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      The Musical Is Political: Black Metal and the Extreme Right

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      There has been an association between the occult, paganism and the extreme right ever since the evolution of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party from the Thule Society. In the last few years, however, commentators are noting the return to prominence of racist occultism and heathenry among the far right and have called for some of these groupuscles, such as the Order of Nine Angles, to be banned. The majority of mainstream liberal heathen groups are similarly concerned about the manner in which their contemporary religion is being appropriated by the extreme right and are organizing to resist.

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      What is particularly disturbing is the recognition that many recent violent crimes perpetrated by the extreme right seem to be connected or influenced by such worldviews. Anders Breivik, responsible for bombings and the shooting of 77 people in Norway in 2011, identifies as an Odinist. James Alex Field, arrested for the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, marched alongside a flag depicting the black sun, a Nazi symbol drawing directly on Germanic heathen Ariosophic imagery, which in turn had inspired the formation of the Thule Society.

      This same black sun emblem appeared on the front and last pages of the manifesto of the Christchurch mass murderer in March 2019. The manifesto ended with the clarion call: “see you in Valhalla.” In the UK, Thomas Mair, who murdered West Yorkshire MP Jo Cox, was reported as being influenced by racist Ariosophic literature too.

      Gospel of Hate

      The internet, the dark web, online gaming forums and encrypted messaging services are frequently accused of helping to spread this gospel of hate. Thus, some academics, such as Steven Woodbridge, have cautioned of the need to watch the uses of “historical themes, imagery and language” that are used in these forums to promote their particular brand of violent political discourse. One of these potential memes is black metal music and its offshoot, national socialist black metal (NSBM). Indeed, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, in “Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity,” states that black metal and its “fascination with the occult, evil, Nazism and Hitler” were a possible motivation behind the 1999 massacre, on Hitler’s birthday, of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado.

      Black metal is also associated with a series of church burnings across Norway in the 1990s by Varg Vikernes, a racist heathen and black metal musician. More recently, it was reported that Holden Matthew, the 21-year-old charged with burning down three black churches in Louisiana, was also influenced by black metal and held racist heathen beliefs. Some of black metal’s aesthetics even appear to have influenced the violent imaginary of the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division. Plato may have been correct when he warned “about the interconnectivity of politics and music.”

      Black metal is an extreme genre of heavy metal that first emerged in the UK with the band Venom. The subgenre took its name from the title of Venom’s second album, “Black Metal,” released in 1982. It was intended as a rejection of the commercialization of heavy metal as well as a critique of modern secular society. A second wave of the movement, which was more ideological in orientation and often emphasized Satanism or paganism, became infamous for promoting a series of church burnings. It emerged primarily in Norway in the 1990s and is exemplified by such bands as Burzum.

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      This Norwegian second wave helped to popularize the genre even further and led to the creation of other black metal bands across Europe and the globe. So influential has this genre now become that one commentator said that “black metal has arguably become Norway’s greatest cultural export.”

      Karl Spracklin defines black metal as “a form of extreme metal typified by evil sounds and elitist ideologies,” with a number of bands drawing on “nationalist and fascist images and themes.” Its sound is generally characterized by shrieking and growling vocals, disjointed guitar riffs, a frenetic pace and an emphasis on atmosphere, often deliberately created through the implementation of a raw, lo-fi quality of the recording. Many black metal performers tend to adopt pseudonyms and dress in a kind of Kiss-inspired corpse paint. Upside-down crucifixes and medieval weaponry, alongside Satanic and pagan imagery, additionally appear with relative frequency on black metal websites, CD covers and tattoos.

      Other common musical and visual leitmotifs include war, death, fantasy, the apocalyptic and the mythological. Norwegian Satanic black metal band Gorgoroth, for example, took the inspiration for its name from a fictional setting in Tolkien’s land of Mordor. Although such motifs might be viewed as deliberately transgressive in order to attract devotees, some have suggested that black metal practitioners also intend the genre to function “as a springboard from which violent actions could logically emerge” with the specific intent of “reclaiming … a pagan heritage.”

      National Socialist Black Metal

      Defenders of the genre, however, argue that it “is not a unified, monolithic culture” and that accusations of violence are too frequently “fabricated by conservative groups seeking to impose their own moral agendas.” Indeed, bands such as the Rolling Stones and Eagles have been linked erroneously with a Satanic agenda as early as the late 1960s. Cronos of Venom also denies outright any religious affiliations, stating: “We are entertainers first and foremost — if I wanted to be a murderer or a Satanist, I’d do that full time instead of playing songs for a living.”

      The genre is notoriously difficult to define, with a litany of subgenre offshoots, including unblack/Christian, depressive suicidal and ambient black metal, to name but a few extreme variants. Black metal followers also argue, in their defense, that the music is primarily mystical, celebrating a romantic and idealized view of the past which is heavy on ritual and critical of secularism. Aron Weaver, of the US black metal and heathen-inspired band Wolves in the Throne Room, describes it “as an artistic movement that is critiquing modernity on a fundamental level, saying that the modern world view is missing something.”

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      Some contemporary UK black metal bands, such as Winterfylleth, while admitting that their “musical influence … unashamedly borrows from Burzum” and other black metal bands of an extremist predisposition, say that they do “not necessarily” believe the message behind those bands. A number of black metal followers would agree, as Spracklin points out, with many fans making “a distinction between the sound and the ideologies.” There are also heathen black metal bands, such as Norway’s Enslaved, that are avowedly anti-Satanic and anti-fascist.

      Some black metal musicians are openly Satanist but reject Nazism. King ov Hell, who played in Gorgoroth, states that “I am totally against every form of flock ideology. Nazism is an ideology of the flock.” There is even a countermovement against Nazism within the black metal music scene, evidenced by the US-based band Neckbeard Deathcamp and its 2018 album, “White Nationalism is for Basement Dwelling Losers.” The latter is a satirical critique the NSBM subgenre, which is avowedly pro-Nazi.

