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      France and Colombia: The Center Keeps Trying (but Failing) to Hold

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      Do Rumors of Boris Johnson’s Purported Twelfth Child Matter?

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      The Tories Get a Thumping in Local UK Elections

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      Macron Won But the Election Isn’t Over

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      With 58.54% of the vote, Emmanuel Macron unambiguously bucked the recent trend thanks to which incumbent French presidents consistently failed to earn a second term due to their unpopularity. In their election night commentaries, the Macronists noted with glee that their man was the first to gain re-election outside of a period of cohabitation. That sounded like some kind of odd accomplishment invented for the Guinness Book of Records. But it served to distract the public’s attention from what became clear throughout the evening: that, though resoundingly reelected, Macron is just as resoundingly an unpopular president.

      Apart from Macron’s supporters, the commentators across the political chessboard saw the blowout more like a stalemate than a checkmate. The left had been divided during the first round. It now appears ready to at least consider uniting its disparate forces for June’s two rounds of legislative elections, which everyone on the left is now calling the “third round” of the presidential election. 

      The defeated Marine Le Pen put forth a similar message, hinting that her relative “success,” which marked a significant improvement on 2017 (over 41%, up from 34%) opened the possibility of leading a populist movement that she hopes will attract voters from the left as well. Éric Zemmour, the other far-right candidate, a dyed-in-the-wool xenophobe, who at one point appeared to challenge Le Pen’s hold on the rightwing fringe, evoked his ambition for a purely nationalist and basically racist coalition that would avoid the indignity of reaching out to the left.

      The buzzword of the evening was nevertheless the idea of a “third round,” in which an adversary might deliver Macron a knockout punch. The Macronists immediately mocked such talk as a denial of democracy, in the minutes following the president’s resounding majority. But as the various interested parties on all sides invited by the television channel France 2 developed their analysis, a consensus emerged that all was not well in the realm of Macronia.

      The demise of France’s traditional parties

      On the positive side for Macron’s faithful or at least for his political marketers, the traditional parties on the left and right had been humiliated once again. It was even more brutal this time around than in 2017, when Macron first swept through the miraculous gap in the political Red Sea to reach the promised land without even having to dawdle in the desert. The Républicains and Socialists, once the valiant wielders of the scepter of power, are clearly left with little to hope for other than possibly being invited, as individuals, into the new government Macron will be appointing this week to demonstrate his willingness to construct a new alliance. But looming beyond the now concluded five-year compromise Macron engineered and rather ineptly managed during his first term, is the vision of a France now divided into largely incoherent blocs defined less by political vision than by exasperation with all the traditional solutions, left, right and center.

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      Le Pen and Zemmour have demonstrated that there exists a substantial pool of voters not averse to xenophobic reasoning. But those same voters tend to hail from the working class or the rural lower middle classes. They voted for Le Pen less out of the conviction that she would be a good leader than to protest against the political and financial elite that Macron represents in their eyes. Half a century ago, most of Le Pen’s voters were faithful to the Communist Party.

      If the former communist bloc of voters gradually drifted away from a Mitterand-led governing Socialist coalition to align behind the far-right Front National, embodied by Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the Socialists settled on their own rightward drift. They leaned increasingly towards the center, much as the Clinton Democrats had done in the US. That left a gaping hole on the left, which no political personality had the force or the name recognition to fill. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former minister, finally stepped into the role, seeking to counter the trend towards the technocratic center, a political position that appeared to suit the culture and mood of the post-Mitterand generation of Socialists.

      Ever since declaring independence from the party in 2009, Mélenchon has been vilified by his Socialist brethren for the crime of contesting its visibly centrist and increasingly corporate elitist drift. This was the same party, led by then president François Hollande, that named the youthful former banker Macron minister of the economy. 

      Mélenchon’s persistence during Hollande’s presidency as a provocative progressive, contesting his former party’s orthodoxy, already positioned him in 2017 as the most distinctive, if not necessarily most attractive personality on the left.  Thanks to his more than respectable third-place showing in the first round two weeks ago, he has emerged as the eventual “spiritual” leader of a newly unified left that could bring together the now marginal Communist Party (with just 2.5% of the vote), the Ecologists and even the Socialists, though they remain reticent to acknowledge Mélenchon’s ascent.

