openDemocracy: What can and can’t be said about the Russian revolution

Then there is the very different perspective of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which is a very important institution: in terms of public trust it comes in at fourth place, after the president, the FSB and the army. The ROC regards the October Revolution as an unmitigated tragedy: for it, 1917 was the starting date for its persecution, the repression of believers and murder of Russia’s first “new martyrs”, Orthodox priests who were executed. The ROC has also canonised Russia’s last Tsar, Nicolas II, and his family as “new martyrs”. [...]

But then 2017, the 100th anniversary, came around. You need to talk about it somehow. Putin is not a big fan of the early Bolsheviks. He has admitted this two or three times in passing, as something of slight importance. The Bolsheviks came to power because of the weakness of the Tsarist state; they were instrumental in its downfall, a fact that flies in the face of Putin’s perception of the crucial importance of strong state in Russia. But politically, Putin needs the support of both the communists and the ROC. [...]

Of course, we can’t remain at Soviet positions. The Soviet period is inseparably linked to the Revolution that spawned it. It was a period of totalitarianism, when the people had one unalterable truth dictated to them from “above”. For Putin, revolution is unacceptable. He is an anti-revolutionary leader: the idea that a popular uprising might overthrow the government is an absolutely unthinkable historical construct, exacerbated by the recent “colour” revolutions which he believes were inspired by the west. To contend, however, that the revolution was a manifestation of evil, a catastrophe, as the ROC sees it, is also impossible, because you then have to decide how to view the rest of the Soviet period, the “good”, acceptable USSR. If you start to formulate all this clearly, you leave yourself very little room for manoeuvre. This is why Putin, the current regime, has one option — not to articulate anything. [...]

Of course, as an individual, a person with my own ideas about the Russia in which I live and the Soviet Union in which I used to live, I would like society to come to at least some kind of consensus on condemning Communist terror. Today, it seems that the authorities are talking about this: this year has seen the opening of a monument to victims of the Great Terror at Butovo, outside Moscow, where mass shootings took place in 1937-8. Another monument, created on the order of Putin himself, was unveiled on Moscow’s Andrei Sakharov Avenue on 30 October, the memorial day for victims of political repression. The president was present at the unveiling and spoke again of overcoming the national split, reconciliation and mutual forgiveness. But this memorial, this immortalisation is much more modest in scope. [...]

It is a principle with Putin — and one formulated very succinctly, deftly and conceptually in his 1999 article “Russia at the turn of the Millennium” — that in Russia the most important organising principle is state power. This doesn’t apply in all countries: not everyone has a need for such a powerful centralised system of government, but for Russia, there is no alternative. And that power, strength and might must never be allowed to weaken. This is the criticism Putin throws at the Bolsheviks. He hasn’t made a big deal of it but he has talked about it and in particular about Russia withdrawing from the First World War in 1917. It was, he contends, unforgivable to admit defeat. Russia had a chance to be among the victors: but the Brest-Litovsk peace represented a surrender of positions and a voluntary admittance of defeat in a world war.

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The Guardian: Russia funded Facebook and Twitter investments through Kushner associate

Milner disputes that he is an associate of Kushner. He said he had invested in Kushner’s business purely for commercial reasons. He said they had met only once, over cocktails in the US last year. “I’m not involved in any political activity. I’m not funding any political activity,” said Milner. [...]

Vanessa Chan, a spokeswoman for Facebook, said the investment backed by Gazprom Investholding had been sold five years ago, after Facebook went public. Chan said Facebook “rejected the notion of a lack of due diligence” being done on its investors. A Twitter spokesperson said: “As a matter of policy Twitter conducted reviews of all pre-IPO investors.”  [...]

It is unclear if Moscow saw a political interest in funding stakes in Facebook and Twitter, or if the acquisitions were only intended to make money. Sources familiar with the situation told the Guardian that Facebook had carried out a discreet internal review of Russian investments before its IPO in 2012, and that the review was unable to draw firm conclusions. [...]

Milner in 2015 contributed $850,000 from his family trust to a $50m investment in Cadre, a New-York-based company that Kushner co-founded in 2014 with his brother, Joshua, and a friend of theirs from Harvard. The startup, which the Kushners claim is worth $800m, is based around an online marketplace where wealthy financiers can club together to invest in properties.

