Tag Archives: conservative

a patriot’s history — any real reviews?

by

So, today, I see a barista at my local Starbucks reading, A Patriot’s History of the United States. For a moment, I thought it was Zinn’s People’s History, because the authors of Patriot’s History borrow so heavily from his cover and book design. We know that Patriot’s History is the usual drivel, in no small part because of its paucity of meaningful footnotes. Not so shockingly, the authors seek to “correct” liberal historians, not recognizing that historians come in many ideological shapes and sizes. But, mostly they fail to appreciate that history is built around social science principles–evidence (in this case the use of primary sources), engagement in the broad scholarly literature, and careful reasoning. Social science like science is not infallible but it has the lovely value of being cumulative and falsifiable. (Of course, this book comes from the same folks who reject the science of global warming, so this is hardly surprising.)

Anyway, I wondered if this book had been reviewed by anyone with any scholarly credentials. It has. See David Hoogland Noon, Schweikart, Larry and Michael Allen. A Patriot’s History of the United States in The History Teacher, May 2007. Well worth reading.

Holman Jenkins – WSJ.com: Deceiptful and Disingenuous

by

Holman Jenkins, Jr. writes “If Obama Had Carter’s Courage . . .”- WSJ.com and offers a series of deceiptful and disingenuous arguments that should be called out.

Most notably, Jenkins writes “We have a second auto industry, founded after the political and legal system had thought better of mandatory unionization, born of foreign parents, mostly in the South. It’s surviving the recession without extraordinary help.”

The US auto industry, unlike that industry in Japan and Europe does not receive government support for pensions and/or healthcare. Nor do US manufacturers receive huge tax breaks to locate manufacturing facilities in particular states.If foreign automakers are not receiving extraordinary direct intervention by their home governments, it does not mean that they have not received years of such assistance. It is deceptive and disingenous to imagine that there has been a level playing field for US automakers.

Likewise, by pinning the blame for the failure of the auto industry on increased fuel economy standards (CAFE), Jenkins takes a pet right-wing cause (opposition to reducing greenhouse gases and the notion of global warming) and repackages it.

CAFE standards are not the problem, bad management is, as is an unequal playing field. Create national health care, solve the problem of pensions and social security by creating a viable and effective social safety net, and some of the competitive problems facing manufacturing will begin to disappear. Also, enforcing safe labor and environmental standards in other places will serve to make American manufacturing healthy once again.

Don’t buy right-wing deceptions.