The Conversation: Christianity does not play a significant role in Australian politics, but cultural conservatism does

Debates about same-sex marriage and Catholic school funding suggest that religion plays an important role in Australian politics. But Australian political religion functions largely as an expression of a general cultural conservatism and institutional self-interest, rather than as an expression of personal religious faith. [...]

At the 2011 Australian Census, 61% of respondents identified as Christians. Despite this, the 2011 National Church Life Survey found that only one in four of these claimed to attend church at least once a month.

The most popular form of “Christian” politics in Australia is instead a general cultural conservatism that is defined very much in negative terms: opposition to Islam and political correctness, and the view that being Christian is important to being Australian.

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Haaretz: U.S. Withdrawal From Paris Accord Exposes Ivanka Trump's Lack of Influence

Ivanka Trump's absence from the "ceremony" marking President Donald Trump's rejection of the Paris deal was highly symbolic. In recent months, ever since the elder Trump's election victory, the media has been portraying his oldest daughter as a strong, moderating influence within the administration, working hard for causes that the president isn't affiliated with, such as women's health, gay rights and above all, efforts to stop global warming. Those reports became completely irrelevant on Thursday. Whatever influence Ivanka Trump might have had on her father, it turned out to be useless and ineffective at the moment when it mattered the most. [...]

These choices mean that the press can examine her effectiveness as an adviser and a “presidential whisperer” just like it does with so many other people surrounding Trump, from White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon to his national security advisor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster. And upon such examination, it becomes clear that Ivanka Trump has had very little influence so far on the policy decisions that are supposedly most important to her. This was already apparent with the president's health care plan, and it became even clearer on Thursday with his decision to quit the international battle against global warming. [...]

Politico, one of the news organizations that in the past ran articles about Ivanka Trump’s supposed role as a “climate czar” in the Trump administration, declared in a headline on Thursday that the president’s daughter has decided to “move on” following her defeat on the Paris deal. Right after Shavuot, Ms. Trump proved the item correct when she published a tweet on a subject that had nothing to do with the main headlines of the day: her support for the LGBT community.

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Vox: How bicycles boosted the women's rights movement

Susan B. Anthony said that the bicycle did "more to emancipate women than anything else in the world."

ArguingFromIgnorance: UK Election 2017 — Part 1 — Why Is There Another Election?

Politico: We’ve Always Been America First

Reading this op-ed in light of the Paris decision, it is hard to see much daylight between competing camps in the White House. The current administration has decided to approach the world purely on the basis of self-interest, and in that sense, the White House today has more in common with a stark, simple version of 19th century realism than it does with the more complicated, multifaceted diplomacy that has characterized the 70 years since the end of World War II. It represents a repudiation not just of Barack Obama but of decades of America genuflecting in the direction of “the community of nations” and peace through global institutions, such as the United Nations and multilateral alliances such as NATO. [...]

In fact, U.S. foreign policy since the middle of the 20th century has been characterized at best by a powerful tension between naked self-interest, idealism and retreat from the world. America as a global leader is almost entirely a product of World War II and the economic and political system established in 1945, anchored by the United Nations and the Bretton Woods economic framework that led to the dollar as a global reserve currency. Before then, the United States was at best ambivalent about “entangling alliances” (George Washington’s warning at the end of the 18th century) and entering into any long-term global commitments. The U.S. entered World War I only reluctantly, did not sign on to the League of Nations treaty it helped craft, then retreated from global affairs until forced to confront the challenge of Germany and Japan in the late 1930s.

Americans’ widespread belief that theirs is a special country, an “indispensable nation” as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright liked to say, was a powerful strain of U.S. policy in the second half of the 20th century, especially in the arena of human rights. Yet, it is simply wrong to think that the U.S. ever pursued a foreign policy rooted primarily in that idealism. Yes, the United States led the way to craft numerous multilateral institutions, but most of those served America quite well and did not always serve others quite so nicely. The economic system championed by the United States has undoubtedly been a major cause of greater global affluence and economic flourishing, but in pure power politics, the U.S. has been closer in spirit to what McMaster and Cohn wrote. [...]

But Americans’ embrace of that community has always been more cynical than we like to admit. Much of the U.S. foreign policy establishment signed on the idea that when it came to idealism about working collectively with other countries to preserve the global order, that was fine if it worked and was to be jettisoned if it did not. As the late Richard Holbrooke said (though he did not coin the phrase), the basic tenet from FDR onward was: “Multilateral if we can; unilateral is we must.” Not as blunt as America First, for sure, but not so far from it.

