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June 19, 2013

Peter Grier and Harry Bruinius: In the end, NSA might not need to snoop so secretly after all

Howard LaFranchi: Taliban peace talks hold glimmer of hope, but also unanswerable questions

Warren Richey: Supreme Court: For right to remain silent, a suspect must speak
Meredith Cohn: Leeches are making a comeback as medical helpers

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to pick the healthiest breakfast cereal

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: Spicy Double Chocolate Banana Muffins

June 17, 2013

Rabbi Simcha Weinstein: Black to the Future: American Apparel Gets Biblical

Patrik Jonsson: Minnesota Nazi: How did Nazi hunters miss Michael Karkoc?

Kate Irby, Ali Watkins, Trevor Graff and Kevin Thibodeaux: All the ways you're being watched
Don Lee: G-8 meeting will test NSA leaks' effect on U.S. influence

Patrik Jonsson: Fort Hood shooting: Judge nixes Nidal Hasan defense strategy. What now?

Stacey Burling: Why the stigma for migraine sufferers?

The Kosher Gourmet by Lisa Abraham: Does it work? 5 new kitchen gadgets put to the test

June 14, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget: Religious economics and being a ruler

John P. Martin: Hitler insider's missing diary found

Matt Pearce: NSA surveillance disclosure could affect court cases
Peter Tinti: US bounties changes strategy on (Wild, Wild) West African jihadis

Daniel Pendrick, M.D.: Memory loss? Old age may be the least of it

Lauren F. Friedman: But it's all natural! Should we have an instinctive preference for herbal remedies?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Streisand and Alicia Keys in Israel; "Girls" Stuff; Mel Brooks, Another TV special; Superman (who is Jewish) returns --- Israeli plays his mom

The Kosher Gourmet by Sharon K. Ghag : Bored with salad? Bling it up a bit (4 effortless recipes that will result in a 'WOW!')

June 12, 2013

Stephanie Hanes: Little girls or little women? The Disney princess effect

Fred Weir: In tweak to US, Russia would 'consider' asylum for Snowden

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: What's so special about Omega-3 supplements?
Morgan Housel: What newspapers were saying when you should have been buying

Pete Spotts: How cockroaches evolved so as to bypass 'roach motels'

The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: Deep-dish cookie: Warm, gooey and a little over the top

June 10, 2013

Joseph A. Slobodzian: Faith healing and third degree murder: Thorny legal case
Lindsay Wise: Few options for online users to avoid spying, experts say

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: There are plenty of nutritional food bargains out there
Harvard Health Letters: Can bariatric surgery control diabetes?

Zach Murdock: Superglue helps doctors save infant's life

The Kosher Gourmet by Celebrated chef Mario Batali : As good as grilling gets: Rib eye with dry mushroom spice rub

June 7, 2013

Rabbi David Aaron: Beating jealousy

Caroline B. Glick: Wounded . . . and dangerous

Clifford D. May: Al Qaeda vs. Hezbollah
Harvard Health Letters: Fighting back against allergy season

Kimberly Lankford: Grandparents who use FSA to cover grandkid's braces and other must-know info

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom:J ewish Tony Nominees/Tony Awards; Jewish Teen Actor In Sci-Fi Flick; Jewish singer in "Voice" finals

The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: A tart filling so good it might not make it to the crust

June 5, 2013

John Rosemond: Mom, Dad: Talk More and listen less

Kristen Chick: Egypt court sentences 43 pro-democracy workers to prison

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Mushrooms Have Medicinal As Well As Culinary Value
Morgan Housel: Why you never learn from your investment mistakes

Don Lee: In China, kindergarten rivalry takes deadly turn

The Kosher Gourmet by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan: 30-Minute Coq au Vin isn't a dream

June 3, 2013

Molly Hennessy-Fiske: Military judge to consider letting Fort Hood shooting defendant represent himself

Richard A. Serrano: Pvt. Bradley Manning's WikiLeaks trial also a test for government

Mark Trumbull: Have degree, driving cab: Nearly half of college grads are overqualified
Kim Lankford: What to do when long-term care insurance premiums rise

Deborah Netburn: Study: Adults' mouth bacteria may help babies

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Contestant on 'The Voice'; Will Smith's 'Jewish movie family'; Bravo Gives Long Island Jews the Jersey Shore Treatment; Magicians and More

The Kosher Gourmet by Bill Ward: How to be as refined as the wines at a wine tasting

May 29, 2013

Andrew Connelly and Helene Bienvenu: The Little Synagogue that Refused to Die

Dennis Prager: The 'Muslims-Killed-by-the-West' Lie

David Clark Scott: Open war on teachers?
Morgan Housel: If you know only five things about investing, make it these

Sara Reardon: AGenome detectives change the donation game

Deborah Netburn: A one-way ticket to Mars? 78,000-plus and counting apply by video

