30 July 2017
Quartz: Confronting a Sexual Rite of Passage in Malawi
Mwase was just 10 when she was led, along with about a dozen other girls, to remote huts outside her village during winter vacation from school in August. The girls were accompanied by older women from their village in Chiradzulu district, near the border with Mozambique. The women, known as anamkungwi, or “key leaders,” told them that when they returned to their villages they should cook and clean—and have sex. According to Mwase, most of the two weeks she spent at the initiation camp were dedicated to learning how to engage in sexual acts. She had been excited for this time with friends away from home, but that feeling quickly gave way to dread as she learned the true purpose of initiation. [...]
Initiation is a centuries-old practice in the region, according to Harriet Chanza of the World Health Organization. In many agrarian communities, she notes, “There’s nothing like adolescence. You are either a child or an adult.” Initiation is meant to establish the gender norms that boys and girls are expected to follow as men and women. The emphasis on having sex may also have a darker purpose in a country where nearly three-fourths of the population lives below the poverty line. Chanza, who is based in Malawi, says that some parents may actually want their daughters to get pregnant at a young age. A girl is often married soon after she is found to be pregnant, deferring the cost of caring for her and her baby from her parents to her husband. [...]
Her small, sharp eyes aglow in the dimly lit room, a grain mill whirring in the background, Mwase says the anamkungwi who oversaw her initiation told her to find an older man to have sex with after she left the camp. In defiance of tradition, however, Mwase refused to do so, fearing the costs to her health from unprotected sex. Like many first-born daughters in Malawi, Mwase was raised by her grandmother. She says her grandmother, who had sent her to the camp, didn't force her to have sex—likely because Mwase never told her about her decision not to do so. If her grandmother had learned the truth, she might have paid a man to take Mwase’s virginity. In some villages, young men hired for this task are called “hyenas,” and they occasionally have sex with many girls in a single village who have gone through initiation together.
Quartz: Slowly but surely, India’s queer community is winning the battle for sexual equality
In 2015, a student at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru was blackmailed and threatened with being publicly exposed for being gay. When he refused to pay extortion money, the private letters turned into notices pinned on noticeboards on campus. The words were sharp, relentless and inhumane: “I think it’s completely shameful, bad, immoral and disgusting. You should go kill yourself. Why do you think it’s illegal to be gay in India?” [...]
The law is not the only force behind this violence, but it is an important one. “Why do you think,” the blackmailer asks, “it’s illegal to be gay in India?” When petitioners in the Naz argued that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (which criminalises “voluntary carnal intercourse against the order of nature”) played an important part in shrouding our lives in criminality and legitimizing violence, this letter was one of many that we wrote against in our heads. In 2009, Naz gave many of us—not all, never all, for the law does not have such power by itself—a feeling of complete personhood. [...]
So what does it look like from within our fears? What has happened since the Supreme Court reversal of Naz? In one sense, it has been extraordinary. The reversal drew widespread condemnation in different forms and sites, from an extraordinary range of voices. The then-ruling government, led by the Indian National Congress, came out for the first time in strong and public support of queer rights as did several other parties including the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Janata Dal (S) and the Aam Aadmi Party. [...]
Progressive groups, state bodies like the National Human Rights Commission, teachers’ associations, professional associations including the medical and mental health establishments, women’s groups, student groups, trade unionists and private companies came out publicly against the judgment. Thousands across the country stood together, repeating the chant that brought together our resistance: “No Going Back.” A week after the judgment, “No Going Back” protests to mark a “Global Day of Rage” took place across thirty-six cities in the world, including seventeen in India. That resistance remains amidst the uncertainty and the fear, unwavering, unafraid.
Politico: The EU can’t solve Italy’s migration crisis
Italy is under huge strain. The country has seen 85,000 new arrivals so far this year, a 10 percent increase over 2016, according to interior ministry data. But while Italy has the infrastructure to handle the pressure, its politics may not. With elections to be held by the spring of next year and still no end in sight to the migration crisis, the situation has become a real emergency for its politicians.
The European Union has already provided crucial economic and logistical support, but Rome’s demands for more “solidarity” are far from unreasonable. The number of migrants entering Europe has increased exponentially, and the flow shows no sign of abating. Circumstances have changed and the EU has to adapt its rules accordingly. Italy can handle the immediate emergency, but the EU has to do more to tackle the causes of the crisis. [...]
Rome has largely been left to handle the crisis on its own. Even as the EU offers financial support, France, Switzerland and Austria are busy trying to seal their borders. Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz even went so far as to ask his Italian counterpart to leave arriving migrants on the small island of Lampedusa, where many migrants land. [...]
The EU needs to take three main steps. First, claim ownership of a Libya reconciliation and stabilization process. Second, launch a systematic program of forced repatriation for economic migrants. And third, negotiate with African countries, offering substantial aid and job creation opportunities in exchange for serious commitments to rein in illegal migration.
Politico: Hungary ignoring court orders to improve border camp conditions: watchdog
The Hungarian government repeatedly ignored international legal orders to improve conditions for asylum seekers in a controversial border zone camp, according to a human rights group and an asylum seeker held inside the camp. [...]
Since the Hungarian parliament approved the mandatory detention of asylum seekers in March, the transit zone has been criticized by watchdogs and international bodies concerned about the legality of automatically detaining asylum seekers, including children.
In March, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the detention of two Bangladeshi asylum seekers who were confined to the compound for three weeks before being sent back to Serbia amounted to a “de facto deprivation of their liberty.” [...]
Under new Hungarian rules introduced in the spring, authorities do not have to provide food to asylum seekers whose first application was rejected or canceled. R, who was separated from his family during the journey to the EU and went back to find them, falls into this category.
29 July 2017
Broadly: No One Knows Why These Medieval Statues Are Pulling Their Vaginas Open
"Odd" is an understatement. Sheela-na-Gigs are medieval stone figures—often found on the walls of churches or castles—of women caught mid-squat, thighs spread, using their hands to yank open their vulva and display their vaginas. Some of them have cheeky grins; others are wizened hags; one is depicted wiggling out of a demon's mouth. What they all have in common is the fact that they are proudly exposing their chiseled vags to anyone walking past.
The Church Stretton carving is one of hundreds of Sheela-na-Gigs found in England, Ireland, France, and Spain. Some anonymous prude had attempted to censor the image, obscuring her open genitalia with a stone, but Harding could still tell perfectly it was covering up. "I got fascinated, basically. I started recording them, because there are quite a few in the area."[...]
But the Sheela-na-Gigs aren't giving up their secrets so easily. Nobody can conclusively say where they came from, or what they mean. There are a few competing schools of thought; Harding is part of a broad consensus that believes that they are an example of Romanesque architecture brought over with the Norman invasion of England and Ireland in the 11th and 12th century. As for what they symbolize, he thinks that they are meant to depict the sin of lust—a warning to medieval Christians to keep their thoughts pure. [...]
The lack of context also makes it difficult to decide what they were built for. Some Sheelas—like the one getting devoured by a monster—might be seen as a hellish warning to the church congregation. Others appear to have been placed above doorways as a token of luck, or a talisman against evil. There are Sheelas in the collection of the National Museum of Ireland whose vulvas have been worn to a nub from medieval churchgoers rubbing them as part of a religious ceremony.