      Can the left overcome its divisions?

      Unlike the famous programme commun that formally allied the Socialists, Communists and the center-left Radicaux de Gauche and brought François Mitterand to power in the 1981 presidential election, Mélenchon has nothing concrete to build on other than exasperation of all the other parties with Macron. Preceding the second round, the head of La France Insoumise (“France unbowed”) cleverly honed his rhetoric to aim at being “elected” prime minister in June, even though he knows full well that the prime minister is appointed by the president, not elected by the people. It is his way of both highlighting the incoherence of the Fifth Republic’s electoral system, while at the same time offering Macron the opportunity to run an experiment in government that would mirror the history of the past five years. During Macron’s first term, an officially centrist president consistently appointed prime ministers from the traditional right, betraying the hopes of some on the left for more balance. Mélenchon is proposing a similar solution, but this time pointing left.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The timing of this strategy couldn’t be better. According to an IPSOS poll of French voters, “57% want to see the main left-wing parties form an alliance and present common candidates in the constituencies.” Importantly, 56% of those polled have stated they do not wish to see Macron obtain a majority, which means they hope to see another “cohabitation” in which the president shares power with an opposition party in parliament. Only 35% of French voters, 6% fewer than voted for Le Pen, would support a coalition of the two extreme rightwing parties, Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and Zemmour’s Reconquête. Voters who support the traditional right are split between seeking an alliance with the extreme right (22%) or with Macron’s République En Marche (25%). An overwhelming 53% of Républicain voters eschew the idea of an alliance with either.

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      What this means is that the next few weeks will be very interesting to watch. Can the man accused of being “the president of the rich” lead a government focused on the policies of the left? Or does he have the wherewithal and the political talent to confront what may become a populist uprising that draws energy from both the left and the right?

      Macron, the revolutionary?

      Two years ago when the COVID-19 outbreak forced the French government to take action, I noted in these columns that “French President Emmanuel Macron, of all people, seems to detect the beginning of a calling into question of the entire consumerist free market system, without giving much of a sense of what might replace it.” Perhaps he is ready to take seriously his own two-year old epiphany by appealing to the insights of a coalition on the left led by a prime minister named Mélenchon. After all, this time around, Macron has nothing to lose, since he cannot seek a third term. He might see this as his last chance to recover from the massive unpopularity that threatened his reelection and was saved only by his deft maneuvering aimed at ensuring that Marine Le Pen would be his hapless rival in the second round.

      The World This Week: Another French Revolution

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      More likely, Macron will try in the coming weeks to assemble a range of individuals from different sides, with variable symbolic value. He presumably hopes that this will persuade people of his capacity to assemble his own coherent majority. Macron’s attempt is highly unlikely to succeed and is likely to suffer a worse fate than his previous right-leaning, improvised coalitions.

      Macron’s real achievement is to have violated, not once but twice, the entire logic of the Fifth Republic that since its Gaullist beginnings always supposed the president would be the leader of a powerful governing party. In his first five-year stint he profited from the mental confusion in French electors’ heads, trying to understand the vacuum that had suddenly appeared, as he cobbled together what could only be seen as a temporary and to a large degree illusory solution. The confusion quickly provoked the Yellow Vest movement that called the entire montage into question. The unexpected arrival of a pandemic and a lockdown took the protesters off the street and put Macron back in the driver’s seat. A temporary situation was thus prolonged but its fragility has become even more evident than before.

      So now the French nation confronts a moment of truth, when the nature of its institutions must be given a makeover. Not because it would improve their look, but because they are on the verge of a permanent crisis. It seems unlikely that some simple solution will appear or that Macron can convince the people to continue to trust him to make, Jupiter-like, all the right decisions that might guide the nation through the troubles that lie ahead. 