The Kosher Gourmet by Bev Bennett: CHEDDAR AND CHERRY MUFFINS --- your mouth is already watering

May 24, 2013

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'

Caroline B. Glick: Thank you, Hafez al-Assad

Diana West: From the Brooklyn Bridge to London
Morgan Housel: Why spotting bubbles is so much harder than you think

Environmental Nutrition editors: NuVal labeling to the rescue?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Memorial Day: Jews Serving and KIA in War on Terror; Liberace Bio-Pic; Jew Wins "Survivor"; Shalom, Dr. Brothers; More

The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen: HIDE THESE FROZEN TREATS FROM THE KIDDIES!: Sangria pops; Irish cream pudding pops; mango Lassi pops

May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting


Jewish World Review April 26, 2007 / 8 Iyar, 5767

Real change in China?

By George Will


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The phrase "regime change" is associated with the doctrine of preventive war as applied to Iraq. But another sort of regime change has been the crux of U.S. policy toward China through most of the 35 years since President Richard Nixon's opening to that nation in 1972.


Since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the objective of U.S. policy has been — and often has been proclaimed to be — the steady subversion of China's repressive regime. The cure for communism is supposed to be commerce with the capitalist world: Trade can turn China's potentially aggressive energies into constructive, pacific channels.


This faith in the power of trade to tame humanity's animal spirits has a 19th-century pedigree. Think of William Gladstone and others who thought wars would become too costly to contemplate because they would disrupt trade. In the 21st century, economic determinism (e.g., Marxism, a 19th-century dogma) is being focused on the last important regime founded by Marxists — China.


The 19th century turned history into a proper noun — History, a living thing with its own unfolding inevitability. Today, many see China through (perhaps rose-tinted) lenses of historicism:


Chinese leaders who oppose democracy are "on the wrong side of history" and "just as eventually the Berlin Wall fell, I just think it's inevitable" (Bill Clinton). "The case for trade is not just monetary, but moral. Economic freedom creates habits of liberty. And habits of liberty create expectations of democracy. . . . Trade freely with China, and time is on our side" (George W. Bush). In China "there is an unstoppable momentum" toward democracy (Tony Blair).


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The theory, which is more than wishful thinking, is that capitalism ineluctably brings about an ever-broader dispersal of information and decision-making, and requires an ethic of trust and a legal regime of promise-keeping (contracts). Those who subscribe to this theory can take some comfort from China's recent strengthening of protections of private property, which gives a sphere of sovereignty to individuals whose appetite for sovereignty, once whetted, might become a demand for a politics of popular sovereignty.


But suppose this is not so. Suppose James Mann is right to dismiss all this as the Soothing Scenario.



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In his new book, "The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression," Mann is of the Moynihan School: The late Pat Moynihan spoke acerbically of Western visitors who returned from China more impressed by the absence of flies than by the absence of freedom. Mann considers the Soothing Scenario's implication — that American investment bankers doing business in China are necessarily freedom fighters — a tad too convenient.


He also distrusts the Upheaval Scenario, which is that China's regime will not succumb to a peaceful, incremental glide from Leninism to democracy but rather will perish in a spasm of economic dysfunction and political discontent. His Third Scenario is that decades from now, modernization will have made China immeasurably wealthier, and hence more geopolitically imposing, but not significantly less authoritarian.


Big business and other advocates of the Soothing Scenario use what Mann calls "the lexicon of dismissal" to refute skeptics like him: Skeptics are being "provocative" when they engage in "China bashing" that reflects a "Cold War mentality." But although the theory is that "engagement" with China will change China, Mann wonders: Who is changing whom?


The Soothing Scenario says: Tyranny requires intellectual autarky and the conscription of the public's consciousness, which is impossible now that nations are porous to cellphones and the Internet. But Mann says companies such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are cooperating with the government's censorship and security monitoring.


Mann warns against "McDonald's triumphalism," the belief that because the Chinese increasingly eat like us, they are becoming like us. That is related to "the Starbucks fallacy" — the hope that as the Chinese become accustomed to many choices of coffee, they will demand more political choices.


His most disturbing thesis is that "the newly enriched, Starbucks-sipping, apartment-buying, car-driving denizens" of the large cities that American visitors to China see will be not the vanguard of democracy but the opposition to it. There may be 300 million such denizens, but there are 1 billion mostly rural and very poor Chinese. Will the minority prospering economically under a Leninist regime think majority rule is in their interest?


Mann is rightly disdainful of many meretricious and economically motivated arguments that American elites offer for the Soothing Scenario. In his polemical mood, however, he probably underestimates the autonomous and transformative power of today's commercial culture. Still, read his book as a guide for monitoring media coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the most portentous Games since those in 1936, in Berlin.

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