The concluding episode in our series, Seeing White. An exploration of solutions and responses to America’s deep history of white supremacy by host John Biewen, with Chenjerai Kumanyika, Robin DiAngelo, and William “Sandy” Darity, Jr.
31 May 2018
The Guardian: Italy is facing regime change. The future will be repressive
That talks have now collapsed hardly dissipates the danger. On the contrary, the very fact that these populisms have struck hard at the constitutional powers of the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, shows how determined they are to upend the country’s institutional setup. With new elections, probably in the autumn, the populists are likely to emerge even stronger. But for now Italy is set to be led by a transition government – with no majority.
Both populisms raked up support with Europhobic slogans and concepts of a revolt of “the people” against the “elites” – all in the name of an imaginary “direct democracy”. One is the Five Star movement, founded by the comedian Beppe Grillo alongside a prophet of web-based democracy, Roberto Casaleggio. The other is Matteo Salvini’s League – no longer a secessionist party of the north but a far-right party that expresses sympathy for the regimes in Russia and North Korea. [...]
This Italian “double populism” will not renounce its programme, which aims to control the government through a sort of politburo known as the “conciliation committee”, placed wholly under the control of Five Star and the League. It aims to neutralise parliament by making it impossible for lawmakers to switch parties – whereas the freedom of MPs to do so is written into the constitution. Unpopular laws would be submitted to a sort of screening by referendum; the same would apply to international treaties, and therefore to all the steps that Italy has taken to be part of the EU and the eurozone – even though backtracking on treaties is forbidden by article 75 of the constitution. [...]
The contortions of both parties paved the way for populism. The Democratic party proved unable to move on from Renzi’s leadership, despite a long series of defeats – not least a crushing one in the 2016 referendum on wide-ranging constitutional reform. Forza Italia and the moderate centre-right are tied to the ailing but still hegemonic figure of Berlusconi. On top of that, both mainstream parties did nothing during the campaign but imitate the themes, proposals and styles of the populists, instead of pushing back against them.
The Atlantic: Why Trump Hasn’t Fired Sessions (APR 13, 2018 )
The president has fired or forced out upwards of 20 cabinet officials and top aides, so why does the man he has most-often criticized still have a job? And what would happen if he were fired, which Trump has reportedly been mulling this week? Legal experts and political strategists who have either worked directly with the president or observed his behavior from afar attribute Trump’s reluctance to fire Sessions to two major considerations: Fears in the White House that the move would cost the president support among GOP voters and members of Congress, who generally like and support Sessions, and the risk of provoking further allegations of obstruction of justice—both of which could deepen the challenges already facing the administration. [...]
Some legal experts disagree, arguing that, depending on Trump’s motives, such a dismissal could actually constitute obstruction. “The issue would be whether the president had a corrupt purpose—that is, a desire to cover up his own wrongdoing—when he fired Sessions,” Louis Seidman, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown, said. Seidman acknowledged the debate among legal scholars about whether a sitting president can be charged as such for performing acts that are otherwise within their constitutional powers. But he said he believes Trump could be charged with obstruction because “obstruction of justice, by its nature, is inconsistent with the president’s constitutional authority to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.” Jens David Ohlin, a professor at Cornell Law School who specializes in criminal law, said he believed that firing Sessions “would immediately provoke a political crisis for Trump and would accelerate impeachment talk—because the firing would be a major obstruction of justice, this one even larger than the Comey firing.” And despite its skepticism of the legal merits, it’s clear that the White House is taking the political consequences of the charge seriously. Roger Stone, a long-time informal adviser to Trump, said the president’s advisors “have convinced him he will be impeached if he does” fire Sessions. [...]
The former campaign adviser raised this as an issue, too, noting that the Senate Judiciary Committee has warned Trump that it won’t hold confirmation hearings for a new attorney general if Sessions is dismissed (and leading Senate Republicans said last summer that recess appointments were not an option). But that was then, and this is now, said the person familiar with the president’s thinking. “If you had asked me six months ago what the consequences would be if Trump fired Sessions or Rosenstein, I would have said: ‘He would be impeached and Republicans would be leading the way.’ Now, I’m not so sure.” This person, who is a Republican, pointed to what he saw as the GOP’s reluctance to hold Trump accountable for actions ranging from firing former FBI Director James Comey to failing to adequately address allegations that he had his lawyer pay hush money to a porn star. “If Trump makes the political calculation that he can weather the storm of firing these guys, whether it’s Sessions or Rosenstein, and shutting down the investigation, he’ll do it,” this person said.
openDemocracy: Harakiri, Italian Style
In my view, Mattarella’s decision is bad for Italy, Germany, and Europe. The only political force which is likely to profit is the Northern League – an extreme right-wing party which campaigns chiefly against migrants, and sides with Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen. Liberal democracy will be the greatest victim in Italy and beyond. Centrist parties will be reduced to a political footnote in the next Italian elections. Politics in the coming months will be ever more contentious, if not violent. Europe will be even more paralysed, faced with instability in one of its most important member-states. Germany will have to live with the implications. [...]
The first victim of Mattarella’s decision will be Italian democracy. The president cited concerns about international markets as the prime reason for his veto. This implies that the markets, and not voters, are in a position to determine the future of the Italian Republic. Put differently, elections can be considered valid only if they lead to outcomes welcomed by the markets. [...]
The second victim of Mattarella’s decision will be the European Union. The president told Italians that the proposed government, and especially the proposed minister of finance, could or even “inevitably” would take his country out of the Eurozone. The winners of this year’s Italian elections are clearly no fans of the Fiscal Compact because they believe that excessive austerity hampers Italy’s growth.
LSE Blog: How Brexit Will Affect Germany’s Role In The EU
If the EU wants to realise its ambitions as a relevant defence and security actor, for example, this will only be possible if Berlin is willing to do significantly more. It would need to increase its defence spending and its willingness to deploy its forces in Europe’s neighbourhood. France can play an important role in this, but won’t be able to do it alone. Much here will also depend on the extent to which the UK remains integrated into European security efforts more broadly. Ensuring continued close and mutually beneficial cooperation between the UK and the EU27 post-Brexit would lower the pressure on Germany. [...]
The UK has long acted as a counter-balance to German power within the EU. Particularly for those member states broadly sharing the British scepticism towards political integration – e.g. Denmark, Sweden or Poland – the UK offered protection against Franco-German integrationist drives. They knew that while Germany was powerful, the British generally could be relied upon to stand up to and constrain Berlin. [...]
Germany and the UK did not always see eye-to-eye on questions of European integration. Between 2009 and 2015, they were the two countries least likely to vote together in the European Council. Nevertheless, on some issues they agreed more than on others. Over the past decades, both were key drivers in shaping the EU as an economically liberal union: internally, by expanding and deepening the Single Market and placing strict rules on state interventions; externally, by ensuring the EU was open to global trade and investment.
This Anglo-German cooperation was particularly important to Berlin since it offered a useful counterweight to balance out the bloc’s more protectionist faction led by France. As the UK is leaving the EU, Germany will lack this crucial ally. This will be felt most directly in the European Council, where an economically liberal bloc formed around the UK and Germany – also including Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland – currently commands 36.8% of the voting share, handing it a blocking minority (at least 35%). After Brexit, the group’s share will drop to just 27.8%. Also in the European Parliament, the absence of British MEPs is expected to result in less market-friendly policy outcomes.
Haaretz: What Part of Bombing a Kindergarten Is OK?
This week, when a mortar shell fired from Gaza slammed into the yard of a border-area Israeli kindergarten just before the children and staff were to arrive, the answers to the question came fast and furious. [...]
