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      Does Saad Hariri Really Believe He Can Save Lebanon?

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      My parents used to say, “Eat with your mouth and not your eyes.” This may be good advice for newly-minted Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. He is clearly unable to resist trying once again to raise Lebanon from its deathbed, and this time the consequences may be more disastrous than just a bit of heartburn. Yes, I’m sure his supporters see this as the ultimate act of patriotism, and hopefully, he will be successful, but the odds are against him.

      First of all, Hariri is a well-known figure who understands the political calculus of his supporters and opponents. Yet this is not similar to his deal that brought the presidency to Michel Aoun in 2016. The reforms called for, and that Hariri has said he supports, are literally aimed at dismantling the edifice of economic and political corruption that has led to the erosion of Lebanon’s well-being.

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      Secondly, there is the matter of the timeframe called for under the French plan for change that serves as Hariri’s point of reference. It calls for significant reforms underway in six months as well as capital controls, anti-corruption measures, a robust social safety net and radical changes to how the government and banking system operate. Hariri, a three-time prime minister, has said that he will accept a government with a shelf life of six months and focus on the political and economic reforms to refresh and reinvigorate the country.

      Will the oligarchy, of which he is a member, yield to his office the necessary executive authority to bypass parliament to enact laws and regulations? There is no brotherly bond or even public tolerance between Hariri and Gebran Bassil, leader of the Christian Free Patriotic Movement. So, will the prime minister’s reliance on Hezbollah’s support bring him into the cross-hairs of US sanctions?

      A major sticking point will be the composition of the Hariri cabinet, which he promised will be made up of “nonpolitically aligned experts with the mission of economic, financial, and administrative reforms contained in the French initiative road map.” The downfall of the most recent prime minister, Mustapha Adib, was over this exact point, and it is a road too far for many of the political elites.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Finally, how much longer will the Lebanese people put up with leaders who are more concerned with their patrimony and their constituents rather than the health, safety and well-being of the country? Hariri may have the best of intentions, but we know which way that road can lead. As Al Jazeera reports, “Hariri’s return marks the biggest challenge yet for activists involved in the nationwide uprising against the country’s corrupt political class that had led to the resignation of Hariri and his coalition government last year.”

      The economic realities are well known, ranging from extensive corruption to government mismanagement and a failed government model built on cronyism. Soon, more than 70% of the people could be below the poverty line as the Lebanese pound has lost 80% of its value, unemployment is around 35% and people struggle with restrictions limiting access to their funds in banks. According to journalist Souad Lazkani, as many as 1 million will be unemployed by 2021 unless, by some miracle, reforms are urgently implemented by the new government.

      Deja Vu

      Hariri’s restart as prime minister is dreaded by many in the street who feel a sense of deja vu from the last decade. “Hariri’s return is the peak of the counter-revolution,” Nizar Hassan, a political activist told Al Jazeera. “A pillar of the political establishment, a multi-millionaire who represents the banks and foreign interests, and a symbol of inefficient governance and widespread corruption: He represents everything we revolted against.”

      So, the demonstrators who have been protesting for several months have to decide whether to publicly oppose these latest steps to maintain the status quo or come up with an alternative that, hopefully, will be nonviolent. With the hyperinflation that has caused shortages of basic goods like medicine and foods, the growing instability and dwindling prospects for change, Lebanon faces a very difficult winter.

      This is Hariri’s multilayered and multifaceted challenge. As he assembles his cabinet and prepares his ministerial statement of his government’s vision, he will be watched closely by people hoping that he can rise above the sectarian politics of the past, as well as by those who are most threatened by reforms. It is a difficult road ahead indeed.

      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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      Making the Right Decisions to Combat the Coronavirus

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      If the current pandemic is a test of the global emergency response system, the international community is flunking big time. It has done just about everything wrong, from the failure to contain the coronavirus early on to the lack of effective coordination thereafter. As the predicted second wave begins to build — the world is now adding over 400,000 new cases per day — it is truly disheartening to think that the international community hasn’t really learned any lessons from its snafu.

      Sure, some countries have successfully managed the crisis. South Korea, despite several super-spreading outbreaks, has kept its death toll to below 450, which is fewer than Washington, DC, alone has suffered. Thailand, Vietnam, Uruguay and New Zealand have all done even better to address the public health emergency. After its initial missteps, China has managed not only to reopen its economy but is on track for modest growth in 2020, even as virtually all other countries confront serious economic contractions.

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      It’s not too late for the rest of the world. Robust testing, tracing and quarantining systems can be set up in all countries. Richer nations can help finance such systems in poorer countries. Governments can penalize non-compliance. Even before a vaccine is universally available, this virus can be contained.

      But perhaps the most important takeaway from the COVID-19 experience so far has little to do with the coronavirus per se. The pandemic has already killed more than a million people, but it is not about to doom humanity to extinction. COVID-19’s mortality rate, at under 3%, is relatively low compared to previous pandemics (around 10% for SARS and nearly 35% for MERS). Like its deadlier cousins, this pandemic will eventually recede, sooner or later depending on government response.

