Peter Isackson

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      The Mechanics of Discontent Visible in Berlin

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      The vacuum of leadership and the visible missteps throughout much of the Western world have turned developed nations into a fertile ground for what some people see as the resurgence of modern versions of fascism. Until the past few months, such a statement would have sounded provocative at best, delusional at worst. But the evidence confronts us every day and the most sober, level-headed among us cannot avoid the suspicion that, thanks to a raging and still mysterious pandemic, we are living on some kind of political brink that could end up with the overturning of the existing social order.

      Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief of The New York Times, reports on an event that, because it took place in Berlin, will fatally evoke ominous overtones for the average reader. The article bears the title, “Far Right Germans Try to Storm Reichstag as Virus Protests Escalate.”

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      At one point, Bennhold quotes an expert on far-right extremism, Matthias Quent, who offers his description of the motley crew participating in the event, which took place on August 29. “We have everything from Hare Krishna fans to Adolf Hitler fans on the streets. It’s a very disparate crowd but what unites people is an angry discontent with the establishment. It’s a mix of populist and egoist outrage,” he says.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Egoist outrage:

      The ultimate expression of political revolt in individualistic Western societies where the ego has become the absolute reference and authority that founds every individual’s moral judgment

      Contextual Note

      With its title highlighting the dramatic action of the storming of the Reichstag, The New York Times may deliberately be making a mountain out of a molehill. It could be seen as a typical journalistic gambit of scaremongering to hook the reader, followed by more reassuring, level-headed analysis. The story contrasts, for example, with DW’s article on the same event that avoids pushing the idea of a neo-Nazi threat. Instead, it concentrates on the political and legal choices available to the immense majority of Germany’s people and its authorities seeking counter the attempts of the neo-Nazi right who are attempting to use the current health crisis to disrupt German politics.

      Beyond the headline, once it gets into the body of the story, The Times article itself gives a reasonably objective account of the event and its possible consequences. The quote by Quent confirms that the discontent behind the demonstration had little to do with building a neo-Nazi political force. The “populist and egoist outrage,” he mentions, should be interpreted as an unfocused cry of despair of a mostly younger generation that reflects a vague sense of decline in the authority of institutions and an absence of a political vision for the future.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Quent offers a particularly reassuring take that contradicts the implicit evocation of a return of Nazi stormtroopers. “In Germany, like many other European countries, we see that far-right parties are losing ground, that there is growing trust in incumbent governments. In the short term the pandemic can’t be exploited by far-right parties.” That doesn’t mean the protesters believe that today’s political institutions are doing a great job and should be encouraged to continue on their merry way.

      But Quent calls the outrage “egoist,” implying that it may simply be a symptom of the reigning individualism in contemporary German culture. The article also tells us that “Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is enjoying high levels of trust and popularity, and the great majority of Germans approve of its virus control measures.” If all of that is true, the sensationalism associated with imagining a neo-Nazi resurgence begins to disappear.

      Because this is The New York Times, we know that the article was written for Americans who are always eager to know which foreign threat they need to be afraid of. Bennhold accordingly gets Quent to admit that the fly is in the ointment and things could quite possibly flare up again. “If the economy deteriorates further and unemployment rises,” she quotes him as saying, “that equation may change. Already, the AfD and more extreme far-right groups are trying to capitalize on the discontent as they begin positioning themselves for what may be a much uglier political scene some months from now.”

      Bennhold dutifully reminds us of this important point: “Even before the pandemic hit Germany, far-right extremism and far-right terrorism had been officially identified as the biggest danger to the country’s democracy.” She then offers several paragraphs of evidence that neo-Nazis have been infiltrating the police before concluding the article with a quote by Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier: “Far-right extremism has deep roots in our society. It is a serious danger.”

      In other words, The Times is up to the task of making sure that Germany lives up to the disturbing image Americans have of it.

      Historical Note

      Among the reminders of recent history included in the article, Katrin Bennhold offers an update for those who are still trying to digest the scary events from five years ago when the crisis caused by massive refugee immigration mostly from the Middle East seriously destabilized Germany and much of Europe. That paranoia, itself a direct consequence of the disastrous American wars in the Middle East, very directly contributed to the success of the Brexit vote in 2016 that was largely motivated by fear of extra-European immigration.

      Bennhold elaborates: “The migrant wave helped propel the AfD into Parliament in the last election, but the issue has lost much of its political potency, as the resettlement has been broadly deemed a success. And with its own lawmakers and voters deeply split over the country’s coronavirus measures, the party has seen its share of the vote dip below 10 percent in recent polls.”

      Most Americans, including most readers of The New York Times, were probably not aware of the fact Bennhold dryly reports today that all’s well that ends well or, more specifically, “the resettlement has been broadly deemed a success.” In 2018, Bennhold herself wasn’t very sure. In an article she co-authored with Max Fisher, they asked at the time, “Has the German migrant fight been resolved?” And the curt answer they gave was simply, “Maybe, but probably not.”

      This is the eternal problem with the news, even for a serious outlet like The New York Times. Crises sell in the sense of motivating the publication to write them up and spare no details in describing the extent of the damage as the crisis is unfolding. But when a crisis is resolved, totally or partially, unless it is the result of a sudden dramatic gesture, the news outlet will find other crises flaring up that are more urgent to cover. This is especially true when a policy devised to address a crisis is “deemed a success.” All journalists know that “deeming” is never newsworthy. Storming the Reichstag is.

      *[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 Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      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 Mad Complicity of Trump, Pompeo and the Media

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      In an article published by Al Jazeera with the title, “What is behind the hype about the new Iran-China partnership?” Pakistan-based journalist Tom Hussain weighs in on how media in the US have become dedicated to magnifying real events not to further our understanding of them, but to create a climate of conflict, if not war in the Middle East. 

      Hussain cites two stories that US media have been running with in recent weeks to generate emotional heat while depriving them of the light of intelligible analysis. The first is the strategic partnership agreement between Iran and China. The second is the normalization of diplomatic and trade relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.

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      Hussain notes that both stories have been interpreted in the US as “escalations in the geopolitical conflict between the US and Iran.” Seeking some needed perspective, he points out that “the first development was a media creation. The New York Times (NYT) ran a front-page story citing a ‘leaked’ draft of the 25-year strategic partnership agreement under negotiation between China and Iran since 2016.” The Times story summed up its case in its misleading headline: “Defying U.S., China and Iran Near Trade and Military Partnership.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Media creation:

      1) Fabricated melodrama masquerading as news provided by respectable media outlets to prove that they can be just as disrespectful of the truth as social media 
      2) The state of hyperreality induced by society’s obsessive addiction to professional media and the entertainment industry, effectively canceling the public’s relationship with reality 

      Contextual Note

      The methodology of media creation has achieved something close to perfection in the Donald Trump era. It reflects a complex team effort shared by an infinitely creative political superstructure and the complicit media.

