Is Our Adults Learning?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/opinion/brooks-is-our-adults-learning.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 8:54 AM
Subject: re: Is Our Adults Learning?
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

     Mathematical models of economies--or of anything else--are only as valuable as the data they're built on. If we mean to learn, we must never lose sight of the experiments we have performed.  Between the stock market crash of 1929 and FDR's inauguration in 1933, president Hoover had over three years to fix the U.S. economy. He hewed to austerity, and we fell into the Great Depression.  FDR also dabbled in austerity as the election of 1936 approached.  The recovery he had achieved evaporated and the Depression deepened. By 1952, former president Hoover was still railing against the evils of deficits. But by then the U.S. had moved from the Great Depression to the Post-War Prosperity through deficit spending for raking leaves and deficit spending for infrastructure and deficit spending for our part in WWII and deficit spending for the Marshall Plan. No one can prove what part each of those contributed, but the prosperity was real.  At that time, Hoover was the only one who had failed to learn from our own experience.  No one who has been paying attention believes that Hoover was right in 1930; no one should expect his austerity policies to work for us in 2012.

Barry Haskell Levine

China Slows Down, and Grows Up

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/opinion/china-slows-down-and-grows-up.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 10:19 AM
Subject: re: China Slows Down, and Grows Up
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   Some of us are not comforted to note that China's economy in
recent years mirrors that of Japan's in the 1970s.  Japan's ascendency
in the '70s was followed by Japan's Asset Price Bubble in the '80 and
the Lost Decade of the '90s. Many Japanese are still underwater on
mortgages from that era. If China were to follow such a trajectory, we
could see starvation and revolution. Even Morgan Stanley might be
inconvenienced by that.
Barry Haskell Levine

Karzai Critic in Congress Is Asked to Cancel Afghanistan Visit

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/world/asia/congressman-rohrabacher-is-asked-to-cancel-afghanistan-trip.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 10:05 AM
Subject: re: Karzai Critic in Congress Is Asked to Cancel Afghanistan Visit
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
   It is perilous that the U.S. is more invested in Mr. Karzai's
government than are the peoples of Afghanistan. Indeed, while there
are Pashtun in Afghanistan and Tajiks in Afghanistan and Uzbeks in
Afghanistan and Hazara in Afghanistan and a dozen ethnic minorities
that don't ever make the news here, there are very few who
self-identify as Afghans. Congressman's Rohrabacher's comments deserve
to be heard in Washington, where our policy is made even if they're
suppressed in Afghanistan.  The Taliban is a Pashtun movement deeply
resistant to living under non-Pashtun laws and mores.. A Federation of
Afghan states may be the best outcome we can hope to achieve. An
independent Pashtunistan or an Afghanistan in which all other ethnic
groups are oppressed by the Pashtun plurality seem worse.
Barry Haskell Levine

Money Rules

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/20/opinion/money-rules-in-washington-politics.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 8:44 AM
Subject: re: Money Rules
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   In a thousand uncoordinated voices, sundry "Occupy" movements across America have been announcing that  civil servants who must be forever courting big donors can't simultaneously be serving the people.  Restoring real clean representative government is more than any one man can do, but president Obama has the highest pulpit; it falls to him to set the tone.  Selling access to policy-makers for political contributions creates at least the appearance of impropriety.

Barry Haskell Levine

Pentagon Sought to Stop Paper From Using Photos

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/world/asia/pentagon-asked-newspaper-not-to-publish-photos.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 9:32 AM
Subject: re: Pentagon Sought to Stop Paper From Using Photos
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   It is predictable that former CIA director Panetta prefers to operate under cover of darkness. But as U.S. Secretary of Defense, he must be accountable for the behavior and well-being of our sons and daughters. If members of our military have acted dishonorably or barbarically, it is their actions that jeopardize our mission and their fellows' safety.  The journalists reporting such outrages are performing their proper constitutional function in our democracy and must not be restrained.

Barry Haskell Levine

One for The Country

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/opinion/friedman-one-for-the-country.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 8:54 AM
Subject: re: One for The Country
To: letters@nytimes.com

To the Editor:

   If Mr. Friedman would pull his head out of his ass step outside the echo-chamber that is Washington’s beltway, he would learn that Americans are calling for a government that serves the people, not the donors. We already have a third-party candidate carrying that banner; he’s Buddy Roemer.  Let mayor Bloomberg exercise his leadership in cleaning out the corrupt police corps that abused officer Schoolcraft for serving the people’s interest. Our national politics already has quite enough spokespersons for the interests of billionaires.

Barry Haskell Levine

The Sweet Spot

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/opinion/keller-the-sweet-spot.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=keller&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 10:27 AM
Subject: re: The Sweet Spot
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
Shall we trust that Mitt Romney will betray his campaign stances on Israel and Planned Parenthood? What is an election for if not to choose a candidate whose positions on the issues of today foretell her/his responses to challenges yet unforeseen as we go to the polls? Now is the time for American voters to choose, and to know whom it is we're choosing. Is it e.g. the Mitt Romney who promised to defend a woman's right to choose? Is it the Mitt Romney who is severely pro-life? Centrism should not mean a facility with lies. Americans want a candidate who believes something. We just don't want a candidate whose beliefs are extreme--and we each reserve the right to define what is "extreme".

Divided by God

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/douthat-in-2012-no-religious-center-is-holding.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 7:20 AM
Subject: re: Divided by God
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  As is now standard, mr. Douthat knows what he wants to conclude, and makes up an idiosyncratic history to justify his ends.  His claim that "Americans have never separated  religion from politics" is risible.  Our founding fathers carefully stripped all sectarian markers from their public speech and from our foundational documents because they or their fathers had fled persecution by one church or another.
     To go deeper, his characterization of the Church of LDS as "the ultimate outsider church" is to mock Christianity itself.  The ultimate outsider church challenged Rome's dominion over the individual's soul. For this, Jesus was crucified. But even in the eternal city, there are changes. The Rome that martyred so many Christians under Hadrian embraced the Church under Constantine. That didn't change the nature of the Roman empire, but it has changed Christianity forever.