      Black Metal Against Racism

      While it is important to point out that national socialist black metal remains a minority element within black metal, signs of far-right extremism similarly contaminate related musical genres such as goth, industrial and neofolk. The latter incorporates elements of traditional European folk and reconstructed medieval instruments, exemplified by such bands as Fire, Sol Invictus and Death in June. The latter take their name from the Night of the Long Knives, when Hitler arranged the murder of his rivals in the Sturmabteilung critical of his policies. Nazi imagery, including the death head worn by the SS, is a consistent theme on their album covers, as are such Germanic runes like Algiz and Odal that were appropriated by neo-Nazis into their blood-and-soil ideology.

      According to one Death in June fan on Nordic Elite in a post now removed, “European Civilisation … is going down the drain with the jewish/American mulicultural invasion.” But in the neofolk scene, too, there are recently established bands that are explicitly anti-racist and who reach a much larger, liberal audience. The band Heilung, for instance, recently issued a statement on the alleged harassment of a black woman at a performance in New York: “Apparently some people attended our ritual with the idea that Heilung is only for white people … This is not the case. Heilung is for ALL people, regardless of the color of the skin. And we are sorry that this happened at our show. We do not tolerate hate speech and racism.”

      The neofolk band Wardruna, the authors of the soundtrack to the History Channel series “Vikings,” has made prominent anti-racist statements. In a blog promoting “antifascist neofolk bands from around the world,” the band’s lead singer, Einar Selvik, states: “It is a very positive effect, that increased interest does not allow the subculture on the extreme right wing to use our history in peace. We have somehow taken our own story back.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Whilst outright extremism in the neofolk, black metal and related music scenes is not the norm, it is important to address this problem as well as to draw attention to instances in which such prejudice is less explicit. The Manchester-based Winterfylleth may denounce Nazism by labeling it “the first attempt at some kind of tyrannical EU,” but their critique of extremist politics is reserved. Note that they were “not necessarily” believers in national socialism — this is far from outright rejection.

      Winterfylleth are overtly nationalistic and “unashamedly Anglo-Saxon in their approach” to their music, expressing a particular concern about a loss of national English identity. Hence their recent turn from black metal to a more lyrical folk black metal style, evidenced by their 2018 song “The Hallowing of Heirdom” with its melancholic refrain, “So who are we now?” Fandom comments on the latter signify an ambiguous range of responses to their politics and new musical direction, from the negative (“its like countryfile meets the druids”), to the more enthusiastic (“Celebrate that you are English… hail Woden”).

      Another English pagan metal or folk metal band, Forefather, like Winterfylleth also celebrates its Anglo-Saxon roots. Intriguingly, with these UK bands, a broadly Germanic influence has become explicitly rooted more in specific English heathen blood-and-soil themes, exemplified in songs such as “When Our England Died.” Fan comments tend to praise the greatness of Anglo-Saxon culture and critique other foreign elements.

      Beyond the Footnote

      Given that not all black metal fans are fascists or Satanists, that many are simply intrigued by the genre’s ability to shock and entertain, and that some are genuinely attracted to the genre for its interest in ancient heathen religion, an even more specific blood-and-soil subgenre emerged from within black metal, the NSBM. National socialist black metal aimed to specifically distinguish its politics and religiosity much more clearly than black metal. It mixes extreme-right racism with paganism, is explicit in its rejection of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and was very much influenced in its development by the actions of Varg Vikernes. It is also violent, exemplified by the German NSBM band Absurd and their killing of a 15-year-old boy, which they also then referenced on the cover of their 1995 album, “Thuringian Pagan Madness.”

      According to Benjamin Hedge Olson, NSBM “reskins the classical fascist ideological elements and combines them with racist and ethnic Paganism.” Critics state that NSMB is deliberately being utilized “as a vehicle to spread hate and radicalize nominally apolitical metal fans.” While many of these NSBM bands appear to be primarily Ukrainian and Scandinavian, the subgenre has become global. According to Celan Brill-Voelkle, “When the keywords ‘national socialism’ are searched in ‘the metal archives’, there are an astounding 774 results of active bands worldwide.”

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      Ian Stuart Donaldson, former lead singer of the English Nazi rock band Skrewdriver, once stated that “A pamphlet is read only once, but a song is learnt by heart and repeated a thousand times.” Given their global reach and violent messaging, NSBM and other extremist elements within black metal can be seen to promote “paganism and Nordic folk myths … far more effectively than any number of meetings and marches could.” While others have commented on the way in which Christian nationalists are trying to infiltrate and influence mainstream Christian groups “in order to pull Christians to the far right,” there is an urgent need to monitor more closely a similar development within heathenry.

      The black metal genre, alongside the existence of extremist racist heathen groups such as the O9A, is interesting for another theoretical reason too. It reinforces the conclusion made by Graham Macklin more than 15 years ago that if scholars of the far right in the UK look beyond a traditional narrow political lens, they will see that a study of fascism in Britain, given its wide cultural influence, deserves more than a mere epilogue or footnote in the history books.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      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 US Politics

      The Guardian view on post-Covid recovery: powered by the state not the market | Editorial