      Other threats to the planet, meanwhile, pose greater existential dangers. At a mere 100 seconds to midnight, the doomsday clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now stands closer to the dreaded hour than at any point since its launch in 1947. As the quickening pace of this countdown suggests, the risk of nuclear war has not gone away while the threat of climate change has become ever more acute. If fire and water don’t get us, there’s always the possibility of another, more deadly pandemic incubating in a bat or a pangolin somewhere in the vanishing wild.

      Despite these threats, the world has gone about its business as if a sword were not dangling perilously overhead. Then COVID-19 hit, and business ground to a halt.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The environmental economist Herman Daly once said that the world needed an optimal crisis “that’s big enough to get our attention but not big enough to disable our ability to respond,” notes climate activist Tom Athanasiou. That’s what COVID-19 has been: a wake-up call on a global scale, a reminder that humanity has to change its ways or go the way of the dinosaur.

      Athanasiou is one of the 68 leading thinkers and activists featured in a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, the Transnational Institute, and Focus on the Global South. Now available in electronic form from Seven Stories Press, “The Pandemic Pivot” lays out a bold program for how the international community can learn from the experience of the current pandemic to avoid the even more destructive cataclysms that loom on the horizon.

      The Path Not Taken

      Let’s imagine for a moment how a reasonable world would have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic when it broke out late last year. As the virus spread from Wuhan in January, there would have been an immediate meeting of international leaders to discuss the necessary containment measures. The Chinese government closed down Wuhan on January 23 when there were fewer than 1,000 cases. At the same time, the first cases were appearing in multiple countries, including the United States, Japan and Germany. On January 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the pandemic a global health emergency.

      Instead of working together on a plan, however, countries pursued their own approaches that ranged from the sensible to the cockamamie, the only common element being the restriction of travel and the closure of borders.

      The US and China, embroiled in a full-spectrum conflict over trade, technology and turf, were barely talking to each other, much less working together to contain this new threat. The United Nations didn’t get around to discussing the pandemic until April. There was precious little sharing of resources. In fact, many countries took to hoarding medical supplies like drugs and personal protective equipment.

      To be sure, scientists were sharing knowledge. The WHO brought together 300 experts and funders from 48 countries for a research and innovation forum in mid-February.

      Political leaders, however, were not really talking to each other or coordinating a cross-border response. Indeed, a number of leaders were running screaming in the opposite direction. US President Donald Trump stepped forward to head up this denialist camp, followed by Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico. Authoritarian leaders like Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua focused on consolidating their own power rather than fighting the COVID-19 disease.

      As the global economy went into a tailspin, there was no international effort to implement measures to contain the damage. Countries like the US refused to lift economic sanctions on countries hard hit by the coronavirus. International financial institutions issued debt moratoria for the poorest countries but have yet to consider more substantial restructuring (much less loan forgiveness). Trade wars continued, particularly between Beijing and Washington.

      Conflict has not been confined to the level of trade. A sane world would have not only rallied around the UN secretary-general’s call for a global ceasefire in conflicts around the world, it would have actually enforced a cessation of hostilities on the ground. Instead, wars have continued — in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan. New violence has erupted in places like the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

      Military spending and the arms trade have continued unchecked. At this time of unprecedented economic need, countries continue to pour funds into defending against hypothetical threats rather than to defeat the enemy that is currently killing people on their territory. Both the US and China are increasing their military spending for next year, and they’re not the only ones. Hungary announced in July an astonishing 26% increase in military spending for 2021, while Pakistan is increasing its military expenditures by nearly 12% for 2020-21.

      Meanwhile, on this economically polarized planet, the ones who have borne the brunt of this pandemic are the poor, the essential workers, and all the refugees and migrants currently on the move. The stock market has recovered its value. Everyone else has taken a hit.

      Looking Ahead

      The international community took a giant step backward in its fight against COVID-19. Rather than build on the cooperation established in the wake of the 2003 SARS epidemic, countries suddenly acted as if it were the 19th century all over again and they could only fall back on their own devices. The hottest heads prevailed during this crisis: right-wing nationalists like Trump, Bolsonaro, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi, who not coincidentally head up the four most-afflicted countries.

      It’s not too late for a pandemic pivot, a major shift in strategy, perspective and budget priorities. “The Pandemic Pivot” looks at how COVID-19 is changing the world by showing us (briefly) what a radical cut in carbon emissions looks like, dramatically revealing the shortcomings of economic globalization, distinguishing real leadership from incompetent showboating, and proving that governments can indeed find massive resources for economic restructuring if there’s political will.

      Our new book lays out a progressive agenda for the post-COVID era, which relies on a global Green New Deal, a serious shift of resources from the military to human needs, a major upgrade in international cooperation and a significant commitment to economic equity. Check out our new video to hear from the experts quoted in the book.

      The coronavirus forced leaders around the world to hit the pause button. Even before the pandemic recedes, many of these leaders want to press rewind to return to the previous status quo, the same state of affairs that got us into this mess in the first place.

      We can’t pause and we can’t rewind. We need to shift to fast forward to make our societies greener, more resilient and more just — or else we will sleep through the wake-up call of COVID-19. We won’t likely get another such chance.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      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 New York Times Under the Influence

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      Is it the run-up to the election or just our imagination? Has the team of journalists at The New York Times been instructed to turn every allusion to political messaging into a crusade against Russia? Thursday’s edition offers yet another example of The Times providing confused propaganda for American voters to ponder, though this time, Russia has the rare privilege of being accompanied by Iran.

