Cannibalism has been used for centuries to define the lowest form of humanity, but the story isn't as straightforward as it may seem. Turns out, there may be a logic - or even a love - to eating people.
13 May 2018
openDemocracy: Why I am not a Liberal and how we need to fight bin Trump and Brexit
I am not a Liberal with a capital ‘L’ because the nature of its embrace of individualism is inseparable from capitalism, and I want to see the replacement of capitalism. By capitalism I mean a world run in the interests of those for whom accumulation is the measure of value and success. I am not saying we know how this will happen or that it will be soon, but I live my politics as a refusal of our present circumstances. In any society, however, a precondition for replacing capitalism is a robust constitutional democracy and openness. Rightly, voters will not trust a more collective form of government without a rock-solid framework of human rights, privacy, active toleration, freedom of expression and organisation and the equality of all persons. Liberty Before Liberalism was what Quentin Skinner titled his exploration of what this might mean. Liberty after liberalism, while standing on its shoulders, might describe my anti-capitalism. [...]
The excruciating paradox of Trumpism is twofold. First, it is rooted in the anti-political, let-it-rip economics of Reaganism and the deceits and over-reach of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld: it is an extreme expression of the deceitful era that gave birth to it. Second, at the same time it rides the rage of opposition to that era and its consequences and presents itself as the most ferocious opponent of the fraudulent elite - which Trump in fact personifies. [...]
This means we have to take Trumpism and the hard right seriously not only as an irrational threat capable of destroying the checks and institutions essential to democracy and liberty, but also a force that does have an empirical claim on reality. Its repudiation of the previous order has some justice to it, even if its response does not. Simply calling for Trump to be stopped is too feeble a response, therefore, and is unlikely to succeed; as Hungarians have just learnt with Orbán and the Brits are learning with Brexit. We have to dig deeper. A process and a claim need to be reversed. It is not credible to call for a reversion to the way politics was conducted before 2016. [...]
At least in his new book, Counter-Revolution, Liberal Europe in Retreat, Zielonka poses the issue of whether democracy and neoliberalism are incompatible. He does not provide an answer; yet he emphasises, correctly in my view, there can be no way forward without a confronting what went wrong. In his article that started these exchanges Fawcett agrees that there has been a "long failure by the liberal centre to keep democratic liberalism in good repair". He provides a vivid list, both conceptual and strategic, from misbegotten wars to the financial crash. Yet the metaphor of repair suggests that these were merely accidents and there were no fundamental flaws with the way the world was run after 1945.
Haaretz: Belgian Intel Uncovers Homophobia, anti-Semitism at Brussels’ Great Mosque
An official Belgian intelligence report leaked to the media discloses that Brussels’ Great Mosque, a Saudi-affiliated institution situated not far from the major European Union headquarters institutions, has been teaching hatred of Jews and homosexuals. [...]
It turns out that the Great Mosque, the large and impressive house of worship visible to anyone going from the Brussels airport to the European Quarter – the Brussels neighborhood that is home to the headquarters of the European Union – has been training imams (Muslim prayer leaders) destined to lead mosques around Europe in Jew-hatred, preparation for armed jihad and the need to persecute members of the LGBT community, among other precepts. [...]
Another publication used for instruction, entitled “The Way of the Muslim,” describes Jews as “treacherous, unreliable and swindling, indecent and insolent, cruel and insensitive, greedy people who use violence, force and terror to control the world.” When it comes to members of the LGBT community, the textbook suggests three ways of dealing with them: “Stoning, burning at the stake or finding a tall building in town and throwing them off the roof head first.”
Haaretz: Israelis Reveling in Iran Deal's Downfall Forget Euphoria Is Often a Prelude to Disaster
And that’s not all. After the U.S. essentially violated the Iran nuclear deal and following the massive Israel Air Force attack early Thursday morning on Iranian installations in Syria, the new U.S. Embassy will be inaugurated next week, perhaps in keeping with the prescient saying of ancient Jewish sages: “And the gates of Jerusalem are destined to reach Damascus.” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has already named a square in Jerusalem in honor of our savior Trump, while Third Temple enthusiasts minted a coin bearing the likeness of Trump against the backdrop of Cyrus the Persian emperor, the only gentile to be dubbed “a king messiah” in the bible. I will “subdue nations before him”, God promised through his prophet Isaiah, and, in what could make Trump even happier, will give him “hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places,” that might even exceed the generous “contributions” of Trump’s Russian oligarchs.
With these two dramatic decisions, the withdrawal from the deal and the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem, Trump is not only fulfilling his role in the Talmudic “beginning of redemption”, he is reflecting the very essence of today’s “Israeliness”. Not only is Trump instituting the most pro-Israeli U.S. policies in the history of relations between the two countries, he is doing so while personifying the traits that Israelis, some would say unfortunately, admire most. He speaks the blunt “dugri” that Israelis cherish, denigrates diplomacy, ignores international norms and conventions, cares nothing for the UN and torments those anti-Semitic but nonetheless spineless Europeans. He is embracing the traditional Israeli maxim that “Arabs understand only force” and expanding it to include Muslims as a whole, especially the ayatollahs in Tehran. [...]