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      OpinionCoronavirusThe Guardian view on post-Covid recovery: powered by the state not the marketEditorialThe Thatcherite wing of the Conservative party desires a restoration of ideas whose time has come and gone Mon 9 Aug 2021 14.02 EDTLast modified on Mon 9 Aug 2021 15.35 EDTThe Conservative party hooked British capitalism to the state’s life support system for the past 18 months. So it takes chutzpah to think, as business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng does, of putting the free market at the heart of a post-Covid recovery. Yet lengthening NHS waiting lists, hiking consumer energy bills and welfare cuts when poverty is rising all betray a mindset that regards the re-legitimation of state intervention as threatening a way of life rather than securing it.What the Thatcherite wing of the Conservative party desires is a restoration. For them this is an opportunity to go back to 1979 and use tried-and-tested ways to stabilise prices, crush labour and discipline poorer nations. These rightwingers yearn for higher interest rates, to prioritise financial returns on assets and the use of creditor power to squeeze the global south.Such ideologues are likely, in part, to be disappointed. The US president, Joe Biden, does not see the world their way, saying this April that “trickle-down economics”, associated with Ronald Reagan, didn’t work. The president aims to show that the state can do good, and the early results are promising. His Covid-related aid boost will push the share of Americans in poverty to the lowest level on record. Mr Biden’s treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, professes a “free market” scepticism. She has promoted the social benefits of running the economy “hot” by maximising the use of all available resources. Her inspiration is the economist Arthur Okun, who in 1973 argued that governments increasing employment would foster “a process of ladder climbing” in the job market that would reduce inequality and stimulate productivity growth. Ms Yellen has stuck to this playbook in office.Perhaps the greatest pushback against the return of laissez-faire dominance in economics comes from China. Beijing has surpassed the US in some key technologies. Mr Biden’s economic team is blunt about needing to use the state for more “targeted efforts to try to build domestic industrial strength … when we’re dealing with competitors like China that are not operating on market-based terms”.The state is, clearly, not powerless against global capital. During Covid it paid for millions of workers without breaking a sweat. Contrary to conventional thinking there was no threat from rising deficits to interest rates. Thatcherism was defined by Nigel Lawson as “increasing freedom for markets to work within a framework of firm monetary and fiscal discipline”. This saw the state put in service of business interests rather than mediating between labour and capital. It also left Britain woefully unprepared, and ill-equipped, for the pandemic. A Thatcherite approach will not produce a fairer distribution of growth. It will militate against support during downturns and plans to “level up” the regions. Ministers ought to outline a new role for the state rather than relying on failed ideas about what the market can do.TopicsCoronavirusOpinionConservativesMargaret ThatcherEconomicsJoe BidenUS politicsRonald ReaganeditorialsReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      Can Saudi Arabia Balance Social and Economic Change?

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      The World Bank issued a stark warning in its 2018 outlook for the Saudi economy: “The Kingdom likely faces a looming poverty problem.” The bank has since noted in its 2019 and 2020 outlooks that “while no official information is available on poverty, identifying and supporting low-income households is challenging.” Dependent on world oil prices, the curve of gross domestic product (GPD) per capita in Saudi Arabia was never a straight line upward. Instead, it ebbed and flowed.

      Austerity for the Poor and Prosperity for the Rich

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      In one example, Saudi GDP per capita dropped by almost half from a peak of $17,872 in 1981 to $8,685 in 2001, the year in which 15 Saudi middle-class nationals constituted the majority of jihadists who flew airplanes into New York’s World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon in Washington. It was also the year in which many Saudis struggled to make ends meet amid depressed oil prices and then-King Abdullah’s efforts to introduce a measure of Saudi fiscal restraint. Many people held two to three jobs.

      “Prior to the Gulf War, we didn’t pay rent in student dormitories — now we do,” a Saudi student enrolled in Saudi Arabia’s prestigious King Fahd Petroleum and Minerals University told this writer at the time. “In the past, it didn’t matter if you didn’t complete your studies in five years. Now you lose your scholarship if you don’t. Soon we’ll be asked to pay for tuition. Before the Gulf War, you had 10 job offers when you graduated. Now you’re lucky if you get one,” the student said referring to the US-led reversal of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

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      “There’s nothing to do here but sit around, watch television and smoke shisha,” added Abdulaziz, one of the student’s friends. “There’s nothing we can do to change things. That’s why we get married early, only to discover that it was a mistake.”

      Saudi GDP per capita has dropped again, although less dramatically, from $23,337 in the year that the World Bank warned about looming poverty to $20,110 in 2020. On a positive note, the bank reports that while “poverty information and access to survey data to measure welfare conditions have been limited,” Saudi Arabia has seen “gains in administrative capacity to identify and support low-income households.” It warned, however, that the middle class could be most exposed to the pains of austerity and fiscal restraint.

      A Different Saudi Arabia

      To be sure, the Saudi Arabia at the turn of the century is not the same kingdom as today. Saudis made up one of the largest contingents of foreign fighters in the Islamic State group that seized territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014. Despite this, Saudi citizens are unlikely to respond to a unilateral rewriting of a social contract that promised cradle-to-grave-welfare and potential economic hardship by drifting toward militancy and extremism at a time that a young crown prince has promised massive change and delivered some.

      Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has liberalized social mores, rolled back the influence of ultra-conservative clerics, created greater leisure and entertainment offerings, and enhanced women’s rights and professional opportunities. This forms part of his plan to wean Saudi Arabia off its dependency on oil exports and diversify the economy. He has simultaneously tightened the political aspect of the kingdom’s social contract involving the public’s absolute surrender of all political rights, including freedom of expression, media and assembly.

      In exchange, Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 reform plan promises, according to the World Bank, to protect citizens from the pain of economic change by “modernizing the social welfare system, redirecting price subsidies toward those in need, preparing and training those unable to find employment, and providing tailored care and support to the most vulnerable citizen.” In doing so, the government has sought to soften the impact of higher energy prices and the tripling of value-added tax and expatriate levy.

      Embed from Getty Images

      More than social protections, Vision 2030 is about creating jobs for Saudis in a country where unemployment was 11.7% in the first quarter of this year. In the last three years, the Saudi private sector reportedly created a third of the 1.2 million jobs the kingdom needs to generate by 2022 to meet its unemployment target. The country’s statistics agency said the first-quarter unemployment was Saudi Arabia’s lowest in nearly five years. But the decline was partly driven by people dropping out of the labor force rather than new job creation.

      Jobs for Saudis

      In May, Mohammed bin Salman asserted in a wide-ranging interview that “we have 200,000 to 250,000 people getting into the job market each year and public sector jobs are limited.” Taking tourism as an example, he said the development of the industry would create 3 million jobs, 1 million of which would be for Saudis who, over time, could replace expats who would initially fill two-thirds of the openings.

      “Once we create three million jobs, we can Saudize them in the future. There are also jobs in the industrial sector and so on,” Prince Mohammed said. He predicted at the same time that the percentage of foreigners in the kingdom could increase from a third of the population today to half in the next decade or two.