Politico: Facing trade war with Trump, Europe rediscovers its swagger
rump could hardly have chosen a worse moment to threaten to slap tariffs on the European steel industry. The EU trade officials staring him down on the other side of the Atlantic are more confident and assertive than they have been in years. Catalyzed by securing political agreement on a huge trade pact with Japan, they are now relishing the prospect of a tit-for-tat trade war they think they cannot lose. [...]
When former U.S. President George W. Bush announced “temporary safeguards” against steel imports from the EU and other countries in 2002, the Commission struck back on exactly the same sort of farm goods that are back on its list now. [...]
The EU’s rediscovery of its mojo in one of its few hard-power competences is now palpable in the way that Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is projecting Brussels on the international stage. Whether pushing China to back off from buying out prized EU technology companies or firing warning shots at Trump, there’s a newfound sense of resolve in the way the Commission carries itself. Britain’s muddled attempt to negotiate Brexit also helps make Brussels look like a steady hand. [...]
Only this week, Brussels fired a shot across America’s bows to warn that it would retaliate if Washington’s latest round of sanctions against Russia impacted European companies and energy projects. Juncker insisted he was ready to hit back within days. “America First cannot mean that Europe’s interests come last,” he stressed. [...]
The election of President Emmanuel Macron in France is also pushing the block to bolster its trade defenses against China. Macron is a leading proponent of a “Buy European” strategy and the Commission is working on legislation to help stop Chinese takeovers of the EU’s top infrastructure and energy companies. One Commission official described it as “amazing” that these sort of measures were now being discussed among the traditionally liberal free-traders of the Trade department.
America Magazine: Hidden in a New York choir loft, an early AIDS memorial faces an uncertain future
But three decades later, with the AIDS crisis under control and changes in attitudes toward religious practice, about 200 people gathered inside that building on July 23 to bid farewell to the Church of Saint Veronica. Even as the church prepares to shutter for good, questions remain about what will happen to its many artifacts, including a humble AIDS memorial that historians say is one of the first public memorials to victims of the plague years in New York. [...]
The church opened in 1890 and its own history mirrors that of changes in the West Village. It first served Irish dockworkers and their families and later on, as members of the parish headed off to two world wars, a plaque was installed near the church’s entrance to honor those men who gave their lives fighting for their country. But it was the AIDS crisis that most dramatically shaped the St. Veronica’s community.
“St. Veronica’s is located on Christopher Street, which historically has been the center of the L.G.B.T. community in New York,” Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation, said. “Like all of Greenwich Village, it was impacted quite heavily by the AIDS crisis.” [...]
“St. Veronica’s is located on Christopher Street, which historically has been the center of the L.G.B.T. community in New York,” Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation, said. “Like all of Greenwich Village, it was impacted quite heavily by the AIDS crisis.”
FiveThirtyEight: American Muslims Are A Diverse Group With Changing Views
American Muslims are also ideologically diverse. A plurality identify as moderate, with around 30 percent identifying as liberal and about 20 percent identifying as conservative. However, a large majority of Muslims in the U.S. prefer the Democratic Party, and that hasn’t changed since the 2007 Pew survey of Muslim Americans, the first in this series. In the 2016 presidential election, 78 percent of Muslim American voters said they voted for Hillary Clinton, which is a much lower share than the 92 percent who said they voted for Barack Obama in 2008.4
The Republican Party’s reputation among American Muslims seems to have deteriorated in recent years. According to the Pew survey, 59 percent of American Muslims believe the GOP is unfriendly toward Muslims; that’s an increase of more than 10 percentage points since 2011 — when Pew’s second survey in this series was done.5 Nearly three-quarters perceive President Trump to be unfriendly toward Muslim Americans, and 68 percent said he makes them feel worried. [...]
Another notable shift that the 2017 survey found was an increase in the share of American Muslims who say that homosexuality should be accepted by society, reflecting broader trends in the U.S. population as a whole. This change in attitude was present in almost every subgroup of American Muslims, not just the younger generation. [...]
Media coverage might contribute to the perception problem. A recent study by Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy found that in reports with Muslim protagonists on three major national TV news networks, Muslim voices were rarely heard. It also found that news coverage about Muslims is often about terrorism and war. According to the Pew survey, 60 percent of American Muslims and 53 percent of the public agree that the media covers Islam and Muslims unfairly. Rayyan Najeeb, 26, who attended the Islamic Society of North America convention, said the media frequently failed to distinguish between the views of Muslims who live elsewhere in the world and the views of American Muslims. Najeeb said he appreciated that surveys like Pew’s give American Muslims the opportunity to speak for themselves: “It really counteracts a lot of the terrorist-next-door type of thinking … and a lot of the fear-mongering that has been happening in the news.”
Al Jazeera: The energy factor in the GCC crisis
As several experts have previously noted, the tension arose briefly after the Riyadh Summit, when US President Donald Trump assured Saudi Arabia of his commitment to the region in the face of the "Iranian threat". The US' hope of forging an impenetrable GCC shield against Iran fails to appreciate the centrality of the energy question and exhibits a narrow sightedness based on the pursuit of self-interest. It is, therefore, predestined to fail.
Similarly, the ensuing Saudi-led blockade against Qatar is destined to eventually subside and give way to normalised relations in spite of the current tension. As a sign, perhaps, that energy trumps political antagonism, it is noteworthy that shortly after the rift, Qatar announced it would not disrupt liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which runs through the Dolphin pipeline. [...]
On the Qatari side of the field, its discovery in 1971, which coincided with the state's year of independence, has been crucial for state building and sovereignty recognition. It is no wonder, then, that in addition to being the single most important contributor to the country's GDP, natural gas has also indirectly driven many foreign policy choices for the small state even where monetary returns are not directly involved. This includes foreign aid, mediation and education initiatives, to name but a few. [...]
In 1996, Qatar sought to export its natural gas to neighbouring GCC countries. However, the project faced numerous obstacles pertaining to pricing, transit rights and border disputes. This cemented the view that Qatar should look beyond its neighbourhood for export markets, especially as prices were more lucrative on the international market. As a result, the sale of natural gas to key international players such as the UK, China, India and Japan has inexorably linked customers' energy security to the stability of Qatar.
The New York Review of Books: Why Autocrats Fear LGBT Rights
With few exceptions, countries that have grown less democratic in recent years have drawn a battle line on the issue of LGBT rights. Moscow has banned Pride parades and the “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations,” while Chechnya—technically a region of Russia—has undertaken a campaign to purge itself of queers. In Budapest, the Pride march has become an annual opposition parade: many, if not most, participants are straight people who use the day to come out against the Orbán government. In Recep Erdoğan’s Turkey, water cannons were used to disperse an Istanbul Pride parade. Narendra Modi’s India has re-criminalized homosexuality (though transgender rights have been preserved). In Egypt, where gays experienced new freedoms in the brief interlude of democracy after the 2011 revolution, they are now, under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s dictatorship, subjected to constant harassment and surveillance and hundreds have been arrested. [...]
