The Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program: Publications, Events and More

Population Bombing

Ron Tang — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:46:00 -0400

In the 20th century, a global network of colluding activists, institutions, and governments sought to engineer solutions to various real and perceived social problems by, as Matthew Connelly puts it in his new book, planning "other people's families." In its most egregious expression, this movement led to the forced sterilization of millions of people around the world, including many thousands in the U.S., on the grounds that they were -- genetically or otherwise -- unfit. California alone had sterilized 7,500 people by 1931, and the practice continued in other states up until the 1970s.

This movement also, through philanthropies and government-directed… more

The War Over the War (cont.)

Ron Tang — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:05:00 -0400

There's the war in Iraq and then there is the war over the war in Iraq. The first is about gaining ground against the sectarian militias and terrorists who plague that country. The second is about storytelling.

Advocates of staying and fighting in Iraq are at a distinct disadvantage in the second war. The burden of the Iraq fighting falls on such a small number of military families that it is easy to portray the troops in the field as victims. This has proved an effective strategy for Virginia's junior senator, Jim Webb, a staunch opponent of the surge. Once seen… more

Bin Laden And Palestine

Ron Tang — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:04:00 -0400

Less than a day after Republican presidential candidate John McCain promised that if he won the presidency Osama bin Laden would be captured or killed by 2013, a message from al Qaeda’s leader appeared on jihadist websites reminding the world that he is alive and well.

Bin Laden’s audiotape message commented on the recent 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel; promised that he would fight for the liberation of Palestine, and told his Muslim listeners that they have a duty to help in that effort.

Was the audiotape an attempt by bin Laden to remain relevant by pushing… more

Our Urban Future

Ron Tang — Wed, 14 May 2008 06:45:00 -0400

Half of the world’s population now lives in cities, a number that will climb to 75% by the middle of the century. This development marks a radical break in human history, for humanity has until recently been overwhelmingly rural, concerned first and foremost with brute survival.

In “The Communist Manifesto,” Karl Marx referred to “the idiocy of rural life” -- or so the mistranslation goes -- as an enduring problem. In fact, Marx wasn’t talking about “idiocy” at all. Rather, he was referring to the isolation and stasis of rural life, and how it had long stymied creativity and the diffusion… more

Mark Schmitt in Financial Times | "Obama Focuses on Battle with McCain"

Communications — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:25:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Full article

. . . "Because of Florida's higher age profile, the state will be difficult for Obama in a general election," says Mark Schmitt, a political analyst at the New America Foundation. "But Obama will also open up other states, such as Colorado, that have a younger age profile, which would probably be beyond Senator Clinton's reach." . . .

Mark Schmitt on Bloggingheads.tv | "The Future with Obama"

Communications — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:30:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Bloggingheads.tv / New York Times

Mark Schmitt of the New America Foundation, left, and Noam Scheiber of The New Republic discuss whether Barack Obama should pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

Switch To Español

Ron Tang — Sun, 11 May 2008 05:52:00 -0400

Amid all the national debate over immigration, at least one firm consensus has emerged: Newcomers to the United States should learn English because it remains the lingua franca of our civic life. All three remaining presidential contenders say that the ability to speak English should be a requirement of U.S. citizenship. And last year, the immigrant governor of California told a convention of Latino journalists that immigrants should watch only English-language TV so they can understand the language and news of their home state. "You've got to turn off the Spanish television set," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger advised the… more

Go For the Bitter Bloc

Ron Tang — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:17:00 -0400

Last week's Pennsylvania primary demonstrated that Barack Obama is not unbeatable. This might sound a strange way to put it. Hasn't it always been true that Obama is beatable?

Well, consider an alternate reality in which Obama had won Pennsylvania. His people certainly thought long and deeply about this alternate reality -- why else spend a staggering $12 million on one state's primary? Hillary Clinton would have dropped out. Obama would have shown that he can win white working-class votes in a big, diverse, populous state. Way back after the Iowa caucuses, he playfully observed that everywhere he goes becomes Obama… more

Israel At 60

Ron Tang — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:53:00 -0400

I don't often, or ever really, write about my own relationship to Israel or how I ended up there, but I'll make an exception for its 60th anniversary.

My relationship with Israel started at the time of the ‘good' Iraq war. You remember, the Iraq war whose ambitions were limited to ensuring continued access to Kuwaiti oil -- not the contemporary trifecta effort to own the oil, change the regime, and transform the region.

In January of 1991 I was working in London as the political officer of the Union of Jewish Students, arguing Israel's case on campus (and attempting to do… more

Bin Laden Or Bust

Ron Tang — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:29:00 -0400

Dude! What a rad plan! Kicking back over drinks at Bungalow 8, the hard-to-get-into Manhattan nightclub, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock hatched the idea of a humorous documentary and book about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Your average auteur would wake up the next morning back in his Brooklyn crib, reach for the Advil and realize that searching for the largest mass murderer in U.S. history is about as funny as a pounding hangover.

But Spurlock is not an auteur easily deterred. He made his name with "Super Size Me," the 2004 documentary in which he ate nothing but Mickey D's, watched… more

Andrés Martinez to Direct New America Foundation’s Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program

Communications — Wed, 07 May 2008 06:05:00 -0400

Washington, D.C. – The New America Foundation today announced that Andrés Martinez, former editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times, will become director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program, which seeks to identify and support the next generation of American public policy scholars and writers.

