Spiegel: Would-Be Reformer Saakashvili Cast Out of Ukraine

It soon became apparent, however, that political will in Ukraine wasn't quite so black and white. The new president was no rose revolutionary or staunch reformist, and he wasn't elected with 96 percent of the vote as Saakashvili had been in 2004. Poroshenko was a politician and businessman, a classic product of Ukraine's oligarchic system, in which every major business leader is also involved in politics. [...]

Saakashvili built a new, transparent customs terminal (which never went into operation), established a citizens' office (which had to close again temporarily) and tore down fences that had been illegally set up on beaches (they were put up again). He reduced the size of the civil service and sent armed investigators to the state-owned chemical plant OPZ. [...]

The real reason for the rift remains unclear. Saakashvili says that he had a long argument with Poroshenko during a March meeting in Malta. According to Saakashvili, Poroshenko demanded that he behave himself and stick to the rules, insisting that he criticize others and not just Poroshenko himself - and that if he did so, he could continue his career in Ukrainian politics and would get a seat in parliament. If he did not, though, according to Saakashvili's account, Poroshenko said "individual measures" would be taken, though he failed to elaborate.

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Vox: I've studied the history of Confederate memorials. Here's what to do about them.

But the story of the monuments is even stranger than many people realize. Few if any of the monuments went through any of the approval procedures that we now commonly apply to public art. Typically, groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), which claimed to represent local community sentiment (whether they did or did not), funded, erected, and dedicated the monuments. As a consequence, contemporaries, especially African Americans, who objected to the erection of monuments had no realistic opportunity to voice their opposition. [...]

A smaller number of monuments, like the one recently toppled in Durham, were indeed funded with public money — but an asterisk must be attached to the word “public.” In 1922, Confederate veterans in Durham persuaded the state legislature to allocate $5,000 of county taxes to fund the monument. No one asked black residents, who were denied the right to vote by Jim Crow laws, whether they supported spending their tax dollars on this public, political statement. [...]

It is hardly coincidence that the cluttering of the state’s landscape with Confederate monuments coincided with two major national cultural projects: first, the “reconciliation” of the North and the South, and second, the imposition of Jim Crow and white supremacy in the South. As part of the process of national reconciliation, white Northerners agreed to tolerate the commemoration of Confederates, and they contributed both moral support and funds to the veneration of a few Confederate figures in particular, especially Robert E. Lee. [...]

During the dedication speech, Carr praised Confederate soldiers not just for their wartime valor but also for their defense “of the Anglo Saxon race during the four years after the war” when “their courage and steadfastness saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the South.” The “four years after the war” was a clear reference to the period in which the Ku Klux Klan, a white paramilitary organization terrorized blacks and white Republicans who threatened the traditional white hierarchy in the state. Then he boasted that “one hundred yards from where we stand” — and within months of Lee’s 1865 surrender — “I horse whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds because she had maligned and insulted a Southern lady.”

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Politico: Why Bannon lost and the globalists won

In an alternate timeline, Bannon could have encouraged Trump to avoid such racially divisive matters in his first week, as well as steer clear of the always politically treacherous health care debate, and put all his weight behind that trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. Top Democrats had been signaling to Trump since the election that they were open to an infrastructure deal, which need not violate their ideological principles. If there was any chance to erase the old partisan lines and start the new administration with a policy win, this was it. But Bannon apparently didn’t try or wasn’t able to stop Republicans from placing the ill-fated Obamacare repeal at the top of the domestic policy agenda. [...]

Bannon was clearly enamored of proposals that challenged partisan orthodoxy, such as when he floated a new 44 percent top tax rate for incomes above $5 million. But he had no capacity to follow through. His trial balloons were laughed off by conservatives, and his association with the “alt-right” made him a toxic negotiating partner for the left. Bannon’s nemesis, economic adviser Gary Cohn, meanwhile, built up a relatively competent team that ran circles around the poorly staffed former Breitbart chairman. [...]

Bannon crowed this week that “identity politics” is a loser for Democrats. But his own obsession with identity led him to shelve infrastructure in favor of the travel ban, and arguably racial grievance among whites also fueled the passion to repeal Obamacare. The focus on playing to the white conservative base culminated in Trump’s rationalizing the violent behavior of white supremacists and seeking the protection of Confederate war memorials. All this has poisoned the well. Trump is now irredeemable in the minds of most Democrats and most nonwhite voters, no matter what he offers on infrastructure, trade or taxes.

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CrashCourse: The Apocalyspe: Crash Course World Mythology #23

Mike Rugnetta is going to tell you stories of death, destruction, divine judgment, damnation, and the occasional happy ending. That's right, this week we're talking about the Apocalypse. Actually we're talking about a bunch of ways the world could end. Prepare for stories of the end times from Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam! It's the (mostly) Abrahamic Apocalypses on Crash Course World Mythology.

The Conversation: Why tourists go to sites associated with death and suffering

This then is what is referred to as “dark tourism.” It involves traveling to sites associated with death, natural disaster, acts of violence, tragedy and crimes against humanity. It could also include travel to dangerous political hotspots. 

While data about the number of people embarking on dark tourism are not readily available, there are indications that it is becoming more popular. Over the past 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of peer-reviewed articles on dark tourism. From 1996 through 2010, between three and seven papers appeared annually; from 2011 to 2016, that number increased to between 14 and 25. My own Google search of “dark tourism” yielded nearly four million hits.