      It’s almost as if The Times itself had positioned itself as one of the occult powers it consistently accuses of spreading misinformation to foment disorder in the electoral processes in the US. Adding to the irony is the fact that the source of the latest news is none other than John Radcliffe, President Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence whom the paper took to task a day earlier for dismissing the insistence by The Times, Politico and Senator Adam Schiff that the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop was “a Russian information operation” as being without foundation.

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      How does The Times make its case this time? First by reminding us of Trump’s complaining “that the vote on Nov. 3 will be ‘rigged,’ that mail-in ballots will lead to widespread fraud and that the only way he can be defeated is if his opponents cheat.” “Now, on the eve of the final debate,” The Times tells us, Trump “has evidence of foreign influence campaigns designed to hurt his re-election chances, even if they did not affect the voting infrastructure.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Influence campaigns:

      Insincere communication on the internet where nothing is real and, as in politics itself, in order to exist, any powerful message must attain the status of hyperreality and show itself worthy of attracting the attention of the architects of hyperreality.

      Contextual Note

      The comedy of paranoid reporting by The Times and other “liberal” outlets’ continues, with ever-increasing humorous effects. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, for example, took literally the content of the comical Proud Boys email described by Radcliffe as a spoof launched by Iran. After crying havoc and announcing fire in the theater, The Times article describes the factual outcome of Iran’s terrifying assault: “There was no indication that any election result tallies were changed or that information about who is registered to vote was altered.”

      Here is what The Times’ message might sound like if it were framed in more rational and objective terms: “We should all be very alarmed. We may even be thinking about going to war or at least showing how righteously indignant we feel about the evil countries that may (or may not) be trying to emulate what our intelligence agencies have been doing for decades, even though these cowardly enemies apparently lack the will or competence to effectively tamper with our electoral system, and in fact maybe never even tried since the most damning evidence shows that they never go beyond doing what most ordinary citizens do: use emails and social media outbursts to bombard others with their deranged ravings.”

      Yes, Russians and Iranians are guilty of using the internet. Worse, they drafted their messages in English and targeted voters in the US who also happen to use the internet. The voters who received these texts were instantly brainwashed into changing their intention to vote. In this pre-electoral pantomime, we can always count on politicians and particularly members of the Senate Intelligence Committee for well-timed comic relief. Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, dramatically proclaimed: “We are under attack, and we are going to be up to Nov. 3 and probably beyond. Both the American people have to be skeptical and thoughtful about information they receive, and certainly election officials have to be doubly cautious now that we know again they are targets.” King makes it sound like a 9/11 redux. But none of the evidence cited in the article resembles an attack, more an adolescent prank. The comedy continues as the article explains that these incidents fall into the category of “perception hacks,” communications with no concrete outcome that supposedly produce some mysterious psychological effect.

      They do deliver one alarming fact: “The consumer and voter databases that we discovered hackers are currently selling significantly lowers the barrier to entry for nation-states to execute sophisticated phishing, disinformation and intimidation campaigns.” But what on the web isn’t disinformation, starting with every political story in The New York Times? 

      Free speech means everyone has the right to exaggerate and lie. And in politics, even in news stories, lying and exaggerating generally serve to create apprehension and fear. Many articles in The Times should simply begin with the sentence: “We’re going to tell you what you should now be afraid of.”

      It’s time we realized that spying and hacking are a well-established feature of contemporary culture. They fit perfectly with the ethics of competitive influencing inculcated into generations of citizens in our consumer society. It’s a culture that rewards “influencers” (i.e. hustlers) or anyone with the appropriate “assertive” traits that facilitate success.

      The article offers us the cherry on the cake when, toward the end, after spelling out the risk to election infrastructure, the authors  admit: “So far, there is no evidence they have tried to do that, but officials said that kind of move would come only in the last days of the election campaign, if at all.” That last phrase, “if at all,” tells it all.

      Historical Note

      This is our third article this week on the lengths to which The New York Times is willing to go to spread misinformation about the Russian threat. It’s part of a campaign that has already lasted more than four years. In every case, there has been a build-up of evidence, like a balloon inflated to capacity and apparently ready to pop before someone loses their grip on the balloon’s neck and lets the air come gushing out. It happened most dramatically with the Mueller report and then again with Trump’s impeachment. It has happened on a nightly basis for all of the past four years on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC nightly broadcast.

      Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, denied Radcliffe’s accusations and indignantly countered: “Unlike the U.S., Iran does not interfere in other countries’ elections.” That may be true. Or the opposite may be true, which would produce this statement: “Like the US, Iran does interfere in other countries’ elections.”