      In his victory speech, Macron said absolutely nothing of substance. He congratulated and thanked his supporters for the victory and announced all the good things he is in favor of, promising, as expected, to respond to the needs and desires of “all” the people. On the same evening, violent protests broke out in Paris, Nantes, Lyon and Marseille, with spontaneous crowds contesting the election. The protesters from the right, upset by Le Pen’s failed bid, were joined by others from the left, who shouted slogans such as: “Macron, Le Pen, one solution: revolution.” Others shouted: “No fascists in our neighborhoods” and “Macron resign.”

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      Unlike the “Stop the steal” protests in the US following Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden, the French do not complain that the election was rigged, nor do they wish to see its results overturned. They are unhappy with a system that fails to represent their interests or needs. Having already effectively rejected the traditional parties and practically erased them from the electoral map, they are now focused on calling into question the curious political anomaly that Emmanuel Macron embodies in their eyes.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The French Must Vote to Rescue Democracy

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      On Sunday, April 24, the French will vote for their president. And the choice for the second and final round of the presidential elections is straightforward: vote for our Republic or against it. This is the third time that a representative of the far-right party led by the Le Pen clan has qualified for the final round. Twice before, in 2002 and 2017, millions of French took to the streets to protest this phenomenon. They went on to vote in large numbers against the Le Pen family —  first father and then daughter — to defend the French Republic, uphold its values and protect its fragile grandeur. In both elections, the French voted more for an idea than the candidate opposing either Le Pen. This idea was simple: defend our rich French heritage against a dangerous extremist ideology that undermines not only our Republic but also our nation.

      We have “changed, changed utterly”

      Something has changed since the days of 2002 and 2017. This time around, many choose not to choose. Thousands are breaking ranks with past beliefs and practices. They are not outraged by Le Pen making it to the final round of the presidential election. They are neither demonstrating nor showing any intention to vote. Alarmingly, even progressive thinkers are shilly-shallying in the face of adversity.

      From afar, I am taken by surprise, still dumbfounded by how many people — including family and friends — are willing to compromise on what we have held to be non-negotiable principles. Instead, many French seem to be inclined to dive into the unfathomable. I wonder why? What has happened in my absence for this ni-ni concept (neither Macron nor Le Pen) to replace revulsion for a fundamentally abhorrent populist position? Is it out of spite, frustration or anger vis-à-vis the current president? 

      Emmanuel Macron might have failed on many fronts. Like many politicians over the ages, he might be guilty of false promises and dashing expectations. Yet Macron does not assail the values of our French Republic. He adheres to the constitution, the precedents and even the values of our Republic. Have the French lost all judgment and adopted a new nihilistic moral relativism?

      The World This Week: Another French Revolution

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      Marine Le Pen appeals to the people. In recent years, she has cultivated a softer image, the image of a figure who cares about the common people. And we know that modern politics is less about ideas or positions and more about connection and caring for the voter. This is especially so during election campaigns. Over the last few weeks, it seems that Le Pen has done a better job at showing empathy for the poor, the voiceless, the marginalized and the desperate than Macron. The bottom half of the country who struggle to make ends meet seem to identify more with Le Pen than her rival. 

      Le Pen’s strategy to tone down her racist rhetoric, promote a strong social agenda and focus on the most vulnerable seems to be paying off. At the same time, Macron is still regarded as “le Président des riches.”  More than ever, voters identify him with the well-off, the influential, the tech-savvy entrepreneurs and elites of all sorts. The disconnect between Macron and the ordinary voter is terrifying. Worryingly, even the middle class is splitting and stalling. If we do not remain vigilant, the thrill of the unknown conjured by many of the sorceress’ apprentices will inevitably turn into the chill of disenchantment on Monday morning.

      What is the real choice this Sunday?

      Simply put, this bloody Sunday is about choosing the rule of law over the law of the mob. It is about choosing impartiality over discrimination, multilateralism over nationalism, cooperation over strife, cohesion over division, inclusion over exclusion, and democracy over demagoguery. This election is about saving our Republic.

      We French must remember that politics is a dangerous game. Yes, incarnation is a part of politics but some things cannot be reborn or recast. There are inalienable values for any civilization, any nation and any democracy. We must stand up for them. For all her tinkering and softening, Le Pen stands for extreme nationalism, irresponsible populism and dangerous xenophobia. To use an Americanism, she does not offer a decent value proposition for us French voters.