Among other answers: The Israeli kindergarten is reinforced against attack, as opposed to the much more vulnerable construction of Gaza schools, one of which was hit by an Israeli attack later in the day. Or, the rockets and mortars fired at Israel by Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and others in Gaza are largely ineffectual weapons, as opposed to the deadly, state of the art munitions employed by Israel. [...]
Collective punishment is immoral no matter who carries it out. Us or them. It's immoral no matter what form it takes, indiscriminate shelling or gratuitously injurious siege, terrorism or oppression. No matter the justification. [...]
At this point, for people who truly want to see a workable solution of a shared Holy Land, the very statements of our ultra-maximalist leaders constitute a form of collective punishment.
Quartz: Why Europeans should be quick to investigate petty criminals for Islamic terrorism
In 2015, Louise Shelley, a university professor at George Mason University and director of its Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, wrote in the New York Times (paywall) about how “the financial profile of the ISIS inspired terrorists in Europe is very different. Many of them were small-scale criminals before they were radicalized and some continue to commit crimes subsequently. Financing from petty criminal activity allows them to support themselves, buy weapons in Europe’s illegal markets and rent cars and safe houses.” [...]
In 2007, a research report funded by the Danish Ministry of Justice (pdf) delved into how for Muslim boys facing an identity crisis by living in the West can manifest itself “into anger, petty crime, and becoming easily susceptible to extremist ideology.” In addition, one of France’s most prominent Islamic terrorism experts, Olivier Roy, highlighted how “half of violent jihadis in France, Germany, and the United States also have criminal records for petty crime, just like [Manchester bomber Salman] Abedi, who appears to have been radicalized without the involvement of the local mosque or religious community, an element that mirrors patterns in the rest of Europe.” [...]
Experts have warned that in order to understand and therefore tackle this type of terrorism, authorities need to probe into these links. “To better understand the threat faced by the new generation of jihadists in the West, security forces and intelligence services must also look at the micro-level of how lower level trafficking, drug dealing and petty criminal activity, combined with prison radicalization and ties to the black market and illicit underworld, combine to present a new spin on a longstanding threat,” said the authors of a study in the Journal of Strategic Security (pdf).
Slate: How Bad Could a Euro Crisis in Italy Get?
Neither of those two things is likely to happen because the Italian populace, as divided as it is, remains strongly in favor of the euro. They might hate elite politicians, and they might hate Brussels-imposed austerity, and they might vote for extremist parties like the Five Star Movement and the League—but they’re not about to vote to leave the euro, and the populists know that. [...]
Italy is too big to fail, but it’s also too big to rescue. While Greece could, ultimately, get bailed out by the European Union and the IMF, Italy can’t be. There just isn’t enough money. Without the low interest rates that accompany euro membership, Italy would be forced to default, and everybody who holds Italian debt, including virtually every major European bank, would be forced to take the kind of losses that lead straight to insolvency. Italy would become a disaster zone, but the rest of the world would suffer a major crisis and recession as well.
Ultimately, that’s why Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, refused to allow a euroskeptic to become finance minister. Governments come and governments go—that’s normal in Italy—but it’s Mattarella’s job as president to keep his country from self-destructing. He accepted the parties that won the election; he even suggested a different League representative as finance minister, one who didn’t want to bail on the euro. But the League didn’t bite, and the result is the current spate of nervousness and uncertainty, none of which is going to be resolved at least until the Five Star Movement and the League make it clear whether they’re going to fight the next election on an anti-euro platform. In the parlance of financial markets, we’re in “risk off” mode for the time being, with investors retreating to the safest havens they can find.
The Local: How the League's Matteo Salvini played his cards right amid Italy's political chaos
In the months of political horsetrading that ensued to form a government, the nationalist Salvini has seen his hand strengthened and is experiencing a meteoric rise in the opinion polls. From 17 percent on election day, surveys now put the League at over 20 percent – it scored 22 percent in a recent IndexResearch poll – while other parties' ratings have largely stayed the same as in March or declined. [...]
After the Five Star-League alliance collapsed, fresh polls looked to be the most likely outcome of the political saga. But while Five Star leader Luigi Di Maio is scrambling to put the coalition back on track, Salvini says he welcomes a return to the polls, confident that his party would emerge stronger than ever. [...]
Analysts also suggest that his unflinching stance on the party's core issues at a time of great uncertainty appeals to voters. The League appears "as the political group with the greatest consistency... this consistency makes them more clearly identifiable," said Marc Lazar, political science professor at Rome's Luiss University.
30 May 2018
Deutsche Welle: Germany's Heiko Maas urged to take softer line on Russia by SPD rank and file
Ahead of the meeting, several senior SPD lawmakers voiced their irritation over Germany's top diplomat and SPD lawmaker Heiko Maas and his chiding rhetoric on Russia.
SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil stressed that relations between the two countries were "of the highest importance" for the party. [...]
Several lawmakers in the SPD continue to subscribe to former Chancellor Willy Brandt's policy of rapprochement with the former Soviet Union, otherwise known as "Ostpolitik." The center-left party still enjoys relatively strong levels of support in the former East German states, where strong ties to Russia continue to be felt to this day. [...]
Maas' chiding rhetoric marks a major shift from his predecessor Sigmar Gabriel, who before leaving office had called for sanctions on Russia to be eased, provided Moscow worked towards a peaceful resolution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The Guardian: British 'linguaphobia' has deepened since Brexit vote, say experts
Speaking at the Hay literary festival on Friday, a panel including Cardiff University professor Claire Gorrara and linguist Teresa Tinsley, said that Britons had too long relied on a false belief that English was the world’s lingua franca. Only 6% of the global population are native English speakers, with 75% of the world unable to speak English at all. But three-quarters of UK residents can only speak English. [...]
The same report also found that there was a “growing language deficit” in the UK, which is expected only to grow post-Brexit because the UK’s £1bn “language industry” – including services such as translation and interpreting – already heavily relies on EU citizens, whose expertise may become harder to access.
Speaking at Hay, Tinsley said that in forthcoming research commissioned by the British Council, due to be published next month, a survey of around 700 modern-language teachers in England found that a third felt Brexit had resulted in a negative attitude towards learning foreign languages in their school, among both parents and pupils.
The Guardian: Could Theresa May’s pact with the DUP lead to a united Ireland?
The warning signs that the Tories had no idea what they were doing were there from the outset: in a stunning display of both arrogance and stupidity, they announced they had reached a deal with the DUP before negotiations had begun, assuming a party with 10 MPs would acquiesce rather than face the embarrassment of correcting them. But the embarrassment was all Theresa May’s, as well the DUP knew, as they forced the Conservatives to step back up to the lectern and admit their error. The next error was assuming that if the Tories flew over for the weekend, the DUP would meet them on a Sunday. If Tory special advisers failed to pick up the most basic knowledge about the working habits of Free Presbyterians on the Sabbath, it’s little surprise they took so long to broker a deal. Unbelievably, the Conservatives hopped on a flight to Belfast assuming it would be a breeze to broker a deal with a party that sat through all of the negotiations leading to the Good Friday agreement and still opposed it. [...]
Keeping gay marriage and abortion illegal has long been made possible by a combination of the Republic opposing both, Sinn Féin maintaining some social conservatism and the rest of the UK largely ignoring the north. Now all of those supports have evaporated: Sinn Féin campaigned to repeal the eighth amendment, and is pushing the British government to legislate on same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. Both access to abortion and LGBT marriage rights will be enshrined in law in the Republic, and the DUP is scrutinised now more than it has been since the heyday of Ian Paisley. [...]
This hypocrisy runs through the ongoing Brexit negotiations too. New research published by academics at Queen’s University Belfast on the attitudes of people in Northern Ireland show that the majority of people back same-sex marriage rights: 62% of people overall, with 75% of Catholics and 50.5% of Protestants backing mooted legislation.
