong. The believers, that the 2020 election was stolen by Joe Biden, make up a large
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Does a U.S. Supreme Court justice advocate a military-backed coup?
Spouses are not their partners. They are unique individuals and deserve to be respected accordingly. But when a U.S. Supreme Court justice’s wife, his most intimate and important advisor, advocates an overthrow of democracy, Americans have cause for concern. And it appears that Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas,
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The GOP wanders right off the political spectrum
The polarization of political views now has many Americans rightly worried about the future of their democracy. At least those that care about democracy. Some almost seem to welcome its end. The polarization is reflected in the diverging and hardening of views of the two political parties. About all they
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Apparent Fascism Of the Trump Years – Paul Street
US commentators still seem to be mulling the prospects of how close, or how far they came to living in an authoritarian fascist state under Donald Trump. It is interesting how little air time the States dances with fascism get in the media today. The liberal economist and New York
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The American retreat punishes the Afghan people
The Taliban are in a celebratory mood. Afghanistan has just defeated its third Western empire and they can take the credit. The Afghans humiliated the British in the 19th century, the Russians in the 20th and and now the Americans in the 21st. Unfortunately, however, you can’t warm your home
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: A Happy New Year for the American military
Santa was good to the U.S. armed forces. On December 27th President Biden signed a defence bill for nearly $770-billion. This was $24-billion more than he had asked for, but Congress was in a generous mood. It was the Christmas season after all. The bill passed the House of Representatives
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy—a timely effort
As a passionate believer in democracy, I feel compelled to comment on the recent democracy summit called to order by President Biden. Cynicism about the summit is thick on the ground. Not least because democracy in Biden’s own country has become so corrupted by wealth, gerrymandering and a flawed constitution
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: American jurisprudence—a puzzle
Two recent criminal trials in the U.S. caught international attention. I refer to the Kyle Rittenhouse case in Wisconsin and the Ahmaud Arbery case in Georgia, the first known best by the name of the accused, the second by the name of the victim. Both trials were defended on the
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Compared to Americans, Canadians are happy campers
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center revealed striking differences in Americans’ and Canadians’ attitudes toward their political, economic and health systems. The Pew survey of 17 advanced countries showed the U.S. consistently among the most dissatisfied and Canada among the least. For instance, a full 85 percent of
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Refunding the police
How quickly the tide turns. Hardly a year has passed since the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer triggered protests that pressured cities across the U.S. to reduce their police budgets. “Defund the police” became a mantra. That was then. Now, with crime rates rising across the
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Big climate promises at the UN … but
The United States and China, rivals on the world stage and also the two biggest economies and the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases made some big climate promises at the UN this week. Chinese president Xi Jinping promised China will stop building coal-fired power plants abroad, a big deal
Continue readingAlberta Politics: This is not a setback, it’s a rout – the war in Afghanistan is all but over and the Taliban insurgency has won
Suddenly, the provincial capitals of Afghanistan are falling like bowling pins to the Taliban. As of yesterday, the New York Times reported, only four major cities remained in the hands of the Afghan government. One of them was Kabul, the capital. Two of them were besieged. The last Soviet troops
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: How Dick Cheney’s daughter became a hero
The Prince of darkness. Thus was Dick Cheney, one of the most unpopular figures in the history of American politics, known when he was George W. Bush’s vice-president. Cheney oversaw the first invasion of Iraq as Bush senior’s Secretary of Defense and then promoted the second invasion of Iraq as
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The U.S. jerks capitalism’s leash
The United States is the world’s leading free market nation and it has always seemed to me that they take its basic principles very seriously. While greatly encouraging capitalism, they have understood that it isn’t the free market. Indeed, the two can be incompatible. Capitalism by its very nature ultimately
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Survey of Western powers points toward citizens’ assemblies
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center of the four major Western powers turned up some interesting if not altogether surprising results. The goal of the study was to determine how the citizens of the four—U.S., France, Germany and the UK—feel about their political systems. The survey suggested the
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Biden-led U.S. to power global economy
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Covid shrunk the global economy by 3.3 percent in 2020, the worst downturn since 1980. Almost 100 million people slipped into severe poverty. The only major economy that didn’t shrink was China’s with growth of 2.3 percent. The IMF predict it will be
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Biden admin getting it right on taxes
For some time, corporations have had things their way. With globalization, which was largely designed by and for them, they were able to slip the leashes that nation states had imposed on them and move wherever labour was cheapest and taxes lowest. And, in effect, blackmail governments for favours. Now
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