      Democracy is at risk around the world. France is no exception. Today, many in France believe that they have nothing to lose and everything to risk. This belief characterizes fragile societies and failed states. I should know. I have been working on them.

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      In fact, the French have everything to lose and nothing to risk. The current system is already tottering. This election confirms the collapse (and perhaps even end) of traditional parties, the rise of identity politics from Jean-Luc Melenchon on the left to Eric Zemmour on the right, and the mainstreaming of ecology and its fragmentation across the political spectrum (voiding the Green Party of its substance and meaning). This election has also been marked by the absence of debate, which has been compounded by the mediocrity of the media and the consequent numbing of the voters. Having lived in Trump’s America, I have a sense of déjà vu.

      The French presidential campaign is marked by the absence of a collective vision and action. There is an argument to be made that the fifth republic no longer works well and needs reform. Some may and do argue for a sixth republic. The French can make many such choices without voting for Le Pen. Even if they despise Macron, his failings are not a reason to abandon core French values. 

      As citizens, we have work to do if we do not want to wake up to a daunting new reality on Monday, April 25. I strongly believe that France can reinvent itself. Our nation still has a role to play in Europe and on the world stage. And so do we. But first let’s vote.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The State of Press Freedom in Finland

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      A decision to prosecute three journalists at Finland’s largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, has called into question its status as one of the world’s leading countries for press freedom. Investigative journalists Laura Halminen and Tuomo Pietilainen, along with their supervisor, Kalle Silfverberg, are accused of disclosing and attempting to disclose state secrets. All three deny the charges.

      The case concerns a series of investigative articles about a military intelligence research center operated by the Finnish defense forces. If found guilty, the journalists face up to four years in prison, with a minimum sentence of four months.

      Is Peace Possible in Ukraine?

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      Despite Finland’s status as a leading example for freedom of the press, it has not been problem-free, particularly with targeted harassment of journalists. However, the case against Helsingin Sanomat’s journalists has opened up an entirely new front for defenders of press freedom. It has also raised uncomfortable issues from Finland’s past, which the country is still grappling with.

      A Small Country With a Large Neighbor

      Finland, with a population of 5.5 million, shares a border of more than 800 miles with Russia and its population of more than 144 million. For Finnish leaders, this has meant taking a realist approach to foreign policy. In particular, the Winter War of 1939-40, when Finland resisted an attack by the Soviet Union, is one of the defining events in the country’s history.

      The decades that followed World War II were challenging for Finland, a small country ravaged by war. Maintaining good relations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War was a necessity. Finland successfully avoided Soviet occupation and remained a democracy, but it paid the price in the form of “Finlandization,” which meant strict political neutrality and not challenging the influence of the Soviet Union.

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      Finland’s national security strategy is founded on conscription, a trained reserve, defense of the entire country and a willingness to defend it from attack. The aim is to make it an unappealing target for a would-be aggressor state.

      A recent decision to renew Finland’s aging fleet of Hornets with 64 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fighter jets, popular with NATO countries, forms part of the strategy. Maintaining good international relations and participating in international military crisis management are other key elements. Finland is not a member of NATO, but it joined the European Union in 1995. Polls indicate that support for NATO membership has grown significantly following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

      Prosecution Before Publication

      The case against the three journalists was triggered by an article that Helsingin Sanomat published in 2017. Legislative changes that aimed to extend the information-gathering powers of the security services were underway at the time. The newspaper’s representatives have argued that there were strong public interest reasons for publishing the story.

      The police investigation included a raid on one journalist’s home and left them stuck in limbo for four years. The decision to prosecute, announced in late October 2021, concerns the article published five years ago and material for a series of unpublished articles. The prosecution based on unpublished material has understandably raised concerns.

      There are currently limited facts available about the basis for the prosecution or the details of the case, but more information is expected to become public at a later stage. Based on the available information, it appears likely that one of the central questions in the case will hinge on when an investigative journalist’s research potentially crosses the line into an attempt to disclose state secrets.