      Before Trump, this novel dynamic that now regulates the news cycle had never existed in the political world. Trump didn’t invent “alternate facts,” even though a member of his team made the term a permanent item of US political vocabulary. Politicians have always lied and exaggerated, but it was always about specific issues. With Trump, it has now become a way of life. Without hyperreality, the news would be too boring to pay attention to. The public now expects it. For their profitability, the media now depend on it.

      Building the hyperreal system required two critical components. At its core is a democratically elected clown show whose members are skilled at turning every utterance into a deliberate distortion and often inversion of reality. President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have perfected that role. For a while, they were accompanied by John Bolton, the former national security adviser. But when that began to look too much like the Three Stooges, the production team pared it back to make it look more like Abbot and Costello.

      Embed from Getty Images

      One member of the show’s technical crew, Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, has compared the Trump administration’s show to Alice in Wonderland. Once the hyperreal wonderland sets were in place, the media could play their role of amplifying every absurdity in the actors’ actions and discourse and presenting it as the essential news of the day. The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC and many others then had an open field for manufacturing scoops designed to reveal how artificial and distorted the starring team had become.

      In the example Hussain examines, the lead player was Pompeo, a man whose commitment to hyperreality includes a personal belief in a marvelous work of American evangelical fiction that claims to be inspired by the Bible: “the rapture.” Hussain recounts that when interviewed by Fox News in early August, “Pompeo claimed that the prospective China-Iran deal would put Communist cash in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s hands.” Hussain then mentions Pompeo’s warnings: “China’s entry into Iran will destabilize the Middle East. It’ll put Israel at risk. It’ll put the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates at risk as well.”

      No patriotic American is allowed to doubt that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the good guys on the world stage. It doesn’t matter that any of these good guys may from time to time slaughter civilian populations (in Gaza or Yemen), seize land that is not theirs in violation of UN resolutions, ambush, assassinate and dismember the occasional dissident journalist or blockade an allied nation (Qatar) that doesn’t toe their line. Washington long ago elected those three nations to the good guys club. If any of the three detects or even invents a threat from elsewhere, the US will be by their side.

      In the interview with Fox News, Pompeo amplified his warning: “Iran remains the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, and to have access to weapons systems and commerce and money flowing from the Chinese Communist Party only compounds that risk for that region.” It doesn’t matter how much truth or falsehood there may be in Pompeo’s claim. What matters is that the evil force he has identified combines the two permanent objects of US paranoia in a single historical event: terrorism and communism.

      Breaking free from the envelope of hyperreality his reporting has focused on, Hussain offers this extraordinary moment of sincerity so rare in today’s media: “At the risk of spotlighting my own inadequacies as a journalist, I [cannot] help wondering why editors and writers seem so willing to fan the flames of war.” 

      To answer his own question, he might have simply reviewed the past 75 years of US history to realize that the Cold War has always been a Hollywood production, courtesy of the military-industrial complex and its pervasive economic logic. But unlike Hollywood action films, US foreign policy as modeled by the media has real world consequences. Hussain makes this clear: “The long-suffering peoples of the Middle East could do without journalists once again playing cheerleader for American politicians who perpetuate their domestic power by igniting conflict in others’ backyards.”

      Russiagate is one obvious manifestation of the hyperreal campaign. It’s the one chosen by the Democrats. Pompeo and the Republicans prefer demonizing China. The New Yorker has just published an article debunking in glorious detail the entire Russiagate ideology so assiduously pursued by the most respectable media in the US, starting with The New York Times. But the principle goes beyond Russia and President Vladimir Putin. “Foreign interference is now a trope in American politics, at risk of becoming as cheap and meaningless as the term ‘fake news’ became once it was co-opted by Trump,” The New Yorker reports.

      Historical Note

      Future historians centuries from today will wonder why the US empire of the late 20th and early 21st centuries required the non-stop fabrication of an imaginary all-powerful enemy to maintain its identity as an empire. The Roman Empire did quite well for centuries without requiring a cold war ideology. Neither did the British Empire, Genghis Khan or the ancient Persian Empire. Once they had the military might to move and conquer, they focused on the supposed pragmatic rationality of their ability to control and exploit resources to occupy an ever-expanding geographical zone of influence.

      Analyzing the US empire from the perspective of Pakistan, Tom Hussain reminds those Americans who happen to read his column of this simple truth: “There is no grand alliance or ‘evil axis’ – just tentative diplomacy and proxy warfare amid shifts in the balance of power in the Middle East, necessitated in part by the withdrawal of US combat forces from the region, as well as the seepage of power to Beijing from Washington.”

      Only a small minority of Americans today are willing to accept the idea of “shifts in the balance of power,” knowing that the “greatest nation in the history of the world” has monopolistically exercised power over the globe for decades. Nor are they about to countenance the idea of “seepage of power” because that would call into question America’s divine mission to spread its enlightened but fundamentally elitist democratic-capitalist ideology across the globe.

      In the age of Trump, it appears useless to point out that enlightened leaders — and even benevolent despots — have throughout history consistently recognized and dealt with the historical reality of shifts in the balance of power. Power is never absolute and never stable, but when it does approach becoming absolute — as happens, at least in people’s minds, when hyperreality takes over — Lord Acton’s wisdom dating from 1887 ends up prevailing: it “corrupts absolutely.”

      *[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 Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      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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      Tekashi 6ix9ine and the American Way

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      A New York Times interview with controversial rapper and ex-convict Tekashi 6ix9ine offers a rich catalog of the curious values that characterize contemporary US culture. What emerges from the feature is a series of reflections by both the interviewer and the interviewee on some of the driving forces in today’s society, including ambition, fame, money, commercial media, tools of influence, law and social rules, and freedom of expression.

      Some may wonder why the Gray Lady — aka The New York Times — should take such a serious interest in a scandal-ridden rapper. The answer to that question tells us quite a lot about the values that now dominate, even in what are deemed the most serious media. Scandal, crime and celebrity have moved up several notches in the priority list of “all the news that’s fit to print.”

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      What appears to make the interview worthy of coverage by The Times is a spectacular scoop. The interviewer, Joe Coscarelli, gets 6ix9ine to admit that, if allowed to vote, he would go for US President Donald Trump. This meets an essential criterion for New York Times stories in this election cycle. An article that associates the extreme, manifestly irrational personalities of marginal celebrities with a taste for Trump’s politics is a strong argument for voting Joe Biden in November. It has the twofold advantage of confirming that Trump’s fans are marginal freaks and suggesting that the president himself implicitly shares the criminal instincts of those freaks.

