Category: Politics & History

The left-of-centre parties in Western democracies are failing because both their economic policies and their social policies have alienated the majority of middle-class voters. 

By embracing globalization and deregulation of financial markets they have spiked the income- and wealth-gaps, leaving the middle class, at best, treading water; more usually, actually losing wealth and income against inflation; and at worst, jobless and unemployable after the export of manufacturing jobs to developing economies overseas. 

At the same time they have adopted increasingly marginal social policy reforms that have alienated many voters, generated backlash, and left the minority groups they aimed to help little better off than before. The two trends go together, of course: economic resentments feed social resentments, and vice versa. 

Meanwhile the upper-class elites of the Left have been padding their stock portfolios, planning their next exotic holiday travel, and hobnobbing with celebrities at gala dinners. The geniuses who championed globalization seemed utterly oblivious to the families thrown into poverty by the closure of factories. All they noticed, apparently, was the cleaner air and water. They have allowed public education to flounder for generations, while sending their own children to private schools. They have failed to lift marginalized communities—indigenous people, immigrants, people of colour—out of endemic poverty, while they and their families live in posh suburban communities equipped with parks, recreation facilities, and state-of-the-art security systems. 

These failures have produced apathy among marginalized minorities, along with a majority population dominated by low-information, low-skilled citizens ready to welcome populist demagogues and vote for them—and decidedly not ready to listen to well-reasoned policy discussions by guys in $500 suits who seem to know nothing at all about the way most people are living. The populist demagogue in the $500 suit who sounds like he is just as pissed off as they are seems a better bet. 

And that’s the way it is, as Walter Cronkite used to say, in December 2024.

As Adam King has explained in his article in The Conversation, here—

https://theconversation.com/canada-post-strike-highlights-labour-struggle-over-gig-economy-and-precarious-work-244469

—the strike by Canada Post workers results largely from the proliferation of “gig economy” businesses that to date have successfully evaded the usual requirements to pay their workers properly, provide benefits, and allow them to unionize.

The government needs to regulate these businesses and force them to treat their employees properly instead of pauperizing them by calling them “independent contractors” and thereby dragging down the entire system of social welfare that generations have fought so hard to establish.

I strongly support the Canada Post strikers, and I urge both federal and provincial governments to take action immediately to end the exploitative practices of “gig economy” businesses.

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. . . .

Whenever I become discouraged (which is on alternate Tuesdays, between three and four) I lift my spirits by remembering: The artists are on our side! I mean those poets and painters, singers and musicians, novelists and playwrights who speak to the world in a way that is impervious to assault because they wage the battle for justice in a sphere which is unreachable by the dullness of ordinary political discourse.

—Howard Zinn,

from A Power Governments Cannot Suppress and “Artists of Resistance”

Hitler’s power and success never ceased to astonish Mussolini. There was something unreal, something that didn’t make sense about the triumph of this Bohemian psychopath. In his heart of hearts, Mussolini saw Hitler’s success as a bizarre freak, an aberration on the part of world history. . . .

Novikov . . . [after seeing a Nazi army officer on the street] said to himself three words he would remember again and again. “Clown!” Then correcting himself: “Madman!” Then correcting himself once more: “Thug!”

—Stalingrad, by Vasily Grossman (1952)

Hitler, Hinkel, Drumpf, Trump: variations on a theme. Why does the fascist clown madman thug appeal to millions of people? All our astonishing science and technology will mean nothing if we cannot answer this question and put fascism finally, permanently in the past.

Even the best army is doomed to fail when it is required to perform impossible tasks, that is, when it is ordered to campaign against the national existence of other peoples.

—General Friedrich Paulus, commander of the German 6th army who surrendered to the Russians in the Battle of Stalingrad.

Perhaps Vlad Putin and Bibi Netanyahu should take note.

Meteorologists are scrambling to make sense of the what experts call the most dangerous instance of bizarre weather events seen so far.

“The climate isn’t changing,” one of them says. “It has changed.”

Hurricane Trump, readers may recall, seemed to have finally disappeared in early 2021. “We thought the worst was over then,” says Dr. Jeremiah Sunshine, head of the National Hurricane Center.