      The Finnish Union of Journalists has raised strong concerns about the case, pointing out that it could set a precedent and mean that a journalist’s unpublished notes might result in a conviction. The union and the Council for Mass Media, the independent media regulator, have called for openness in the legal proceedings.

      Embed from Getty Images

      While not taking a position on the case, the council has expressed concerns that it could result in restrictions on freedom of expression on grounds that may remain secret. The council has emphasized the need for clarity about the circumstances in which considering material for publication or finalizing material, without actually publishing it, could constitute a crime.

      The issues raised by the Council for Mass Media include concerns about the risk of self-censorship. This is a sensitive historical issue, as the era of “Finlandization” included heavy self-censorship in the media and in publishing. Writing about the case for Politiikasta, academic scholars Anu Koivunen and Johanna Vuorelma warn against the risk of a return to a Cold War-era media environment, where every decision to publish was assessed from a security perspective.

      Welcome to the Land of Free Press

      In 2018, hundreds of billboards commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat famously greeted Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on their visit to Helsinki with messages such as, “Mr. President, welcome to the land of free press.” The case against Helsingin Sanomat’s journalists may test whether Finland still is that land of a free press.

      Whatever the outcome of the case, it has given Finland, the world’s happiest country, cause for serious self-reflection.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      A Russian-American Game of Mirrors

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      Most of the propaganda Western media is now mass-producing focuses on the very real belligerence and lies of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Print and broadcast media have thrown themselves into a propaganda game serving to cast them in the noble role of prosecutors of an evildoer and defenders of victimized Ukrainians. Some academic-style publications have begun to join the fray, in an attempt to refine the propagandizing strategies.

      One good example is an article in The American Purpose by the National Endowment for Democracy’s vice-president for studies and analysis, Christopher Walker. In the piece titled, “The Kleptocratic Sources of Russia’s Conduct,” Walker builds his case around the idea that “Vladimir Putin and his gang are fixated on wealth and power.” The author admits being inspired by political analyst Daniel Kimmage, who in 2009 produced what Walker terms a “clear-eyed assessment of Putin’s Russia.” He cites this wisdom he gleaned from Kimmage: “The primary goal of the Russian elite is not to advance an abstract ideal of the national interest or restore some imagined Soviet idyll,” but “to retain its hold on money and power.”

      How to Write New York Times Propaganda

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      Kimmage sums up one difficulty Americans have felt when dealing with Putin as an ideological adversary. Whereas the Soviet Union’s embrace of communism made the ideological gap visible even to moronic voters, Putin reigns over a nation that American consultants transformed in the 1990s into a capitalist paradise (i.e., a paradise for owners of capital). To distinguish Putin’s evil capitalism from America’s benevolent capitalism, Kimmage called the Russian version a “selectively capitalist kleptocracy.”

      Walker notes that “the system of ‘selectively capitalist kleptocracy’ in Russia that Daniel Kimmage described” 13 years ago has now “evolved in ways that are even more threatening to democracy and its institutions.”

      Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Kleptocracy:

      The form of government universally adopted by all powerful nations at the end of the 20th century.

      Contextual Note

      An acerbic critic might be excused for not feeling particularly illuminated to learn that Putin and his cronies “are fixated on wealth and power.” Who would expect them to have a different philosophy and mindset than the leaders of every other powerful country in the world? The list includes those that claim to be faultless democracies, committed to implementing the will of the people. The first among them is, of course, the United States, but France, the United Kingdom and others adhere to the same sets of values, even if each of them has worked out more subtle ways of applying them. And, of course, Saudi Arabia stands at the head of everyone’s class as the exemplar of leaderships fixated on wealth and power.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Kimmage’s description of Russia as a “selectively capitalist kleptocracy” may be helpful in ways he may not have intended. Russia’s selective capitalist kleptocracy contrasts with America’s non-selectively capitalist kleptocracy. The real question turns around what it means to be selective or non-selective. Walker makes no attempt to differentiate the two because he believes the term kleptocracy only applies to Russia. But statistics about wealth inequality reveal that the American capitalist system has become a plutocracy that can make its own claim to being a kleptocracy.