One can laugh at the premise of the Russian ban on “homosexual propaganda”—as though the sight of queerdom openly displayed, or even the likeness of a rainbow (this claim has been made) can turn a straight person queer. At the same time, in Russia queer people make an ideal target for government propaganda because the very idea of them serves as a convenient stand-in for an entire era of liberalization that is now shunned. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, queerdom was unthinkable. Afterward, it became possible along with so many other things: the world became complicated, full of possibility and uncertainty. It also grew frightening—precisely because nothing was certain any longer. [...]
Looking at a person who embodies choice—the possibility of being or becoming different—can be like staring into the abyss of uncertainty. In this sense, seeing a Pride march or a trans person can make a straight person feel very queer: it demonstrates possibility, making the world frightening. It speaks to the modern predicament the social psychologist Erich Fromm wrote about in his book about the rise of Nazism, Escape from Freedom: the ability to invent oneself. One is no longer born a tradesman or a peasant, or the lifelong resident of a particular quarter, or a man or a woman. This freedom can feel like an unbearable burden. No wonder the most notorious piece of American anti-transgender legislation—the North Carolina bathroom bill—focused on the birth certificate as the most important document. In mandating that people use public bathrooms in accordance with the sex assigned at birth, the law created a situation where some people who looked, acted, smelled like—who identified and lived as—women were required to use the men’s bathroom, and vice versa—but it established that one’s position in the world was set from birth.
Katoikos: Children should not be used as an argument for or against gay marriages
As things stand, Europe is split in half, with the western part having embraced full equality for LGBT individuals, and the eastern and southern regions dragging their feet.
Currently the debate is ongoing in Malta, which is expected to follow Germany in near future, and Northern Ireland, which is the only region in Western Europe still reluctant to pass similar legislation. [...]
Instead of focusing on allowing two people to be treated as equals in the society in which they live, comparing homosexual couples to traditional, established heterosexual families is simply a way to erect obstacles to their happiness.
This is a mistake and both sides—those who campaign against gay marriage as well as the LGBT equality groups—are wrong. They are missing the whole point. [...]
I am not against gay adoption and if the law allows it for straight couples, then yes it must allow it for gay couples too. But this issue should not define the debate on the real issue—same sex marriage—or its outcome.
The cases that surely require special legislation and attention are those in which one of the partners in the same sex marriage already has a child from a previous relationship or is a lone parent.
Al Jazeera: The crisis of regional order in the Gulf
At a time when the Middle East is in dire need of a positive agenda and a plan to overcome division, ominous new developments are dominating the scene and the forces of disintegration appear to have been unleashed.
The current "Gulf" crisis is just the latest manifestation of this trend. Before considering the way out of this crisis, it is important to accurately depict it, its root causes, and its regional implications. [...]
This crisis is neither a bilateral crisis between Qatar and its Gulf Arab neighbours, nor a geographically isolated dispute confined to the Gulf region.
Instead it is a regional crisis - the direct outcome of the lack of a sustainable regional order in the Middle East. [...]
Such a crisis of legitimacy at the level of political elites and the stark contrast between the aspirations of the people and the projections of the political class forms the backbone of all major crises in the region. This in return inhibits any fruitful engagement among states and societies at regional level. [...]
The fact that the region lacks institutions or frameworks that can govern these grievances or serve to channel feuds into diplomatic and political processes should also be an issue of major concern.
But this deficiency is not surprising. As discussed above, institutions are the product of intentions, and intentions are mostly shaped by actors' perceptions, and hence their political psychologies, which are in turn formed mainly by their level of socio-political legitimacy.
Politico: Berlusconi battles to lead the Italian right
The four-time Italian prime minister, who turns 81 in September, may be marred by sex scandals and barred from holding public office after a tax fraud conviction. But that hasn’t stopped him from emerging as a potent political force ahead of a parliamentary election early next year. [...]
Rejuvenated by a surprise success in June’s local elections, Forza Italia is neck-and-neck with the far-right Northern League led by Matteo Salvini. According to a recent survey by the Italian polling firm IPSOS, both parties are polling at just over 15 percent. [...]
“Berlusconi is playing his new game smartly, in a subtle way,” he added. “He knows he’s not the center of Italian politics anymore, but he still can be one of the few kingmakers.” [...]
But he has recently softened his once strident Europhobia in public appearances, focusing instead on an electoral program that includes a flat tax at 15 percent and a pledge to reform the European Union by rewriting all its main treaties, including the Maastricht Treaty that created the euro and introduced fiscal limitations on national governments.
28 July 2017
Politico: The birth of a Polish president
Others in the party vowed to press on over Duda’s opposition and try to override the vetoes, arguing that the proposed legislation had been part of his electoral program. This act of presidential defiance takes Duda probably to the point of no return in the PiS fold, introducing an unexpected element in Polish politics that will play out between now and the next presidential election in three years. [...]
The assault on Duda culminated in a televised primetime statement by Prime Minister Beata Szydło. “The president slowed us down but we won’t surrender and will realize our program,” she said. [...]
PiS’ attitude toward the rule of law might have best been expressed in the words of the veteran anti-communist Kornel Morawiecki, who in an address to parliament said: “The law is an important thing, but the law is not a sanctity. Above the law is the good of the nation.” To a lengthy standing ovation from PiS deputies, he said: “If the law interferes in this good, we cannot consider it as something which cannot be breached and changed.” [...]
This may be an indication that Duda’s actions were motivated by his rivalry with Ziobro. The president was not consulted or informed before the law targeting the Supreme Court was introduced in parliament, and had later called for changes to the law regarding the National Judiciary Council.
His behavior also betrayed anger that the legislation gave the justice minister the sole authority to decide which Supreme Court judges would be allowed to stay. PiS proposed a compromise amendment, giving him the power to nominate judges that had been previously selected for him by Ziobro. But evidently, it was not enough.
27 July 2017
openDemocracy: “The Putinist majority could fast become anti-Putinist”
It seems to me that this understanding of an ideological evolution represents a trap. I do not believe that Russia has, from the beginning of this conservative turn, transformed into a space isolated from the rest of the world, where other laws obtain, other values reign, where even the people themselves have mutated into one or another anthropological type— sovki [derogatory term for people still “stuck” in the Soviet past, for surviving members of Homo Sovieticus - ed.] , zombies, vatniki [literally, “quilted jackets,” a derogatory term for lower class nationalistic Russians -ed.]
Despite Putin’s Russia’s attempt to transform itself on the level of rhetoric into an alternative to the contemporary world, it remains fully a part of that world. Despite the conservative turn, Russia has not even for a minute ceased to be a part of the world capitalist order ruled by the laws of the market. In this sense, conservative rhetoric is an important constitutive part of the spirit of Russian capitalism. This spirit not only does not contradict basic market values, but gives them a new form, and a new disguise. [...]
From our own life experience we know that Russia is a country of aggressive social inequality, with a fairly atomized and unintegrated society, in which people habitually think of their own interests and take their neighbors and other inhabitants of their cities for suspicious competitors, from whom one can expect only scams and dirty tricks, and who implicitly or explicitly covet our place in the sun. In this sense, Russian society is even more individualistic than Western society, in which various forms of self-organisation are incomparably more developed. [...]