      This approach to the news could be called “divisive,” though not in the sense that the word is used by The Times itself and the intelligence community to characterize Russian interference in US elections. It implicitly divides Americans into those who think and make serious decisions — a category that would include all readers of the New York Times — and those whose sole interest is to express their irrational impulses.

      To Coscarelli’s question, “You feel like the art you’re making is adding to the world?” the rapper answers, “Of course.” The interviewer then offers this critique of 6ix9ine’s music: “Maybe it’s fun, it’s turn-up music, but it’s not introspective.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Introspective:

      An attitude attributable to people who deserve to be taken seriously not just because of their success, but because they sometimes stop to think things through and weight their own responsibilities

      Contextual Note

      US social and political debate has become so divisive in recent years that society can now be separated into two groups: those who, like Barack Obama, pronounce the second syllable of “divisive” with a short “i” sound (as in “it”) and those who pronounce it as a full diphthong (as in “eye”). Alas, this distinction cuts across all boundaries of political and cultural orientation.

      The question of introspection highlights a more telling distinction in US culture. Over the past two centuries, self-reliance and atomistic individualism have risen to the level of a philosophical ideal. This became a central message of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s influential philosophy. This ideology initiated a tug of war between assertive action and introspection.

      Embed from Getty Images

      P.T. Barnum, the 19th-century founder of the Barnum and Bailey circus and the man who said, “Never give a sucker an even break,” set the tone for Emerson when he proclaimed, “Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.” Initiating the great American tradition of giving to those who need it least — as exemplified in recent government bailouts as a response to the economic crisis — Barnum added this thought: “The best kind of charity is to help those who are willing to help themselves.”

      Ever since Barnum established the principle that success belongs to the assertive, the very idea of assertiveness flipped from being seen as a moral weakness — or moral traditionally, as the capital sin of pride — to becoming the supreme personal virtue that separates the rich from the poor.

      In the hierarchy of values that regulates US culture, being assertive does not necessarily exclude introspection. For Emerson it even required it. Introspection allows the ambitious individual to assess and correct any of the weaknesses that may undermine a veneer of assertiveness. But for at least half of the population, if introspection exists, it should be hidden because the average person (the suckers) will perceive it as a weakness. For the other half of the population, it still stands as a moral virtue.

      Effective assertiveness thus implies the skill of hiding the reality of introspection to create the appearance of certitude based on the person’s unwavering convictions and self-confidence. It is only when the assertive person is caught out for being too assertive and must apologize after a glaring mistake that it becomes necessary to invoke the virtue of introspection. This typically translates as the standard cliché of confused denial: “That is not who I am.”

      The half of the population that dismisses or hides introspection from view correlates roughly with the Republican Party. Trump stands at one extreme, thanks to his apparent total absence of introspection. As president between 2001 and 2009, George W. Bush may have been capable of introspection, but he carefully hid it from view. He projected an image of resoluteness and unwavering conviction even when faced with facts that contradicted his stated beliefs. He won the 2004 election by accusing his Democratic opponent, John Kerry, of flip-flopping.

      Democrats prefer to maintain their faith in introspection as an intellectual and moral virtue, setting themselves apart from the rabble. Their defense of introspection enabled Republicans in the 1950s to term them “eggheads,” people who prefer thinking to acting. When Hillary Clinton called Trump voters a “basket of deplorables” in 2016, she was implicitly accusing them of being incapable of introspection.

      Historical Note

      After two centuries that have seen the growing dominance of the idea of assertiveness in the US, what is the status of introspection in today’s culture? The interview with Tekashi 6ix9ine confirms the division highlighted above between the Democrat-aligned Times and its belief in the virtue of introspection vs. the rapper who identifies with the Republicans and Donald Trump and dismisses introspection as irrelevant.

      In the interview, Coscarelli affirms his belief in the value of introspection. He appreciates that the late rapper Tupac Shakur “grappled with his demons” and said, “I’ve done good, I’ve done bad, I want to be better.” Coscarelli implicitly condemns 6ix9ine for not including self-criticism to his repertoire of artistic sentiments.

      But rap thrives on extreme, borderline criminal assertiveness, unlike traditional forms of black American music: blues, jazz, soul, and rhythm and blues. Traditional black music focused on sophisticated musical form and ironic expression in a complex cultural context. It contained at its core a pair of emotions: humility and love. The player was always less important than the music, even in the case of dominant figures admired for the power they built into their performances, such as John Coltrane or James Brown.

      In the 1980s, the rise of rap and hip-hop as the dominant if not unique form of black music consecrated the triumph of assertiveness over introspection. The music industry — run essentially by white executives — saw this revolution as a godsend. Rock and roll — which took root in the 1950s — had already lowered the bar of musical complexity and introspection for the white community, making it easier to produce highly profitable hits. But it maintained the link to humility and love.

      Rap provided another advantage for white record producers, who defined it as the culture of the ‘hood. Music took a back seat to extremely individualistic aggressive intent. In the Ronald Reagan era, this helped to consolidate the white community’s perception of black culture as essentially criminal and antagonistic to traditional white values, even though white youths enthusiastically purchased the records. Rap made money for its star performers, producing a new generation of rags-to-riches heroes. For the first time, they were black males who embodied, in their way, the Reaganian ideal of the self-made man recognizable by his financial success.

      6ix9ine is right when he contradicts Coscarelli’s apparent belief that simply because he wants “to do better,” Tupac Shakur was introspective. Coscarelli’s take reflects the political orientation of The New York Times and its minimally introspective Democratic Party ethos. The neoliberals have done bad but want to do better. Which means doing the same thing but fixing it on the edges. “Vote Biden” is the message.

      *[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 Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      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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      Deconstructing the Powerful and Persistent Russiagate Meme

      by

      The frontier between legitimate political analysis and fake news in the US has never been easy to draw. Politicians and polemicists have attempted to impose the idea that only established corporate networks can be trusted to steer clear of fake news. Content on topics they consciously neglect to cover is written off as fake news.  

      Conversely, any idea, incident or minor fact — whether real or not — that appears to comfort officially approved talking points will easily be “confirmed” and employed as evidence to support the spoken or unspoken agenda of “respectable” media. Last week, American journalist Glenn Greenwald provided recent examples of the flagrant abuse of the notion of confirmation.

      As storytellers, politicians and media presenters prefer to suggest simple links between real (and sometimes imaginary) effects and their probable causes. They believe that readers and listeners prefer simple narratives that confirm existing beliefs. This is a founding principle of the culture of hyperreality that pervades political news in the US.