      Writing about the changing social contract in Saudi Arabia, Mira al-Hussein and Eman Alhussein cautioned that the government needs to manage rapid economic and social change, in part by providing clearer information to the public. The scholars identified issues involving rights of foreigners versus rights accorded children of mixed Saudi and non-Saudi marriages, the rollback of religion in public life and austerity measures as potential points of friction in the kingdom. “The ramifications of existing grievances and the increasing polarization within Gulf societies … as well as the extensive social engineering programs have pitted conservatives against liberals. Arab Gulf States’ ability to redefine their social contracts without turbulence will depend on their tactful avoidance of creating new grievances and on solving existing ones,” the authors wrote.

      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

      Is Dissolution a Solution for Bosnia and Herzegovina?

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      The latest crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina was provoked by the outgoing high representative, the Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, and his July move to enact the amendment to the country’s criminal code. Among other things, Article 1 (Amendment to Article 145a of the Criminal Code) specifies that whoever denies the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity or a war crime as established by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) or a court in Bosnia and Herzegovina may face up to five years in prison.

      The article also states that “whoever gives a recognition, award, memorial, any kind of memento, or any privilege or similar” to a person sentenced for genocide, crimes against humanity or a war crime will be punished by imprisonment for a term “not less than three years.” Decisions made by the high representative have the power of state laws.

      In Republika Srpska, one of the constitutive parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this move is perceived as a direct attack on the leadership in Banja Luka. The reason is the disputed qualification of the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where, according to some estimates, more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men were killed by the Bosnian Serb forces. In a number of rulings, the ICTY qualified the massacre as a genocide. While Republika Srpska does not deny the existence of the crime, it contests the genocide designation.  

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      Many scholars have questioned the validity of such a categorization in view of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the way this term has been used in legal practice prior to the ICTY ruling. The 2020 concluding report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Suffering of All People in the Srebrenica Region Between 1992 and 1995, produced by a group of 10 international scholars from countries like Israel, US, Nigeria, Germany and Japan, among others, was the latest to raise concerns around the use of this terminology.

      In response to the decision of the high representative, Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, called for a meeting of the parliament of Republika Srpska in order to come up with a legal response to Inzko’s decision, which would render this, as well as any future decisions by the high representative, ineffective in its territory. Dodik also threatened, not for the first time, to proclaim the independence of Republika Srpska if the pressures and attacks from the office of the high representative, together with those coming from the federation, continue.

      An Impossible Situation

      Bosnia and Herzegovina, once a constitutive part of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, was established as an independent state by the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, known as the Dayton Peace Agreement, concluded in Dayton, Ohio, on November 21, 1995, and signed in Paris on December 14 that year.

      The Dayton Accords put an end to the armed conflict that followed the disintegration of Yugoslavia, in which about 100,000 people lost their lives. It created a complicated and highly inefficient state consisting of two entities, each with its own government: Republika Srpska, with Serbs as the ethnic and majority, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Muslims/Bosniaks — since the 1990s, many (former) Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina identify ethnically as Bosniaks — as the majority and Bosnian Croats as a constitutive ethnic group, yet in reality an ethnic minority.

      Later on, the federation was further split into 10 cantons, each with its own government. In addition to the two parliaments, there is a parliamentary assembly at the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which consists of the House of Peoples and the House of Representatives. In theory, the country’s highest executive body is the collective presidency that consists of three members from each of the major ethnic groups and decides by consensus, which, in practice, means that its work is often blocked. However, the real sovereign in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not its people, the parliament or the presidency, but the high representative.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Annex 10 of the Dayton Accords instituted the Office of the High Representative. Initially envisioned as an international chair with the mandate to oversee the implementation of the agreement, the office was radically transformed in 1997 with the so-called Bonn Authority, when the Peace Implementation Council gave the Office of the High Representative almost limitless powers in Bosnia and Herzegovina without any democratic legitimacy. Using the power granted to them by the Bonn agreement, many representatives have behaved as colonial governors, vetoing and overruling decisions made by local authorities at all levels of government, removing democratically elected officials, and arbitrarily changing state legislation.

      Bosnia and Herzegovina found itself in an impossible situation. Its highly dysfunctional political system is often criticized in the West for the lack of democracy, transparency and accountability, and yet the Western powers fully support the Office of the High Representative that, itself undemocratic, only prevents the development of democratic institutions in the country.

      Conflicting Visions

      In addition to this already complicated institutional setup, it is clear that visions for the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina sharply differ between its two constitutive entities. In Bosnia and Herzegovina — especially among the Muslim/Bosniak majority — there is strong support for a unitary state, the prerequisite of which would be the disintegration of the two entities mandated by the Dayton Accords.

      On the other hand, the leaders of Republika Srpska, enjoying strong popular support, see its existence, with all of the competencies initially bestowed upon it, as the prerequisite for the existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as established in Dayton. Every attempt to diminish Republika Srpska can only lead to the disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina. If done violently, it can lead to a new war.

      In this highly charged atmosphere, the question of how to describe the Srebrenica massacre is extremely important. Republika Srpska has often been called a “creature of genocide” by many local Bosniak politicians and journalists. In Banja Luka, this is perceived as a way of delegitimizing Republika Srpska. For this reason, there is a fear that popularizing the term “genocide” as a way of describing the massacre — and now outlawing any questioning of this qualification — may be used as a political instrument against Republika Srpska with the intent to create a unified Bosnian state in which the Serbs would be marginalized and oppressed.

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      Bosnia and Herzegovina, no doubt, represents an epic failure of Western policies toward the region. It is a dysfunctional state, in which local nationalist elites on all sides don’t need a political program to be reelected; the mere existence of nationalist elites in one entity has been sufficient to keep them in the position of power in the other. A significant number of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s citizens do not perceive this state as their country. With two fundamentally conflicting visions for the future, the only way to keep a pretense of a functioning state is through the existence of the undemocratically appointed foreign governor.

      In such a situation, one cannot but wonder why Western powers consistently obstruct any discussion of alternative options for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Is it because opening that question would expose decades of their ineffective and highly destructive policies toward both the country and the region? Or is this instability in the interest of both those Western centers of political and economic power as well as local political elites?