Some scholars have argued that dark tourism is akin to voyerism: that is, fulfilling a desire for the forbidden. Other researchers though have found little evidence that people are interested in death per se. A commonly reported motive seems to be learning about past events, a curiosity that drives an interest in such sites.[...]

The question that emerges then is whether it is ethical to promote a repressive regime that is repeatedly cited for human rights violations. This question is germane to all tourist locations that have questionable human rights records, from China to Hungary. [...]

Indeed, the atmosphere at the Auschwitz museum cafe may appear to be Disneyland-like, with visitors casually resting over their cups of coffee or ice creams. In fact, however, it is the attitude or intent of the visitor that ultimately determines dark tourism’s presence.

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FiveThirtyEight: Bannon May Be Out, But Nationalism Probably Isn’t

More than a decade before he was the president, Trump complained that the U.S. was being ripped off in trade deals, and now, he is pushing his administration to reconsider such agreements. He was touting his proposal for a border wall well before Bannon formally joined the Trump presidential campaign. In office, Trump praised John Kelly’s work as homeland security secretary in deporting undocumented immigrants and then promoted Kelly to chief of staff. In a 2011 interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Trump said that there was a “Muslim problem” and that the Quran “teaches some very negative vibe.” It’s not clear if Bannon urged Trump to make remarks this week suggesting that white supremacists were on an equal moral footing with people protesting racial injustice. But Trump made racially charged comments before Bannon started working for him, most notably his repeated (and false) claims that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. [...]

So will Bannon’s exit change anything? Well, the administration’s internal feuds could be less tense and less public. Bannon and his allies viewed themselves as advancing the true views of the president while arguing that other members of the administration were trying to impose establishment views on Trump. That fight often played out in public. Bannon-aligned staffers on the National Security Council, for example, were allegedly the unnamed sources behind stories that attacked national security adviser H.R. McMaster. Several of those aides were pushed out a few weeks ago. Bannon aide Sebastian Gorka has issued statements on foreign policy that contradicted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s views. Gorka is rumored to be on the way out as well. Bannon himself gave a long interview to The American Prospect in which he publicly disagreed with the administration’s North Korea policy. He is now gone. [...]

That said, even with Bannon out, Trump’s administration still includes at least seven power centers. (Virtually all the staffers who were aligned with Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, have departed, effectively eliminating the “Party Wing” of the White House. I think the Bannon Wing remains, even if its namesake is gone.) Trump’s administration contains a weird mix of strong conservatives (the wing led by Vice President Mike Pence), Wall Street types (White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn), foreign policy hawks (Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley) and his family members (Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump). These groups disagree with one another (Kushner and Ivanka Trump are less conservative on issues like abortion and LGBT rights than is Pence, for instance) and with Trump (his foreign policy team is much more skeptical of Russia than the president is). The federal bureaucracy is likely to remain in some tension with Trump, and figures like Kelly and Tillerson still have powerful jobs, even if they don’t fit into an obvious wing.

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CityLab: Can Murals Change a Neighborhood?

The work began last year when Groundswell, in partnership with the NYC Department of Probation and the Pitkin Avenue Business Improvement District, won a National Endowment for the Arts grant of  $100,000 for “Transform/Restore: Brownsville.” The two-year project will ultimately create five new murals in Brownsville, enlisting crews of young people to come up with the concepts for the art, design the murals to fit the allotted spaces, and then make them a reality. Some of the youth, who work under the supervision of Groundswell artists, are on probation, while others are Groundswell veterans who were originally referred to the program by teachers or community organizations. About 40 probationers will be involved by project’s end.

The goal: to beautify the neighborhood with art that has meaning for the community, while at the same time employing and engaging young New Yorkers and giving them a constructive environment in which to express themselves. [...]

The arts, he believes, can be a great avenue for that, and projects like the Groundswell murals can have a special power. The walls are all donated by local businesses that have a very real stake in seeing the young people who work on them succeed. “We try to re-engage our clients with the natural community controls that are going to be out there the rest of their lives,” said Schiraldi. “Now that businessman doesn’t just see them as a scary person in a North Face jacket. Maybe he’ll hire them.” [...]

As with any large-scale collaborative effort, creating the murals has hit some bumps along the way. The logistics of finding adequate work space over the winter were tough, and there were some creative differences as well. That’s all part of it. "It’s an intense process,” says Dougher, looking up at the finished piece. “An entirely rewarding process.”

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Vox: Steve Bannon believed in Trumpism. Donald Trump doesn’t.

White House staff, congressional Republicans, military leaders, and executive branch officials are increasingly confident simply ignoring President Trump. After Trump tweeted that he wanted the military to ban transgender service members from serving, for instance, the Pentagon quickly said that it had not received an official order and was going to carry on with business as usual until it did. Similarly, after Trump tweeted his threats at North Korea, the key organs of American foreign policymaking — the State Department, the Defense Department, and so on — were quick to declare that nothing had changed, there was no military buildup or new red lines, and everyone should just ignore the commander in chief’s morning outburst. [...]

Trump could react to all this with fury. He could elevate aides, like Bannon, who are committed to his ideological agenda and invested in reshaping the federal government around his vision, and fire Cabinet officials and top staffers who seem to be using his administration to drive their agendas. But he isn’t. [...]

This doesn’t make much sense unless you buy Hayes’s theory of Trump’s presidency: that we’re watching a president who wants to comment on his own presidency without actually driving its agenda or being held accountable for anything he says. Having someone like Bannon running around demanding the federal government conform to Trump’s campaign promises and forcing Trump himself to step in and resolve angry disputes is contrary to that vision.

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