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      The public has begun to react. Increasingly, Americans realize that their news has become profoundly unreliable. A Pew survey published on August 31 revealed that 80% of Americans feel that the news is influenced by corporate and financial interests. Unfortunately, they lack the means and possibly also the curiosity to understand how that influence works.

      Russiagate, a prime example of news pushed by the Democrats and “designed” by the corporate media four years ago, is still in the headlines. Reduced to its simplest form — a correspondence of cause and effect — the message is patently absurd. It requires maintaining the belief that so long as the Russian government has access to the internet, elections in the US will never be able to produce reliable results. Because both the Russian government and the internet will continue to exist for decades to come, democracy in the US is officially dead.

      Some politicians, mainly Democrats, and their allied media outlets have an interest in promoting this belief. The New York Times has doggedly maintained a strategy of regularly presenting new evidence of activity by Russians with the aim of demonizing Russia as the unique source of content designed to undermine US democracy while conveniently ignoring all the others, including pervasive domestic tampering.

      The most recent example appears in an article with the title, “Russians Again Targeting Americans With Disinformation, Facebook and Twitter Say.” Its authors, Sheera Frenkel and Julian E. Barnes, have found new evidence that “in April, Facebook removed a Russian-backed operation in Ghana and Nigeria that was targeting Americans with divisive content.” Like Satan himself, Russia is everywhere.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Divisive content:

      Any news item that calls into question the unparalleled goodness of the US political and economic system promoted by its two major political parties and suggests that it may be legitimate to contest the status quo

      Contextual Note

      No rational being would doubt any of the following isolated facts:

      The internet is a global platform for communication and exchange
      People all over the world use internet tools called social media, especially Facebook and Twitter
      These two dominant platforms are US corporations
      Social media platforms thrive on participation from every corner of the globe
      The dominant platforms work within the tradition that sees freedom of expression as a political right derived from the US Constitution
      Freedom of expression opens the door to conspiracy theories, propaganda, fake news stories, deepfakes, doxing, stalking, cyberbullying, revenge porn, identity theft and other antisocial or criminal activities in the land of opportunity known as cyberspace
      None of the facts cited above is controversial or even debatable. But there are subtler ones that are often hidden from observers’ attention. For example, this one never mentioned by the media: The people of all other nations, including Russians, are interested in US politics not just because they are curious about how another population manages its affairs, but also because those affairs have a dramatic impact on their own lives.

      Embed from Getty Images

      American media and Democratic politicians appear to consider foreign interest in US politics a violation of America’s political space. They are right to condemn any action that interferes directly with electoral processes. But using the communication tools available to all is not interference. Americans should be the first to recognize these forms of expression as examples of a modern skillset created and promoted by their own culture: marketing. It’s a science in which anything that falls short of breaking specific laws is legitimate.

      Russian political leaders can express themselves in a variety of ways. So can the British, the Israelis, the Saudis or indeed any nation that cultivates explicit or subliminal marketing. Those leaders can use official government communication channels to proclaim policy and vision. They can pay for lobbyists in Washington. They can (and definitely do) use their intelligence networks to spread messages using legitimate and devious means. They can also simply encourage enterprising private citizens to further their explicit or implicit aims.

      Random citizens of all nationalities — moved either by curiosity, personal concern, financial interest or loyalty to a government they identify with — can do the same thing. Individual Americans have done so in Hong Kong without necessarily being piloted by the CIA. This inevitably happens so long as freedom is not totally suppressed.

      Those who represent established interests may deem this “divisive.” But it cannot reasonably be called manipulation of democracy or interference in electoral processes. The current global system of the internet is dominated by impressively wealthy private interests whose strategy is to encourage and reward any form of successful influence. The worm is at the core of the apple, not on its surface.

      The Times article demonstrates the absurdity of its Russiagate campaign. Frenkel and Barnes write: “Researchers are also concerned about homegrown disinformation campaigns, and the latest Russian effort went to some lengths to appear like it was made in the United States. In addition to hiring American journalists and encouraging them to write in their own voices, the Peace Data website mixed pop culture, politics and activism to appeal to a young audience.”

      The evil Russians are simply paying talented Americans banished from the mainstream by corporate money to speak in total sincerity. What could be more American? The Supreme Court established that “money is speech.” Russiagate is a predictable consequence of a system designed to reward anyone with cash to pay for content.

      Historical Note

      The media have begun constructing their preferred history of the latest Russian felon, a website called Peace Data. Defending the corporate monopoly on the news, The New York Times describes Peace Data as an example of “a more covert and potentially dangerous effort by Moscow” that uses “allies and operatives to place articles, including disinformation, into various fringe websites.”

      The Times cites the testimony of one of Peace Data’s American authors, who explains that the website simply asked him to express his views as someone who “had frequently challenged whether Mr. [Joe] Biden represented the progressive values of the Democratic Party.” Can allowing Americans to express themselves be called manipulating electoral processes?

      The funding of the website has been traced to Russia. But if the Russians didn’t create or even significantly edit the content, the fact that it is “divisive” simply reflects real divisions within US society. The source of division is none other than Biden’s policies, which many Americans banned from the corporate media happen to disagree with.

      It should be noted that any publication is likely to run some form of disinformation. The Times itself does so consistently, never more egregiously than in its push to invade Iraq in 2003. Its Russiagate coverage for the past four years has simply maintained a longstanding tradition.

      The seasoned journalist Joe Lauria deconstructs the Peace Data story in an article for Consortium News. Describing a website that “failed to gain significant traction,” he scoffs at “what the FBI calls a threat to American democracy.” In contrast, The Daily Beast decided to play the Russiagate game. Its article with the title, “She Was Tricked by Russian Trolls—and It Derailed Her Life” tells the story of a Peace Data author, Jacinda Chan. Only at the end of the piece do we learn that the supposed victim, a talented disabled woman, not only bears no grudge but rejects the Russiagate paranoia The Daily Beast is promoting: “To this day, Chan says she still doesn’t believe Facebook and the FBI’s investigations that show Peace Data was a front for Russia’s troll factory.”

      *[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 Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      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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      Mohammed bin Salman’s Shaky Legacy in a Troubled Saudi Kingdom

      by

      Una Galani is the associate editor of Reuters’ Breakingviews division, which the news agency describes as “the world’s leading source of agenda-setting financial insight.” Last week, Breakingviews published her review of the book “Blood and Oil” by Wall Street Journal reporters Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck.

      The book tells the story of the rise to power of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It focuses on his audacious game plan for remodeling the Saudi economy. While presenting MBS, as the crown prince is commonly known, as a reformer ready to break with tradition, the authors reveal the darker side of his character and weigh the significant risks this entails for his own future and that of Saudi Arabia. 