      Given the deadlock and the level of tension generated and perpetuated by the mainstream media, it seems that a peaceful dissolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina along the lines of its constitutive entities would be a much better long-term solution. It may even be the only viable solution that could prevent further suffering of the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its rapid depopulation, which has been unfolding as a result of economic depression and the lack of faith that the situation will improve in the foreseeable future. A peaceful dissolution could lead to more stability in the region and to better functioning of democratic institutions without (neo)colonial governors. 

      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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      Joe Biden Faces a Dilemma Over Iran

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      Everything old is new again, at least when it comes to US President Joe Biden’s deterrence credibility problem with Iran. This must seem like déjà vu to him, since he witnessed similar dynamics play out during an earlier stint at the White House.

      Several weeks ago came news that the FBI had foiled a brazen scheme by an Iranian intelligence network to kidnap an Iranian-born US citizen who is a prominent critic of the Islamic Republic.  The apparent plan was to abduct her from the streets of Brooklyn, spirit her to Venezuela via “maritime evacuation” using “military-style speedboats” and from there deliver her to Iran.  The plan was part of a broader scheme entailing the seizure of other individuals in Canada and the United Kingdom.

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      The elaborate operation, which the head of the FBI’s New York field office described as “not some far-fetched movie plot,” is a flagrant gesture on Iran’s part at a time when the Biden administration is seeking to diplomatically engage Tehran on nuclear proliferation issues. What stands out from this episode is how much Tehran is willing to extend US–Iranian hostility onto the American homeland and how little it seems to fear the prospect of retaliation.

      The Saudi Ambassador

      The thwarted abduction is reminiscent of an even more audacious scheme on US territory by Iranian agents a decade ago. In the fall of 2011, the FBI broke up an operation to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. The plan was directed by the Quds Force, an elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that conducts clandestine operations beyond the country’s borders. The plot involved blowing up the Saudi diplomat at an upscale restaurant popular among Washington’s political elite, followed by the bombing of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington and in Argentina. The high likelihood of mass casualties at the restaurant was dismissed by the operation’s US-based organizer as “no big deal.”

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      The plot organizer sought to outsource the bombings to the Los Zetas drug cartel in Mexico, which the FBI later described as having “access to military-grade weaponry and explosives, and has engaged in numerous acts of violence, including assassinations and murders.” As part of the deal with the cartel, the organizer promised to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East to Mexico. The plan unraveled when the organizer reached out to an individual he believed was a cartel member but who was actually an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). 

      Reporting on the foiled plot, the Washington Post commented that it resembled “an international cloak-and-dagger operation that reads like the plot of a Bond novel.” Robert Mueller, the FBI director at the time, noted that “Though it reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, the impact would have been very real and many lives would have been lost.” James R. Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, cautioned that “some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime.”

      At the time, the Obama administration was looking to wind down the military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as find a way to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Although then-Vice-President Biden described the botched assassination plot as “an outrage that violates one of the fundamental premises upon which nations deal with one another”, the White House did little beyond prosecuting the hapless Iranian organizer and imposing sanctions on several Quds Force officials.

      James Mattis on Obama’s Response

      The tepid response was particularly criticized by General James Mattis, the head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), which directs military operations in the greater Middle East. He was dismayed that President Barack Obama kept the details of “the enormous savagery of the intended attack” from the American public and failed to respond forcefully to the provocation.

      Obama would eventually fire Mattis from his CENTCOM post, in part due to the latter’s frequent criticism of the president’s approach toward Iran. Once in civilian life, Mattis publicly lambasted Obama’s response to the attempted assassination. Speaking at a conference in 2013, he claimed the plot was the result of a decision “taken at the very highest levels in Tehran.” He further asserted that “We caught them in the act and yet we let them walk free,” and “They have been basically not held to account. … I don’t know why the attempt on [the Saudi ambassador] wasn’t dealt with more strongly.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      In his 2019 memoir, Mattis blamed the lax US reply on Obama’s keenness to strike a nuclear deal with Iran. He also elaborated on his earlier criticism, lamenting that “We treated an act of war as a law enforcement violation.” He added:

      “Had the bomb gone off, those in the restaurant and on the street would have been ripped apart, blood rushing down sewer drains. It would have been the worst attack on us since 9/11. I sensed that only Iran’s impression of America’s impotence could have led them to risk such an act within a couple of miles of the White House, Absent one fundamental mistake — the terrorists had engaged an undercover DEA agent in an attempt to smuggle the bomb — the Iranians would have pulled off this devastating attack. Had that bomb exploded, it would have changed history.”

      In the end, it was Obama’s successor who delivered the kind of reprisal Mattis thought necessary. In early January 2020, the Trump administration launched a drone strike that killed Major General Qassem Soleimani, the long-time Quds Force commander, while he was on a secret visit to Baghdad. Hundreds of miles away on the very same night, a drone strike in Yemen targeted but missed Abdul Reza Shahlai, a senior leader in the Quds Force. Washington had long accused Soleimani and Shahlai of being the key Iranian officials in putting the bomb plot into motion.

      Biden’s Conundrum

      Like Obama, President Biden now confronts a conundrum: how to shore up eroding US deterrence resolve vis-à-vis an increasing risk-acceptant Tehran while also keeping it in good enough humor to extract significant nuclear concessions. So far, he has eschewed Mattis’ advice about how to dissuade Iran from mounting further attacks on American soil.

      In contrast to his outrage a decade ago, Biden has opted to keep personally silent about the Brooklyn abduction plot while his administration treats it as a matter for law enforcement. It seems unlikely that the incoming Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, will find this response a cause for restraint.

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

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      Is America Ready to Raise the Minimum Wage?

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      Since the federal minimum wage was introduced in the United States in 1938, it has provided a level of security for workers to be able to afford a minimal living standard. However, the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour has not changed since 2009, the longest timespan without an increase in its history. Critics argue that $7.25 is not a livable wage, which by 2018 was worth 14.8% less after adjusting for inflation. For nearly a decade, discussions about raising the wage have continued, with the minimum wage in 30 states now above the federal level.

      Do Americans Really Need a Roof Over Their Heads?