The Local: Profile: Italian president Sergio Mattarella, the country's 'political referee'
Mattarella is a well-respected figure in Italian politics, though he was relatively little known by the public and press before he was sworn in in 2015. The 75-year-old was born in the Sicilian capital of Palermo (he's the first Italian president from the region), and studied law in Rome.
After qualifying, he taught law in his hometown, with a focus on constitutional law and Sicily's regional government. His elder brother Piersanti was elected regional president of Sicily, and it was his brutal murder in 1980 at the hands of a local mafia group that persuaded the younger Mattarella to enter the political arena. [...]
In 2008, Mattarella chose not to run in parliamentary elections, and in 2011 was elected a Constitutional Judge. Four years later, he was elected president, and vowed to prioritize tackling corruption and organized crime while in office, as well as getting the country back on track after a crippling recession. [...]
Mattarella is a centre-left-leaning politcian who started his career as a member of the now-defunct Christian Democrats, which his father Bernardo helped create. Later he was one of the founders of the Democratic Party (PD) and that party, led at the time by Matteo Renzi, endorsed him in the 2015 presidential vote, which he won with a comfortable majority.
29 May 2018
Scene On Radio SeeingWhite: White Affirmative Action
When it comes to U.S. government programs and support earmarked for the benefit of particular racial groups, history is clear.
White folks have received most of the goodies. By John Biewen, with Deena Hayes-Greene of the Racial Equity Institute and recurring series partner Chenjerai Kumanyika.
The New Yorker: What Went Wrong in Vietnam (February 26, 2018 Issue)
For almost thirty years, by means financial, military, and diplomatic, the United States tried to prevent Vietnam from becoming a Communist state. Millions died in that struggle. By the time active American military engagement ended, the United States had dropped more than three times as many tons of bombs on Vietnam, a country the size of New Mexico, as the Allies dropped in all of the Second World War. At the height of the bombing, it was costing us ten dollars for every dollar of damage we inflicted. We got nothing for it. [...]
The more we look at American decision-making in Vietnam, the less sense it makes. Geopolitics helps explain our concerns about the fate of Vietnam in the nineteen-forties and fifties. Relations with the Soviet Union and China were hostile, and Southeast Asia and the Korean peninsula were in political turmoil. Still, paying for France to reclaim its colony just as the world was about to experience a wave of decolonization was a dubious undertaking. [...]
Our international standing was never dependent on our commitment to South Vietnam. We might have been accused of inconstancy for abandoning an ally, but everyone would have understood. In fact, the longer the war went on the more our image suffered. The United States engaged in a number of high-handed and extralegal interventions in the affairs of other nations during the Cold War, but nothing damaged our reputation like Vietnam. It not only shattered our image of invincibility. It meant that a whole generation grew up looking upon the United States as an imperialist, militarist, and racist power. The political capital we accumulated after leading the alliance against Fascism in the Second World War and then helping rebuild Japan and Western Europe we burned through in Southeast Asia. [...]
The South Vietnamese who welcomed the American presence after 1954 were mainly urbanites and people who had prospered under French rule. Eighty per cent of the population lived in the countryside, though, and it was the strategy of the Vietcong to convince them that the United States was just one more foreign invader, no different from the Japanese or the French, or from Kublai Khan.
Jacobin Magazine: Is Corbyn the Future of the Left?
Indeed without the partial Americanization of the British Labour Party’s leadership election Corbyn would never have become leader. Influenced in part by the model of the US primary system, his predecessor, Ed Miliband, had abolished an electoral college in which parliamentarians, union affiliates, and rank-and-file members each had a third of the vote, and replaced it with a system of one vote for each member or supporter. Anyone who paid £3 (later increased to £25) could sign up as a supporter, and well over a hundred thousand did. Paradoxically, this reform was urged by Tony Blair and his supporters. In the wake of an alleged instance of union malpractice in the selection of a candidate in one particular constituency — an infraction for which the union was subsequently cleared — Ed Miliband, whose own leadership was constantly being destabilized by some of Blair’s supporters, felt he had to show he was being tough on the unions. So consumed was Blair with antipathy towards the unions — organizations which for more than a century had regularly underwritten the control of the Labour right — that he promoted a reform that was bound to produce a more radical intraparty electorate by increasing the pool of activist electors and strengthening the influence of their votes.
But it would be a mistake to overstate the similarities between Britain and the United States. In most respects, British party politics remained fundamentally different. The Labour Party is not merely a label (or a brand) which enables supporters to engage in candidate selection, but an ongoing membership organization for which the unions that founded it continue to provide vital ballast. And the parliamentary nature of the political system in which it operates leaves Corbyn in a far stronger position than a defeated candidate in the United States, by giving him a clear, ongoing, constitutionally recognized role as leader of the opposition (the Prime Minister in waiting) at the head of a government in waiting (the Shadow Cabinet). Moreover, at present this influence is further accentuated, both within the Labour Party and in parliament: within the party because Labour’s unexpectedly strong electoral performance in 2017 has stabilized Corbyn’s position among previously hostile MPs; and within parliament because the election has left the governing Conservative Party, even after reaching an agreement with the small Northern Ireland Unionist Party of the late Ian Paisley, with an extremely narrow parliamentary majority. [...]
There are some similarities in all the English-speaking countries. But they are not a function of Trump and Brexit or Sanders and Corbyn. In each case there has been some shift to the left in political demands — with greater emphasis on economic inequality and corporate malfeasance. In Australia, for example, the trade union movement — which there, too, forms the bedrock of the Labor Party — has launched a huge public advertising campaign arguing that “big business has too much power” and that “it’s time to change the rules.” And, in each case, the long-standing electoral parties of government on the Left are either in power or in reach of power and remain the focal point for the electoral efforts of progressives. But in most cases, their leaders do not hail from the dissenting left. [...]
Different electoral systems no doubt play a role. In the English-speaking countries, all except New Zealand use majoritarian systems. In the recent continental European elections, all except France use proportional representation. The simple majority (first past the post) system in Britain certainly weakens the incentive for discontented Blairite MPs to break away and form a separate party. That approach was tried in the 1980s and its failure is widely understood.
The Atlantic: Spitting in Europe’s Face Won’t Help Italy
PARIS—It’s time to retire the famous line by the Italian writer Ennio Flaiano, that in Italian politics, the situation is “always grave but never serious.” Today, it’s fair to say the situation is both grave and serious. The implosion on Sunday of a populist governing coalition—after Italy’s president vetoed the coalition’s choice of a euroskeptical economist as finance minister—has achieved three results, none of them good for the stability of Italy or Europe. It’s set Italy on the path to new elections. It’s strengthened the hand of the right-wing, anti-immigrant League party. And it’s turned Italy into a de facto referendum on the euro—an unprecedented development in a core member of the European Union and single currency. [...]
It’s the latest example of a short-circuit that was tripped when the European debt crisis began a decade ago: Mattarella’s move may be good for short-term stability in the European Union, but it’s not great for democracy—which in turn emboldens the populists who increasingly see the bloc as anti-democratic. The appointment of Cottarelli is a gift for the League, whose leader, Matteo Salvini, campaigned all along on a platform of liberating Italy from servitude to Brussels and Berlin. Meanwhile, the leader of the Five-Star Movement, Luigi di Maio, who only days ago said it was up to the president to choose ministers, has now set Italian social media on fire with calls for Mattarella’s impeachment because he intervened in selecting ministers, and has also called for mass mobilizations across Italy “to manifest our right to determine our future.” [...]