Now, however, to the experts’ amazement, Hurricane Trump has returned and is heading not for a particular city or region, but straight towards the entire United States! Hurricane watchers say that unless Trump changes course at the last minute, it will wipe out much of the US and then head straight for Western Europe. Only Moscow, Pyongyang, and Budapest would appear to be safe. They are calling this incredible phenomenon “Hurricane Trump II.”

Hurricane Trump first appeared in 2015 in New York City. Veering southward, it struck Washington, D.C., inflicting what commentators kept calling “unprecedented” damage. Environmental regulations were blown to pieces, while corporate profits soared out of sight. The federal budget exploded, and the national debt disappeared into the stratosphere along with corporate profits. The Republican Party took a direct hit, and has been out of commission ever since. International allies were battered mercilessly, while adversaries, strangely, seemed to sail serenely through the chaos. In the midst of all this, the COVID-19 pandemic threw everything into a confusion that was made even worse by Hurricane Trump, which spewed denials, bleach, and horse pills in every direction while bodies piled up in temporary storage trucks and hospitals were overwhelmed by the number of patients and the lack of essential supplies. Hurricane Trump continued throughout the 2020 election year and into 2021, when it smacked right into the US Capitol on January 6th. The resulting injuries, deaths, broken windows, pilfering, and filth seemed to mark the climactic end of the storm, and despite all the damage there was a widespread feeling that the ordeal was finally over.

The reappearance of Hurricane Trump three years later cannot be accounted for. Climate scientists are reconfiguring their models and projections, trying to understand a new reality in which hurricanes, long after they appear to be over, return like boomerangs, stronger than ever. “I am sorry to say that we have little understanding of what is happening,” says Dr. Sunshine. “We can only advise people to board up their windows, pile up the sandbags, avoid pregnancy or any other condition requiring gynecological care, try not to be an immigrant or even to look like one, fill up the gas tank, and be ready to flee at a moment’s notice.” Asked if anything else can be done, Dr. Sunshine paused thoughtfully. “Well,” he said, “it couldn’t hurt to vote. Might not help, but it couldn’t hurt. At this point, it’s certainly worth a try.”

It’s not a line, or spectrum, from right to left, but a circle where the extremes meet. Understood in this way, the current love affair of the American far-right with Putin of Russia and Kim Jong Un of North Korea, and Mr. Trump’s mish-mash of name-calling against his enemies, begin to make sense.

Despite overwhelming evidence of the wide-ranging risks of COVID-19, a great deal of messaging suggests that it is no longer a threat to the public. Although there is no empirical evidence to back this up, this misinformation has permeated the public narrative.

The data, however, tells a different story.

COVID-19 infections continue to outnumber flu cases and lead to more hospitalization and death than the flu. COVID-19 also leads to more serious long-term health problems. Trivializing COVID-19 as an inconsequential cold or equating it with the flu does not align with reality.

—https://theconversation.com/long-covid-puzzle-pieces-are-falling-into-place-the-picture-is-unsettling-233759

Updated July 21—now that Biden has announced he won’t run for re-election. Buckle up for a sexist / racist hullabaloo! If the Dems unite behind Harris, they have a chance. Otherwise, it’s Project 2025 time. (See bold-faced bullet point, below.)