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      Yet according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2021 report, a full-time minimum wage worker, whether at the $7.25 federal wage or higher state minimum wages, could afford a one-bedroom rental at market rate in only 7% of US counties. The report estimates that workers will need to make $20 an hour to earn a one-bedroom housing wage.  

      With debates around the issue ongoing, how sensitive is the American public to a minimum wage increase? President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats’ proposal for a $15 minimum wage may be popular among workers, but fear of the consequences complicate its passage.

      To Raise or Not to Raise?

      Businesses with razor-thin margins face a threat of closure if wages increase. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that a $15 minimum wage would result in a likely loss of 1.4 million jobs. Likewise, the national deficit was also predicted to increase by $54 billion over the next decade if the wage were raised. Opponents argue that a new minimum wage will create more problems than it solves, fail to alleviate poverty and transfer the extra $333-billion cost to firms on to consumers in the form of higher prices. In contrast, Republican senators have floated increasing the minimum wage to $10 an hour in exchange for policy concessions on immigration.

      Proponents of the $15 minimum wage assert that it will bring earnings closer to the rising cost of living expenses. A report by the Economic Policy Institute states that essential and frontline workers constitute 60% of those who would benefit from the higher wage. A National Low Income Housing Coalition report states that with a $15 minimum wage, some inland states would approach full-time wages that support modest rent at 30% of one’s income. The CBO report estimates that 900,000 Americans would be brought out of poverty with a $15 minimum wage. The raise would also decrease racial income inequality.

      A recent survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 62% of Americans supported an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15, with only 10% opposed to any level of increase, with clear partisan differences: 72% of Republicans expressed opposition to a $15 minimum wage while 87% of Democrats were in favor.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In 2013, a Gallup poll showed that small business owners were divided on increasing the minimum wage to $9.50, juxtaposed to 76% of the public supporting an increase to $9. In 2014, analysis by CBS News found that people were less supportive of raising the minimum wage if they thought it would lead to job losses. The issue of how raising the minimum wage will affect small businesses is a crucial component of how willing people are to support an increase.

      We conducted a national web survey using quota sampling and recruited 625 American respondents via Qualtrics on June 22-24. Rather than just ask about support for the minimum wage in the abstract, we randomly assigned respondents to one of four questions to evaluate on a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree). Targeted formulation of the statements allowed us to directly test whether support differs between $15 as the Democrats have proposed versus the $10 endorsed by some Republican senators. The methodology would also show whether support declines if primed to think about the potential negative impacts to small businesses.

      With no mention of businesses closing, increasing the minimum wage to $10 was more popular than the $15 option (64.31% vs. 57.21%), reflecting that opponents of a $15 minimum wage favor a more modest increase as found by previous survey work. When primed to consider that some small businesses may close due to increased employment costs, support for both a $10 and $15 wage declined (53.13% vs. 55.77%). Regression analysis finds statistically significant drops in support for increasing the minimum wage when the increase was listed as $15 instead of $10 and when businesses closing was mentioned. The pattern endures when controlling for demographic factors.

      Political Divide

      Surprisingly, a majority of Republicans agreed with raising the minimum wage to either $10 or $15 when we did not reference small businesses. This deviates from past survey work showing strong Republican opposition to increases in the minimum wage, signaling that conservatives may be more open to increasing the minimum wage than they have been in recent years. Additionally, non-white Republicans were more willing to support an increase than white Republicans, consistent with trends among racial minorities being more willing to support an increase than white Americans.

      Unsurprisingly, a majority of Democrats supported raising the minimum wage to $15 both when businesses closing was mentioned or not. However, the inclusion of small businesses closing had a larger effect on declining support than specifying a $15 wage versus a $10 wage. This indicates that Democrats are not immune to concerns about small businesses failing from an increased minimum wage but have largely accepted a $15 over a $10 minimum wage as the path forward. Providing protections for small businesses such as a gradual increase of the minimum wage or government financial support for businesses could garner more support for the wage hike among Democrats, making the proposed increase more feasible. 

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      To help move the issue forward, reporting on how raising the minimum wage could help small businesses would be a meaningful way to combat concerns. The Center for American Progress argues that higher wages will increase demand for goods, increase worker productivity and ultimately benefit small businesses in the long run with the correct support from the government. Politicians and media outlets supportive of increases could use this framing to solidify support for Democrats and perhaps strengthen support from Republicans as well.

      Proponents argue that increases are necessary to make the federal minimum wage a livable one, as the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage peaked in 1968. An increase to $15 would only partially address the impact of inflation and the rise in housing costs, the latter that has increased by nearly 30% since the last minimum wage hike. However, if small businesses close due to higher payouts, workers may not be any better off. Our survey findings suggest public sensitivity to broader impacts of a minimum wage increase, suggesting that gradual policies of raising the minimum wage or policies that can minimize the burden on small businesses could expand bipartisan support.

      *[Funding for this survey work was provided by the Mahurin Honors College at Western Kentucky University.]

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

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      UK media unite to urge visas for Afghan reporters at risk from Taliban

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      AfghanistanUK media unite to urge visas for Afghan reporters at risk from TalibanNewspapers and broadcasters send open letter to Boris Johnson raising safety fears about locals who did vital work for the west