But in rejecting Savona, Mattarella had good reasons. He said on Sunday that any conversations about Italy’s membership in the euro should be held in public—especially since euro membership wasn’t an issue for debate in the platform agreed on by the Five-Star Movement and the League for the government they put forth last week. The League’s Salvini has flip-flopped in recent years on whether he wants Italy to stay in the euro. In the past, he’s said he wants a referendum on euro membership; during the campaign, he moderated his tone on the euro but raised it on immigration. Meanwhile, Di Maio of the Five-Star Movement kept quiet on the euro during the campaign, but the movement’s founder, Beppe Grillo, said this month that he wanted a “consultative referendum” on the currency. “It might be a good idea to have two euros, for two more homogeneous economical regions. One for northern Europe and one for southern Europe,” he told Newsweek this month.
Quartz: Israel’s very popular on Chinese social media—thanks to China’s online Islamophobia
Israel ranks as the foreign mission with the most followers on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, with over 1.9 million people subscribed to its page, according to research by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) on the activity of 10 foreign embassy accounts over the three months ended in January. The country’s embassy also had the fourth-highest number of likes per post, behind only the embassies for the US, UK, and Japan, countries with far greater cultural exports and economic ties to China, according to the study’s author, Fergus Ryan, an analyst focusing on cyber policy at the Canberra-based think tank. [...]
Another likely boost to the embassy’s popularity—its followers in China see its social media pages as an outlet for sharing Islamophobic comments, that at times become outright hate speech.
During the three-month study, the most-shared post from the Israeli embassy on Weibo was a nine-sentence message announcing Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The second most-liked comment on the post was “Put the boot into the cancer of humanity”—a likely reference to Muslims. [...]
Anti-Islam sentiment has become widespread on the internet in China, which is home to about 23 million Muslims. Reports about violence in the Xinjiang region, home to China’s closely-surveilled Uighur population, often generate attention, while stories about services geared to Muslims—such as halal food deliveries—generate anger over “affirmative discrimination policies” toward Chinese Muslim minorities.
The New York Review of Books: A Mythic, Cool America
But there’s also a familiarity to the lesser-known works adorning the walls. Not because British audiences have seen them before; they haven’t—nearly half of the eighty-odd paintings, photographs, and prints in this relatively small, three-room show have never previously been exhibited in the UK, and the yawning gap between the John Singer Sargents and the Jackson Pollocks in the Tate’s collections has left us sorely deprived. All the same, we know exactly what we’re looking at: representations of the mythologies of an “America” that has long inhabited the popular global imagination, from the towering structures of the archetypal modern metropolis to the rustic barns, uniform fields of corn, and white picket fences of prairie farmland. [...]
An education in the work produced by the precisionist artists of the 1920s through the 1940s, the “cool” of the exhibition’s title is a reference to both form and content. The images use sharp, well-defined lines and striking applications of pigment (whether as bold blocks of color or in arresting monochrome). They speak to a desire for a sanitized version of reality that tries to master the anxieties and ambivalences associated with modern life, a need more keenly felt in America, a country then synonymous with certain signifiers of modernity—industrial and technological development on an epic new scale in the form of dams, bridges, factories and skyscrapers—to a degree still alien to her European cousins.
Strange then, or perhaps fitting, that human figures are so often absent in these scenes. They present a remarkably consistent vision of a country eerily devoid of its inhabitants: factories, mills, and water plants without workers, apartment blocks without tenants, cityscapes minus the bustling populace, farms without farmers. Endless images of man-made edifices reduced to hollow testaments to human endeavor and hard labor. It’s the realization of the American Dream without the mess and confusion of actual human life.
Quartz: Photos: 25,000 Berliners drown out a fascist rally with techno
The AfD rally of around 5,000 marched from the city’s central station to the Brandenburg Gate, but found themselves outnumbered five to one, and their chants of “we are the people” drowned out by the 25,000 counter-protesters and sound systems blasting music. The counter-demonstration was organized by the “Stop the hatred, stop the AfD” alliance, a broad collection of political parties, unions, and civil society organizations. [...]
Around 100 clubs organized the “Bass Away the AFD” demonstration, with DJs playing on trucks and floats on the Spree river. Berlin has long been known for its dance club culture, and the atmosphere was not unlike the famous German love parade techno festival, which originated in the city. But this time the message was serious: The AfD, with its racism and hatred, has no place in Berlin.
Politico: ‘Heretic’ in the Vatican
Celebrated by progressives around the world for his push to update and liberalize aspects of church doctrine, Francis is facing fierce blowback from traditionalists who take issue with his openness to Muslim migrants, his concern for the environment and his softer tone on divorce, cohabitation and homosexuality. Opposition has become so heated that some advisers are warning him to tread carefully to avoid a “schism” in the church.
Father Thomas Weinandy, a former chief of staff for the U.S. bishops’ committee on doctrine, has accused Francis of causing “theological anarchy.” Another group of bishops has warned Francis risks spreading “a plague of divorce.” Last fall, more than 200 scholars and priests signed a letter accusing Francis of spreading heresy. “This was not something I did lightly,” Father John Rice, a parish priest in Shaftesbury in the U.K. said, claiming the pope’s liberal push has caused “much division and disagreement, and sadness and confusion in the church.” [...]
By rendering doctrine more ambiguous, Francis is effectively undermining the church’s authority and reducing the role of priests to that of companion and advisers to their parishioners — a thorny issue that dates back to the Vatican II reforms of the 1960s, according to one diplomat. “The battle is between [loyalty to retired Pope] Benedict, vestments, liturgy and rules, and Pope Francis, who wants priests to use their own judgment and humanity in their reading of individual situations,” the diplomat said. [...]
Francis is a “master strategist” who achieves his agenda “by stealth and cunning,” according to the diplomatic observer. He prefers shuffling people around rather than directly confronting or sacking them. But he has on occasion shown that he doesn’t shy away from direct conflict and has successfully faced down challenges to his authority, instigated by Burke, from the Order of Malta. “He doesn’t back down, he is really tough and steely,” the observer said.
Reuters: How young Bosnian men are learning to separate masculinity from violence
At 15, Dragan Kisin was beating kids up, drinking, and getting in all sorts of trouble. His father had left home to avoid gambling debts, and his mother was in despair. Then Dragan joined the Be a Man club in Bosnia and Herzegovina's Banja Luka. He is now a community leader and non-violence advocate.
A delicate balance of Muslims, Serbs and Croats, Bosnia was torn apart as federal Yugoslavia dissolved. Up to 100,000 people were killed in the 1992-1995 war and an estimated 35,000 women were raped.
Recognising that the widespread sexual violence perpetrated in the war had given rise to a culture of violence and bullying among youth, the Be a Man club brings young men and women together to fight stereotypes and become role models for their peers.
Be a Man is part of CARE International’s Young Men Initiative in the Balkans. The programme, aimed at boys between 13 and 19, was set up to promote gender equality and non-violent relationships in a region still struggling with the legacy of war.
28 May 2018
openDemocracy: How Irish anti-abortion activists are drawing on Brexit and Trump campaigns to influence referendum (2 May 2018)
Transatlantic links between anti-choice groups remain strong and US activists are framing Ireland’s referendum as a major symbolic fight. Social media is emerging as a key battleground, with foreign and Irish anti-abortion and ‘alt-right’ activists targeting voters with Facebook ads.
Irish anti-choice groups have also enlisted some of the same American and British companies and individuals that used controversial data-mining and targeting techniques to campaign for Donald Trump and Brexit – including senior Vote Leave figures and a company that built Trump’s America First app and previously worked for the US National Rifle Association. [...]
Borwick is also a former consultant at Cambridge Analytica – the company financed by Trump-supporting billionaire Robert Mercer, and “put together” by Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who once served as Cambridge Analytica’s vice president. [...]
Ireland’s Pro Life Campaign also hired a digital company, uCampaign, which previously worked with the Trump and Vote Leave campaigns. Past clients include an Australian anti-marriage equality organisation and the US National Rifle Association (NRA).