      If the second statement is true, Iran would nevertheless be trailing woefully behind the US in its ability to effectively tamper with other countries’ elections. The Times notes that Miryousefi was apparently referencing the CIA’s successful collusion with Britain’s MI6 to depose Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. But the authors of the article even distort that event, calling it, with studied imprecision: “the C.I.A.’s efforts to depose an Iranian leader in the 1950s.” They didn’t just try. As history tells us, they succeeded.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Miryousefi added another comment whose truthfulness it would be legitimate to doubt given Trump’s alignment with Israel and his demonizing of Iran: “Iran has no interest in interfering in the U.S. election and no preference for the outcome.” If cooperation and peace are better than conflict and war, Iran should clearly prefer an outcome in which Donald Trump is no longer the president of the US.

      But this may be the diplomat’s way of indicating that the Iranians don’t expect anything radically different from Joe Biden. They may even fear that Biden and the Democratic establishment, being more closely identified with the interests of the military-industrial complex, could be more dangerous than Trump, a man who temperamentally prefers reducing the US military engagement in the Middle East.

      As the intelligence and the media continue to voice their obsession with influence campaigns while designating their favorite enemy of the month (and sometimes two), the world needs to come to grips with the fact that the real battle in the next year or two will be between reality and hyperreality. For some time, hyperreality has had the upper hand. But one of the effects produced by an authentic crisis — whether of health, the economy or politics or all three — could be finally to give reality a fighting chance.

      *[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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      Trump’s Gift to America: Spectacle

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      Time: January 3, 2015. Place: Trump Tower Bar and Grill, 5th Avenue, New York

      Overheard conversation between two diners.

      “Another great show, Don. You were terrific as usual. Your bluster is so intimidating. I loved the way you thundered on about that one guy’s shortcomings and made him cry.”

      “Yeah, I thought I was excellent. Most of these ‘Apprentice’ wannabes are useless. They couldn’t run a newsstand where there’s no television.”

      “You know, Don, I think you could do anything you want. You should run for president. You’d do a better job than some of these clowns. Last year, Obama had his worst year in office: He accused Russia of invading Ukraine, ordered airstrikes in Syria and, now, he’s got protesters chanting ‘black lives matter.’  He’s even talking about bypassing Congress’ opposition to his plan to allow 4 million immigrants to apply for work permits. Man, he’s in trouble.”

      “I could take care of business.”

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      “Then why don’t you? Run for the big job. Think about it: You could do for America what you’ve done for TV. It’s been running since 2004 and you’ve made it one of the most popular shows in history. You can use ‘The Apprentice’ formula, nominating project leaders who can take responsibility and make strategic decisions. You can call them into the Situation Room and tell them to brief you. If you don’t like their work, you know what to say, right? You’re dismissed! Just kidding, Don.”

      The World’s Most Famous Bouffant

      When people thought they’d seen enough of the world’s most famous bouffant, they were treated to “The further adventures of … .” Except not in another reality TV show, but an American presidency, a presidency that had the thrills and creative destruction of “The Apprentice.” No one, surely not even Trump himself, thought he stood a chance when he decided to take on established figures in the GOP and the hugely experienced Democrats, in particular Hillary Rodham Clinton.

      His upset election triumph over her was so improbable that it briefly managed the impossible, making people forget North Korea’s nuclear tests, the Syrian Civil War, the election of openly anti-American President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and the surprising decision by Britain to leave the European Union. All people were thinking and talking about was Trump, who became a member of an exclusive club: He was one of only five presidents to win office while losing the popular vote.

      What happened? Had Americans lost their senses? After all, Trump had no political experience whatsoever. Even the most inexperienced presidents in history had either served at senior levels in the military or in the legal system. Trump was an entrepreneur-turned-reality TV star. But his leap into the unknown came in the second decade of the 21st century when small matters like this seemed of secondary importance.

      What mattered more was Trump’s ability to deliver a booming, rumbling, roaring performance and easy-on-the-intellect messages that people could understand. Cut taxes. Ban Muslims. Bomb the shit out of ISIS. Build a wall with Mexico. Bring home American troops. Tear up trade agreements. Move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

      There were other similarly attention-grabbing commitments. Trump’s gift to America was spectacle. There had never been such a spectacular candidate, and perhaps that’s what nearly half of America wanted: a captivating leader. America has developed a culture in which everything, no matter how solemn, can be alchemized into handsome if meretricious entertainment. And, if you disagree, I have a two-word response: Kim Kardashian.

      Over the past four years, Trump has dominated world affairs. His foreign policy decisions have effectively redefined US relations with the rest of the world. His fiscal policies have made Wall Street deliriously happy. His attitudes toward racism have divided his own nation as well as huge parts of the world. Trump has angered and delighted, probably in a rough ratio of 60:40. Whatever the world thinks about Trump, the undeniable reality is that he is the most ubiquitous American president in history. There hasn’t been a day in the last four years when Donald Trump has not been reported as doing or saying something headline-grabbing. Reality TV shows that hog our attention are doing their jobs. Presidents who do it are probably doing something other than politicking.For many politicians, a scandalous claim of an affair would be embarrassing, if not ruinous. But porn star Stormy Daniels’ charge that she and Trump had a liaison in 2006 seemed entirely congruent. In fact, it would have been more of a surprise had the president not been entangled in some sort of sex imbroglio.