      Open letter warns of brutal Taliban reprisals against Afghan reporters
      Emma Graham-HarrisonWed 4 Aug 2021 14.59 EDTFirst published on Wed 4 Aug 2021 12.10 EDTA coalition of British newspapers and broadcasters has appealed to the government to expand its refugee visa programme for Afghans, to include people who have worked for UK media over the past 20 years.In an open letter to the prime minister and foreign secretary, more than 20 outlets outlined the vital need for a route to safety for reporters whose work with British media could put them at risk of Taliban reprisals.“There is an urgent need to act quickly, as the threat to their lives is already acute and worsening,” the letter said.“If left behind, those Afghan journalists and media employees who have played such a vital role informing the British public by working for British media will be left at the risk of persecution, of physical harm, incarceration, torture, or death.US media came together to make a similar appeal last month, unifying outlets as diverse as Fox and the New York Times. The Biden administration has since expanded its visa programme for Afghanistan, to cover people with links to the US media, and US-funded aid projects.The signatories to the British letter represent an equally broad coalition. They include broadcasters Sky and ITN (which makes news for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5) and all major British newspapers from the Guardian, the Times and the Financial Times to the Daily Mail and the Sun, and weekly magazine the Economist.The National Union of Journalists and press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders have also put their names to the demand for a path to safety for journalists with UK links, modelled on the visa route for military interpreters.The letter was sent to Boris Johnson and the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, who did not immediately respondThe Labour leader, Keir Starmer, promised his party’s backing for the effort to expand protection to Afghan journalists.“The Labour party strongly supports this campaign. These brave Afghans helped the British media report news of the war to the world. They stood up for media freedom and democracy, values that we rightly champion around the world,” Starmer said.“The UK must not abandon them. We urge the government to do the right thing and provide these Afghan journalists, support staff and their families sanctuary in the UK.”Afghans who worked as reporters, translators or “fixers” – multi-skilled journalists who do everything from research to driving for foreign correspondents from outside the country – have been vital to public understanding of a war that has claimed hundreds of British lives and cost billions of pounds.That work, and their links to the UK, also created unique security risks for them. Afghan reporters say their reporting is regularly cited in insurgent threats.The letter notes that the UK government’s own panel on press freedom “recommends a visa programme for journalists at risk in their home state”.The Taliban have for years targeted journalists in campaigns of assassinations and intimidation, which intensified last year, when a wave of attacks in urban areas picked off reporters along with human rights workers, moderate religious scholars and civil society activists, as they went about their daily lives.Helmand-based Elyas Dayee, a key contributor to much of the UK media coverage from the province where most British troops served, was killed in a bomb attack claimed by local Taliban commanders. Other victims included three women who worked for Enekass TV in eastern Afghanistan, gunned down on their commute.The threats have become even more urgent since the Taliban launched a military campaign in May that has swept through the country.They have seized more than half of rural Afghanistan and are threatening several major cities. The group have carried out targeted killings after taking control in some areas, and journalists fear they are likely to be on hitlists.The body of the Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Danish Siddiqui was multilated while in Taliban custody, after he was killed near the southern town of Kandahar last month.Underlining the gravity of the current security situation in Afghanistan, the US has started airlifting out former employees even before they finish their visa process, and UK military officials are appealing for a broader visa programme.TopicsAfghanistanTalibanSouth and Central AsiaUS politicsJournalist safetynewsReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      Thought Suppression Flourishes in France and Washington

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      In August, the Daily Devil’s Dictionary appears in a single weekly edition containing multiple items taken from a variety of contexts. 

      This week, we jump from French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal of a new law intended to produce electoral momentum in the run-up to the presidential election to Republican Senator Josh Hawley’s campaign to avoid dishonoring the great tradition of white supremacy. We then move on to congressional Democrats’ greater sense of loyalty to the military-industrial complex than to their elected president and also the military threat that China’s peaceful overtures in Africa appear to represent for the US. Finally, we look at the Financial Times’ realistic, but unorthodox reading of the global debt crisis. 

      Macron’s Revised Motto: Liberté (diminished), Egalité (Two-tiered) and Neutralité

      It used to be that countries like Switzerland could claim the privilege of neutrality. The notion applied to political entities. President Macron of France has extended it to people in the name of combating “separatism,” the latest and deadliest sin against what he imagines to be republican integrity. Parliament is now deliberating on a bill designed literally to neuter the French by imposing neutrality as a behavioral norm. Macron sees the effort to inculcate and enforce “republican values” as the key to winning reelection in 2022.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      “Introduced by hardline French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, the bill contains a slew of measures on the neutrality of the civil service, the fight against online hatred, and the protection of civil servants such as teachers,” France 24 informs us. The New York Times explains that this “law also extends strict religious neutrality obligations beyond civil servants to anyone who is a private contractor of a public service, like bus drivers.”

      Neutralité:

      A legal concept that provides a pretext for targeting the Muslim community in France for failing to live up to republican standards, a requirement that not only judges people on their aptitude to adhere to a modern faith known as “republican principles” (which supersedes any other creed or philosophy a person may identify with), but also proclaims that those principles are universal and should be shared by any rational person anywhere in the world

      The Context

      The law voted by parliament on July 23 seeks to eliminate “separatism” by removing a few of the traditional liberties the French formerly enjoyed. It also seeks to foment a climate of suspicion against anyone who resists signing on to a behavioral code designed to protect members of the current secular order.

      To ensure that some of Marine Le Pen’s xenophobic, anti-immigrant voters may be tempted to drift across to vote for Macron in next year’s election, the president has proposed a law clearly intended to demonstrate his personal pleasure in intimidating Muslims.

      Radical Ideology According to Senator Josh Hawley

      Republicans in the United States believe in freedom of expression so long as thought itself is controlled. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley understands that white exceptionalism is the unimpeachable foundation of the American way of life. “Over the past year, Americans have watched stunned as a radical ideology spread through our country’s elite institutions—one that teaches America is an irredeemably racist nation founded by white supremacists,” Hawley said. “We cannot afford for our children to lose faith in the noble ideals this country was founded on.”

      Radical ideology:

      The citing of any facts of history that might contradict the self-proclaimed normal and noble ideology of those who believe that the power structure they are a part of is predestined not only to rule the world, but also to restrict useful, objective knowledge of the world

      The Context

      When Hawley claims that we “have to make sure that our children understand what makes this country great, the ideals of hope and promise our Founding Fathers fought for, and the love of country that unites us all,” the key concept is “make sure.” This is the language not of education but of indoctrination, a characteristic traditionally associated with totalitarian regimes that mobilize whatever resources are required to “make sure” people toe the line.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The idea of “making sure” that children “understand” should be seen as an aporia, a simple contradiction, since true understanding means appreciating what one cannot be sure of — in other words, of putting things in perspective. Hawley clearly wants to remove what he calls the “ideals” from their context. This is more about undermining than understanding.