• Joe Biden has been the most progressive president in history and has pushed back against corporations, the super-rich, and the Israeli government (not nearly enough to satisfy anyone outraged by the genocide of Palestinians, but plenty enough to piss off the pro-Netanyahu folks (see below). He is also elderly, and a terrible public speaker, thus a) turning off a huge proportion of know-nothing voters who like their celebrities young, cool, and glib; and b) providing ample fodder for a media feeding-frenzy. Yesterday we learned that he has COVID again, which will only add to the frenzy.
• The corporate Dem crowd of billionaires who don’t want regulation or taxation of the rich any more than their right-wing MAGA billionaire brethren are trying to get rid of both Biden and Harris.
• The AIPAC pro-Israel nuts who will do anything to put a pro-Bibi president in the White House are for Trump.
• The low-information “moderates” and “independents” who will determine the outcome of the election do not like or trust Kamala Harris because she is a) a woman, and b) non-white.
• The black women voters who were essential to Biden’s razor-thin wins in swing states in 2020 will not turn out for the Democratic candidate if Harris is dumped.
• If Biden and Harris are dumped, the candidate who emerges just weeks before the election will have no campaign organization on the ground and no money. The Democratic billionaires will throw some money, but will not be able to repair the lack of campaign organization that takes at least a year to build. Plus the party will be divided by factions bitterly blaming each other for the debacle.
• If Biden steps down and Harris becomes the presidential nominee, she will have to a) get the corporate Dems and party power brokers on her side, b) somehow retain the support of union members who have been strongly pro-Biden, and c) overcome the anti-woman, anti-Black prejudice among crucial “swing” voters.
• Season all of this with mass-media click-bait sensationalism (Trump is great for business if you are in corporate media) and hysterical social media disinformation. Let simmer for a few weeks, and voila!—we’re all in the soup.

Fifty years later, Schumacher’s critique of modern society has been confirmed by events.

He was ignored, of course, by economists, Wall Street, and politicians, and now we see the results that he predicted.

• environmental collapse
• pandemics
• mass migrations into cities, and from poor countries to wealthy countries
• rural areas and poor countries empty out and become backwaters of poverty, drug addiction, and resentment
• the enormous wealth and income gap between the tiny billionaire class and everyone else

All of this has been driven by the greed of the ruling classes and justified by the misguided priorities of economic theory that pursue profits and growth, not universal prosperity and quality of life.

Some tasters:

Scientific or technological ‘solutions’ which poison the environment or degrade the social structure . . . are of no benefit, no matter how brilliantly conceived or how great their superficial attraction. . . .

Modern economics does not distinguish between renewable and non-renewable materials, as its very method is to equalise and quantify everything by means of a money price. Thus, taking various alternative fuels, like coal, oil, wood, or waterpower: the only difference between them recognised by modern economics is relative cost per equivalent unit. The cheapest is automatically the one to be preferred, as to do otherwise would be irrational and ‘uneconomic’. . . .

Economics, which Lord Keynes had hoped would settle down as a modest occupation similar to dentistry, suddenly becomes the most important subject of all. Economic policies absorb almost the entire attention of government . . . . It tends to absorb the whole of ethics and to take precedence over all other human considerations. Now, quite clearly, this is a pathological development . . . .

It is a strange phenomenon indeed that the conventional wisdom of present-day economics can do nothing to help the poor.

Invariably it proves that only such policies are viable as have in fact the result of making those already rich and powerful, richer and more powerful. . . .

An entirely new system of thought is needed, a system based on attention to people, and not primarily attention to goods . . . .

Melvyn Bragg’s “In Our Time” broadcast about the sack of Rome in 1527 inspired me to do a little digging in the History of Atrocities department.

From Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization:

Charles [V, King of Spain and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire], still remaining in Spain, and moving his pawns with magic remote control, commissioned his agents to raise a new army. They approached the Tirolese condottiere, Georg von Frundsberg, already famous for the exploits of the Landsknechte—German mercenaries—who fought under his lead. Charles could offer little money, but his agents promised rich plunder in Italy. Frundsberg was still nominally a Catholic, but he strongly sympathized with Luther, and hated [Pope] Clement as a traitor to the Empire. He pawned his castle, his other possessions, even the adornments of his wife; with the 38,000 gulden so obtained he collected some 10,000 men eager for adventure and pillage and not averse to breaking a lance over a papal head; some of them, it was said, carried a noose to hang the Pope. . . . 

In Milan the imperial commander was now Charles, Duke of Bourbon; created constable of France for bravery at Marignano, he had turned against Francis when the King’s mother, as he felt, had cheated him of his proper lands; he went over to the Emperor, shared in defeating Francis at Pavia, and was made Duke of Milan. Now, to raise and pay another army for Charles, he taxed the Milanese literally to death. He wrote to the Emperor that he had drained the city of its blood. His soldiers, quartered upon the inhabitants, so abused them with theft, brutality, and rape that many Milanese hanged themselves, or threw themselves from high places into the streets. Early in February, 1527, Bourbon led his army out of Milan, and united it with Frundsberg’s near Piacenza. The conglomerate horde, now numbering nearly 22,000 men, moved east along the Via Emilia, avoiding the fortified cities, but pillaging as it went, and leaving the countryside empty behind it. . . .

