“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Chris Hedges: The Age of the Demagogues
The increase in nihilistic violence such as school shootings and Friday’s lethal assault on a Planned Parenthood clinic, the frequent executions of poor people of color by police, and the rise of thuggish demagogues such as Donald Trump are symptoms of the collapse of our political and cultural institutions.
These institutions, which once made possible piecemeal and incremental reform, which sought to protect the weak from the tyranny of the majority and give them a voice, acted as a safety valve to ameliorate the excesses of capitalism and address the grievances of the underclass. They did not defy the system of capitalism. They colluded with the structures of privilege and white supremacy. But they provided some restraints on the worst abuse and exploitation. The capturing of major institutions by corporate power and the moral bankruptcy of our elites, especially members of our self-identified liberal class, have shattered this equilibrium.
Paul Krugman: Inequality and the City
New York, New York, a helluva town. The rents are up, but the crime rate is down. The food is better than ever, and the cultural scene is vibrant. Truly, it’s a golden age for the town I recently moved to — if you can afford the housing. But more and more people can’t.
And it’s not just New York. The days when dystopian images of urban decline were pervasive in popular culture — remember the movie “Escape from New York”? — are long past. The story for many of our iconic cities is, instead, one of gentrification, a process that’s obvious to the naked eye, and increasingly visible in the data. [..]
But why is this happening? And is there any way to spread the benefits of our urban renaissance more widely?
Robert Kuttner: Black Lives Matter — and Beyond
College campuses, from Yale to Claremont, are awash in black protest, to a greater extent than any time since the 1960s. It has struck conservatives as odd that protest against lingering racism is coming from the most privileged of African-Americans, most of them on full scholarships at elite universities, places that are about as accepting and politically correct as white America gets.
But think again. The several police murders since Ferguson have reminded blacks of all ages and stations just how little has changed in terms of the elemental vulnerability of even the most mannered and well educated of African-Americans. You can play by all of the rules of white society and still be blown away if a cop gets trigger-happy or mistakes a black honor student for a black intruder.
Nomi Prins: The American Hunger Games: Top Republican Candidates Take Economic Policy Into the Wilderness
Fact: too many Republican candidates are clogging the political scene. Perhaps what’s needed is an American Hunger Games to cut the field to size. Each candidate could enter the wilderness with one weapon and one undocumented worker and see who wins. Unlike in the fictional Hunger Games for which contestants were plucked from 13 struggling, drab districts in the dystopian country of Panem, in the GOP version, everyone already lives in the Capitol. (Okay, Marco Rubio lives just outside it but is about to enter, and Donald Trump like some gilded President Snow inhabits a universe all his own with accommodations and ego to match.) [..]
Perhaps with such a field of candidates, the classic Hunger Games line will need to be adapted: “Let the games begin and may the oddity of it all be ever in your favor.” Certainly, there has never been a stranger or more unsettling Republican campaign for the presidential nomination or one more filled with economic balderdash and showmanship. Of course, at some point in 2016, we’ll be at that moment when President Snow says to Katniss Everdeen, “Make no mistake, the game is coming to its end.” One of these candidates or a rival Democrat will actually enter the Oval Office and when that happens, both parties will be left with guilt on their hands and all the promises that will have to be fulfilled to repay their super-rich supporters (Bernie aside). And that, of course, is when the real Hunger Games are likely to begin for most Americans. Those of us in the outer districts can but hope for revolution.
Allen Frances: The Harmful Hypocrisy of the ‘Right to Life’ Movement
The hypocrisy displayed by radical ideologues in their ruthless effort to end abortion (and/or to use the abortion issue for political gain) is breathtaking. Most fundamentally hypocritical is their strident espousal of the principal that all human life is sacred from conception to delivery, while simultaneously showing callous indifference to life once it has taken its first extra-uterine breath.
There could not be a more dramatic example of hypocrisy than “right-to-lifers” who commit murder. Spurred on by hate spewing political and religious leaders, deranged and anger-filled followers somehow find justification for cruel and criminal violence. How tragically ironic are the gun toting “lovers-of-life'”who are willing to murder innocents, as in the recent Planned Parenthood slaying.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that the killings occurred in Colorado Springs, the fourth most right wing city in the U.S., center of radical speech directed against abortion in general and specifically against Planned Parenthood.
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