Haaretz: Lebanon's LGBT Scene Still Vibrant Despite Recent Crackdown
Because this is Lebanon, where homosexuality and dressing as the opposite gender are against the law, he sat in the back of his mother’s car with darkened windows, a scarf over his head, for the drive from his home just outside Beirut to the club. [...]
Because this is Lebanon, where homosexuality and dressing as the opposite gender are against the law, he sat in the back of his mother’s car with darkened windows, a scarf over his head, for the drive from his home just outside Beirut to the club.
But there is a constant dance between authorities and the community over lines and limits. Last week, it appeared to be a step too far when Pride celebrations were held in Beirut. The widely advertised events came just before the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. After a few events were held, including the drag ball, authorities reacted. [...]
Since 2005, activists have commemorated the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia on May 17, mostly with protests, readings, workshops and cultural events. But the exuberant, highly public approach of the Pride celebrations seems to have drawn authorities’ ire, said Azzi. Last year, there was an attempt to hold a Pride Week, the first ever in an Arab city, but authorities forced some of its events to be called off, including a street parade.[...]
Law 534, which criminalizes homosexuality as an “act against nature” remains on the books despite efforts to abolish it. At least 76 people were arrested under it in 2016. But more and more often prosecutors release those arrested rather than sending them to court. Four times in past years, courts have refused to apply Law 534, giving defense lawyers a basis to have cases thrown out.
Haaretz: Saudi Arabia Once Wrote Off Iraq as a Win for Iran. But Now, the Saudi Crown Prince Is Advancing on Baghdad
In their competition for regional supremacy, Iran has gained the upper hand over Saudi Arabia in their proxy wars in Syria and Yemen. Yet in Iraq, Tehran seems to have been wrong-footed – for the time being – by Riyadh’s charm offensive to woo Shia leaders and to frustrate Iran’s attempts to consolidate its influence over the fractured country. [...]
In the past year, under the leadership of Mohammad bin Salman, commonly known as MBS, Riyadh has stepped up its engagement with Shia-majority Iraq. The elections - in which Baghdad’s geopolitical orientation was a key consideration among the leading contenders - was a key impetus for this accelerated engagement. Indeed, rumors that MBS himself would pay a pre-election visit to Baghdad had provoked alarm in Iran and amongst Iranian-backed Iraqi politicians.
Sadr’s electoral success could open the way for further Saudi engagement. His Sairoon ("Marching Towards Reform") coalition, an unlikely combination of reformed Shia militants, communists, secular and civil society groups, won 54 seats in the ballot – the highest number – but still fell well short of a majority. [...]
While the Saudis would have preferred the Western-orientated Abadi to have won outright (his coalition was third with 42 seats) Sadr’s election victory is a favorable result, notwithstanding his unwavering distrust of America. [...]
Abadi twice visited Riyadh in 2017, but it was Sadr’s trip last July that really underlined the Crown Prince’s desire to send out an olive branch to Iraq’s Shia heartlands. There, many regard Saudi Arabia as a sponsor of Sunni extremism during Iraq’s years of ethnic turmoil, and are no doubt concerned about Saudi persecution of its own Shia minority.
Broadly: Oral Sex and the Alarming Rise of HPV-Related Throat Cancer in Men
The leading cause of tonsil cancer is tobacco use, but Bolnick, who is married with two kids, didn't smoke. His doctor told him that his cancer was caused by human papilloma virus, or HPV. It was only three years earlier that Maura Gillison, now a professor of internal medicine at Ohio State, published the results of a seven-year-long population study that discovered people with head and neck cancer were 15 times more likely to be infected with HPV in their mouths or throats than those without. [...]
HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the US—there are more than 100 types, though not all cause health problems. But today, more and more people, predominantly men, are being diagnosed with oral HPV-related cancer. That's not surprising, since a recent report from the CDC found that between 2011 and 2014, more men (6.8 percent) than women (1.2 percent) had high-risk oral HPV, or a strain of HPV known to cause cancer. Within 20 years, health experts expect the majority of head and neck cancers to be caused by HPV-positive carcinomas instead of smoking and alcohol, and by 2020, the rates of HPV-related oropharyngeal (area encompassing the throat, tonsils, and back of the tongue)cancer will surpass those of cervical cancer. [...]
Currently, the only way to safeguard from developing any HPV-positive cancer—whether it's oral, cervical, penile, or anal—is to be vaccinated. But the vaccine only works for people who have not been exposed to the virus yet, and about 14 million people become infected with some form of it each year. That's why the age requirements are fairly young: The CDC recommends the HPV vaccine for young women at age 11 or 12, through 26, and for young men through 21.
Politico: Italy’s president scotches populist governing alliance
After the two populist parties refused to compromise on their choice of 81-year-old economist Paolo Savona for the ministry, Italy’s prime minister-designate — a little-known lawyer called Giuseppe Conte — said on Sunday he had told the president he was rejecting the mandate to form a new government. [...]
“Membership of the euro is a fundamental choice for the future of our country and our young people,” said the president, adding that since euro membership had not been part of the election campaign, it could not be questioned by the appointment of a Cabinet minister without holding a proper public debate. [...]
But even if Mattarella gives Cottarelli a mandate to form a government, he will face an uphill battle. Even though the two main opposition parties, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the center-left Democratic Party, have already said they would support a government sponsored by Mattarella, that may not be enough for such a government to survive a confidence vote in parliament.
Politico: Ireland brings abortion out of the shadows
The overwhelming victory for the abortion rights campaign, which comes three years after voters backed legalizing same-sex marriage, marks the “culmination of a quiet revolution,” said Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who campaigned to overturn the ban.
The result reflects deep disillusionment with Catholic institutions and church influence on the government that follows years of scandals over abuse and the incarceration of women. It also indicates that Ireland can no longer be held up as the Catholic bastion it once was, a blow for the Vatican months before Pope Francis is due to visit the country in August.
The turnout — 64 percent — was unusually high for an Irish referendum, delivering the biggest mandate for a proposal since the Good Friday Agreement. Only one of Ireland’s 40 constituencies, Donegal, saw a majority vote against repeal. [...]
As many as 10 Irish women a day currently cross the Irish Sea for abortions, according to figures from the U.K.’s National Health Service, and an estimated three to five women a day take abortion pills obtained illegally online. [...]
In a poll conducted by Behaviour & Attitudes for RTÉ, around 72 percent of women voted to repeal and nearly 66 percent of men. The Yes vote was 72 percent in urban areas and 63 percent in rural sections.
Quartz: Macron is making another big play for Africa, this time for its startups
Unlike Britain, the other major colonizer of Africa, France’s post-colonial ties have remained firm, through major upheaval and economic change. In recent years those ties have started to fray around the edges, with the increasingly tense debate around the CFA, the two common currencies of West and Central Africa, which are still guaranteed by the French treasury and pegged to the euro.
Enter president Emmanuel Macron. At 39, he became the youngest-ever president of the French republic, he’s widely credited with revitalizing France and elements of French self-belief. As the first president born after the majority of Francophone Africa gained independence, he’s made clear time and again he believes African countries can find their own way without paternalistic European leadership, though he’s also had missteps in getting that point across. [...]
His stated interested in Africa was clear to see at Vivatech, this year where he toured the packed exhibition hall in Paris and made a point of visiting the Africa stands with Rwandan president Paul Kagame, taking selfies with African entrepreneurs.
On the main stage Macron said the French development agency (AFD) will be backing a new $76 million (€65 million) digital project that will offer funding for African startups. “African startups have energy but the big providers of development aid and financiers have not adapted to that. We ourselves are too slow, too hesitant,” he said, speaking on stage switching between French and English.
Aeon: Want to feel unique? Believe in the reptile people
There are, of course, differences in the plausibility of any one conspiracy theory. In a 2013 poll, every second United States citizen questioned seemed convinced that there was some larger conspiracy at work in the assassination of the president John F Kennedy in 1963, while “only” 4% endorsed the notion that “shape-shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining power.” (Still a somewhat unnerving 12 million people.)