      There is even a global movement that regards Trump as far more than a politician. For QAnon, Trump is waging a surreptitious war against a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats, plutocrats and Hollywood celebrities who engage in pedophilia, sex trafficking and harvesting blood from dead children. Not even a drama, let alone a reality TV show, could have scripted a more fantastic narrative than this. The nearest equivalent I can think of is in Yaohnanen, on the South Pacific island of Tanna, where Britain’s Prince Philip is worshipped as a sort of messiah, a son of the ancestral mountain god.

      Trump has not repurposed himself as president. He has adapted the presidency to his own requirements, surrounding himself with senior-level advisers, assigning them tasks, then firing or promoting them. His staff turnover as of October 7, it was 91%. No one has been safe while Trump has been behind the Oval Office desk, not even the first senator to endorse Trump’s presidential candidacy in early 2016, Jeff Sessions; he was fired in 2017. Many others have resigned, but the revolving door approach to senior political appointments and dismissals suggests a style of leadership in which delegation is key, much like in TV.

      Still Fresh

      Now the big question is whether this novelty is still fresh. Even the most fascinating, amusing and engaging celebrities have a shelf life. Trump has delighted and infuriated people in roughly equal measures. Every faux pas — and there have been a good few of them — is somehow glossed over as blithely as if he’d thrown up in the back of an Uber. Every success is hailed, usually by him, as a groundbreaking masterstroke. Sometimes, to be fair, it is. The rapprochement with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was genuinely significant.

      But awarding himself an A+ for the “phenomenal job” he had done during his tenure grated with as many as it amused. And the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has provided his opponent Joe Biden with a gift-wrapped opportunity to expose him. “We have it under control. It’s gonna be just fine,” Trump assured everyone in January. A month later, he called the coronavirus a “hoax.” “The virus will not have a chance against us,” he claimed as the death rate climbed toward the current figure of 222,000. He blamed “China’s cover-up” and criticized the World Health Organization. His complacency was unnerving even to skeptics.

      Embed from Getty Images

      When Trump and Melania were stricken only a month before the election, many must have muttered something about hubris. But, with characteristic bravado, Trump used his brief incapacitation as an occasion to show he doesn’t scare easily. Nor should anyone else. “Don’t be afraid of Covid,” he tweeted. “Don’t let it dominate your life.” Once more, he treated an abstract malefactor as if it were a challenge on “The Apprentice.” “Covid isn’t that serious,” he concluded dismissively. It was typical Trump, making light of what is, to others, a near-irresolvable problem. Then again, that’s been his modus operandi throughout his presidency. For Trump, there hasn’t been a problem that doesn’t have a solution. It’s just that most people are “losers” and don’t want to discover it. He always can. This is why he’s intolerant of journalists whom he calls negative when they attack him. The problems may be larger and more complex than those on “The Apprentice,” but they all have resolutions.

      Most Americans have made up their mind about how they’re going to cast their ballot. Trump’s illness might evoke sympathy, but it won’t affect anyone’s choice. Trump is already back on the road, swatting away criticisms with his usual humorous self-assurance. His flamboyant, often preposterous, occasionally laughable and always entertaining style of leadership has dazzled America and, indeed, the world for four years now. Polls suggest Americans are satiated and ready for a return to a more traditional leader.  

      What worries them most? An extravagantly bombastic president who never doubts the wisdom of his own choices or a more measured and reflective personality who will probably lead competently but never offer the kind of extravaganza to which Americans, as well as the rest of the world, have become accustomed?*[Ellis Cashmore is the author of “Kardashian Kulture.”]

      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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      Digested week: Spurs show why it’s best not to take a healthy lead for granted

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      West Ham came back from 3-0 down so Biden should probably be wary he’s ahead in the pollsThis wasn’t quite the return to north London that either Gareth Bale or Spurs had hoped. Bale had come on in about the 70thminute and Tottenham were seemingly cruising to a healthy 3-0 win. A quarter of an hour later and Spurs were hanging on to a 3-2 lead. Then Harry Kane put Bale through and the Welshman did all the hard yards of beating the West Ham left back only to stab the ball wide when it seemed easier to score and put the match to bed. Needless to say, West Ham equalised with the last kick of the game and for several hours afterwards I was almost catatonic with shock and disappointment. Then I calmed down a bit and decided the game must have been one of the most Spursy performances I had ever seen and if Bale had forgotten how football is played in N17 he had been given the perfect reminder. Besides, there was no point getting too upset about snatching a draw from the jaws of victory as there is so much more to get angry about in football. Starting with Sky Sports’ decision to start charging customers, such as myself, an extra £14.95 on top of our ordinary subscriptions to watch selected games. Sky has been reluctant to disclose just how many people have coughed up for the pleasure so far, which rather suggests that no more than a few thousand people are bothering to make the effort. Something that won’t please the advertisers who are presumably being charged an arm and a leg. The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust has come up with the ideal solution. Anyone tempted to fork out the £14.95 to Sky should instead make a comparable donation to the Tottenham Foodbank. Consider it done. Continue reading… More

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      Young voters are disconnecting from democracy – but who can blame them? | Daniella Wenger and Roberto Foa