In this version of the conservative turn, there is no special “Russian way.” Of course, we encounter this combination of the market with a veneer of conservative values in other countries. Just such a symbiosis of nationalism, conservatism, religious obscurantism, and a severely pro-market policy (albeit with local specificities and in different proportions), for example, is widespread in Eastern Europe. The same trend reflects the evolution of American Republicans over the past decade. In this sense, Russia is not only not unique, but even the opposite—it stands at the vanguard of some global or pan-European tendencies. [...]
Second, the current government’s policy is grounded in part on economic liberal principles. If we understand the logic of the government’s reforms in education, health and culture, we will find that it largely corresponds to what is commonly called neoliberalism: the dominance of the principle of profitability, of economic “efficiency” over the interests of society.
The Conversation: A philosopher argues why no one has the right to refuse services to LGBT people
Ever since the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that gay people have the right to marry, those upset by this ruling have shifted their strategy from denying the right to limiting its enforcement.
Even if gay people have a right to marry, they argue, people also have the liberty to practice their religion as they wish. Accordingly, they claim, they cannot be forced to “aid or abet” those seeking to marry partners of the same sex. [...]
Rights, in contrast, are stronger. They not only give us these freedoms, but they also protect these freedoms from any kind of interference. But not all liberties are protected by rights. When people talk about religious liberty, it is accordingly important to understand what kind of liberty they might mean. For it might not be a liberty that is protected from the kind of interference that is at issue in these cases. [...]
So when people claim that aiding and abetting gay marriage would infringe on their religious liberty, in most cases what they must mean is that this would violate their particular conception of positive liberty – their particular conception of how we each should live, a conception that is based on their religious views. [...]
Indeed, for those who have any doubt about this, simply imagine what it was like to experience life as a black person under Jim Crow. One cannot imagine being subject to these kinds of restrictions and still thinking of oneself as truly free. The protection against arbitrary treatment is accordingly central to almost every possible conception of the good and plan of life a freedom loving person might select.
The Atlantic: Why People Have Out-of-Body Experiences
Out-of-body experience can vary person to person, but they often involve the sense of floating above one’s actual body and looking down. For neuroscientists, the phenomenon is a puzzle and an opportunity: Understanding how the brain goes awry can also illuminate how it is supposed to work. Neuroscientists now think that out-of-body experiences involve the vestibular system—made up of canals in the inner ear that track a person’s locations in space—and how that information gets integrated with other senses in the brain. [...]
Olaf Blanke, a neuroscientist at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, says that the study “puts previous anecdotal suggestions about a strong vestibular component in [out-of-body experiences] on firm grounds.” Blanke, who has worked with Lopez previously but not on the current study, has also shown that electrically stimulating the brain area that integrates vestibular and visual information can induce an out-of-body illusion. Whether the perturbation is in the inner ear itself or the brain, the end result seems to be the same: a feeling of having defied physics and left one’s body.
But there is still another mystery. While 14 percent of Elzière’s patients experiencing dizziness reported out-of-body experiences, 14 percent is not 100 percent. And healthy people appear to sometimes have such experiences, too. A vestibular disorder alone does not cause people to feel like they’ve left their bodies. “We believe out-of-body experiences might be a combination of several factors,” says Lopez. He also surveyed patients about their mental states, and found that those with anxiety and depression in addition to dizziness were more likely to have out-of-body experiences.
FiveThirtyEight: The Identity Politics Of The Trump Administration
The administration is not proposing less intervention from the federal government, which is the typical Republican approach, but rather it is seeking to wield federal power, just as Obama did. But whereas Obama’s policies focused on protecting African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims, people who are gay or transgender, and other groups that most Americans view as marginalized, Trump and his team are focusing on defending different groups: Christians, police officers, victims of crimes by undocumented immigrants, and people who fear Latino immigrants are taking their jobs or redefining U.S. culture, among others. [...]
The Department of Justice, and law-enforcement agencies generally, have broad discretion in terms of what crimes to prioritize, what kinds of punishment to pursue and how they operate. Both Obama and Trump have used that authority — or, in Trump’s case, pledged to use that authority — to focus resources on the issues they and their voters care about most. And Trump, like Obama, is trying to push local law-enforcement agencies to emphasize those same priorities. [...]
But the Trump administration, despite its generally get-tough posture, does have a soft spot for one group that has technically violated the law: those addicted to opioids. At the launch of the president’s task force on opioid abuse in March, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is leading the task force, likened drug addiction to cancer, heart disease and diabetes, saying addiction is a disease that people should not be ashamed to talk about. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, the states facing the highest rates of death from drug overdoses are West Virginia, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio. Three of those states — Kentucky, New Hampshire and West Virginia — have smaller black and Latino populations than the national average. The opioid problem has hit heavily white areas of America, and some experts say that explains why it has not led to the type of tough-on-crime policies that came amid the crack epidemic in black areas in the 1980s and 1990s. [...]
Studies on voucher programs have not backed up the administration’s enthusiastic claims about the programs’ benefits, finding instead that students who use school vouchers learn about as much as or less than those enrolled in traditional public schools. But one clear beneficiary will be Christian private schools, which draw in the vast majority of students who attend private schools through voucher programs in many states.
Quartz: People have an irrational need to complete “sets” of things
New research reveals that people are irrationally but effectively motivated by the idea of completing a set, even if it means working harder or spending more money—with no additional reward other than the satisfaction of completion and the relief of avoiding an incomplete set. Imagine arriving at your boss’s summer BBQ and presenting her with five beers in a box designed to hold six. No matter that your favorite craft beer store permits you buy bottles one at a time. Chances are you’d still buy six, just to fill all six spaces in the box. [...]
The results of the field study were stark. Among those who chose to give gifts, 21 percent of those in the “Global Survival Kit” condition chose to donate all six items, compared with just 5 percent in the “gift” condition and 3 percent in the cash condition.
“The strength of the increase was a really nice surprise,” says Doug Wayne, director of national digital marketing and web strategy at the Canadian Red Cross, who decided to collaborate with the research team after meeting Norton through a colleague. “Ultimately, it speaks to how powerful that framing is.” [...]
“People persist with completing pseudo-sets even when it’s costly for them to do so,” John says. “That, to me, is especially compelling as a researcher—that completing this totally arbitrary set is so motivating to people that they are willing to participate in an obviously bad bet.”
Quartz: Embracing aging can lead to a longer and happier life
In the 20th century, thanks largely to clean water and antibiotics, the American lifespan increased by 30 years. Who doesn’t want even more, if new technologies like gene editing and nanomedicine can safely put them within our grasp? As Neo.life describes it, it’s the most important story today: “how biology and technology are coming together to help us all live healthier, happier, and longer lives.” But the challenge for all of us, no matter our age, is to not frame it as an “anti-aging” story. Here’s a pro-aging take on each of those modifiers—healthier, happier, and longer lives—starting with life extension itself. [...]
Don’t get me wrong. I’m intrigued by the regenerative potential of tissues and organs, and all in favor of more research into the biology of aging. Until we understand what happens to our cells and organ systems far better than we do now, no health promotion strategy will have much of an effect on average life expectancy and maximum lifespan. More years of healthy life would be wonderful. But just as the enemy is disease, not aging, the goal needs to be health, not youth. [...]