New America provides financial, professional and institutional support for up to 35 fellows each year. Its fellows program seeks out individuals whose research and ideas promise to bring forward exceptionally promising new thinking about the most pressing issues facing the United States.

Mr. Martinez was the editorial page editor of the Los Angeles… more

Stealth Marketers

Ron Tang — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:11:00 -0400

A few weeks ago, devoted listeners of National Public Radio were treated to an episode of the award-winning radio series The Infinite Mind called "Prozac Nation: Revisited." The segment featured four prestigious medical experts discussing the controversial link between antidepressants and suicide. In their considered opinions, all four said that worries about the drugs have been overblown.

The radio show, which was broadcast nationwide and paid for in part by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, had the air of quiet, authoritative credibility. Host Dr. Fred Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of… more

Winning Over the Values Voters

Ron Tang — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:32:00 -0400

In Barack Obama's now famous remarks to rich donors in San Francisco in early April, he attributed the fact that white Democrats in small towns were resisting his candidacy to their anger over their economic misfortune. "They get bitter," Obama said, "and cling to guns or religion... as a way to explain their frustration." Obama seemed to be implying that social conservatism is a toxic byproduct of economic distress -- and it may have hurt him in Pennsylvania last week, where he lost the primary contest to Hillary Clinton.

Yet the notion expressed by Obama is hardly new. Way back in… more

Dialogue Isn't the Last Word

Ron Tang — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:19:00 -0400

Barack Obama loves reconciliation, but it isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes it isn't even possible, and let's be honest, it isn't always the point.

About six weeks ago, during his "More Perfect Union" speech on race that some heralded as the second coming of Abraham Lincoln, Obama had a choice between reconciliation and renunciation, and, true to form, he chose the former. He protested that he could "no more disown" the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. than he could disown "the black community" or his own (sometimes politically incorrect) white grandmother. Really?

Right about now, his much-heralded tutorial on… more

Schwarzenegger-Shriver: Protecting the Brand

Ron Tang — Sun, 04 May 2008 02:18:00 -0400

One afternoon early in his second year as governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger flew home from Sacramento to Los Angeles with a vexing political problem. He needed to cut $2 billion from the budget he was putting together, and any of his best options for doing it could get him into trouble.

If he raised taxes, he'd anger his fellow Republicans. Break a promise to increase education funding and he'd alienate the top Democratic interest group, the California Teachers Assn. Option 3: Cut health and human services, the next biggest category in the budget. He didn't like the idea, but some of his… more

Here Comes the Second World

Ron Tang — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:42:00 -0400

This article is adapted from Parag Khanna's book The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order.

The term "second world" has fallen out of use. It used to mean countries of the socialist world; today I use the phrase to refer to those countries in eastern Europe and central Asia, Latin America, the middle east and southeast Asia which are both rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped, postmodern and pre-modern, cosmopolitan and tribal -- all at the same time. This is not a temporary state between third world and first, but a permanent condition in which… more

Confessions Of a Sweatshop Inspector

Ron Tang — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:53:00 -0400

I remember one particularly bad factory in China. It produced outdoor tables, parasols, and gazebos, and the place was a mess. Work floors were so crowded with production materials that I could barely make my way from one end to the other. In one area, where metals were being chemically treated, workers squatted at the edge of steaming pools as if contemplating a sudden, final swim. The dormitories were filthy: the hallways were strewn with garbage -- orange peels, tea leaves -- and the only way for anyone to bathe was to fill a bucket with cold water. In a… more

Shannon Brownlee in San Jose Mercury News | UCSC Grad Winning Kudos for 'Overtreated'

Communications — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:33:00 -0400

New America in the News:

San Jose Mercury News | UCSC Grad Winning Kudos for 'Overtreated', A Health Care System Critique

Spending more on health care can be bad for our health, according to Shannon Brownlee, an award-winning medical journalist and UC Santa Cruz graduate who has earned widespread kudos for her book about the nation's sprawling health care system.

In "Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer," Brownlee challenges common medical practices. She depicts an uneven delivery of medical services throughout the country that routinely makes unjustified costly promises without the science to back them up.

"There is remarkably little evidence to back up what physicians do," Brownlee said recently from her home in Maryland.

Named No. 1 Economics Book of 2007 by The New York Times, "Overtreated" has drawn the praise for its solution-oriented critique of U.S. health care delivery. It's also drawn fire. . .

Maverick Or Maneuverer?

Ron Tang — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:05:00 -0400

Ever since "authenticity" became the quality we most value in our politicians, its converse, "hypocrisy," has been the political vice of which we are most conscious. Thus, those who have noticed that Sen. John McCain enjoys a reputation as a "maverick" who "stands up to special interests" while leading a campaign that is operated and funded entirely by lobbyists have seen this as a contradiction. Is McCain a hypocrite, or perhaps a divided soul, with the angelic maverick voice of reform perched on one shoulder and a diabolical little influence-peddler on the other? Who, journalists ask, is the real John… more

Baitullah Mehsud

Ron Tang — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:49:00 -0400

For Pakistanis, the Dec. 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto was the J.F.K. murder and 9/11 rolled into one, plunging the nation into days of mourning and setting off riots across the country. It was a stunning victory for Pakistan's militants, who have increasingly turned their firepower against the state, conducting more than 50 suicide attacks in 2007 alone.

The government quickly fingered Baitullah Mehsud as the mastermind of the Bhutto assassination; he had previously threatened to kill her. The details of Mehsud's biography are sketchy, as he shuns publicity. He is known to be in his mid-30s and to lead thousands… more