A particularly jumbled effort to preach to the conservative choir.
A muddled cry from the political right warns of a new brand of holy warriors dead set on “disuniting” our fair nation.
Some saw the 1960s as a time of free love, social action and hope. Norac (An Alarm Went Off When I Heard “G.D. America,” 2011)—a pseudonym for a husband-and-wife author team—writes that the ’60s gave rise to an “intellectual elite” which cultivated a “hatred for the United States.” Today, this same elite make up what Norac calls a new “jihad,” comprised not of Muslims but “social radicals.” Although Norac accuses them of sundry offenses—backing bad taxes, supporting socialism, promoting fiscal stimulus—the authors assert that their prime sin is twofold: First, they exaggerate American racism and foment hatred by preaching that “white people are evil”; second, and more pressingly, they use bad science to advance the theory that human-generated carbon emissions contribute to global warming. For Norac, global warming theory is patently, obviously false, and the authors cite a simple ninth-grade science experiment, involving a red pen and a few big bags of rice, in an effort to expose its flaws. This book will likely be red meat for a certain brand of American conservative; readers will hear many of the same ideas circulating on Fox News, and, indeed, Norac cites regular Fox contributors and alums such as John Stossel, Dennis Miller and Glenn Beck. Of course, some readers may repeat standard replies to Norac’s critiques: Although the successes of the civil rights movement helped weed out overt racism, prejudice lives on in many attitudes and policies; further, the work of a precocious high schooler notwithstanding, the vast majority of researchers agree that global warming is both real and partially the result of human emissions. Further, some may find it in bad taste to call modern-day civil rights leaders and climate scientists “jihadists.” However, the main problem with Norac’s project is its rough organization; the authors simply have too many beefs for one book, and this surfeit of ambition results in a messy volume that jumps, seemingly at random, from topic to topic.
A particularly jumbled effort to preach to the conservative choir.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1480075771
Page Count: 358
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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