News for April 15

Tea Time

It’s not only Tax Day in the U.S. (if you haven’t turned them in already, you have until midnight to get your completed tax forms to the post office …), but it’s also “Tax Day Tea Party” Day, and events coordinated by various conservative groups to protest government spending have been scheduled for citys across the country. Liberal bloggers have been watching the planning for the event unfold and trying to figure out where they came from. What’s the Tax Day Tea Party all about? Links include:

Andrew Sullivan @The Atlantic |  “As a fiscal conservative who actually believed in those principles when the Republicans were in power, I guess I should be happy at this phenomenon. And I would be if it had any intellectual honesty, any positive proposals, and any recognizable point. What it looks like to me is some kind of amorphous, generalized rage on the part of those who were used to running the country and now don’t feel part of the culture at all. But the only word for that is: tantrum.”

The League of Ordinary Gentlemen |  “As Stephen Gordon, fresh from the Bob Barr campaign, has been taking great pains to document, the people at the root – though for quite some time no longer the forefront – of the Tea Party protests have been as vocal as could be over the last 8 years’ orgy of spending, “preemptive” war, civil liberties abuses, etc., etc.  Gordon is – rightly -skeptical that the other groups joining in the demonstrations are only fair weather friends.  I suspect and expect that he will quickly find his skepticism validated as the protests increasingly become nothing more than a vehicle for movement conservatives to advance their whole agenda, including a whole host of things that were the reason people like Bob Barr and others turned their backs on Republicans in the first place.”

ThinkProgress |  “Nevertheless, tea party organizers continue to insist that tomorrow’s events will be bipartisan. (Even though so far, no Democratic elected official has agreed to participate, compared to at least 38 GOP lawmakers.) However, a group of veterans in Kansas isn’t buying the spin. … eterans are expressing concerns at having a partisan event on this ‘hallowed ground’.”

New York Times |  “In news that will be bad for activists hoping to start another American Revolution with a series of protests modeled on the Boston Tea Party, a new Gallup Poll finds that a solid majority of American say the income tax they pay is “fair,” and that slightly more than half classify their own tax burden as either “about right” or “too low.”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution |  Dick Armey and Karl Frisch take to the AJC’s Opinion pages to debate the purpose of the Tax Day Tea Parties, and whether the events are real grass-roots protests for change, or just media-driven chaos.

• Related links: Taxes, Schmaxes  |  Slate

Decline in blacks in prison for drug crimes reverses 25-year trend  |  CSMonitor.com

For the first time in a quarter century, the number of African-Americans incarcerated for drug offenses in state prisons has declined more than 20 percent while the number of white imprisoned drug offenders has increased more than 40 percent. The decline took place over a six year period from 1999 to 2005 and reflects fundamental changes in the so-called “war on drugs” – how it’s targeted and prosecuted – as well as the waning of the crack epidemic in predominantly minority urban areas and the increase in methamphetamine abuse in largely white rural neighborhoods.

How to Beat al Qaeda at Its Own Game  |  Foreign Policy

The United States and its allies have long recognized the power of the jihadi narrative, but attempts to overcome it have been ill-conceived. Al Qaeda’s story justifies violence by claiming the mantle of victimhood, but the Bush administration responded like a boxer, hitting back with a “war on terror” and a “battle of ideas.” The war metaphor only played into the terrorists’ hands, and the Obama administration is rightly moving away from it. What’s needed, however, is not a new catchphrase, but a global rethink about how the other side of the story — the side of the often Muslim victims — gets told. Here’s where the principles of judo, which unlike boxing puts brains over brawn, can help.

Evolution Challenged in ‘Textbook’ Case  |  Religion Dispatches

Opening the door to “junk science,” members of the Texas Board of Education inserted the coded language of creationism. With the second largest textbook budget in the nation, publishers are paying close attention.

Peter Singer on Poverty  |  Fora.tv

Do we as relatively affluent human beings have a moral duty to give to those who have less than us? A completely staggering 1.4 billion people around the world live in what’s described as “extreme poverty,” or with an income of less than US$1.25 a day. This means that they are unable to reliably provide food, shelter, clean water and basic education for themselves or their families. So is it okay for us to nestle down in our big houses with overflowing pantries, wardrobes full of clothes we never wear and a $20,000 audio/visual system? In his new book, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty, Peter Singer argues that really, it’s not, and in this talk at Gleebooks he outlines that argument. It’s confronting stuff, and the capacity audience takes him to task over some of the finer points in the lively Q and A session.