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The US and North Korea are not the only ones ratcheting up tensions in the Orient. From Japan-Forward[1]:
The armies of India and China are locked in a standoff over the strategic Doklam plateau, an area inside the sovereign territory of Bhutan. Under the purview of the Indian-Bhutan Friendship Treaty, signed in New Delhi in February 2007, the tiny kingdom called in for Indian help after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) moved in under orders from Beijing.
Asserting dubious claims and then engaging in bullying and revisionism to get its way—this is now becoming an oft-repeated Chinese pattern we have all seen before. Indeed, in the offensive launched in June 2017 in the Doklam plateau—which China now claims is a “traditional pasture for Tibetans” (ignoring completely the fact that China predicates the claim in Doklam upon its equally untenable claim over Tibet)—China attempted to build a road near the critical tri-junction border area among China, India, and Bhutan. This area is vital to India’s security.
In the specific case of Doklam, there is a fascinating twist to the tale. China did not foresee India’s tenacious military resistance and political fortitude in response to the PLA’s Doklam encroachment. Unlike the Scarborough Shoal, where Filipino forces quit without a fight, India appears very unlikely to withdraw its troops unilaterally from the Doklam border area, and is standing up to China.
China and India are the first and second largest world militaries, perhaps it would be wise to heed the sage advice.
[1]:Japan-Forward is the English-language publication of the Sankei Shimbun, a large Japanese newspaper with an open Nationalist slant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @03:50PM (2 children)
I never listened to NPR so I can't say how much it did or didn't change, but did you consider that maybe NPR stayed pretty much where it was and the right got much righter? Maybe even alt-righter?
(Just an alternative theory that could explain the perceived shift, as I said, I don't know one way or another.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @09:14PM
I have been a listener of NPR for more than a decade. They have different member stations by geographical location (e.g. WNYC in New York and KPCC in Southern California). Each station will typically broadcast a combination of national news and syndicated programming (e.g. Marketplace, Car Talk, Splendid Table) as well as local news and programming so the experience of a listener from one area may not necessarily be representative of listeners from other areas.
Keeping the earlier caveat in mind, I do not think this is an accurate explanation. In recent years their reporting has had a clear shift in focus -- with greater emphasis on identity politics and "Social Justice" topics such as "the undocumented" (i.e. illegal aliens), transgendered, and "People of Color" [<rant>I despise that phrase... Sorry, but reversing the word order does not make its meaning any less backwards than "Coloured People". It still operates on the same underlying assumption that there are only two types of people: white and non-white. There are substantial differences in culture, history, and experiences between the groups lumped together as "white" -- like English, Irish, Polish, and Romanian. Reducing all others into a single "non-white" category is even more absurd. The perspectives and historical treatment of various "non-white" groups warrant their own consideration, and pigeon-holing the ethnicity of various Western/Eastern European, North/South/Native American, African, East/West Asian, Middle Eastern, etc. peoples into a single Boolean value is ridiculous.</rant>]. To provide a specific example, the "Code Switch" [npr.org] series on their web site seems to focus exclusively on identity politics.
Moving back on topic to your original point, the explanation of the right shifting further while the left remains stationary just does not match up with my observations. I consider myself to be on the moderate left, but from my perspective the mainstream left has been moving further toward the fringes and distancing itself from many core tenets such as freedom of speech or judging people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin (e.g. "safe spaces" segregated by race). IMHO a more reasonable explanation would be that an escalating level of polarization has resulted in the mainstream right and left shifting further toward their respective extremes -- while their most vocal, zealous proponents go even further.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday September 04 2017, @09:13AM
They have a very different message now. It's all about getting rid of Trump, they're letting the democracy part go to avoid dissonance I guess. At least they're still kind of giving a nod to the 'liberal' part but they don't seem to really remember what it means.
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