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Quartz: Would the world be more peaceful if there were more women leaders?

But these examples are anecdotal because, throughout history, women leaders have been extremely rare. Between 1950 and 2004, according to data compiled by Katherine W. Phillips, professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia Business School, just 48 national leaders across 188 countries—fewer than 4% of all leaders—have been female. They included 18 presidents and 30 prime ministers. Two countries, Ecuador and Madagascar, had a woman leader, each of whom served for a mere two days before being replaced by a man. [...]

The fear of appearing weak affects modern women leaders too, according to Caprioli, perhaps causing them to over-compensate on issues of security and defense. She notes that women who emulate men, such as Thatcher, Meir, and India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi (1980-84)—who claimed to be a ‘biform human being’, neither man nor woman—are more likely to succeed as political leaders. They must also contend with negative stereotypes from male opponents: For example, Yahya Khan, former president of Pakistan (1969-71), said that he would have responded less violently toward Indira Gandhi during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War if India had had a male leader. “If that woman [Gandhi] thinks she can cow me down, I refuse to take it,” he said. [...]

States are also more likely to achieve lasting peace post-conflict when women are invited to the negotiating table. Although the number of women included in peace talks is minuscule (a United Nations study found that just 2.4% of mediators and 9% of negotiators are women, and just 4% of the signatories of 31 peace processes), the inclusion of women can make a profound difference. Peace is more likely to endure: An analysis by the US non-profit Inclusive Security of 182 signed peace agreements between 1989 and 2011 found that an agreement is 35% more likely to last at least 15 years if women are included as negotiators, mediators, and signatories.

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Nerdwriter1: When Did Time Travel Come From?

BBC4 In Our Time: Kant's Categorical Imperative

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, in the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) sought to define the difference between right and wrong by applying reason, looking at the intention behind actions rather than at consequences. He was inspired to find moral laws by natural philosophers such as Newton and Leibniz, who had used reason rather than emotion to analyse the world around them and had identified laws of nature. Kant argued that when someone was doing the right thing, that person was doing what was the universal law for everyone, a formulation that has been influential on moral philosophy ever since and is known as the Categorical Imperative. Arguably even more influential was one of his reformulations, echoed in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which he asserted that humanity has a value of an entirely different kind from that placed on commodities. Kant argued that simply existing as a human being was valuable in itself, so that every human owed moral responsibilities to other humans and was owed responsibilities in turn.

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Politico: Fast forward to two-speed Europe

It won’t be easy, of course. The French president has plenty of opponents. Traditional federalists want to use the departure of the foot-dragging Brits to push remaining EU members closer together. They worry that too much “variable geometry” will weaken EU institutions, a new report by the Centre for European Reform has found. Meanwhile, Euroskeptic Central Europeans — including Poland’s ruling party — worry that in a Europe of “concentric circles” the dominant eurozone countries will treat those on the outer tiers as second-class citizens.

But despite these challenges, current political trends make it likely the EU will move toward Macron’s model. The French president has found a powerful partner in German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with whom he is preparing new initiatives on eurozone governance. These are likely to help further integrate the monetary union and create new eurozone institutions, including its own budget and system of parliamentary scrutiny.

Brexit is also pushing the EU in the direction of more flexibility, as a number of governments draw the lesson that the EU should try harder to accommodate different objectives and priorities among its members. Italian ministers, for example, reckon that it isn’t realistic to expect that every EU country will want to sign up to the same policies.  [...]

The same is true when it comes to the EU’s approach to its neighbors. Brussels has offered countries to the east and south too little incentive for entering its orbit. The EU should give selected neighbors that are unlikely to become full-fledged members the chance to take part in specific policies. Just as Turkey has a customs union with the bloc, Tunisia or Ukraine, say, could join parts of the single market or discussions on foreign policy.

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Politico: What the hell just happened in Saudi Arabia?