No one disputes that Iran poses a mortal threat to Israel’s wellbeing and hardly anyone fails to take seriously its leaders’ threat to destroy the Zionist entity. The argument is over the means, not the end. Those who supported the extension of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action believe that its harsh inspection regime was a preferable way to curtail its nuclear ambitions and thus served Israeli interests better than the chaos and bedlam and danger of all-out war that is now looming over the Middle East. The deed, however, is now done, and that train is leaving the station. While the fervent admirers of Trump and Netanyahu celebrate a victory that has yet to be achieved, critics of the two leaders can only hope and pray that their apprehensions are misplaced and that euphoria, for a change, won’t turn out to be a prelude to disaster.
Vox: The big problem with comparing Trump to Nixon
Donald Trump may look a lot like Richard Nixon right now. But there is one glaring difference between these two men’s presidencies: Fox News.
Trump and Nixon are similar in a lot of ways: they both faced major FBI investigations, were accused of obstructing justice, lashed out at the media, and oozed raw sexual charisma. Some pundits look at those similarities and assert that, like Nixon, Trump will also face impeachment.
But Nixon never had Fox News. As trust in mainstream media has collapsed over the past 40 years, the amount of conservative media has exploded. And sources like Fox News have spent months casting doubt on the FBI and the Mueller special investigation.
Without a uniting narrative in the media, it’s unlikely Trump will face impeachment or that Republicans in Congress will be the ones to hold the
Politico: How Italy could blow up Europe as we know it
Donald Tusk, who runs the European Council, attempted the Bratislava Declaration and Roadmap in September 2016. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker won plaudits for his 2017 Future of Europe white paper, but tanked when six months later he put forward a specific plan that wasn’t mentioned in the initial paper. Emmanuel Macron attempted to start the EU’s traditional Franco-German motor for reform, and kept pushing in his speech accepting the Charlemagne Prize this week; but the French president has found himself blocked by a German election stalemate and then a government in Berlin allergic to ideas like a eurozone finance minister.
With the U.K. leaving, Spain mired in its own Catalan constitutional crisis, and Poland neck-deep in rule-of-law complaints from Brussels, that leaves only Italy to help get things moving again. The 5Stars pitch themselves as EU reform-minded: If they stay true to that promise, it would come as pleasant surprise for Tusk, Juncker & co. The odds are higher, though, that Italy will struggle to build a consensus, let alone a European one, and thus close the door on EU reforms before 2020. [...]
Yet an Italian euro-exit is hardly off the table either. Beppe Grillo, the 5Stars’ founder, last week revived the idea of forcing a referendum on Italy’s membership in the single currency. It is, after all, in the party’s DNA — and we all know what usually happens when the EU goes on the ballot (see France and Netherlands in 2005, Ireland in 2008, Britain in 2016, pick your year in Denmark). [...]
The success of these two parties brings home the changed mood among Italians. That’s especially true for the young. In a 2017 poll, just over half of people under 45 said they would vote to leave the EU if Italy holds a referendum on EU membership (while 68 percent of respondents over 45 supported staying in the bloc).
Associated Press: Merkel decries US pullout from Iran deal, gets peace prize
The German leader made her remarks at St. Francis’ Basilica, in Assisi, the saint’s hometown, where Franciscan friars awarded her the St. Francis Lamp for peace. Merkel was honored for the welcome Germany gave to Syrian war refugees, a decision that carried political risks for the chancellor and her party.
Addressing conflicts on her own continent, Merkel decried what she called “nightly violations” in Ukraine of cease-fire agreements reached in 2014 and 2015 to end the conflict between pro-Kiev forces and pro-Russia fighters in the country’s battered east.
Delivering a sweeping speech about challenges to a more peaceful world, the chancellor also cautioned against Europeans seeking easy solutions to their problems from populist politicians, whose clout has been on the rise across much of the continent. [...]
Santos praised Merkel for representing “those principles which ought to serve as antidotes in a world in which the ghosts of nationalism, of fundamentalism, of racism, of populism and of intolerance are surging with dangerous vigor.”
Politico: Juncker attacks ‘part-time Europeans’ among EU governments
He said the EU’s next long-term budget is “not a neutral accounting exercise” and “has to mirror great ambitions and European solidarity” — despite the constraints of Brexit, which the Commission estimates will blow a hole of between €12 billion and €13 billion a year in the EU’s accounts. [...]
“I discovered during the migration crisis, and also during the economic and financial crisis, that there are full-time Europeans who are always there when the necessary measure of Europe is required. And then I discovered that there are part-time Europeans who sometimes take part, who sometimes don’t come to work but who make a lot of speeches,” Juncker said in his speech. [...]
At the same conference, Corina Creţu, the European commissioner for regional policy, warned that thousands of EU-funded projects will be at risk if there are delays to agreeing the next EU budget, which the Commission wants finalized by the European Parliament election in May 2019.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)