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The New Yorker: How Climate Change Saved Steve Bannon's Job

Trump himself strongly suggested, in mid-April, that Bannon’s White House service was approaching its end. He told the Wall Street Journal that Bannon was simply “a guy who works for me.” When the New York Post asked Trump if he “still has confidence in Bannon,” Trump declined to say yes. “I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” the President told the newspaper. “I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist, and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary.”

The roots of Bannon’s alleged demise were the long-running battle he was waging with the so-called “globalist” faction in the White House, led by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kusher. For the past two years, one rule has defined Trumpland: if you cross Kushner or his wife, Ivanka Trump, you get fired. That’s how Bannon got his job in the first place. Kushner ousted Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who was replaced by Paul Manafort. Eventually, Manafort lost Kushner’s confidence and was replaced by the team of Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, who were strongly backed by the Mercers. “When Corey was leaking bad stuff about Jared: bye, bye, Corey Lewandowski,” the Trump adviser said. “So Steve is leaking bad stuff about Jared: bye, bye, Steve Bannon.” [...]

On the climate accord, Kushner and Ivanka hardly had a chance. Bannon’s nationalism, especially when it comes to trade and immigration, is still not widely supported in the Republican establishment and conservative donor class. But when Bannon’s views line up with those of Republican leaders and donors—not to mention those of Trump—he almost always prevails. If Trump had taken the less extreme course on climate advised by his daughter and son-in-law, he would have been breaking a campaign promise and going against the wishes of the entire G.O.P. leadership. In addition, Trump, who knows little about policy, is famously narcissistic, and, easily influenced by personal slights, reportedly was perturbed by a remark from Emmanuel Macron, the French President, who said he intentionally made a show of forcefully shaking Trump’s hand at the recent G7 summit. Trump also reportedly believed that angering Europe was a “secondary benefit” of pulling out of the accord.

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openDemocracy: “I never thought to come in Europe”: unpacking the myths of Europe’s ‘migration crisis’

As people on the move continue to make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea, and as EU-Turkey relations face imminent meltdown, fears of a European Union ‘flooded’ with desperate refugees and with migrants seeking a better life continue to abound. A key assumption driving this fear is that Europe serves as a place of destination for large swathes of displaced populations.However, research documented in a new report by the project Crossing the Mediterranean Sea by Boat indicates that this assumption is a myth.

Written by researchers from the Universities of Warwick and Malta and the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, the report is based on 257 in-depth qualitative interviews conducted across two periods and two migratory routes. Interviews were first carried out in Kos, Malta and Sicily from September-November 2015 (with additional interviews in Malta until March 2016), and subsequently in Athens, Bern, Istanbul and Rome from May-July 2016. [...]

In sum, rather than ‘destination Europe’ being a ‘pull factor’ as is so often assumed in political and public debates about the European ‘migration crisis’, our research indicates that if we want to understand why people on the move are willing to risk their lives in unsafe boats heading for Europe, much more attention needs to be paid to the drivers of flight and the protections that these demand. [...]

What this woman’s story indicates is that we need a different language from that of ‘mixed migration flows’, which implies that people who flee for differing reasons come together along the same migratory routes. Instead, a language of intersecting drivers of flight is more appropriate in clarifying how individual migratory journeys result from multiple cross-cutting drivers, which render people precarious in ways that compound one another over time. The challenge, then, is how to respond to such a complex challenge most effectively.

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Al Jazeera: Muammar Putin at the Versailles

Perhaps trying to add an air of importance to Putin's visit, Russian TV channel RT shared the following curious detail: "Receptions in Versailles are very rare. For example, Nicolas Sarkozy received a guest at the royal palace only once. That was the famous visit of Muammar Gaddafi in 2007."

Whether it was just a coincidence or smart political trolling, Macron's decision to meet with Putin in Versailles is indeed important, at the very least it provides for a pertinent analogy to be drawn.

A dictator from an oil-producing nation falls out with the West after a passenger airliner is taken down. As a result, he faces international sanctions, starts experiencing economic problems, and heightens anti-Western propaganda. Both Putin and Gaddafi walked that path. In Gaddafi's case, we know the end of the story, in Putin's case - we don't yet. [...]

In other words, it doesn't seem that Putin met a friend in Paris - as was the case with Jacques Chirac. He wasn't even meeting a partner, which is what Sarkozy was, to some extent. Macron was harder on Putin than Francois Hollande was, Hollande supported the sanctions but would hardly have allowed himself such candour in Putin's presence.

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