It is unlikely that the detentions are linked to any struggle for power within the royal family, as Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to prominence was sealed by his appointment as crown prince in place of his older and more experienced cousin, Mohammed bin Nayef, in June. One of Mohammed bin Salman’s first acts as the heir apparent was to transfer all the internal security functions away from the Ministry of Interior into a newly formed Presidency of State Security that answered directly to him and his father, King Salman. This removed from the security landscape one of the two entities that together with the Ministry of Defense (which Mohammed bin Salman has headed since January 2015) wielded coercive force in Saudi Arabia; the other was the National Guard, controlled since 1962 by Prince (later King) Abdullah and since 2011 by his son, Miteb, and regarded as an elite force that would quell any internal unrest in the kingdom. Mohammed bin Salman has an opportunity to unify, for the first time, the hitherto-disparate military and security structures in Saudi Arabia, and strengthen further his grip on power.

It’s a typically bold move for a crown prince who has made such sweeping strokes the hallmark of his swift rise. And yet, the concentration of such authority in one individual may unravel the careful mixture of consensus and balancing among competing interests within both the royal family and Saudi society at large. Since the creation of the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 and especially after the rise of Crown Prince (later King) Faisal in the 1960s, the royal family has sought a pragmatic and gradualist approach to social and political change. This helped to cushion the impact of economic modernization and guide the kingdom through periods of great internal strain, such as the 1979 takeover of the Grand Mosque and the post-2003 terrorist campaign by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. They also represented a pragmatic acknowledgment of the multiple centers of gravity within the royal family, which acted as a check on the unconstrained exercise of power by any one individual. [...]

For President Donald Trump and his inner circle, who have cultivated close relations with Mohammed bin Salman since taking office in January, efforts are likely to redouble to persuade the Saudis to float the 5 percent of Aramco on the New York Stock Exchange. However, a more immediate outcome may be that Mohammed bin Salman uses his consolidated authority to escalate further the war in Yemen and — in his response to a missile launched by Houthi rebels that was intercepted over Riyadh — move dangerously close to outright military confrontation with Iran.

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The Conversation:

But have you ever considered the environmental impact of your favourite sneakers? From materials to manufacturing, they have a hidden cost – but it is possible to find shoes that don’t cost the Earth.

While little research has been done on the environmental impact of fashion, one study has found that the production of a pair of running shoes emits 13kg of carbon dioxide. The production of the materials involved, including leather, nylon, synthetic rubber, plastic and viscose, also takes an environmental toll.  [...]

Where the shoes are made is also a factor. Overwhelmingly, the world’s sneakers come from China: in 2016 they represented 76.8% of the the global footwear manufacturing market. China’s factories are largely reliant on fossil fuels, increasing their environmental impact. [...]

Finally, the majority of leather is cowhide, which has a large environmental impact. The beef industry is the largest driver of deforestation globally. It is responsible for 65% of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock. [...]

The best way to reduce the environmental cost of your sneakers is to hang onto them for as long as you can (fortunately, white sneakers are a classic look).

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Vox:One map that puts America's gun violence epidemic in perspective (Oct 2, 2017)

The United States owns way, way more guns per capita than the rest of the world. And the best research on gun violence suggests that's probably contributing to our homicide problem — as exemplified by Sunday's horrific shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. 

Here's a map of firearm ownership around the world, using 2012 data compiled by the Guardian. The United States has nearly twice as many guns per 100 people as the next closest country, Yemen — 88.8 guns per 100 as opposed to 54.8 in Yemen:

Now, gun ownership doesn't translate directly to more homicides. For instance, the United States has more than 12 times as many guns per person as Honduras, but the 2012 US gun homicide rate per 100,000 people (2.97) is 1/22 of Honduras's (68.43). That's because while guns make murder easier, internal instability or weak governance, or especially a recent history of internal conflict, can also contribute to this sort of violence. [...]

Interestingly, these results tended to hold true even when you exclude the United States and its super-high homicide and gun-ownership rates. "More guns are associated with more homicides across industrialized countries," Hemenway and Miller conclude. Another study, by Berkeley's Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins, found that the US has crime rates comparable to those in similarly developed countries, but much higher rates of lethal violence — owing in significant part to our high rates of gun ownership.

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