On May 6 . . . the swarm entered from a confusing variety of directions; some were hidden by the fog; others so mingled with fugitives that the Castle cannon could not strike them without killing the demoralized populace. Soon the invaders had the city at their mercy.

As they rushed on through the streets they killed indiscriminately any man, woman, or child that crossed their path. Their bloodthirst aroused, they entered the hospital and orphanage of Santo Spirito, and slaughtered nearly all the patients. They marched into St. Peter’s and slew the people who had sought sanctuary there. They pillaged every church and monastery they could find, and turned some into stables; hundreds of priests, monks, bishops, and archbishops were killed. . . . Every dwelling in Rome was plundered, and many were burned, with two exceptions: the Cancelleria, occupied by Cardinal Colonna, and the Palazzo Colonna, in which Isabella d’ Este and some rich merchants had sought asylum; these paid 50,000 ducats to leaders of the mob for freedom from attack, and then took two thousand refugees within their walls. Every palace paid ransoms for protection, only to face later attacks from other packs, and pay ransom again. In most houses all the occupants were required to ransom their lives at a stated price; if they did not pay they were tortured; thousands were killed; children were flung from high windows to pry parental savings from secrecy; some streets were littered with dead. The millionaire Domenico Massimi saw his sons slain, his daughter raped, his house burned, and then was himself murdered. “In the whole city,” says one account, “there was not a soul above three years of age who had not to purchase his safety.”

Of the victorious mob half were German [Lutheran]s, of whom most had been convinced that the popes and cardinals were thieves, and that the wealth of the Church in Rome was a theft from the nations, and a scandal to the world. To reduce this scandal they seized all movable ecclesiastical valuables, including sacred vessels and works of art, and carried them off for melting or ransom or sale; relics, however, they left scattered on the floor. One soldier dressed himself as a pope; others put on cardinals’ hats and kissed his feet; a crowd at the Vatican proclaimed Luther pope. The Lutherans among the invaders took especial delight in robbing cardinals, exacting high ransoms from them as the price of their lives, and teaching them new rituals. Some cardinals, says Guicciardini, “were set upon scrubby beasts, riding with their faces backward, in the habits and ensigns of their dignity, and were led about all Rome with the greatest derision and contempt. Some, unable to raise all the ransom demanded, were so tortured that they died there and then, or within a few days.” One cardinal was lowered into a grave and was told that he would be buried alive unless ransom were brought within a stated time; it came at the last moment. Spanish and German cardinals, who thought themselves safe from their own countrymen, were treated like the rest. Nuns and respectable women were violated in situ, or were carried off to promiscuous brutality in the various shelters of the horde. Women were assaulted before the eyes of their husbands or fathers. Many young women, despondent after being raped, drowned themselves in the Tiber.

The number of deaths cannot be calculated. Two thousand corpses were thrown into the Tiber from the Vatican side of Rome; 9800 dead were buried; there were unquestionably many more fatalities. . . .

Plague had visited Rome in 1522, and had reduced its population to 55,000; murder, suicide, and flight must have reduced it below 40,000 in 1527; now, in July of that year, plague came back in the full heat of summer, and joined with famine and the continued presence of the ravaging horde to make Rome a city of horror, terror, and desolation. Churches and streets were littered anew with corpses; many of these were left to rot in the sun; the stench was so strong that the jailers and prisoners fled from the castle parapets to their rooms; even there many died of the infection, among them some servants of the Pope. The impartial plague struck the invaders too; 2500 Germans in Rome died by July 22, 1527; and malaria, syphilis, and malnutrition cut the horde in half. . . .

On December 7, after seven months of confinement, Clement left Sant’ Angelo, and, disguised as a servant, made his way humbly out of Rome to Orvieto, apparently a broken man. . . .