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      Galani seems to go one step beyond the authors’ critical judgment when, in the title of her article, she refers to Mohammed bin Salman as “Saudi Arabia’s sharpest prince.” The epithet appears justified at least in the comparative sense that previous Saudi leaders had a reputation for being seriously dull and plodding. By way of contrast, “sharp” may seem appropriate as a description of MBS. Or perhaps Galani was thinking of the well-sharpened cutting edge of the bone saw that MBS allegedly provided to the hit squad that was sent to Istanbul to dismember journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.

      Galani writes that “it’s tempting to see [Mohammed bin Salman’s] ruthlessness as a broom to the kingdom’s problems, even as admirable,” but she avoids the temptation and entertains no illusions about his errors and failures. She lists the obvious ones: “a war in Yemen, the role of his close confidantes in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the blockade of Qatar, and the effective kidnapping of Saad Hariri, who was Lebanon’s prime minister at the time.” Galani then highlights the fatal character flaw that explains those human disasters, explaining that “the prince’s inability to tolerate dissent and black-and-white view of the world may lie at the root of his multiple misadventures.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Misadventures:

      A serious and even dreadful crime committed by someone with money and power, just as the misadventure of a citizen with neither money nor power (especially if black) will be deemed a crime worthy of incarceration  

      Contextual Note

      Galani was undoubtedly being ironic when she characterized Mohammed bin Salman’s crimes and brazen assaults on people, nations, colleagues, family and journalists as “misadventures,” to say nothing of human rights advocates who have no place in Saudi society. At another point, she mentions his “adventures in power.” Her image of the crown prince is clearly that of a hyperreal antihero, not far from that of a cartoon character.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Galani rightly reserves her judgment of Mohammed bin Salman’s place in history, which she nevertheless predicts will be a “highly disruptive legacy.” At the same time, she points to his failure to achieve his primary non-controversial goal, when she observes that he “hasn’t secured the inward investment needed to underwrite his economic transformation plans.” The simple truth is that Saudi Arabia today finds itself in a deep crisis aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic.

      The image of MBS that emerges from Galani’s review and Hope and Schenck’s book contrasts singularly with the points made last week in an article on Fair Observer by award-winning Iranian journalist Kourosh Ziabari. Seeking to develop a contrast between Saudi successes and Iranian failures, Ziabari believes that “the future Saudi king has undoubtedly scored significant gains both domestically and internationally.”

      Ziabari doesn’t call MBS “sharp,” but he deems him “a strong social reformer.” He cites the “notable steps the crown prince has taken to socially liberalize a conservative country.” He mentions in passing but seriously minimizes the “misadventures” Galani ironically mentions. 

      To justify Mohammed bin Salman as a model to be emulated, Ziabari cites a statistic from May 2018, months before the assassination of Khashoggi. As he recounts it, “more than 90% of young people in Saudi Arabia between the ages of 18 and 24 endorse the crown prince’s leadership.” In terms of journalistic accuracy, Ziabari should have written “endorsed” in the past tense. He may be unaware that the level of “trust” in MBS has since seriously deteriorated throughout the region as a recent Pew poll shows (even if the poll did not sample Saudi Arabia, for the obvious reason that it would not have been allowed to conduct its survey in the kingdom). Recent events have undoubtedly shaken the confidence of a lot of young Saudis.

      Had Ziabari been interested in more recently observed trends, he might have noticed one expert’s assessment in May: “The erosion of the social contract between the rulers and the ruled will lead to serious problems, especially in a tribal society.” The expert in question, Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center think tank, described MBS in these terms: “He’s not the sophisticated operator that he portrays himself to be. He’s less like a businessman or politician and more like a gangster.”

      Historical Note

      Most people acknowledge that 2020 has become a watershed moment in history. The year 2019 now appears to represent an unrecoverable past and 2021 an utterly unpredictable future. This is true everywhere in the world, even in a despotic kingdom ruled with an iron hand by an authoritarian prince with the capacity to imprison or execute at will members of his own family. And yet, Kourosh Ziabari relies on testimony from what now appears to be the distant past to highlight the success of Mohammed bin Salman.

      He approvingly reports that “The New York Times has described the measures [MBS] introduced as ‘Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring.’” He fails to point out two important facts: that the article was posted in November 2017 — nearly a year before the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi — and, more tellingly, that the author of that article was the comically unreliable, ever mistaken Thomas Friedman, a celebrity writer who still seems to believe the world is flat because US technology and the economic culture associated with it has become the universal parasite of state economies.

      To justify Mohammed bin Salman’s image as a reformist, Ziabari offers several quotes, all of which predate not just the current health and economic crisis, but also the Khashoggi affair. On the basis of those by now ancient remarks, he concludes that MBS has “introduced reforms that are meaningful and important in a troubled region riddled with conflict and the absence of democracy.”

      Skipping forward, he cites as proof of progress the recent decision of the supreme court to abolish flogging, as reported by the BBC. But he neglects to cite the damning conclusion in the same article: “But waves of arrests of every type of dissident under the king and the crown prince – including of women’s rights campaigners – undercut this claim, our reporter says.” 

      Ziabari’s real focus is on Iran, not Mohammed bin Salman. His wish for radical change in Iran makes perfect sense. But suggesting that the model MBS provides might be, as he claims, a “benchmark” would seem to be wishful thinking if not dangerous folly. As a point of comparison, it is historically accurate to call Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler modernizing reformers with ambitious programs, who were adored by a majority of their people. But no one today would treat them as role models.

      Concerning Iran, Ziabari is right to hope for a development that might “put an end to decades of hostility with the US and the West.” But, isn’t that exactly what had begun to take place when Barack Obama pushed through the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, which MBS opposed and US President Donald Trump canceled at the first opportunity?

      More realistically, Una Galani offers this assessment: “One positive for [MBS] is that it’s unclear how much of a difference the Khashoggi affair has really made. Investors were quick to mingle again with the prince, albeit somewhat more in private, but still with the hope of extracting funds.”

      Galani recognizes that it’s all about the decisions people with money make, not about the wise policies of political leaders. Ziabari seems to agree when he remarks that Mohammed bin Salman “has a favorable public image in the eyes of Western political and business elites.” Still, success with people who control piles of money should not turn him into a role model.

      *[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 Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      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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      Xi Jinping’s Tibetan Summer of Love

      by

      As reported by Al Jazeera, China’s President Xi Jinping is seeking to realize the traditional Chinese ideal of harmony within the borders of Tibet. He has a threefold goal: Xi wants to “build an ‘impregnable fortress’ to maintain stability in Tibet, protect national unity and educate the masses in the struggle against ‘splittism.’”