Despite these differences, one of the most robust findings in the research on conspiracy theories is that there is a commonality to conspiracy theorists, even if the theories themselves are different. For instance, people who believe in the shape-shifting reptilian are much more likely also to doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald acted as a lone wolf. Indeed, those who believe that Osama bin Laden was dead before the Navy Seals shot him are also more likely to consider it plausible that bin Laden is still alive.
This has led many researchers to conclude that the agreement with specific conspiracy theories is not so much dependent on the specific topic, but is rather the manifestation of a more general worldview. The “conspiracist ideation,” “monological belief system,” or “conspiracy mentality” can be thought of as the general extent to which people see the world as governed by hidden, sinister forces. [...]
What this observation suggests is that adopting a conspiracy belief doesn’t always have to be mere compensation for a lack of control but can be instrumental in its own way. Belief in conspiracies can serve to set oneself apart from the ignorant masses—a self-serving boast about one’s exclusive knowledge. Adherence to conspiracy theory might not always be the result of some perceived lack of control, but rather a deep-seated need for uniqueness. My research team and I tested this gut hypothesis empirically through a series of studies.
27 May 2018
Aeon: How nations stay together
Effective nation-building brings important and positive consequences. Alliances that cut across the entire territory of a country depoliticise ethnic divisions. Politics is not perceived as a zero-sum game in which ethnic groups struggle for control of the state. Instead, more substantial policy issues concerning what the state should actually do come to the foreground of the debate. Inclusive political coalitions also foster a sense of ownership of the state and promote the ideal of a collective purpose beyond one’s family, village, clan or profession. Conformingly, citizens who identify with their nation are less resistant to paying taxes, more likely to support welfare policies, and are governed by more effective states. We also know that inclusive coalitions comprising ethnic minorities and majorities alike greatly reduce the risk of civil war and promote economic growth. [...]
A comparison between Switzerland and Belgium, two countries of similar size, with a similar linguistic composition of the population, and comparable levels of economic development, provides an example. In Switzerland, civil society organisations – such as shooting clubs, reading circles and choral societies – developed throughout the territory during the late 18th and first half of the 19th century. They spread evenly throughout the country because modern industries emerged across all the major regions, and because Switzerland’s city-states lacked both the capacity and the motivation to suppress them. In Belgium, by contrast, Napoleon, as well as the Dutch king who succeeded him, recognised the revolutionary potential of such voluntary associations, and suppressed them. Even more importantly, the associations that did exist in Belgium were confined to the more economically developed and more educated French-speaking regions and segments of the population. [...]
The examples I’ve singled out don’t account for how voluntary associations, public goods provision, and communication interact with each other or substitute for each other. Somalians, for example, all speak the same language, while Switzerland is linguistically more diverse – and yet the two histories of nation-building diverge in opposite directions. There are also additional factors that could hinder or foster nation-building. Many historians would argue that the colonial experience makes a difference. Somalia and Botswana both suffered from the divide-and-rule policies of colonial powers, which should make the task of national political integration more difficult once the colonial powers leave. Neither Russia nor Switzerland were ever under foreign rule during the past centuries. [...]
Finally, we might take a more sober perspective and consider that nation-building succeeds where countries have fought many wars with other countries, binding their populations together through shared sacrifice. Similarly, it could be that European governments could build their nations more easily because centuries of boundary adjustments and ethnic cleansings led to more homogenous populations, easier to integrate into a national polity.
Haaretz: That Roaring Sound? It’s Palestine Unleashing a Legal Tsunami Against Israeli War Crimes
Palestine joined Interpol, the international police organization, in September 2017; filed an inter-state complaint against Israel for breaches of its obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in April; and just last week,the UN Human Rights Council decided to send a commission of inquiry to examine Israel’s killing of Palestinians along the Gaza border, which was supported by almost all of the Council’s members, except for the U.S. and Australia. [...]
The Palestinian leadership could still take further steps at other international courts and tribunals, such as the International Court of Justice, by calling on the UN General Assembly to request an Advisory Opinion from that Court, if it sees any political advantage in doing so.
Although Israel does not recognize the State of Palestine, over 130 states do; because Israel is occupying the territory of a member state, the ICC has, in principle, jurisdiction. [...]
The U.S., on Israel’s behalf, could make this appeal to international law uncomfortable for the Palestinians. In 2015, the U.S. Congress passed the Omnibus Appropriations Act to bar the provision of economic support funds to the Palestinian Authority if it initiates "an International Criminal Court judicially authorized investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians."
Political Critique: Why the right wing fight against cultural nihilism is meaningless: post-modern conservatism as a capitalist product
I believe these conservative critics are deeply misguided in their diagnosis of the situation. While cultural nihilism may be on the rise, the accounts of these critics are strangely idealized. For the conservative critic, cultural nihilism has its roots in the sophistical cafes and salons of Enlightenment Paris and is now propagated by insidious liberal elites who wish to destabilize Western civilization. These accounts never acknowledge the transformative impact of far more powerful social forces: most notably the emergence of capitalism and its tendency towards the creative-destruction of traditional values. This was noted by Marx more than a century and a half ago: [...]
Post-modern conservativism is the product of cultural nihilism masquerading as a solution. Post-modern conservatives claim that the locus of truth and morality are homeland identities which have been marginalized by social fragmentation and the demand for more tolerance of difference. They demand that the traditional morals treasured by homeland identities be restored, and a culture of tolerance replaced by one of “responsibility” for toeing the traditional line. Oftentimes these post-modern conservatives also claim to be fighting against the nihilism of trends such as cultural relativism and social fragmentation, as with President Trump’s Warsaw speech calling for a defense of “Western Civilization.” But this is to be accomplished by deconstructing the ideals of truth, democracy, and respect for difference that constitute the best features of that civilization. This has resulted in the erosion of institutions and norms designed to protect the most vulnerable in society.
It is possible that the ascendency of post-modern conservatism will swallow the still too globalized and outdated neo-liberals who increasingly cling to power. Neo-liberal icons such as David Cameron and Hilary Clinton have seen their authority melt into the air under pressure by post-modern conservatives who denigrate them as progressive liberal elites of another stripe, eager to integrate more tightly into the global economy with its rootless cosmopolitans and relativistic multiculturalists. In their place post-modern conservatives have elected illiberal strongmen who disdain the very idea of truth and wish to establish a more homogenous nation-state that will remain oriented by internal capitalist dynamics. This is an extremely worrying development that should be of concern to all.
The Guardian: Ireland votes by landslide to legalise abortion
Describing the vote as “the culmination of a quiet revolution in Ireland”, the taoiseach said voters had given his Fine Gael-led government “a clear mandate” to bring in legislation that will legalise abortion up to 12 weeks.
Orla O’Connor, the co-director of the Together for Yes campaign, said it was “a monumental day for women in Ireland”, calling the result “a rejection of an Ireland that treats women as second-class citizens”. [...]
Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, stressed that the outcome proved this was “not Dublin versus the rest … not a rural-urban division.”
One of the first constituencies to declare a result – Dublin Central – had nearly 77% voting yes. Yet even in traditionally conservative Roscommon/East Galway the first tallies from the count showed 57% for yes and 43% for no. Other rural constituencies such as Carlow/Kilkenny also voted 63.5% in favour of change.
Politico: Brussels’ battle to tame Visegrad rebels
With countries in Central Europe facing the possibility of substantial cuts to their allotment of development funding in the EU’s next seven-year budget, the Commission has made it clear to leaders in both Prague and Bratislava that it’s not in their interest to lock arms with Poland’s de facto leader Jarosław Kaczyński or Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. [...]