      There are similarities between Macron’s and Hawley’s approach to normalizing understanding and testing for loyalty.

      The Democrats’ Competing Priorities 

      US President Joe Biden has claimed that transformative FDR-style reforms are his priority and opposed Donald Trump’s race to further bloat the defense budget. Biden’s party in Congress is implementing its own priorities, similar to Trump’s.

      “One has to wonder what is even the point of a Senate Democratic majority if they’re going to not only continue Trump policies but work with Senate Republicans to undermine [Biden’s] priorities. Utterly pathetic,” tweeted Stephen Miles, executive director of Win Without War.

      Priority:

      Something political leaders want the public to believe is the first thing they wish to accomplish, even when they have no intention of implementing the stated policy and also expect it will not be implemented

      The Context

      During last year’s presidential campaign, Defense News reported that Biden said that “if elected president, he doesn’t foresee major reductions in the U.S. defense budget as the military refocuses its attention to potential threats from ‘near-peer’ powers such as China and Russia.” The website nevertheless suspected that “internal pressure from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, combined with pandemic-related economic pressures, may ultimately add up to budget cuts at a Biden Pentagon.”

      In a comic historical twist, Biden did not propose a reduction in the defense budget, but instead a modest increase despite drawing down the US commitment in the Middle East. The Senate Armed Services Committee, with a majority of Democrats, applied its pressure not to reduce the budget, but to spend even more than Biden demanded. The only “internal pressure” came from one isolated progressive, outvoted by 25 Democrats and Republicans.

      The moral of the story is clear. The president cannot run the country because even the policies he prefers (sincerely or insincerely) will be overturned by the all-powerful military-industrial complex that controls Congress. Defense is no longer about defending the nation, which is already extremely well defended. It’s about supporting the defense industries that are at the core of the economy and the focus of politicians’ attention. Spending freely on defense is the norm even in a nation that hates any spending other than consumer spending. The taxpayers will never complain, because they have been taught that producing arsenals that will never be needed is consistent with the belief in the “ideals of hope and promise our Founding Fathers fought for,” to quote Hawley again.

      Embed from Getty Images

      As the wealth gap continues to grow and the effects of both the COVID-19 pandemic and a growing climate crisis have spread more misery across the nation, the Republicans and Democrats on the Armed Services Committee appear to blissfully ignore the observation of a former Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

      The US Counters a Global Overture Threat

      It goes without saying that, given the multiplicity of threats to “national security,” the US is supposed to be everywhere in the world as a military presence. For two decades, terrorism was the main pretext, but its attraction has faded, allowing other missions to emerge, especially in Africa.

      “Now, in addition to fighting violent extremist groups, they have to counter Chinese and Russian overtures in a region where great powers are increasingly competing for access, influence, and resources,” writes Stavros Atlamazoglou in Business Insider

      Overture:

      Any initiative taken by a rival power in territories currently dominated by Western colonial and neocolonial powers, especially in regions where US troops are already present as a reminder that these are the West’s private hunting grounds

      The Context

      America’s hard power, its famed military might, appears to have a new challenge. This time it isn’t a foreign army, insurgents or terrorist cells. It is, as Atlamazoglou explains, something far more frightening: “Chinese aid, in the form of loans or infrastructure development,” part of “Beijing’s quest for natural resources and global legitimacy.” How dare the most populous nation on earth seek “natural resources and global legitimacy?” No one has called them off the bench to play the same game Western powers have excelled at for the past 500 years.

      Then there is the Russian variant, which is more respectful of the well-established American model. “Russia sells arms and provides political advisors in addition to hunting for lucrative contracts for natural resources and other geopolitical benefits,” Atlamazoglou writes. The two former rivals have remained faithful to the methods developed in that golden age politicians remember as the Cold War.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Atlamazoglou relies heavily on the testimony of John Black, a retired Special Forces warrant officer, who observes that American ambassadors need “to look at the country as a whole and take more risks, use [the US] military arm to effect real change within a country.” The stirring examples of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya demonstrate how “real change” can take place when you accept to “take more risks.”

      Black understands the risk, apparently viscerally: “China or Russia might not hesitate to work with a dictator with an abdominal [sic] human-rights record to further their geopolitical goals.” Could he have possibly meant “abominable?” Or does this describe a brutal regime that weaponizes diarrhea? Citing the US commitment to the rule of law, Black implies that the US would never cavort with a dictator possessed of an abominable human-rights record.

      How did the usually serious Business Insider allow such an “abdominal” article to appear?  

      The Great Reset: The Effect of Coordination or Chaos?

      The magnates of Davos recently agreed to mobilize their forces to implement what they call the “Great Reset,” ushering in a new golden age of socially responsible capitalism. All it requires is some concerted action under their leadership.  

      Gillian Tett, writing for the Financial Times, seems to envision a different scenario: “The total global debt is now more than three times the size of the global economy, since debt — and money — has expanded inexorably since 1971. It seems most unlikely this can ever be repaid just by growth; sooner or later — and it may be much later — this will probably cause a direct or indirect restructuring or a social or financial implosion.”

      Restructuring:

      The process by which the laws of inertia teach human beings with political and economic power, who believe they possess the intelligence capable of problem-solving, that such a belief can only be an illusion

      The Context

      Humanity finds itself struggling with a straightforward situation: multiple crises related to health, climate and an economy functioning on increasingly absurd principles. Theoretically, they can all be addressed through a harmonious global focus on rational resource management followed by intelligent decision-making. But history demonstrates on a daily basis that society has delegated decision-making to: first, individuals within nations (consumers and voters); second, nations (each competing one another); and third, those who govern the nations (theoretically, politicians whose sole aim is to hold onto power once they have acquired it and who are beholden to anyone who assists them in achieving that goal).

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      In other words, the more universal the problem, the less likely it will be that it may be solved. Local and national crises continue to exist, but they have now become dominated by universal crises. The consumer economy and the quasi-democratic nation-states are structured, in terms of decision-making, in a way that makes any voluntary effort at restructuring impossible.

      Not only do our economies and political systems need restructuring. Our thinking about who we are and how we function as a society needs some serious revision.

      *[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