      Anyone familiar with Chinese culture knows the central, practically sacred place that the value of harmony holds. It has both a spiritual and social dimension. It accounts for the ability of Chinese emperors in the past — as well as today’s Communist Party — to hold in tow a large and diverse population over a vast expanse of territory. It works by inducing attitudes of conformity and disciplined behavior that serve to maintain public order. Most Chinese accept this as a rational principle and an essential feature of their culture. People hailing from the individualistic cultures of the West still have trouble grasping this fact.

      The concept derives from the dynamics of music that in ancient times infused Chinese culture. Harmony is not unison. It always implies the combining of divergent elements whose different principles of resonance produce sounds that converge in an agreeable or intriguing way. Dissonance that points to resolution within the dynamics of music is a necessary ingredient. This is true of every musical tradition. Elizabethan poet and composer Thomas Campion expressed this in the simplest terms in his poem, “Rose-Cheeked Laura”: “These dull notes we sing/ Discords need for helps to grace them.”

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      Xi appears not to be too fond of discord, even when it is needed for the sake of true harmony. The Chinese government has even invented a barbarous word that English translators appear to have accepted because a more conventional translation, such as “separatist,” fails to convey its deeper meaning. That word is “splitism.” Unlike separatism, which supposes two potentially autonomous entities, splitism designates something akin to a violation of the integrity of a territory, a people or a culture. It is an attack on unison voicings.

      Concerning the status of Tibet, a territory, like Xinjiang, potentially guilty of splitism, Xi offered a practical suggestion demonstrating his unorthodox conception of harmony. Al Jazeera summarizes Xi’s message: “Political and ideological education needed to be strengthened in Tibet’s schools in order to ‘plant the seeds of loving China in the depths of the hearts of every youth.’”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Seeds of loving:

      Active principles of emotional orientation that can be based either on the authentic concern for the good of the other or on a policy of intimidation sufficiently strong in its negative force to appear superficially to resemble deep and spontaneous affection for the object of one’s fear.

      Contextual Note

      Xi’s concerns with the hearts of young Tibetans and his idea that they may be fertile ground for “seeds of loving” radically distorts the traditional notions of both harmony and love he seeks to promote. The questions every society must ask itself are, “What is harmony?” and “What is love?”

      In both Chinese and Western music, harmony implies the physical notion and even cosmological notion of sympathetic resonance. One student of Chinese musical culture describes harmony as an “inner dialectic between the creation and resolution of tension and, by extension, a similarly nuanced relationship.” Thomas Campion would undoubtedly agree. In other words, harmony is not the effect of unison or forced imitation, but of the coming together or the resolution of diverse discords.

      Xi’s idea of love appears to radically differ from that of Lao Tzu, who famously said: “Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have.” If it resonates with anything, rather than with Lao Tzu, Xi’s concept recalls the traditional right-wing slogan cast in the face of protesters against the US war in Vietnam: “Love America or leave it.” Xi wants Tibetan youth to love China, but, in contrast with Lao Tzu, he is unwilling to learn from them. They must learn from him.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Perhaps Xi is seeking to distinguish China from the decidedly superficial and jaded West that no longer pays attention to its youth. US politicians have clearly become indifferent to “the depths” within the hearts of the younger generations. China at least thinks about its youth. 

      US President Donald Trump has dismissed this generation’s young protesters as “anarchists and agitators” who must be reined in by a strict policy of “law and order.” He has shown some love for the 17-year-old vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse who killed two protesters, but the president is doing everything within his power to prevent young people from voting. The Democratic National Convention underscored the startling fact that it has consciously abandoned the youth-oriented movement led by Bernie Sanders, a movement that was clamoring for health care, social justice, reduced military engagement and relief from oppressive debt. The Democrats consider all these issues, which are truly “at the depths” of young voters’ hearts, as irrelevant to their overriding mission of electing a man with no vision for the future, who will turn 80 in his first term.

      Al Jazeera reports on Xi’s vision of the future: “Pledging to build a ‘united, prosperous, civilised, harmonious and beautiful new, modern, socialist Tibet,’ Xi said China needed to strengthen the role of the Communist Party in the territory and better integrate its ethnic groups.” And it will all be done in the name of harmony.

      Chinese political analysts and apologists claim that “China’s long tradition of thinking about harmony makes it uniquely able and disposed to exercise soft power in world politics.” In the realm of geopolitics, Xi claims to understand the value of the concept of soft power, an idea initially proposed by Joseph Nye to contrast with the hard power of military might.

      That may or may not be true. But internally, Xi mobilizes the same soft-power rhetoric, including the appeal to harmony, to justify a policy of hard power designed to enforce something more like conformity than harmony. On the international front, Xi understands that since the United States, under the past three presidents, has allowed military power and economic sanctions to define its foreign policy, by doing the opposite — notably thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative — China could emulate the success the US had with its Marshall Plan for Europe following World War II.  But can China achieve this goal in harmony with the nations it is bringing on board? That is a moot question.

      Historical Note

      Xi’s conception of the concept of harmony is innovative in the sense that it diverges from tradition. In her book, “Music Cosmology and the Politics of Harmony in Early China,” Erica Fox Brindley places the origins of the Chinese concept of harmony in ancient times, when “conceptions of music became important culturally and politically.” Xi’s musical tastes as demonstrated in this official government rap song appear to have little in common with the contemplative character of traditional Chinese music. Xi’s wife is a famous singer, but the harmony of her music on display in this patriotic song demonstrates greater respect for conventional Western harmony than it does for the Chinese musical tradition.

      While explaining the roots of the concept in Chinese spirituality and “protoscientific beliefs on the intrinsic harmony of the cosmos,” Brindley reminds her readers that the “rhetoric of harmony in the People’s Republic … is complicated.” The author identifies the Zuo Zhuan — one of the earliest works of Chinese history composed before 500 BC — as the “locus classicus for defining the term ‘harmony’ in ancient China.” Harmony refers “not merely to the conformity of similar items but to an appealing admixture of many diverse ones.” Xi’s current admixture reflects little more than the combination of stale Western trends with Chinese pop vocal style.

      There is a traditional saying in Chinese, lǐ yuè bēng huài, which literally means “rites and music are in ruins.” As Jamie Fisher explains on his website dedicated to learning Mandarin, the idiom “refers to a society in disarray.” Xi would claim that his new rites and music are solidly built and are a protection against the prospect of ruin that the entire world is facing. Lao Tzu might disagree, at least concerning the methods employed.