A growing body of fascinating research shows that attitudes toward aging have measurable effects on how our minds and bodies function. People who don’t equate aging with disability and decline walk faster, do better on memory tests, and are more likely to recover fully from severe disability. That’s why the World Health Organization is developing a global anti-ageism campaign: to extend not just lifespan but “healthspan.” Not coincidentally, people with positive feelings about getting older also live longer—and they live better.How worried are you about getting older, and why? Has what you dreaded come to pass? Check your age bias. It segregates us, pits us against each other, and fuels needless fears—and it might be your biggest health risk.
Even in Silicon Valley, tied with Hollywood as the most ageist place on the planet, people know that tans and Teslas aren’t what make us happy. What does? Aging itself. Study after study shows that people are happiest at the beginnings and the ends of their lives; Google “U shaped happiness curve.” You don’t have to be a Buddhist or a billionaire, because the curve is a function of the way aging itself affects the brain. We get better at dealing with negative emotions like anger, envy, and fear. The knowledge that time is short makes us focus on the present and spend our time more wisely—and living in the present is why the very young and very old enjoy life the most. That’s what the “mindfulness” mania is constantly reminding us, and why so many myths couple immortality and misery.
Vox: Trump’s approval rating is below 50% across the Midwest — and in Texas
Gallup rolled together all of its daily tracking polls of Donald Trump’s approval rating since January (a massive sample of 81,000 adults) to create a state-by-state map of average approval across the first six months. Trump’s numbers have generally been worse in his second quarter than they were in his first, so this map probably somewhat overestimates Trump’s level of support across the board, but the basic message that he’s moderately unpopular should be the same either way.
One thing this map shows is that for all the anecdote-rich longform journalistic voyages into “Trump country,” there’s nothing magical going on here. Part of being moderately unpopular nationwide is being moderately unpopular in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. At the same time, even a moderately unpopular Trump remains very popular in the GOP strongholds of Appalachia and the Great Plains. It’s striking that Trump, who fared unusually poorly with Mormons in 2016 for a Republican, appears to have been “normalized” in the eyes of the people of Utah. [...]
Another striking fact is that Trump’s approval in Ohio — and even Wisconsin — is higher than his approval ratings in North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, or even Texas. Part of that is that by polling “all adults,” the poll ends up obscuring the historically low turnout rate of Texas Latinos. But it also goes to show that as Democrats try to put together their next winning coalition, they may find it easier to win over some new Sunbelt states than some old Rust Belt ones.
26 July 2017
Jacobin Magazine: The Chemical Attack at Khan Sheikhoun
In late June, Seymour Hersh published an article in Die Welt claiming that the Assad government did not attack the town of Khan Sheikhoun with sarin on April 4. His argument aligns with a popular left narrative about American imperialism falsifying or exaggerating events in Syria to justify intervention and regime change.
For example, many commentators — Jonathan Cook, Uri Avnery, among others — have wondered why Bashar al-Assad would use chemical weapons when he was already winning the war. The attack seemed not only unnecessary but also likely to spark a harsh international response. [...]
Indeed, as Anne Barnard reported, the sarin attack fits into Assad’s broader strategy. She writes that, since at least 2012, the Syrian government “has adopted a policy of seeking total victory by making life as miserable as possible for anyone living in areas outside its control.” These attacks are designed to let the opposition know that it remains at the regime’s mercy, that neither international law nor the international community cannot protect it, and that surrender is the only option. [...]
A further problem with the “there was no reason for Assad to do this” argument is that the same argument could be advanced to explain why Assad would not have done many of the things that he undoubtedly did do. Why did he need to use barrel bombs, which so enflamed world opinion? Why did he use chlorine gas after he committed to a chemical weapons treaty that prohibits it? Why did his forces return to bomb Khan Sheikhoun just days after the American missile strike? Why did his forces and allies advance on an area protected by the United States? Why did a Syrian warplane drop bombs near American-backed forces and their advisers? [...]
For example, they continually bomb hospitals in Syria. The unanimous reports from international human rights groups about Russian and Syrian attacks on medical facilities have certainly turned world opinion against them, but Putin presumably calculated that he would face minimal consequences for them. He was right, and much of the global antiwar movement remained silent. [...]
Second, no evidence suggests that any jihadist groups possess sarin. (Chlorine or mustard gas, which are not nerve agents, do not become sarin when bombed.) The UN and the Red Cross have documented ISIS’s use of mustard gas, but never nerve gas. Even if ISIS had gotten its hands on sarin, they are not present in Khan Sheikhoun. [...]
If we accept the Russian and Syrian claims that jihadists have used sarin — claims that neutral observers have rejected — then we end up with another incredible result: rebel sarin never harms Assad forces, only rebel civilians.
Political Critique: Emmanuel Macron, the golden child?
Yet one would be mistaken in thinking that Macron is politically inexperienced, or that he is the product of anything other than an elite French political establishment. A four year membership of the Socialist Party and equal time spent as Inspector of Finances in the French Ministry of Economy, accompanies job titles that include private banker for Rothschild & Cie, deputy secretary-general of the Élysée and Minister of Economy and Finance. His party may be a newcomer on the French political scene but Macron, clearly, is not. Add to this an Ivy League-equivalent education, with graduate degrees from the two most prestigious academic institutions in France, and you have a candidate that is plainly the product of an elite political class that his party claims to eschew. [...]
Yet scratch a little deeper and there is cause for concern. Macron’s career has been mired by close and problematic links to big business, links that show no signs of dissolving. While he talks humanism, his decision to integrate many of the State of Emergency measures into common law has alarmed civil rights groups. Under such laws, the state would have the ability to conduct warrant-less property searches and house arrests, as well as banning protest marches, shutting down places of worship suspected of extremist teaching, and increased electronic surveillance.
Similarly, the seemingly liberal stance of the new administration towards immigration masks a paradoxical dichotomy between what appears to be a desire for a more open, welcoming EU, yet with stricter border control, particularly in France. While Macron spoke of the need for France to accept its just part in the welcoming of refugees to Europe throughout his election campaign, conversely, he has taken a tough stance on irregular immigration. While it remains to be seen how such distinctions will play out, the mass expulsion of approximately 2,700 people from a migrant camp in La Chapelle, Paris on 7 July does not seem like a particularly auspicious start.
Al Jazeera: Macron's Francafrique
President Macron, born long after French colonies became independent, displays an ostensible modernism, and - at least on the surface - attacks the obsolete political apparatuses, which, according to him, harm the vitality of the French society. As a result, perhaps too naively, many Africans expected him to change the old "Francafrique" - France's relations with its former colonies in Africa - for the better. [...]
After independence, several countries did choose to leave the franc zone: Tunisia in 1958, Morocco in 1960, Guinea in 1959, Algeria in 1964, Madagascar and Mauritania in 1973. But a total of 14 countries, 12 of which are former French colonies, decided to continue using CFA franc as their official currency. [...]
The CFA franc is guaranteed by the French Treasury. It had a fixed exchange rate to French franc until 1999, and now - to the euro under agreements that force the countries of the franc zone to deposit 50 percent of their reserves in foreign currency to the French Treasury. [...]