But others from the region were cautious about advocating the alternative — an “intergovernmental” approach to EU decision-making that they fear would leave large countries such as Germany and France with even more influence. [...]
The main issue that continues to bind the Visegrad countries is migration, with all opposing quotas and other proposals that would compel them to accept significant numbers of refugees. Yet here, they are also supported by a host of other EU countries, including several from the south, confounding the Commission’s effort to forge a compromise to reform the current system. [...]
Both Bratislava and Prague face their own challenges with populism and political corruption, but their political interests increasingly converge more with Germany and Austria, with which their economies are already closely intertwined, than with their former Warsaw Pact neighbors. That’s particularly true of Slovakia, which is the only country in the region that belongs to the euro. If the pair’s economies continue on the current trajectory, both are likely to join the ranks of the EU’s net payers during the bloc’s next long-term budget cycle.
Politico: Norway’s love letter to the EU
Norwegian voters have twice rejected joining the EU — in referendums in 1972 and 1994 — but along with other members of the EEA (Iceland and Liechtenstein), Norway has access to the EU’s single market, and its citizens are entitled to EU benefits such as freedom of movement. Britain has ruled out joining the EEA and wants its own bespoke arrangement instead. [...]
Søreide, the foreign minister, told POLITICO that Oslo has taken notice of a recent move by the EU to strengthen partnership programs on numerous issues, particularly security and defense but also on climate change and the environment, and that Norway is keen to be part of the action. [...]
“What we see now is an organization, an institution, picking up speed and we need to make sure we are on board with all of those developments,” she said. “And since we are not a full member we have to work a little differently than other countries.
As part of its EU program, Norway is also pushing for Brussels to put greater focus on “cross-border crime related to employment,” which officials said can include an array of issues from money laundering to undeclared workers.
26 May 2018
Ministry Of Ideas: Apocalyptic Politics
Evangelical voters made up a significant portion of Donald Trump’s base in the 2016 presidential election. Their political agenda may not be peace or prosperity, but instead bringing us closer to the end of time.
Scene On Radio SeeingWhite: Danger
For hundreds of years, the white-dominated American culture has raised the specter of the dangerous, violent black man. Host John Biewen tells the story of a confrontation with an African American teenager. Then he and recurring guest Chenjerai Kumanyika discuss that longstanding image – and its neglected flipside: white-on-black violence.
The New Yorker: Trump’s Imploding World Order
Trump still wants a summit with Kim Jong Un, the White House insisted on Thursday. As Trump headed to his helicopter on Friday morning, he told reporters that discussions between Washington and Pyongyang had resumed. He even held out hope for the June 12th date in Singapore. But his words were the latest unsettling prospect in a tumultuous time of all-or-nothing diplomacy that intrinsically increases the dangers of conflict. In the sixteen months of Trump’s Presidency, the United State has witnessed a stunning undoing of long-standing norms—of the U.S.-led world order, core alliances, trade pacts, principles of nonproliferation, patterns of globalization, world institutions, and, most of all, U.S. influence. A lot of it began in 2003, with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But it has accelerated with breathtaking speed since Trump took office. [...]
The litany is long: a rising China; Russia’s interference in several democratic elections and its forcible challenge of sovereign borders; North Korea’s unprecedented nuclear arsenal; Syria’s catastrophic civil war; Iran’s destabilizing interventions and the collapse of the nuclear deal; new turmoil along the Israeli-Palestinian border; the unravelling of global trade pacts; the dismemberment of the European Union; Venezuela’s breakdown; and America’s longest war, in Afghanistan. [...]
Trump has disrupted the global order far more than the domestic order, Ian Bremmer, the president of the Eurasia Group, told me. “Domestically, the President has not had a huge impact on policy. Everything has been resisted by the ‘swamp,’ the bureaucracy, and Congress,” he said. “Internationally, the world was already moving away from the U.S.-led order when Trump took office. But he is pushing a rock that was already rolling down the hill much faster.” In a commencement speech at the Naval Academy on Friday, Trump touted the success of an agenda that rejects past policies and promotes stand-alone U.S. supremacy in the world. “We are not going to apologize for America—we are going to stand up for America. No more apologies,” Trump said. “They are respecting us again. Yes, America is back.” He told cadets at the Annapolis stadium, “Winning is such a great feeling, isn’t it? Nothing like winning. You got to win.” [...]
Trump has even challenged the notion of a united Europe, suggesting that other nations may want to follow suit after Britain’s decision to exit the European Union. Since the nineteen-fifties, merging Europe into a common whole has been a central U.S. principle to foster peace on a continent rife with conflict for centuries. The cracks in America’s core alliances are weakening the West—and its ability to forge peace through joint policies. In turn, challengers, notably China, are gaining ground.
The Atlantic: Ireland's Very Secular Vote on Abortion
Abortion is a particularly contentious issue in Ireland, where an overwhelming majority of the population identifies as Catholic. The Church was a main driver in the push to implement the constitutional ban on abortion when the Eighth Amendment first passed 35 years ago. But faith isn’t the primary reason people are still unresolved on the issue.
In fact, it hasn’t played much of a role at all. When I asked activists on the “Yes” and “No” campaigns what impact religion has had on the referendum, both sides said the debate was secular. For those advocating for “Yes,” the referendum is about allowing abortion care for women who need it. For those advocating for “No,” it’s about preserving Ireland’s protections for unborn children. “Very few people are approaching this from a religious perspective,” de Londras told me. “Lots of people are approaching this from a moral or ethical perspective.” [...]
This is likely due in large part to the declining moral authority of the Church in Ireland—a decline spurred by a series of scandals, including the revelations of child sexual abuse by priests in the 1990s. Since then, the Catholic population in Ireland has dropped from 91 percent in 1991 to 78 percent in 2016. The Church’s decline in authority has also been marked by a series of changes to the country’s social norms, from the legalization of contraception and divorce in the 1980s and 1990s, to the referendum legalizing same-sex marriage in 2015.
Some within the Irish Church remained strikingly silent on the referendum debate—and encouraged other clergy leaders to do the same. In a statement this month, the Association of Catholic Priests reiterated the Church’s teaching that human life is sacred at all of its stages, but went on to argue that the pulpit should not be used to campaign on the referendum during Mass. “[A]s leadership of an association made up of men who are unmarried and without children of our own, we are not best placed to be in any way dogmatic on this issue,” the statement noted, adding: “A vote cast in accordance with each person’s conscience, whatever the result, deserves the respect of all.”
The Atlantic: Is the U.S. Bringing Europe and Russia Closer Together?
But that was then—this is now. President Trump’s recent decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the Iran deal is formally known, has put Europe between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, it could resign itself to watching its signature diplomatic achievement crumble. On the other, it could attempt to salvage the deal, even if it means exposing its businesses to U.S. sanctions. So far, European leaders appear to have opted for the latter, committing themselves to maintaining the agreement, even if it means doing so without Washington. “As long as the Iranians respect their commitments, the EU will of course stick to the agreement of which it was an architect,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said last week, adding that the bloc will “do what we can to protect our European businesses” from U.S. sanctions penalizing companies that do business with Iran. This includes introducing regulations that would prevent European companies from complying with the sanctions (but as my colleague Krishnadev Calamur points out, it’s not entirely clear how effective they will be). [...]
Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran deal adds another crack in the relationship between Washington and its European allies—after those caused by the U.S.’s withdrawal last year from the Paris climate accord and Trump’s more recent threat to impose steep aluminum and steel tariffs on the European Union (waivers for which expire next week). These diplomatic fissures have prompted some to question the durability of the trans-Atlantic relationship. On Iran, at least, there’s a risk of Europe drifting further from the U.S. and closer to Russia. [...]