      *[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 Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      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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      Jared Kushner Appeals to the NBA’s Taste for Luxury

      by

      When Donald Trump took office in 2017 as president of the United States, he delegated the responsibility of solving most of the nation’s and the world’s knottiest problems to his talented son-in-law, Jared Kushner. From ending the opioid crisis at home and solving the conflict in the Middle East to modernizing a sclerotic administration and reforming the criminal system, no challenge was beyond the capacity of this young real estate hustler who had the good taste to marry the new president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump.

      Before that historic moment, the most serious problem Kushner had had to deal with was seeking the means to extricate his family enterprise from the mountain of debt incurred by the purchase of an overpriced piece of real estate at 666 Fifth Avenue. Kushner never quite managed to solve that one, but it didn’t deter him from stepping up to the new challenge.

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      In March 2017, Kushner officially accepted to play the role of viceroy of the neocolonial American empire Trump was now intent on remodeling. Focusing on America’s wealth, the almighty dollar and its military might, Trump set about imposing on the rest of the world his new idea of “America First.” The empire Trump inherited had been enfeebled by the actions of the “weak” Barack Obama, the previous president.

      Kushner, the White House senior adviser, took his role seriously. His most talked-about feat, besides managing to squeeze himself into the diminutive pocket of Saudi dictator Mohammed bin Salman’s kandora, was his famous “deal of the century” that — according to Eric Trump — created the conditions of a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In his speech last week at the Republican convention, the president’s son revealed, to the surprise of most observers,  that there is now “peace in the Middle East” and “never-ending wars were finally ended.”

      Now, Kushner has a new crisis to deal with. The disorder that broke out last week at the NBA threatened to cancel a basketball season rebooted after having been truncated by the COVID-19 pandemic. NBA players refused to play in protest after the shooting of Jacob Blake, a black American male, by a police officer in Wisconsin.

      Interviewed by CNBC, Kushner offered his analysis of the root of the problem: “The NBA players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they’re able to take a night off from work without having to have the consequences to themselves financially. They have that luxury, which is great.” 

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Luxury:

      For privileged Americans, the ultimate goal of all human activity, which, once achieved by any individual, defines that person as a member of the reigning elite, who is expected to identify with the elite and support it in its continual effort to parry all challenges coming from outside, duplicating the logic of a gated community

      Contextual Note

      Like most Americans, Kushner is impressed by the exorbitant salaries that professional athletes earn. He is even more impressed by the fact that a majority of those athletes are black. With that kind of money, they should be happy and self-satisfied because, as Joe Biden recently revealed, black is supposed to be synonymous with the poor. During the presidential primary campaign, the Democratic candidate explained that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Kushner may find it hard to believe that players who are so “fortunate” would be interested in anything other than wallowing in their luxury. The luxury he refers to consists of not having to fear the flogging their ancestors were sure to receive if they refused to work on the plantation. 

      Kushner believes black kids should be rewarded for working hard. With the reward comes the obligation of respecting the rules of society. This obviously includes allowing the police to enforce those rules in any way they deem appropriate. Thanks to that understanding, as many as 50 black youngsters in any given year might be drafted into the NBA. With such an opportunity extended to a population of nearly 50 million people, there can be no justification for riots, protests, boycotts or cancellations. The prospect of joining the elite is open to everyone, even to a poor black kid in the ‘hood.

      Once again, Biden seems to agree. It’s the point he made in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention when he announced what defines America. “I have always believed you can define America in one word: Possibilities. That in America, everyone, and I mean everyone, should be given the opportunity to go as far as their dreams and God-given ability will take them,” he said.

      Kushner and Biden are clearly on the same page. Biden’s message might even be reframed as the “possibility of luxury.” The justification of creating an elite to rule over a democracy requires accepting that even poor black people can scratch their way to the top and become a bonafide member.

      Kushner is a political realist, not a dreamer like Biden. “Look, I think with the NBA … they’ve put a lot of slogans out. But what I think we need is to turn that from slogans and signals to actual action that’s going to solve the problem,” Kushner said to CNBC.

      He may have learned something from his “deal of the century” in the Middle East, generally acknowledged to be a failure, despite Eric Trump’s glowing evaluation. To devise his deal, Kushner avoided engaging with the Palestinians, preferring to let Saudi and Emirati leaders negotiate in their name. This time, he is proposing to “reach out” to basketball superstar, LeBron James to “agree on what we want to accomplish and … come up with a common pathway to get there.”

      This should be an easier task than dealing with Palestinians. After all, James has an estimated net worth of $480 million, placing him among the American elite, practically at the level of President Trump’s Florida buddy, the late Jeffrey Epstein. So far, however, the Los Angeles Lakers’ star has shown no interest in joining Kushner’s conversation. Atlanta Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce explained very clearly why the admittedly “privileged” players would remain focused on changing the system with no input required from the White House.

      Historical Note

      Donald Trump’s policy of “America First” relies on two distinct notions. The first represents the realpolitik approach maintaining that a nation’s foreign policy should privilege its own interests before considering the point of view of other nations. But “America First” also implies that the rest of the “free world” must recognize the US as their uncontested leader entrusted with both setting the rules of the global game and enforcing them. Every nation that respects those rules qualifies for two essential services: the protection afforded by the mightiest military force in human history and access to markets in which the means of payment is the dollar. 

      That idea of “America First” was present in Jared Kushner’s failed elitist Middle East peace plan. It promised dollars for the Palestinians (mainly Saudi and Emirati petrodollars), complemented by the protection afforded conjointly by Israeli and American military might. In other words, a life of luxury for the Palestinians, with plenty of beachfront hotels in Gaza.

      The system of dollars plus nuclear might lies at the core of the “rule of law” that was put in place at the end of World War II. One key component is the role of the dollar that provides a permanent incentive for local elites to engage in a system of global corruption. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank — accompanied by powerful multinational companies focused on extracting resources — funnel dollars to local elites. This puts the international elite in control of local economies. The local elites then assume the responsibility of distributing those dollars through their economy, according to need. 

      A good part of that “need” is naturally the funding of the members of the elite themselves, who can then place the dollars they receive in banks and holdings elsewhere in the world, with a special affection for tax havens. Some of the manna does trickle down to local populations, but never too much to upset the system.

      Kushner and others in Washington have been surprised that some elites — from Hamas to LeBron James — are less eager to join their international club. But armed with powerful central banks and nuclear warheads, the Washington elite still believes history is on its side. Who isn’t interested in luxury? And they are probably right, at least for a few more years.