From Serval to Barkhane, French military operations in Africa are allegedly aiming "to fight terrorism" and more specifically to "return to Mali its sovereignty over Timbuktu and Kidal". But, of course, another objective of these military operations - if not the primary one - is to protect French economic and geostrategic interests in the region, such as exploitation of Nigerien uranium and Malian gold. Also, it is well known that France is behind the creation of the G5 Sahel (an institutional framework for regional cooperation in development and security policies, incorporating Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad). The G5 helps France seal its military's influence in the region and President Macron seems to be committed to maintaining the current unfair status quo.
Vox: When a police shooting victim is a white woman
There’s a typical story that plays out in the aftermath of police shootings. One side, critical of police, comes out pointing to the excesses of police brutality, particularly in cases in which officers killed black men and boys. The other side, supportive of police, comes out pointing to the nuances of the cases and perhaps the ways that the victims are to blame for their deaths — he had a criminal record, he didn’t listen to the police, and so on.
This didn’t really happen after Justine Damond, a white woman, was shot and killed by a black police officer, Mohamed Noor. While many people — including some Black Lives Matter activists — criticized the shooting, very few defended Noor in the same way they have stood up for police officers in previous incidents. Not many articles focused on nitpicking the lack of information we have to try to weaken the case against the police. There’s been little to no victim blaming. [...]
Ranking victims of police shootings is odd enough, but there are plenty of totally innocent victims of police killings besides Damond. Consider that, in Detroit, police in 2010 killed a sleeping 7-year-old when they stormed her home while looking for her uncle — though this girl, unlike Damond, was poor and black. [...]
The Katrina research is just one example. A 2009 study found that, when looking at images of others in pain, the parts of people’s brains that respond to pain tended to show more activity if the person in the image was of the same race as the participant. Those researchers concluded that their findings “support the view that shared common membership enhances a perceiver’s empathic concerns for others.” Other studies reached similar conclusions. [...]
One 2014 study, for example, found that people view black boys as older and less innocent starting at the age of 10. “Children in most societies are considered to be in a distinct group with characteristics such as innocence and the need for protection,” Phillip Goff, an author of the 2014 study, said in a statement. “Our research found that black boys can be seen as responsible for their actions at an age when white boys still benefit from the assumption that children are essentially innocent.”
Slate: Shifting Current
There are now only 4,000 active fishermen in Scotland, down from 8,000 in 1970. Since 1996, the size of the Scottish fleet has been reduced by more than 219 boats, and where there were once 20 flourishing harbors scattered across its coast, there are now only three. The problem, fishermen say, is the European Union, which has thwarted the British fishing sector since the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy, or CFP, in 1983. Indeed, what has been for years a divided industry, famous for its ruthless competition and infighting, has united behind Britain’s decision to leave the EU. While 60 percent of Scotland’s population voted “Remain” in last year’s Brexit referendum, more than 90 percent of its fishermen did the opposite. [...]
The Common Fisheries Policy was designed to manage all EU waters as a shared resource, giving member-state fleets equal access to fish everywhere; in other words, a French fleet has the same right to fish Scottish waters as a Scottish one. It also aimed to regulate Europe’s fishing activities so that fish stocks were conserved and that fishing, as a trade, was preserved. Its intentions may seem good, but according to most Scottish fishermen, the reality it has created is not. [...]
Despite the fact that the current British government has announced it will leave the London Convention and possibly the CFP, many EU advocates see the move as irrational. For them, the notion of national fish stocks is absurd. Baroness Kathryn Parminter, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat party in the House of Lords, says, “The reality is that fish do not respect borders, so the only way to prevent overfishing is to work in close cooperation with our European neighbors.” [...]
Although the policy’s aim is to conserve fish stocks, most of the species thrown back into the sea are already dead—suffocated, or squashed by the nets. In answer to this, “Fishing for Leave,” Alan Hastings’ group, is arguing for a system in which fishermen would be restricted by time on the sea, not quotas. Within this framework, the skipper would be given a specific number of days in which to fish per month. “This would allow fishermen to keep everything they catch instead of steaming all over the sea catching and throwing away fish, dictated by their quotas,” says Hastings.
Quartz: The world’s first floating wind farm could be a game changer for renewable power
Statoil developed some nifty software that twists the blades of the floating turbine in response to the motions of the wind, waves, and ocean currents. These dynamic blades, along with ballast at the base of the structure, keep the 175-meter tall, 10,000-metric ton turbines (574 feet, 11,00 short tons) upright. The floating structures can operate in water as deep as 1,000 meters.
Statoil has tested the technology for the past six years, and is now ready to deploy it for the first time in a commercial project. The first floating wind turbine has been placed about 20 km (12 miles) off the coast of Peterhead in Scotland. Another four turbines will be added to the farm, which together will generate enough energy to power 20,000 households. The £190 million ($250 million) project is being financed by the UK government’s renewable-energy plan. [...]
Floating wind turbines cannot currently compete with fixed turbines, which have seen their cost plummet by more than 30% since 2012. However, Statoil believes that as floating wind farms are built at scale, they will soon be able to compete with traditional offshore wind turbines without subsidies. A 2015 report (pdf) from the Carbon Trust found 30 concepts under development, with five demonstrated at scale.
Political Critique: President Duda stands up to the ruling party and vetoes two of the laws passed by parliament
There will be a war within the ruling party. Even if he does not move to do so right away, Kaczynski will want to destroy Duda. He has a significant advantage over the president, who lacks a base of support within PiS and has not built up a core constituency or anything that would enable him to seek a second term independent of PiS support. Kaczynski has no use for an independent president, and would in fact find one cumbersome.
A war within the ruling camp may well end up being suicidal. Civil wars have destroyed Kaczynski more than once. That is what happened in the early ’90s, when Kaczynski engaged in a factional struggle against Lech Walesa, and in 2007, when he declared war on his coalition partner. In both instances, he led to his own self-destruction. This is perhaps the beginning of a third such case. PiS appears to be a monolith from the outside, but the party is rife with internal hatreds. Politicians with access to the security services sureveil their party colleagues more often than members of the opposition. If Duda has indeed started a war, other factions within PiS may be quick to turn against each other. The Polish public sphere is filled with former PiS politicians, foremost among them the “third twin,” Ludwik Dorn, who were politically assasinated by Kaczynski, but in the end Kaczynski would always fall victim himself. [...]
read the article
One year since Turkey’s attempted coup. 12 months of arrests, trials and closures of Turkish media
As Cumhuriyet Gazetesi journalists face trial today, we look at the state of Turkey's media. Protests Spread Across Morocco.
Posted by Facebook on July 24, 2017
25 July 2017
UnHerd: Ruth Davidson - Ctrl + Alt + Del. Conservatives must reboot capitalism
In the UK, just 19% of people agree that “the next generation will probably be richer, safer and healthier than the last”. That figure falls to 15% of Germans and 14% of Americans. Markets might work but they aren’t seen to be working for everyone. [...]
