UnHerd: Leon Trotsky’s disturbing afterlife

 But in many ways, what is most interesting about Trotsky is not his death, or life, but his afterlife. For, to a great extent he remained (and for some people amazingly remains still) the great ‘might have been’ of the Soviet era. Never mind the people who actually grew up while the horrors of the Soviet system were ongoing, I have heard people in my own adult life, born in my own lifetime, and sometimes younger than myself (people in their twenties or thirties), seriously describe themselves as being (or at some point having been) a Trotskyist. [...]

Several reasons present themselves. One is the possibility that his undoubted intellectual ability, plus his assassination in a far-away land gave him a certain martyr-like glamour. He was working on his magnum opus about his enemy right up until the moment of his death; the combination of work ethic and premature demise can be a heady brew. Especially so for a certain type of Western intellectual who likes the idea of fanaticism for a cause precisely because they have themselves never had to suffer at the hands of such fanatics.

But the greater reason would appear to be that reason which remains perhaps the greatest bit of unfinished business of the 20th Century. The recognition that the Soviet, Communist, Marxist experiments were not trees which just happened to give off some poison fruits. Or beautiful ideas which were just mishandled and misappropriated by misguided hands. But rather that the whole dream was a nightmare from beginning to end. And always was going to be. That the Communist experiment had no more likelihood of delivering peace on earth than did the Fascist attempt to try to produce the same.

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99 Percent Invisible: Return of Oñate’s Foot

1998 marked the 400th anniversary of Oñate’s arrival. There were “Cuarto Centenario” celebrations planned all over the state, complete with parades, theater, and a commemorative stamp. In a second note to the Albuquerque Journal, the anonymous foot thieves — calling themselves the “Friends of Acoma” — wrote: “We see no glory in celebrating Oñate’s fourth centennial, and we do not want our faces rubbed in it.” [...]

His cruelty to the innocent at Acoma was one of twelve crimes for which Oñate would later be tried and convicted by the Spanish crown. As punishment, he would be banished, permanently, from the territories of New Mexico. Yet just as people in New Mexico were learning more of this history, the city of Albuquerque was considering building yet another statue of him. [...]

When Naranjo-Morse arrived at the first meeting, the other two artists wheeled in a model of a statue they’d already put together. It was another triumphant statue of Juan de Oñate on a horse. They told her she could work on the granite pedestal beneath Oñate’s horse’s feet. “I felt insulted, I felt hurt, I felt marginalized,” said Naranjo-Morse. [...]

The second memorial, right next to it, looks like a huge dirt spiral. This is Naranjo-Morse’s contribution. The dirt path spirals slowly downhill, into the ground. As you walk it, the street disappears behind berms of chamisa and juniper. Then the buildings, then Oñate himself. Until finally, at the center of the spiral, all you can see is the land.

 

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Freakonomics: How to Make Your Own Luck

 Before she decided to become a poker pro, Maria Konnikova didn’t know how many cards are in a deck. But she did have a Ph.D. in psychology, a brilliant coach, and a burning desire to know whether life is driven more by skill or chance. She found some answers in poker — and in her new book The Biggest Bluff, she’s willing to tell us everything she learned. [...]

I do occasionally hear a great interview with an author that gives me a sense of them and their book — but only occasionally. Usually, my experience as a listener is just as unsatisfying as my experience was as an author. So, I got to thinking — what if, rather than asking writers to summarize their books and ask them a few generic questions, what if we tried something a bit different? What if we had the authors read some excerpts of the book, so listeners can hear the actual writing, and what if we also interviewed the author? Wouldn’t that give listeners a truer sense of things? So, that’s what we’re trying in this week’s episode, this hybrid model. We picked a book and author I think you’re going to love; I certainly did. Remember — pay attention because we’ll have some questions for you at the end.

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European Council on Foreign Relations: Poland in the EU: How to lose friends and alienate people

 This year, when Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, was the first to call for an extraordinary EU summit to discuss the EU’s reaction to violent events in Belarus, his words did not generate an immediately positive reaction from other capitals. An extraordinary Foreign Affairs Council is eventually taking place today – but credit should also go to Lithuania, Germany, and Sweden. It is not just the result of successful diplomatic efforts on the part of Warsaw, even if the Polish foreign ministry has sought to present it this way for its domestic audience. If any capital is currently leading on the EU’s reaction to events in Belarus, it is not Poland but the much smaller Lithuania – which merits a separate story about how to punch above one’s weight. [...]

The Law and Justice party formed a government in 2015 with a lofty promise to lift Poland’s foreign policy from its knees. Since then, however, the country’s standing in the EU has hardly improved even a bit. If anything, the trend is in the opposite direction. The Coalition Explorer survey of policy professionals reveals that collectively they regard Poland as the second most disappointing country in the bloc, after Hungary. It is also among three countries (alongside Italy and Spain) that are most often seen as punching below their weight in EU politics. [...]

However, as usual, the devil lies in the detail. Apart from a limited group of the EU’s eastern member states (Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria; half of them Polish neighbours), rarely does anyone consider Poland as having the same longer-standing interests on EU policy; and only some of these countries (plus Germany) include Poland on the list of their most contacted partners. This clashes with Warsaw’s ambition to play the role of one of the EU’s post-Brexit ‘Big Five’, alongside Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. [...]

Most notably, the United Kingdom used to be the key western EU member that considered that Poland shared similar interests with it. This translated into strong contacts between the two capitals. Now this alliance has been moved outside the EU framework and, as a result, nowhere in the EU’s western part do policy professionals consider Poland as sharing interests with their country. Germany is the only pre-2004 EU member where Poland is among the most contacted partners – but Poland ranks only fifth, after France, Netherlands, Austria, and Spain (with which Germany does not even have the border). Relations between Warsaw and Berlin are far from perfect, to say the least, largely upon Poland’s own wish.

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Politico: Pompeo lashes out as U.N. Security Council rejects extension to Iran arms embargo

 The Security Council "rejected a reasonable resolution to extend the 13-year old arms embargo on Iran and paved the way for the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell conventional weapons without specific UN restrictions in place for the first time in over a decade," Pompeo said in a statement. "The Security Council’s failure to act decisively in defense of international peace and security is inexcusable." [...]

A bipartisan group of 387 members of Congress urged the Trump administration in May to extend the arms embargo. House Foreign Affairs Chair Eliot Engel said at the time that "Iran continues to be a danger to the United States, our interests, and our allies. We need a realistic and practical strategy to prevent Iran from becoming a greater menace.” [...]

France, Germany and the United Kingdom had also pushed back on a U.S. threat to impose sanctions on Iran if the Security Council voted to let the embargo expire. The U.S. negotiated the right to do so under the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal. But the European countries argued the U.S. was not in a position to use the so-called snapback option after withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

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