1. The Honeymoon's Over for Homophobes
Writer Rob Anderson cites a Pew poll showing that tolerance for gay marriage is rising in the U.S. Anderson isn't too sanguine. He notes that opposition to gay marriage was low before 2004, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court brought the issue to the headlines. When the Republicans revved up their Family Values Machine, opposition to gay marriage skyrocketed - and if it were to become a national issue again, he says, conservatives would be able to drive that opposition right back up.
I'm a little more optimistic. I think people were shocked in 2004 when gay marriage appeared right on their doorstep. But it's been on their doorstep since then, and I think people have had some time to get acclimated to the idea. After all, gay marriage is still legal in Massachusetts, and nobody's complaining loudly. Give it another 10 years, I say. And note: increasing support for gay marriage shows that the idea that America is "trending rightward" is way too simplistic...
2. Workers' Advocates of the World, Unite
More and more articles that I read have turned me on to the fact that China's amazing economic growth is based on making laborers work cheaply and seizing land from peasants. I guess I always knew this, but I had never really understood how fundamental repression is to the Chinese economic miracle. That's why these two articles urging the U.S. to fight for Chinese workers' rights and push for property rights for Chinese peasants are so exciting.
The world has gone global. Corporations that a century ago used to make a buck on the backs of cheap labor in Pittsburgh or Detroit now make a buck on the backs of cheap labor in Guangdong and Tianjin. Thus, old-school liberalism - the kind that fights for workers' rights - must go global as well. China is the place where the most workers are being the most exploited (although Dubai is also a den of robber barons) - so why don't we spend our time fighting for those downtrodden masses? Doing so would also help to reinvigorate the liberal movement, and make the playing field more level for U.S. workers.
3. Are you, or have you ever been, an Israel supporter?
I'm frankly pretty disgusted by the Harvard-sponsored study claiming that a shadowy cabal of Israel supporters is controlling America's foreign policy. The study, by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard (two extremely well-respected academics), capitalizes the word "Lobby" and says all sorts of nasty things about Israel as a nation. Allow me to quote an IsraPundit blog post about the report:
Israel itself is described by Mearsheimer and Walt as a colonialist, criminal state that has conducted a “long campaign to kill or marginalize a generation of Palestinian leaders,” and Palestinian children, and to methodically and criminally abuse the political, legal and human rights of the Palestinians. Their Israel was born in the sin of “ethnic cleansing,” a sin that has forced the Palestinians to turn to terror in order to protect themselves. Israel’s nuclear arsenal forced Iran to seek nuclear weapons and “the Lobby” is now insisting that the US take military action against Iran in order to protect Israel...By supporting Israel... the US has become “complicit in [Israel’s] crimes.”Maybe this is why Harvard has wisely refused to back the study. But where's the liberal press? Shouldn't they be denouncing an obviously anti-semitic hatchet job? This report is an update on the Russian anti-semitic hoax book, "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion"; it paints American Jews as a fifth column. Isn't this exactly the kind of thing liberals are supposed to fight against? But I can only find conservative articles denouncing the study, like this one. It notes:
[A] malicious blog by the Nation's Eric Alterman purport[s] to identify 61 "columnists and commentators who can be counted upon to support Israel reflexively and without qualification"[.]Unbelievable.
4. We're all the boss now
An article in the Washington Post notes that American businesses are still beating the world. While workers' wages stagnate (thanks to a flood of low-cost labor from China and India), American managers are still making money hand over fist. What should liberals' attitude be toward this development? Should we try to fight against outsourcing? Should we limit the ability of our business managers to make money overseas?
No way. This shift in the world economy can't be stopped; all we would do by trying to fight it is beggar our nation. Instead, we have to realize that management is itself a kind of work. Brilliant scientists and engineers are valuable, but without someone to coordinate them and direct their talents, they tend to sit at home playing video games (or blogging). Managing people in the modern knowledge economy isn't about walking past the cubicle to keep the workers slaving away - it's about understanding what knowledge workers are doing, what they could be doing, and what keeps them happy and energized. This means that modern managers have to have technical skills and experience as well as a human touch.
According to that article, American managers are the best because they're the least racist, the most meritocratic, and the best at networking (i.e. making friends). Let's use those advantages to make our people richer. My message to liberals is: Beware of knee-jerk suspicion of business and management. The more people become managers (usually of overseas employees), the more we can enrich our population while spreading our values of colorblindness, meritocracy, and social confidence to the world.
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