      In 1989, the top 10% of income earners in the United States earned 42% of the total income, which is already significant. In 2016, they accounted for 50%. “By the start of 2021, the richest 1% of Americans held 32% of the nation’s wealth,” according to The New York Times. Between the start of 2020 and July 2021, “the richest 1% gained $10 trillion” in accumulated wealth.

      The gap is destined to keep widening. Unlike Putin’s oligarchy, composed of his “selected” friends and other winners of Russia’s industrial casino, the 1% in the US have non-selectively emerged to constitute a kleptocratic class that, thanks to a sophisticated system of governance, writes the laws, applies the rules and captures the new wealth that is programmed to gravitate towards them.

      Kimmage’s idea of a fixation “with wealth and power” correctly describes the mindset of the members of the American kleptocratic class, whether they are entrepreneurs with names like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, or politicians like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who rose from poverty to convert power into riches and earn their place as servants of the kleptocratic class.

      Unlike Putin’s mafia-like political culture, the system in the US is subtle and sophisticated. It contains convenient paths to join the kleptocratic class, such as a Harvard or Stanford degree. But mostly it relies on fixation. Within the US kleptocratic class diversity exists. Some may be more focused on power (including cultural power) than wealth. But the fascination with both wealth and power is common to all. The system is built on the symmetrical principle that wealth feeds power and power feeds wealth.

      Walker accuses Putin of another grave sin, beyond kleptomania but including it: expansionism. He denounces the “spread of the roots and branches of a transnational kleptocratic system that stretches well beyond the Russian Federation to pose a multidimensional threat to free societies.”

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      How could a discerning reader not notice the dramatic irony here? Has Walker forgotten that Putin’s complaint about NATO is that, despite promises made to the contrary, it has spent 30 years aggressively expanding toward Russia’s most sensitive borders? Putin may be interested in expansion, but Eastern Europe has become a slow tug-of-war in which NATO, under US impulsion, has been the most active and insistent aggressor.

      In short, Walker has produced an essay that correctly identifies very real political evils within the Russian system. But they share the same basic traits as the politico-economic culture of the West under US leadership. In an absolute failure of self-recognition, Walker somehow manages to avoid acknowledging his own culture’s image reflected back to him into the mirror that has become the target of his complaints. That is because, in this article, he has focused on producing just one more example of what has now become the shameless, knee-jerk propaganda that pollutes Western media in this climate of an existential war from which the US has abstained, preferring to let the Ukrainians endure the sacrifice for the sake of American principles.

      Historical Note

      In the 17th century, European history began a radical transformation of its political institutions lasting roughly 300 years. After England’s Puritans beheaded their king and declared a short-lived Commonwealth, European intellectuals began toying with an idea that would eventually lead to the triumph of the idea, if not the reality of democracy, a system Winston Churchill generously called “the worst form of government except for all the others.”

      For the best part of the 19th and 20th centuries, representative democracy became the standard reference for everyone’s idea of what an honest government should be like, while struggling to find its footing with the concurrent rise of industrial capitalism. Capitalism generated huge inequality that seemed at least theoretically anomalous with the idea of democracy.

      During the late 20th century, industrial capitalism that had previously focused on production, productivity and mass distribution, gave way to financial capitalism. This new version of capitalism focused uniquely on wealth and power. In other words, democracies switched their orientation from a belief in their citizens’ anarchic quest for personal prosperity in the name of the “pursuit of happiness” to the elite’s concentrated focus on the acquisition and accumulation of money and clout.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This new social model merged the logic of democratically designed institutions with economic and legal mechanisms that created a sophisticated system at the service of a small number of individuals who understood and controlled the levers of wealth and political power. Their major cultural achievement consisted of giving a sufficiently wide base to this new form of plutocracy that disguised its kleptocratic reality.

      For nearly half a century, the Cold War promoted the spectacle of a combat between democratic capitalism and autocratic communism. Both sides seized the opportunity to build military powerhouses that could provide an effective shelter for the kleptocratic class. Once the heresy of communism was banished from Russia, it could morph, under Boris Yeltsin and then Vladimir Putin, into a caricature of the much more subtle kleptocracy encapsulated in Reaganomics.