      *[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 Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      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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      Does Joe Biden’s Transition to the Center Have Any Meaning Today?

      by

      The New Yorker features a lengthy biographical portrait of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden written by Evan Osnos. Clearly recognizing Biden’s positioning on the electoral spectrum, the title of the article takes the form of a question: “Can Biden’s Center Hold?” Though it doesn’t provide an answer to the question, it implicitly pleads in favor of Biden’s tactical choice of occupying the center, not just of the Democratic Party but of the entire oligarchic system.

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      Osnos focuses on the candidate’s own characterization of his strategy. “Biden has described himself as a ‘transition candidate,’ able to overcome generational and ideological rifts,” he writes.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Transition candidate:

      A candidate lacking definition in terms of vision or coherent policy agenda, but intent upon influencing the choice of future leaders, presumably who will share the same deficiency of vision and clarity

      Contextual Note

      Osnos zeroes in on Biden’s idea of what it means to ensure a transition. He writes: “In the spring, Biden began describing himself as a ‘transition candidate,’ explaining, ‘We have not given a bench to younger people in the Party, the opportunity to have the focus and be in focus for the rest of the country. There’s an incredible group of talented, newer, younger people.’”

      We might marvel at the tautology offered by a 77-year-old man, whose political career spans more than 50 years, referring to people who are at the same time “newer” and “younger.” The two attributes tend to go together. But Biden undoubtedly remembers that his opponent, US President Donald Trump, was new to politics at the age of 69 when he launched his first real political campaign in 2015. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Biden is also correct in noticing the rise of a generation of newer, younger people who have been making headlines, such as “the squad,” led by Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Ilhan Omar. They are now being joined by a host of new candidates for this election, some of whom have successfully unseated longstanding incumbents, such as Cori Bush, who defeated the William Lacy Clay dynasty in Missouri, or Jamal Bowman, who upended the career of Eliot Engel, chairman the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

      But those aren’t the youngsters Biden has in mind. Had that been the case, he would have insisted on highlighting their contribution at last week’s Democratic National Convention. Instead, AOC was given a minimal spot only on the insistence of Senator Bernie Sanders, who himself was only reluctantly included because of his status as the uncontested leader of a future-oriented movement. Andrew Yang, who made a major impact during the debates thanks to his groundbreaking ideas, was belatedly invited only after he publicly expressed his astonishment at not being invited. 

      The most telling absence was that of the most courageous and credible of the young presidential candidates, Tulsi Gabbard. She has attained the status of an unmentionable within a party dominated by the Obama and Clinton dynasties. The young and articulate veteran is guilty of vehemently opposing the bellicose foreign policy favored by every Democratic president since Harry Truman.

      That leaves the party’s hopes of prominent new talent essentially in the hands of two people. Biden’s vice-presidential pick, Kamala Harris, performed poorly in the Democratic primaries and is no youngster. She will be 60 in 2024. Pete Buttigieg, who enjoyed a moment of glory in the Iowa caucuses where he was helped along by the software the party chose to use for tabulating the votes, is the image of a young technocrat with no political vision.

      Perhaps Biden’s idea of a transition candidate simply means that he sees the US itself transitioning to something different than the past four years of Trump. That would mean that anyone outside of Trump’s own family would be a transitional candidate. But that is too obvious a truism to take seriously.

      Historical Note

      Evan Osnos cites the Northwestern University historian Brett Gadsden, a native of the part of Delaware where Joe Biden grew up: “There’s probably a metaphorical lesson in the fact that Biden hails from a place that has this mythical reputation as a middle-ground state. It’s emblematic of a kind of imagined center.” Gadsden hints that the meaning of “center” in terms of both US politics and culture can only be elusive, if not totally imaginary.

      The ambiguity surrounding the center perhaps defines better than anything else the legacy of Donald Trump. The nation is polarized, split in two. The center, represented by the establishment of both parties, has lost much if not yet all of its credibility among the traditional bases of Democrats and Republicans. It still maintains its hold on power in the world of finance and technology, but only a minority “believe” and adhere to its values. 

      On one side, Trump represents the defiance of the hyper-individualistic, assert-your-personality-at-all-costs wing, not so much of US politics as of US culture. On August 24, at the Republican National Convention, Kimberly Guilfoyle expressed the voice of that hyper-aggressive segment of the culture. It was as if Guilfoyle, a campaign official and the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., was calling to arms the unregulated militias that represent President Trump’s constituency in a battle against a satanic enemy. “They want to steal your liberty, your freedom, they want to control what you see and think and believe so that they can control how you live,” she said. 

      Biden embodies and symbolizes the problem of the center. The Yahoos on the right unleashed by the Trump revolution are ready to challenge everything to their left, including that part of the Republican Party that can be called the center, which appears now to have joined forces with the establishment of the Democratic Party. They have become virtually indistinguishable.

      In contrast, without revolting, the progressive left has declared its growing mistrust of a center that has increasingly focused on resisting any kind of reform designed to respond to the increasingly grave crises society is facing. Seeking control is not a feature of the left’s culture. It basically counts on the growing awareness by the center of the gravity of the problems all previous administrations have failed to address. But the progressive wing’s patience is clearly wearing out.

      If after a Biden victory in November he has the opportunity to demonstrate the transition he has promised, a real danger awaits him. Unlike what happened with Barack Obama, the progressive wing will offer Biden no honeymoon. The messy and probably violent Trumpian revolt against the government itself after a defeat in the polls will occur simultaneously with the seriously organized contestation by the left of Biden’s likely “transition” team. In the midst of intractable crises, his policy choices and his capacity to govern will be vehemently challenged.

      Squeezed from both sides, the center’s fate is unsure. In his poem, “The Second Coming,” written in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, William Butler Yeats prophesied:

      “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
      Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
      The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
      The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
      The best lack all conviction, while the worst
      Are full of passionate intensity.”

      The “center of power” is not just Washington. The “center of finance” is not just Wall Street. The center that has held Western society relatively intact for more than seven decades is already under severe pressure. It increasingly requires arbitrary force to hold back the growing tide of chaos unleashed by the not totally coincidental convergence of a pandemic, multiple irrational military ventures across the globe and exacerbated inequality of income, wealth and treatment by official institutions.

      In his New Yorker piece, Osnos quotes a senior Obama administration official’s description of Biden: “He is very much a weathervane for what the center of the left is. He can see, ‘O.K., this is where the society is moving. This is where the Democratic Party is moving, so I’m going to move.’”

      But the Democratic Party, committed to flirting with never-Trumper Republicans, no longer represents its own voters. And when “the blood-dimmed tide is loosed” — and Jacob Blake lies on a hospital bed as its latest witness — even a transition candidate finds himself in a situation similar to that of a refugee of the American wars in the Middle East. There’s simply nowhere safe to move where one will be welcome.

      *[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 Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

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