Losing all hope of aid from the League, Clement offered his full surrender to Charles; and on October 6 he was allowed to re-enter Rome. Four fifths of the houses had been abandoned, thousands of buildings were in ruins; men were amazed to see what nine months of invasion had done to the capital of Christendom. . . .

The story of civilization, indeed.

By “best” I mean, from a progressive point of view.

I was born in 1952, so the candidates are Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump, and Biden.

We can eliminate the Republicans right away, so that leaves Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden. Kennedy’s relations with the civil rights movement were awkward, at best. His speeches indicating a shift away from Cold War hostilities were promising, but those promises came to nothing when he was murdered. Johnson would be at the top of my list for his domestic policies, especially the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but his Vietnam catastrophe takes him off the table. Clinton was far too dodgy and neoliberal for my taste. That leaves Carter, Obama, and Biden.

Jimmy Carter did a lot of good things. Most notably, he got Israel and Egypt to sign a peace accord, but he also gave amnesty to Vietnam War draft dodgers, promoted solar energy, etc. He had the bad luck to inherit a lousy economy; he was blamed for taking the tough measures that handed his successor, Reagan, a much better economy. He also had the bad luck of being in office during the Iran hostage crisis which, along with traitorous back-channels deals with the Ayatollah by Reagan’s team, lost him his re-election bid. But he also did not understand how Congress works and—early in his term, especially—created a lot of unnecessary problems for himself.

Obama, for all his resonant speeches and charming smiles, was essentially an Eisenhower Republican in his policies, both domestic and international (except that Ike didn’t have drones). His greatest achievement was the Affordable Care Act. But he bailed out the fat cats while leaving ordinary folks to take all the pain of the 2008 financial crisis, with repercussions we are still suffering from. He had to be pushed on gay marriage by his VP, Joe Biden. He didn’t have the guts to get out of Iraq or Afghanistan, and his policies were ineffective, at best, in Syria and Libya. Apart from health care and some inspiring speeches . . . he didn’t accomplish much.

Joe Biden inherited a rotten situation in Afghanistan, and it was ugly. But unlike all his predecessors (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford in Vietnam; Bush II and Obama in Afghanistan) he had the cojones to get out, knowing it would be ugly. He also inherited the 80-year-old insoluble Israeli-Palestinian mess and had it blow up last fall when Hamas attacked over the border, committed atrocities, and took hostages back into Gaza. Could he take a harder line against Israel? Sure. But the consequences, both political and geo-political, are rarely considered by his critics on the Left. Short answer: the situation is a horrific mess, has been for some 80 years, and is likely to remain so. The blowback from any significant change in U.S. policy toward Israel would make the blowback after the Afghanistan pull-out look like a D.A.R. tea party. But I trust Biden and his team to make the best choices available to them, and I cannot think of anyone else who would do better in Biden’s place.

Beyond these two foreign policy crises, Biden has been as outstanding as I can imagine an American president being. His deep understanding of Congress has allowed him to pass significant progressive legislation despite unrelenting obstruction by Republicans, including the infrastructure bill, and the “Inflation Reduction Act”—which do more to address climate change and move toward a green energy economy than anything any other president has done. He managed the recovery from the COVID recession by putting money into the pockets of ordinary folks, resulting in the strongest economy in the world, by far. He is the most pro-labour president since Harry Truman or FDR. He is a skilled negotiator, as seen in his budget deal with Kevin McCarthy. Where the Republicans and the courts have blocked him, he has found ways to make progress anyway, as in his cancellation of student loan debt for millions of people. He is a wily politician, as when he got obstreperous Republicans to promise publicly not to touch Medicare and Social Security during one of his State of the Union addresses; or when he gave them almost everything they had ever asked for in a border reform bill, whereupon they nixed the deal—effectively killing the “crisis at the border” issue as a Republican talking point. His only equal on the domestic front is LBJ, and on the international front . . . would you prefer Johnson to Biden? Not me, thanks.

Is he good on TV? Nope. So what? That’s not the job.