Despite their differences, they do have another important thing in common: A willingness to stand up to—or, depending on your perspective, stick it to—the United States. “Russia will exploit as much as possible this narrative that the United States is not respecting its international engagements,” Boulègue said. “It will be presented as a victory and this will allow Russia to have an upper hand in any future negotiations with regards to Iran, and that is directly linked to Syria because Iran is indeed a key player in any sort of peace settlement in Syria. … Russia will definitely capitalize on that.”
Social Europe: Germany’s Great European Heist
At NATO meeting after NATO meeting, Germany would commit to spending 2% of its GDP on defense. It never delivered. Spending slumped toward 1% of GDP, with the majority going to salaries and pensions. The latest NATO data show German spending on defense equipment and on research and development running at only 0.17% of GDP in 2017, compared to 0.42% in France and 0.47% in the UK.
Germany’s dearth of military investment has created a daunting gap between its defense capacity and that of the rest of Europe. Only a fraction of Germany’s weapons and military vehicles are operational. On Europe’s eastern border, only nine of the 44 tanks promised for the Bundeswehr unit that is supposed to anchor NATO’s 5,000-strong rapid-reaction force in the Baltics next year are fit for use. The unit also lacks other equipment essential for the mission, such as tents, winter clothing, night vision equipment, and body armor. [...]
These issues are at the heart of developing a European sovereign, backed by democratic institutions and decision-making processes that enable the common use of force. But Europe cannot start from some imaginary tabula rasa. It must start from the place to which history has brought it. The quid pro quo that France should demand for cooperation on security policy is that Germany recognizes the same reality with regard to economic policy.
Social Europe: The Italian Election And US Underpinning Of Populism
Five Star, the biggest party in Parliament, sees itself as an anti-corruption movement and advocates many economic reforms championed by the Left in Italy. These include a reform of pensions and a guaranteed minimum income and a rejection of austerity. The Lega, formerly the secessionist Northern League, now concentrates on a more narrowly racist and Eurosceptic agenda. More experienced than their allies, the Lega served in government during the Berlusconi years and at the time advocated many traditional conservative economic policies. The two parties have little in common beyond their dislike of the EU and their claims to populism, but they have somehow managed to cobble together a governing program including restoration of pensions, tax cuts, and a basic income for Italy’s poor. [...]
After the Second World War the US made an effort to set up a trading system that lowered tariff and non-tariff barriers, initially facilitating the dominance of American industry as Europe and Asia began to rebuild. They were extremely successful in setting up an open world economy, championing free market economic policies and doing as much as possible to undermine statist approaches in Europe and elsewhere. In the early postwar period the CIA did what it could to finance European conservatives, to set up pro- market trade unions and undermine Western European communists. European trade unionists facilitated these efforts by fighting among themselves, as did left wing parties [...]
The economic sectors that could not easily be outsourced were services. Developed economies came to be dominated by this sector. These were not only the infamous low-wage industries such as fast food or hotels, but also high-end sectors like financial services, scientific research, and not-so-highly paid education. This led to bifurcated labor markets in developed economies as manufacturing was hollowed out, eroding middle class jobs. The gap between rich and poor became exaggerated, especially in countries where income taxes were less progressive, or where much of the taxation was indirect (sales and VAT taxes), as in Italy.
Quartzy: Plastic straws are the new plastic bags
Long a default offering in restaurants and takeout joints, plastic straws have of late become antennae for the ire of environmentalists, like plastic bags before them. And rightfully so. The Ocean Conservancy’s 2017 International Coastal Cleanup Report (pdf), which contains data from cleanup efforts in 112 countries, found plastic straws to be consistently in the top 10 discarded items, contributing to some 18 million pounds (8 million kg) of ocean trash collected. If the data alone doesn’t inspire you to give up straws, an excruciating story and video of a sea turtle with a four-inch (10 cm) straw stuck in its nostril might. [...]
Like the plastic bag, the straw is swiftly becoming a symbol for the toxic and persistent scourge of single-use plastic, and an everyday item that can be eliminated to reduce its use. Organizations such as the Surfrider Foundation, the Plastic Pollution Coalition, and the Ocean Conservancy are all campaigning to get concerned citizens—and the restaurants that serve them—to skip plastic straws entirely.
Some companies and municipalities are taking note. On Monday (May 21), Alaska Airlines announced it would replace plastic stir straws and citrus picks with “sustainable, marine-friendly alternatives” on all its flights and in lounges. (Fun fact: This change came after the urging of a 16-year-old Girl Scout named Shelby O’Neil.) A day later, New York City councilman Rafael L. Espinal Jr. introduced a bill to outlaw plastic straws in the city’s restaurants.
Vox: A radical proposal to fight poverty in the developing world: tax the rich more than the poor
But new data on taxation and spending in the world’s poorest countries suggests that progressive tax-and-transfer systems are far less common than you would think. In general, taxes are less progressive in those countries, financial transfers are much smaller, and the bulk of social spending is soaked up by broken health and education systems. The net effect is often that tax-and-transfer policies leave poor people worse off, not better. [...]
That happens in two ways: The income of the well-off is reduced by higher taxes (this accounts for about a quarter of the reduction in inequality) while the poor get payments like Social Security as well as family, housing, disability and unemployment benefits. The latter accounts for three-quarters of the reduction in inequality. The US is an outlier in seeing less redistribution than most rich countries, but even there, the net impact of taxes and transfers is to reduce inequality. [...]
The Gini coefficient measures the level of inequality in a group: A measure of 0 implies complete equality (everyone gets the same income) and 100 is perfect inequality (one person gets all of the income). Before government taxes and transfers, the Gini for the 29 developing countries in Lustig’s study is 47. (It stands at 45 in the United States). Fiscal redistribution reduces the Gini coefficient by more than 7 points in the US and European Union. [...]
In the rich world, the poorest citizens tend to be net financial recipients from the government — they get more in transfers than they pay in taxes. But that’s not true in some developing countries. First, tax regimes in those countries aren’t very progressive, partly because the revenue authorities tend to rely on indirect taxes like the value-added tax (VAT) — which fall on all consumers — rather than direct taxes on high personal or corporate incomes. (A VAT is similar to an American sales tax but applies to all firms, not just retail businesses.)
25 May 2018
The Atlantic: Vaccines Alone Won’t Beat Ebola
In the Congo, if you’re sick, you’re usually surrounded. Medical services are thin, so family members shoulder the burden of nursing their loved ones back to health. At one hospital I visited (well before the current outbreak), a family had camped outside a treatment building, waiting for their relatives inside to recuperate. Their laundry was drying on a washing line. “In an outbreak, you want to separate sick and healthy people, but here, if people are sick, everyone’s there,” one survivor told me. “Here, for we who live in communities, it is solitude that kills us.”
That mindset continues after death. Families will clean and dress the bodies of their loved ones. They’ll caress, kiss, and embrace them. Spouses might even spend a night next to their deceased partners. Through these bonds of affection, Ebola, which spreads through bodily fluids, can easily jump from one host into an entire family. The worst thing about the virus is not its deeply exaggerated bloodiness, but its ability to corrupt the bonds of community. It is a pathogen well-suited to a world where sickness and death are met with touch and affection. [...]
By that she means: finding infected people and tracking their contacts; ensuring hygienic practices that keep infections from spreading; and engaging with communities. These are old-school measures. Public Health 101. But they’re also the bedrock of any outbreak response. They’re vital for diseases that have no available vaccines or treatments, like Lassa fever which is currently breaking out in Liberia, or Nipah which has risen again in India. And they’re still vital when vaccines are available. [...]
For a start, there’s a language barrier. The Congo has upward of 200 languages. In Bikoro, around 90 percent of people speak Lingala, the main local dialect; to reach the people who don’t, the ministry is also translating its messages into N’Tomba, which is spoken by 40 percent of the region.
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