And within those eons, we see individual currents and eddies. We are living at the tail end of a transition which started roughly 35 years ago. It’s a transition which has seen Britain gradually migrate from a manufacturing economy to a service-led one. The UK Commission on Employment and Skills shows the changes over the last 20 years in the UK workforce – fewer people in manufacturing, fewer in the skilled trades, fewer secretarial roles; but a great increase in managerial, professional and technical skills. [...]
It is not inequality that bites deepest, but injustice. People expect that the CEO of a corporation will be the highest paid person on the payroll. What they don’t accept is that FTSE 100 bosses are paid 174 times the average worker’s wage in this decade – compared to 13 to 44 times in 1980.
In 2011, YouGov found that 85% of Britons believed that income should depend on how hard someone works or on their talent. But analysis by the Institute of Policy Studies found that of 241 of the highest paid CEOs between 1993 and 2012, nearly 40% were either sacked, their company had to pay significant fraud-related fines and settlements, or their companies required some form of bail out from the state. Instead of bosses being paid for success, a significant minority were handsomely rewarded for failure.
Adam Smith’s diagnosis “when the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters” while blunt, contains a kernel of truth for the present. If business itself has flunked the opportunity to put its house in order following the 2008 crash, then it is time for governments to take the initiative. Reforms of corporate governance, the break-up of monopolies, restrictions on tax avoidance, lowering barriers of entry to market competitors – each of these actions is required and each needs governments to cooperate in order for them to be effective.
Haaretz: This Is Why Arab States Are Conspicuously Silent on Temple Mount Crisis
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu engages in boastful rhetoric about the meetings he holds with Arab leaders – including the recent revelation of a secret meeting five years ago with the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister – he seemingly ignores Islamic forces looking on at these diplomatic moves. The recent tensions over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount make it clear that any diplomatic or security move is also immediately gauged from a perspective that transcends the religious importance of the holy sites.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, like the Kaaba in Mecca and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, is an Islamic site that is inseparable from the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are sites that, when harmed, spark public outrage that can put the regimes in Arab and other Muslim states on a collision course with Islamic movements in their countries.
It also puts them in conflict with a sensitive Muslim public that can delegitimize closer ties between Israel and Arab countries, and places them in conflict with a secular Arab public that views the events as a deliberate attempt by Israel to take over Palestinian sites. [...]
Saudi Arabia, whose king, Salman, did lobby the United States to pressure Israel to reopen the Temple Mount compound to Muslim worshippers, refrained from making statements on the matter – and the silence was not only on the part of senior Saudi officials. It was also impossible to find detailed news reports in Friday’s Saudi press on the sequence of events on the Temple Mount. [...]
These comments contain a hint of a Jordanian expectation of a gesture on Israel’s part that will give the Jordanian monarch ammunition that will convince Abbas to agree to new security arrangements on the Temple Mount. It is possible Netanyahu received similar messages from the Egyptian president.
The Atlantic: The City of the Future Is Already Here
In central Arizona there exists an experimental town called Arcosanti. It’s built on the principles of arcology, which combines architecture and ecology to envision a city that works in tandem with the Earth’s resources. In this short documentary, The Atlantic goes inside this distinctive urban space to understand how Arcosanti plans to reconstruct how humans envision cities.
Politico: Frankfurt touts expertise, not pomp, in battle for Brexiting banks
On Thursday, Citigroup became the latest to announce it will move some of its U.K.-based trading operation to Frankfurt, and the German city expects to welcome staff from 20 banks relocating from London by the end of the year, with nine already committed. Banks like the U.K.’s Standard Chartered and Japanese bank Nomura have already decided to make the city their legal base in the EU and Goldman Sachs has leased additional floors at the top of Frankfurt’s signature MesseTurm, the city’s second-tallest tower. Morgan Stanley will reportedly double its Frankfurt workforce. [...]
Paris has rolled out the red carpet, with promises of tax breaks of up to 50 percent designed to lure London’s high earners across the channel. “Tired of the fog? Try the frogs!” chirped posters promoting Paris’ business district, La Défense. Frankfurt, on the other hand, is letting numbers do the talking, with the city’s marketing arm Frankfurt Main Finance producing listicles setting out “8 reasons to invest in Frankfurt,” touting the city as the “only location worldwide with two central banks (ECB and Deutsche Bundesbank).” [...]
Although the rest of the world was shell-shocked to find that Britain had voted to leave the EU when they awoke on June 24, 2016, the state of Hessen where Frankfurt is located, put up a website the same day to promote the city as the place to be for U.K.-based banks looking for a new home.
Politico: Can Macron avoid the Sarkozy trap?
It is not clear that Macron appreciates the urgency. The government’s labor code reform, for instance, was adopted by the National Assembly on July 13 and awaits a vote in the Senate. Its primary purpose is to change the rigid rules around collective bargaining, bringing in more flexibility.
It should impose a ceiling on redundancy payments and make it easier for multinational companies to terminate employment on economic grounds. Currently, the law requires evidence of poor economic performance, not just from the French branch of a multinational firm but also from its branches in other countries.
But there is a catch. Even if approved by the Senate and signed into law, the new legislation does not actually do any of those things. It merely gives the government the authority to change the relevant areas of the labor code by executive orders, which are to be presented to “social partners” by the end of August. Superficially, the legislation appears to give the executive a strong mandate to proceed with labor market reforms by fiat. However, it also signals that the depth of those reforms is still negotiable. [...]
Such a slow pace is risky. France’s loudest anti-reform trade union, General Confederation of Labour, is already preparing for a day of mobilization on September 12 over the labor market reforms. Given the sluggish schedule, even politicians within Macron’s own party, La République En Marche, are bound to come under pressure to water the reforms down or derail them altogether.
Haaretz: Israeli Police Officers: Decision to Place Metal Detectors at Temple Mount Was Careless
The decision to install metal detectors at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount was careless and taken without a thorough discussion of the matter at the top levels of the force, as had been prior practice on such sensitive matters, senior Israel Police officials said. According to the sources, who were speaking on condition of anonymity, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan also failed to follow a 2014 policy on the use of metal detectors. [...]
Erdan, who supported the introduction of the metal detectors, submitted the police recommendation in favor of the metal detectors to the security cabinet a day after the shooting attack on the Temple Mount. But senior police officials told Haaretz that, prior to the security cabinet meeting, Erdan had only consulted with Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich and with Jerusalem district chief Yoram Halevy, who wanted the metal detectors installed. [...]
Muslim leaders in Israel and abroad argue that the placement of metal detectors at the entrance to the Temple Mount, which Muslims call Haram al-Sharif and which is the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, violates the status quo at the holy site.
24 July 2017
Vox: Want to see what protests can be? Look at what they have been.
The most successful protest movements in history have been the ones that have set their own agendas. Whether abolitionists, women’s suffrage advocates, or civil rights activists, progressive change movements have gained influence by disrupting politics as usual — not by slavishly aligning themselves with electoral parties. [...]
Comparisons to the Tea Party also are of limited utility. Current protesters need not mimic the goals and tactics of the Tea Party, as observers fixated on electoral dividends of activism have recommended. Initially a product of populist anger, the Tea Party evolved into a “grasstops” endeavor funded by Washington lobbyists and think tanks and aligned with the Republican Party. [...]