• For landlords, high rental costs are good for business; maintenance costs are bad for business.
• For employers, low wages are good for business; unions are bad for business.
• For manufacturers, cheap raw materials are good for business; for manufacturers, developers, mining companies, and energy companies, concern for the environment is bad for business.
• For gun companies, gun sales are good for business; restrictions on guns are bad for business.
• For social media companies, hate speech and propaganda are good for business; regulation is bad for business.
• For journalism, Donald Trump is great for business; Joe Biden is bad for business.

Time for a new business model.

Qualities I am looking for in a candidate for President:

1. Youth
2. Good looks
3. Great hair
4. Excellent bone structure
5. Entertaining. This could mean . . .
   1. Funny
   2. Inspiring speaker
   3. Crazy mo-fo, don’t know what s/he will say or do next
6. No smarter or better informed than I am, because that makes me nervous
7. Promises cheap gas and groceries

‘K bye, gotta get back to my TV program.

Edward Gibbon contemplates the sad tale of the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, whose virtue and wisdom failed to produce either wisdom or virtue in his son and successor, Commodus:

The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of the father’s virtues. It has been objected to Marcus, that he sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy; and that he chose a successor in his own family, rather than in the republic. Nothing however, was neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to render him worthy of the throne for which he was designed. But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous. —History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter IV

Marcus had perhaps not read, or simply did not heed, the words of Socrates in Plato’s Meno: “If through all this discussion our queries and statements have been correct, virtue is found to be neither natural nor taught, but is imparted to us as a divine gift without understanding in those who receive it” (tr. W. R. M. Lamb).

Supporting Bibi Netanyahu’s right-wing government undermines the State of Israel and jeopardizes its future. 

A genuinely pro-Israel policy would seek peace and reconciliation with Palestinians, would support the establishment of a Palestinian state, and would negotiate a fair division of land and resources, including areas of shared sovereignty where access and rights are guaranteed to both peoples. Such policies would ensure a future of peace and prosperity for Israel.

Netanyahu’s policies of land theft, apartheid, and genocide lead only to perpetual war and to the eventual destruction of the State of Israel.

President Biden: support Israel’s true interests by opposing Netanyahu’s murderous and self-defeating actions.

Theodor Herzl’s Zionist project for a Jewish state in Palestine, which seems in many respects to have been such a great success, has failed. Like so many other groups who have responded to unjust attacks, the Zionists have doomed themselves by adopting many of the worst traits and tactics of their persecutors: fierce nationalism, denial of civil rights, forced deportations, seizure of land and property, etc. The Israelis have become the oppressors they were trying to escape. The Israeli state has generated so much hatred and resentment among Palestinians that all hope of reconciliation has evaporated. Israelis and Palestinians are locked in a struggle to the death whose outcome seems certain to mean destruction for both sides. And the State of Israel, ironically, is now a major generator of anti-Jewish sentiment around the world.

The United States, too, finds itself in an untenable position it cannot escape. Its commitment to support Israel has acquired a sacred quality; no political party and few if any politicians would dare to question it. As part of this commitment, the U.S. seeks support and alliances with surrounding Arab governments: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan. All of these governments oppress their own people, and to secure their friendship the U.S. becomes complicit in that oppression, and thus becomes the adversary of every resistance group seeking justice in their own country and justice for the Palestinians. Just as opposition to the Soviet Union during the Cold War put the U.S. in opposition to liberation movements in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, so its support of Israel puts it in opposition to liberation movements all over the Middle East. The lack of reform in Arab countries drives their reformist movements into more and more radical positions. The only people working seriously for liberation during the Cold War were communists. Today the only people working seriously for liberation in the Middle East are radical Islamists. The U.S., facing a choice between friendly autocrats and angry Islamists, sides with el-Sisi, MBS, and the King of Jordan, just as it sided with dictators rather than communists in the Cold War years. 

Perhaps the Islamists will be defeated in the Middle East just as Soviet rule collapsed in Russia and Eastern Europe, and perhaps then there will be genuine reform in the autocratic states of the Middle East, just as democracy has spread, albeit unevenly, in the post-colonial nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. More likely, it seems to me, is some version of what happened in Vietnam in 1975  and Iran in 1979 and Afghanistan in 2021: the local, radicalized insurgents will drive out the foreigners and overthrow their corrupt autocratic governments. 

