Citizen, Ink.

China's green economist stirring a shift away from GDP | Environment | guardian.co.uk

This senior economist and government adviser is trying to clean up his polluted country one data set at a time and, in the process, wean political leaders off their obsession with GDP growth. It is an uphill task. Eight years ago, Niu tried and failed to introduce a "green GDP", which would have factored environmental costs into measurements of China's economic progress.

That proposal was killed off by provincial leaders who feared their GDP achievements – and promotion prospects – would be undermined by a full accounting of the damage being done to the environment. Undaunted, Niu has returned to the fray with a new "GDP quality index" that measures the economy not just by size, but by sustainability, social equality and ecological impact.

via www.guardian.co.uk

Jeff Biggers: Taking on Big Coal Governors: West Virginia Mountain Party Candidate Inspires the Nation

In a blatant genuflect to the coal industry's stranglehold over state politics, the West Virginia Broadcasters Association blocked the participation of popular Mountain Party gubernatorial candidate Dr. Bob Henry Baber last week, as it hosted a widely denounced debate between the two climate-change-denying, Big-Coal-bankrolled candidates.

Never has West Virginia seemed more like an embarrassing 19th-century throwback to dirty politics and absentee corporation control over the very heart of democratic elections than in the upcoming gubernatorial race.

Never has Baber's inspiring and heartfelt campaign platform for a just transition to a sustainable and clean energy economy in ailing coal country seemed more timely -- and threatening to the Democratic and Republican Parties.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

George Magnus: Crisis Convergence | Foreign Policy

The clamor of economic and political events this year -- including the Arab Spring, the intensification of the Western economic crisis, the rise of the Tea Party, and the growing ascendancy of China -- has been deafening. But though most reporting has described these events as disconnected, they are far from coincidental.

The crisis of capitalism that erupted with the 2008 financial bust has very much to do with all of these seemingly disparate events. During the long boom period from 1980 to 2008, mainstream thinking ignored the principles of political economy laid out by Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes. Instead, we got monetarism, free market ideology, Alan Greenspan's facile notions of a "new economy," and even the often self-serving hype about China's ability to rule the world and sustain global prosperity. Today, we can see better how the crisis of 2008 and 2009 marked the end of one era and the start of a new and still very uncertain one.

via www.foreignpolicy.com

Chip Berlet: Inside the Christian Right Dominionist Movement That's Undermining Democracy

Dominionists want to impose a form of Christian nationalism on the United States, a concept that was dismissed as eroding freedom and democracy by the founders of our country. Dominionism has become a major influence on the right-wing populist Tea Parties as Christian Right activists have flooded into the movement at the grassroots. At the same time, legitimate questions have been raised about whether or not potential Republican presidential nominees Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, or Sarah Palin have moved from a generic form of Christian Right Dominionism toward the more totalitarian form know as Dominion Theology.

via www.alternet.org