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      Across the world, and above all in Britain, the Americas and southern Europe, recent research shows that millennials are more dissatisfied with the performance of democracy than previous generations. Moreover, the gap has only worsened with time. When Generation X hit 35, the majority were satisfied with how democracy worked. Most millennials today take the contrary view.Inevitably, our findings have proved something of a Rorschach test for commentators who enjoy speculating about the attitudes of younger generations – including the usual mix of patronising condescension and disbelief. And yes, it is true, in developed democracies such as the US, the UK and Australia, millennials are less likely to join political parties or vote in elections, yet more likely to complain about the results. In the 2016 election, only 46% of young Americans voted, and that hasn’t added legitimacy to millennial objections against the current administration’s actions on the climate changecrisis, student loans or housing affordability.Yet an examination of millennial life trajectories makes clear the reasons for this generational disconnect. In the US, millennials aged 30 make up close to a quarter of the population yet own just 3% of the wealth, while baby boomers held 21% at the same age. In Britain, millennials are the first generation to earn less than their parents and grandparents. In Greece, Italy, and Spain, youth unemployment is approximately three times the national rate.If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, millennials can hardly be blamed for checking out from mainstream democratic politics. Hence young people are moving away from the political centre. All the enthusiasm with which young voters once backed moderates such as Barack Obama or Justin Trudeau has morphed into anger over unsustainable debt, high rent and low-paying lobs.And yet we also find that there is nothing inevitable about this youth disconnect from democracy. Our research shows that in countries such as Norway or South Korea, where jobs are plentiful and education and housing affordable, millennials can even be more satisfied with their political institutions than older generations are.Meanwhile, when leaders take measures to reverse youth economic exclusion, the democratic disconnect can be bridged. During Latin America’s “pink tide” of the 2000s, for instance, leaders such as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil or Michelle Bachelet in Chile helped boost youth satisfaction with democracy by extending social benefits to poorer citizens. On average, across all pink tide administrations, young people’s satisfaction with democracy rose 12 percentage points by the end of the first term in office.Travelling further back in time, the election of François Mitterrand in France and Andreas Papandreou in Greece in the 1980s suggest that populism of the left can be a vehicle for young people’s re-engagement with political life. Populist rhetoric has in the past brought young people into the political fold, and continues to do so. Yet faced with this insurgency, the response of the politicians of yesteryear has been to attempt a revival of the political centre, citing Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche! or Matteo Renzi as examples of the new way forward.Alas, it doesn’t work: there are few signs of a reversal in youth dissatisfaction when “moderate” candidates beat “populists” into office. In France there may have been relief among the middle classes when Macron won the presidency in 2017, but youth discontent reached fresh levels little more than a year later amid the gilets jaunes protests. Today, the latest opinion polls show far-right candidate Marine Le Pen on course to beat Macron in the first round of the 2022 election, with her National Rally party gathering disproportionate support from disaffected French youth.Meanwhile in Italy, the relatively youthful Matteo Renzi proved a similarly damp squib as younger voters flocked instead towards the amorphous populism of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement. Elsewhere, moderates have fared little better. In Argentina, Mauricio Macri’s 2015 victory over Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s successor might have brought realistic economics and calmer rhetoric to a country long accustomed to neither, but it did little to revive youth enthusiasm for the democratic process – or Macri’s prospects for re-election, as he was booted from office four years later.In the long run, populists offer few solutions to democracy’s current malaise. That is clear from political and economic crises engulfing countries like Venezuela and Turkey today, as well as more accelerated crises such as Greece’s abortive 2015 effort to revise the terms of its eurozone membership. As we show in our report, when populist parties of either left or right hold office for long enough to undermine democracy and economic prosperity, youth satisfaction declines precipitously.Yet despite their dangers, populists respond to real anger and frustration in society in a way that conventional politicians do not. For as long as this remains true, the populist brand of anti-politics will continue to thrive. So perhaps a paradigm shift is in order. Instead of becoming distracted by the “threat” of populism, we should do more to deliver on democracy’s founding promise – to represent the concerns of citizens and to deliver effective and timely policy solutions.If the populist challenge can shock moderate parties and leaders into taking measures to reverse the true causes of our democratic disconnect– ranging from wealth inequalities between successful and left-behind regions, to the growing intergenerational divide and the toxic nexus of money and politics – then it may yet prompt a democratic rebirth. But if all that mainstream parties can offer is a cosmetic rebrand of the politics of the past, then we should not be surprised if younger citizens continue disconnecting from democracy.Daniella Wenger is research associate at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Cambridge University; Roberto Foa is lecturer at Cambridge University and director of the YouGov-Cambridge Centre for Public Opinion Research More

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      in World Politics

      Traveling on America’s Dangerous Path

      by

      As America plunges toward its own version of an election demolition derby, a choice is very clear to just about everybody. The problem is that there are two choices, no consensus and a lot of angry right-wingers with guns who fervently support the choice that is almost certain to be rejected by the majority. There is rightly a sense of dread that voter intimidation and armed resistance to the otherwise likely outcome will create enough chaos and institutional failure to undermine the nation’s normally routine transfer of power.

      I have just recently been on the road a couple of times in the US. First, for 10 days, trying to dodge COVID droplets in three deeply-divided states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. My car radio provided the backdrop for the journey, filled with right-wing radio, Christian radio (often the same thing), oldies and some country music. I stayed in motels, carried some of my own food, ate in some restaurants and did some take-out.