      The Russian and American versions of economic power management shared the same orientations but deployed them in contrasting ways. Kleptocratic rule was at the core of both. Using a musical analogy, the American philharmonic version of kleptocracy was delivered in Carnegie Hall, with a fully orchestrated score. Russia offered an improvisational version delivered by local musicians in an animated tavern. In both cases, as the proverb says, “he who pays the piper calls the tune.”

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Is Peace Possible in Ukraine?

      by

      The Russian invasion of Ukraine — an attempt to end the independence of a sovereign nation by force — would, if successful, set a precedent that might frighten smaller countries across the globe. It is an attack on the system of international law that has given us 80 years of relative peace in Europe and allowed international trade to develop, thereby raising living standards.

      The United Nations Charter established the principles of the inviolability of borders, respect for the territorial integrity of states and the prohibition of the use of force. When Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1991, its borders were formally guaranteed by Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Now, one of those guarantors is deliberately breaching those borders — for a second time.

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      The Helsinki Conference of 1975 reaffirmed the respect of borders in Europe, and it gave birth to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which Russia is a member of. Its charter confirms the above-mentioned UN principles. The Helsinki Final Act goes on to say: “They [states] also have the right to belong or not to belong to international organizations, to be party or not to bilateral or multilateral treaties including the right to be party or not to treaties of alliance.” The Russian pretext for war — to stop Ukraine from joining NATO and the European Union — is a direct contradiction of this Helsinki principle.

      Many, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, hoped the conflict would be a short one. Yet it looks increasingly like becoming a long war of attrition, much like World War I, where most of the deaths were caused by missiles and shells falling for the sky. This sort of conflict can grind on for months and even years until all is ruined.

      The Impact Beyond Ukraine

      The devastation will be felt far from Ukraine. Between them both, Ukraine and Russia grow 25% of the wheat traded in the world. Around 12% of all calories consumed around the globe derive from crops grown in Russia and Ukraine. It is impossible to sow and harvest crops on a battlefield. Indeed, both belligerent nations are likely to keep any crops they can grow for the use of their own beleaguered people.

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      The effect of this on bread prices will be dramatic. Some 75% of all the wheat consumed in Turkey and 70% in Egypt comes from Russia or Ukraine. Israel and Tunisia are also dependent on them for half of their supplies from the same sources. We can expect bread riots and renewed political instability in these countries.

      The effect of the war will be increased social tensions everywhere. The higher fuel and food prices that are flowing directly from the conflict will affect poorer families much more than richer ones as these items are a bigger share of the weekly budget in low-income households. They will also hit rural households much harder because people have to rely on a private car to obtain the necessities of life.

      The cost of replacement motor vehicles will rise because of shortages of minerals like aluminum, titanium, palladium and nickel, of which Russia is a major supplier. This will hit Germany’s car industry hard. Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Finland will be disproportionately hit by the loss of Russian markets for their exports.

      China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — creating a land-based route for Chinese exports to Western Europe — is being radically disrupted by a war that cuts right across the BRI’s road westward, and whose effects are being felt all the way from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The continuance of this war is not in China’s interests.

      The Possible Way to Peace in Ukraine

      The longer the conflict goes on, the more the sanctions on Russia will begin to sap its war-making capacity. Supplies of missiles and shells will become progressively harder to pay for. Those supplying weaponry to Ukraine have deeper pockets. This is the significance of Russia’s overtures to China.

      These overtures are an opportunity. China has an incentive to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, and so does Turkey. Of course, timing will be crucial. But the ingredients of such a deal, where there is no trust at all between the parties, are much harder to describe.

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      Ukraine could perhaps find a formula to give up Crimea, but it can hardly concede an inch in eastern Ukraine. Russian-language rights in Ukraine could be guaranteed, but what has Russia to offer in return? Perhaps reparations for the physical damage that the Russians have done to Ukraine’s infrastructure. Ukraine could join the EU but not NATO, with Russia’s encouragement, which would be a major U-turn for Moscow.

      None of these compromises are palatable, but they are preferable to a war of attrition that could go on for years until all the participants are exhausted or dead.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More