Current demonstrations are part of a wave of activism that stretches back to the anti-World Trade Organization protests of the 1990s and includes the battle for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and grassroots anger over big bank bailouts that gave rise to the early Tea Party movement. Like these predecessors, the current wave of activism bespeaks many Americans’ sense that electoral politics — and the political process and policies that result from it — are ineffective and, in some instances, rotten to the core. [...]
Because the protests are a byproduct of the popular disdain for politics as we know it, it is perverse to view the new waves of activism only in terms of what they mean for the two major political parties. For many of those who have turned to the streets to protest, the major parties are a part of the problem — not the solution to what ails society.
The Atlantic: The Commodification of Orthodox Judaism
Two perceived qualities of Orthodox Judaism—authenticity and ancientness—are enticing people outside this religious tradition to pay for the chance to sample it. In Israel, secular citizens and foreign visitors willing to fork over $20 to the tour company Israel-2Go can embark on a trip to an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, where they’ll watch men in black hats and women in long skirts buying challah bread from a kosher bakery while a guide narrates the scene. They can also pay to take a tour of the menorahs in Jerusalem’s Old City alleyways during Hanukkah; eat a five-course Friday night Shabbat meal in the home of an observant family; or hear a lecture about the different nuances of the black-and-white garb worn by men from various ultra-Orthodox sects.
In the United States, the rituals of traditional Judaism can be likewise commodified. You can indulge in prepackaged experiences ranging from a pop-up Shabbat dinner to a customized dip in a ritual bath. There is, apparently, a market opportunity in the gap between some people’s desire to interact with a religious tradition on the one hand, and their disinclination to observe life-encompassing codes and rituals on the other. Thus Jews as well as non-Jews can pay to pick up individual rituals, whether to add meaning or just interesting one-off experiences to their lives. [...]
This appetite for Jewish rituals coincides with a growing popular backlash among diaspora and Israeli Jews against recent Israeli government moves that give the Jewish state’s ultra-Orthodox establishment tighter control over religious matters, including conversions and the prayer spaces at Jerusalem’s revered Western Wall. Perhaps individualized interpretations of religion are a response among some of those who chafe at state control over spiritual matters.[...]
“There is a real desire today to do religious stuff in a way that feels integrated into life,” said Danya Shults, who quit her job at a New York venture capital firm last year to found Arq, a company that organizes events and publishes content for anyone looking to connect with Jewish life and culture “in a more relevant, inclusive, and convenient way.” Arq also works with a number of commercial partners, including the wedding-planning startup Zola, for which Shults has handpicked gift registry options “inspired by Jewish culture.”
The Atlantic: Donald Trump's Defenders on the Left
When it comes to possible collusion with Russia, Donald Trump’s most interesting defenders don’t reside on the political right. They reside on the political left. [...]
For left-wing defenders like Max Blumenthal and Glenn Greenwald, by contrast, ideology is king. Blumenthal and Greenwald loathe Trump. But they loathe hawkish foreign policy more. So they minimize Russia’s election meddling to oppose what they see as a new Cold War. [...]
Blumenthal is right that Democrats don’t have “a big economic message.” But that’s not primarily because of the Russia scandal. Parties that are out of power rarely have a clear agenda. It’s hard to develop a clear message when you don’t have a clear leader. Narratives emerge during presidential campaigns. And the early evidence is that the progressive themes Bernie Sanders pushed last year—single-payer health care, free college tuition, a $15 minimum wage—will carry more weight inside the Democratic Party in 2020 than they did in 2016. [...]
But the problem with downplaying Russian election meddling because you’re afraid it will fuel militarism is that it evades the central question: How worrisome is the meddling itself? When it comes to Russian’s interference in the 2016 election, progressives like Blumenthal are behaving the way many conservatives behave on climate change. Conservatives fear that progressives will use climate change to impose new regulations on the economy. And because they oppose the solution, they claim there’s no problem. [...]
Blumenthal and Greenwald have an ideological problem. On foreign policy, they are anti-interventionists, or what Walter Russell Mead calls “Jeffersonians.” They believe that America’s empire threatens not only peace and justice abroad, but liberty at home. They want the United States to stop defending its “imperial” borders in Eastern Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East, because they believe such efforts cost Americans money, cost American lives, and create a pretext for surveillance that makes Americans less free.
Al Jazeera: How will Qatar-Gulf crisis shape the region's economy?
The ongoing crisis between Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states has seemingly posed a new version of the same question: whether wealthy states with major economic disincentives could nevertheless engage in a debilitating conflict with each other. In looking at the Saudi-led group's isolation of Qatar, a reinvigorated Friedman may even suggest that no two countries with a Four Seasons have ever gone to war. [...]
After sponsoring the 2013 military coup that toppled the presidency of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi in Egypt, the Saudi, Emirati and Kuwaiti governments offered a staggering $23bn to keep the regime of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi afloat during its turbulent first 18 months. The $1.7bn in aid that the United States provides Egypt each year, which is so often invoked as a lever of influence on Egypt's rulers, pales in comparison to the unprecedented level of assistance provided by Sisi's Gulf sponsors. Predictably, Egypt was the first non-GCC country to join the boycott of Qatar. [...]
But this is not the first time that these governments have placed their political agenda above their economic interests. In responding to the global collapse in the price of oil in 2014, Saudi Arabia made the calculated decision not to cut its production levels, though that would mean diminished revenues. [...]
Perhaps these regimes simply look upon these policies as sunk costs in a battle to impose a singular vision for the future of the Arab region. Or maybe they are part of a long-term investment strategy expected to reap future rewards when neighbouring states come into the fold of Saudi hegemony. In either case, the longer that this crisis drags on, the less likely it is that the economic arrangements that have long defined relations within the GCC can be restored.
Haaretz: Temple Mount Crisis: Fears of Political Rivals Led Netanyahu to Make a Grave Error
Given his responsible conduct in the first hours following the attack, it’s puzzling how 24 hours later he committed such a grave error in the rushed decision last Saturday to install metal detectors at all the entrances to the compound. After 24 hours in which he seemingly prevented an escalation, that decision reversed the trend and greatly exacerbated tensions, leading to the explosion which erupted over the weekend. [...]
Netanyahu’s mistake was not just in installing the detectors, but mainly in the decision-making process that preceded it. Even though he knows very well that the Temple Mount was the most volatile point in the Middle East, if not in the entire world, he elected that evening to deal with a complex, strategic topic based on tactical security considerations. All complexities were set aside, and the issue boiled down to metal detectors.
Netanyahu’s miscalculation in that discussion and in setting up those detectors put him in an impossible bind. When it turned out that this move was meeting stiff opposition, the government was left with no good solutions, stuck between a rock and a hard place. If it were to remove the detectors, this would be interpreted as weakness, showing it capitulating to threats and admitting that it does not truly have sovereignty over the Temple Mount. If it left the detectors in place, it could find itself sliding towards a violent eruption in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and a crisis with the entire Muslim world. [...]
In both cases the reason is the same – his worries about political rivals on his right. Netanyahu found himself in a government without a token leftist such as Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni or Moshe Ya’alon whom he could count on to block dangerous moves and then draw fire from the settlers’ lobby in the cabinet, the Knesset and the media.
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