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      The second trip was to western Maryland, a red zone in a blue state. This trip included some time in the outdoors on popular hiking trails, one of which was a microcosm of everything wrong with America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On a beautiful fall day, hundreds of people clogged a one and a quarter-mile path along a stream and river with four distinct waterfalls. At least two-thirds of those on the trail carried on as if they and their families were immune from COVID-19. No masks, no effort at protective distancing and no concern about the vulnerable people in their midst, often including small children and aging parents.

      “No Mask, No Entry“

      On the road, I did find one motel that actually seemed to do everything I could think of to protect me, their staff and their other customers. Otherwise, it was a very mixed bag. Almost no motel cleaning staff wore masks — they are going into the rooms of strangers right after they have left to gather up bedding, towels and trash. They breathe it in and then just to make sure that everything that can go wrong will go wrong, they breathe it right back out while sanitizing. Great idea.

      Bartenders with masks perched just below their noses were another common feature. I never saw a single owner, manager or employee of any establishment ever tell a customer to put on a mask or leave. Every place I went into had a big sign on the door requiring masks inside — no mask, no entry. I saw a guy with a gun on his hip but no mask on his face taking a leak at an Interstate rest stop — no mask, no entry. I left that rest stop quickly for a whole bunch of reasons.

      These trips provided ample evidence of just how sick the American body politic is. Words like “choice” and “freedom” permeate conversations from those resisting government measures to control the coronavirus pandemic. These words have been perverted to create a space for some of the most alarming elements of the national divide. It is but a small leap to fighting “tyranny” for those willing to angrily confront their own government.

      It should not be news to anyone that America is in the midst of a pandemic that is taking close to 1,000 lives a day and now infecting more than 50,000 Americans every day and getting worse. Wearing a mask in these times is a really good idea, according to every public health professional in the world. Every single one of them. No exceptions. Yet, here in America, the mask message is still not taking hold. Among some segments of the populace, a Halloween mask is good, but a cloth mask to protect yourself and the health of your family, friends and a bunch of strangers is somehow bad.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The key concept at play here is “choice,” as an easily recognized variant of “freedom.” This is OK if you are choosing between milk chocolate and dark chocolate, coffee or tea, Nationals or Dodgers, and the like. It is pathetic as a response to a public health crisis — your choice, wear a mask or sneeze directly into my soup. It obviously isn’t as simple as this, but it should be a lot easier than it appears to be.

      I am telling you this because there will be no end to the pandemic here until the vector segment of America either dies off or can be corralled and enclosed in one or more of the vector states. There is just too much stupidity and willful ignorance to be overcome by anything short of enforced mandatory masking, lockdowns and serious contact tracing. None of the above is on the menu yet, mask or no mask.

      Some of this would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. For example, many people who identify as “pro-life” turn out to be “pro-choice” when it comes to masks, and often choose the path that leads to more death. On the other hand, as absurd as it sounds, it seems that “Zoom” meetings have actually increased human face time for those whose lives are defined by the latest ping on their supposedly “smart” phone.

      A Political Symbol?

      But let’s not be fooled. Large swaths of America and the world are living restricted lives circumscribed by disease while losing ground socially and economically. A nation in need of some measure of collective conscience finds itself sinking ever deeper into a world in which delusion substitutes for judgment and care for others is no longer part of the equation, if it ever was. Sadly, those who seem to have benefited most from prosperity and privilege are often those whose contempt for community puts those less prosperous and without privilege at even greater risk.

      Too many of those with the opportunity to enjoy that waterfall trail seemed so unable to even consider a different way, a safer way. As long as callous people continue to wander dangerously in public places, it is hard to see how enough of these people will allow themselves to be organized to accept the type of vaccination mobilization program that will be necessary to finally end the pandemic.

      To better understand the challenge, it is essential to recognize that wearing a mask in public has become a political symbol in America, and nowhere else. Parents choose to ignore the safety of their own children and children ignore the safety of their own parents to proclaim their “freedom” from government oppression and their support for a president who has abandoned them to disease. These people are choosing to endanger others. (Unbuckle those seat belts and watch the bodies fly.)

      As the US presidential election approaches and the pandemic worsens, each of us has a clear choice to make. Side with the candidate whose venal face can be seen in full or the other candidate who wisely hides part of his face and shows all of his heart. This should not be hard.

      *[This article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      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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      in World Politics

      Nigeria’s Chaos Is the World’s Chaos

      by

      For the past two weeks, the youth of Nigeria have been in the streets protesting the ruling order of a nation in crisis. Having seized on the theme of police brutality that inspired the massive demonstrations this year in the US, they are now challenging their government on a much broader range of issues that will define the future of the country. The demonstrations have grown to monumental proportions, and the government has begun organizing its predictably brutal response.

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      The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week on the major accomplishment of the protesters in an article with this title, “Nigerian Protesters Shut Down Africa’s Largest City, Escalating Standoff With Government.” The subtitle reads, “Authorities vow to restore order as demonstrations grow across Nigeria.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Restore order:

      What all governments attempt to do in times of revolt, with the aim of returning to the status quo of untenable, organized disorder that reigned before the revolt

      Contextual Note

      Though the drama has intensified in the course of this week and the outcome is still uncertain, the Nigerian government has already begun to deploy massive force in its effort to end the protests. Despite official denial, it is now clearly established that government security forces fired on the demonstrators on Tuesday evening in a continuous barrage that lasted between 15 and 30 minutes. They reportedly removed the security cameras from the scene and turned off the streetlights shortly before the shooting began. By Wednesday evening, Amnesty International had reported the killing of 12 protesters.

      The government did make a gesture to meet the protesters‘ demands when President Muhammadu Buhari proclaimed that the government would dissolve the specific police unit — known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) — blamed for excessive use of force and acts of depraved brutality. To prove their sincerity, on Sunday, the authorities, as reported by Al Jazeera, “ordered all personnel to report to the police headquarters in the capital, Abuja, for debriefing and psychological and medical examination.” But that promise of disbanding and replacing SARS had been made several times in the past and each time the same pattern of behavior and the same culture of violence returned.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The protesters are now demanding more than superficial reorganization of the police. They want to see concrete acts of justice for victims, including compensation for their families, the creation of an independent body for oversight of the police and “psychological evaluation and retraining of all disbanded SARS officers before they can be redeployed.” Having reflected on the root of the problem, they have also wisely asked for “an increase in police salary so they are adequately compensated for protecting the lives and property of the citizens.”

      Whenever a government speaks of restoring order, the order they are referring to is an expectation of docile acceptance of the system of governance they represent. At least some of the protesters appear to understand that order is not the result of calm acceptance, but of systemic coherence combined with consistency about the mission of the police focused on protecting citizens rather than the government and the established order.

      Where the government takes “order” to mean little more than a stable structure of power, in which the powerful have the means to fend off various forms of disturbance, the protesters seem to understand that the very idea of order implies systemic coherence. Any stable, functioning system relies on being able to identify, respect and manage complex dynamic principles.

      Any reliable mechanical system, such as the rotors of a helicopter, must include a series of mechanisms designed to respond to and compensate automatically for excessive force or tension. Human organizations, from nations and cities to small enterprises, must elaborate behavioral systems that permit enough flexibility to self-organize when states of disequilibrium threaten. They will include hierarchies and laws but also a culture of interaction that involves shared understanding and common reflexes. For anthropologists, that is largely what the idea of culture represents.

      The conflict in Nigeria — but the same could be said of the US today — is one between two conceptions of “order.” The first, that of the government, is an order that is imposed. The second, that of the protesters, is an order that is built on principles allowing for self-organization. To some extent, the tension between the two sums up many, if not most, of the dramas affecting democracy in the world today.

      Historical Note

      Al Jazeera quotes entertainer and entrepreneur Sidney Esiri, who sums up the logic of the events that have taken place over the past few weeks. “We the people, we are committed to peacefully protesting and exercising our rights as citizens to demonstrate for our cause,” he said, “but some arms of government, of different people, have found ways to disrupt this peaceful process and turn it into something violent so that they have the excuse to bring in the military, which is what they did yesterday.”

      This reading of the situation was confirmed by Anietie Ewang, a Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Nigerian authorities turned a peaceful protest against police brutality into a shooting spree, showing the ugly depths they are willing to go to suppress the voices of citizens,” she stated. The UN appears to agree: “United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an end to what he called ‘brutality’ by police in Nigeria.”

      The prospect for some reasonable, peaceful reestablishment of order seems remote. Femi Adesina, the Nigerian presidential spokesman, appealed “for understanding and calm across the nation, as the implementation of the reform gathers pace at federal and state levels.” But the protesters see that as the old trick of gaining time as the old order falls back into place. The public debate has become a question of time management — in this case, managing historical time. Esiri, better than anyone else in the leaderless movement, articulated the core question when he said to Al Jazeera that the “situation in Nigeria had gone to the point, where you have to look at it and say, ‘if not now, then when?’”

      Nigeria has a rapidly growing population that is expected to overtake the US to become the world’s third-populous country in the world by 2050. It is also one of Africa’s richest nations because of its oil reserves, but it hosts one of the highest levels of poverty in the world. “More than 55% of Nigerians are underemployed or unemployed and youth unemployment is even higher, according to official statistics,” cited by The Wall Street Journal.

      Whether consciously or not, the protesters against police brutality were inspired by this year’s demonstrations in the US. They may also have been inspired by the visible, albeit inconclusive cultural effects, of the US protests. At least for a short period, they enhanced the status of the Black Lives Matter movement, suddenly embraced by the corporate world and revealed some of the untenable chaos at the heart of a political class that is no longer capable of governing the nation in a stable or coherent way.

      These are two powder kegs, dissimilar in so many respects, but both representative of the deep contradictions of this historical moment. No one can guess how things will develop in the coming months in either Nigeria or the US. It has become unthinkable, just in terms of probability, that either nation, however the politics plays out, will manage to achieve what their establishments hope, which is to restore at least a semblance of the old order. History is taking a chaotic and violent turn. In which direction, nobody knows.

      *[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