As for Israel, they have no solution but endless suppression of the Palestinians. How long can they sustain that, even with U.S. support? And if  they were to have a change of heart and seek reconciliation . . . who among the Palestinians would be their partners? There are no Palestinian Mandelas, as far as I know.

Climbing down is much, much harder than climbing up.

There was never anything so gallant, so spruce, so brilliant, and so well disposed as the two armies. Trumpets, fifes, oboes, drums, and cannon made music such as Hell itself had never heard. The cannons, first of all, laid flat about six thousand men on each side. Then the muskets swept away from this best of worlds nine or ten thousand ruffians who had infested its surface. The bayonet was also a “sufficient reason” for the death of several more thousands. The total dead might amount to thirty thousand souls. Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.

At length, while the two kings were causing “We praise Thee, O God” to be sung each in his own camp, Candide resolved to go and reason elsewhere on effects and causes. He passed over heaps of dead and dying, and first reached a neighbouring village that was smoldering; it was an Abare village that the Bulgars had burnt according to the laws of war. Here, old men covered with wounds beheld their wives hugging their sons, who had been massacred before their faces, to their bloody breasts. They saw some of their daughters disembowelled and breathing their last after having satisfied the natural wants of Bulgarian heroes; while others, half burnt in the flames, begged to be finished off. The earth was strewed with brains, arms, and legs.

Candide fled quickly to another village. It belonged to the Bulgars, and the Abarian heroes had treated it in the same way. . . .

—From Voltaire’s Candide, Or Optimism (1759), Chapter III

Hans Globke (1898-1973), enthusiastic Nazi and persecutor of Jews who served first in Hitler’s government and then, from 1953 to 1963, as chief of staff to the West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.

In this undated photo he looks like a Hollywood parody of what he actually was: a Nazi bureaucrat. In his memoir, “Pigeon Tunnel,” John Le Carré refers to Globke and quotes Adenauer saying, “You don’t throw out dirty water when you have no clean water.”

Photo description for the visually impaired: Undated black-and-white image of a puffy-faced man in late middle age dressed in a dark suit and tie, sitting at a desk with a folder of papers open before him. His graying hair is slicked back from his receding hairline. He has deep bags underneath his eyes, arched eyebrows descending to the bridge of a large nose, and a grim mouth with just the hint of a smirk. He is staring directly into the camera through almost invisible rimless eyeglasses with thin cable temples, as if he has just looked up from his papers, the whites of his eyes showing underneath his pupils.

More about Globke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Globke

The Jews have been persecuted for as long as we have knowledge of their existence. Persecuted for their monotheism, by their polytheistic neighbours. Persecuted for their literacy, by the largely illiterate peoples they lived amongst after their dispersal around the Roman Empire. Persecuted for their language, used and understood only by themselves. Persecuted for their refusal to convert to Christianity and, later, to Islam. Persecuted for their clannishness and refusal to assimilate. Persecuted just for being Jews, even after they have assimilated and stopped practicing their religion.

How ironic, then, that after this long history of being victims, the Jews in Israel should persecute their non-Jewish neighbours. In the name of reclaiming their historic rights in Palestine; refusing to be victims any longer; standing up to defend themselves—in the name of refusing to be persecuted any longer, the Israelis have systematically deprived Palestinians of their rights and refused to negotiate in good faith; have driven Palestinians off their land and herded them into restricted areas that are in effect giant ghettos; have committed unspeakable crimes in response to unspeakable crimes committed by the extreme factions who have come to power among Palestinians in the face of Israeli oppression. 

Yes, the full history is much more complicated than this, but here is the result:

The persecuted have become persecutors in the name of refusing to be persecuted ever again. The worst among them, consumed by hatred and desire for revenge, refusing negotiation or compromise, have gained control of the Israeli state just as their mirror-image counterparts among Palestinians have gained control in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Vengeance is mine,” says Jehovah in Deuteronomy. “Hold my beer, Lord,” say the humans.

1853: Memo from Professor of history Mikhail Pogodin to Czar Nicholas I of Russia:

France takes Algeria from Turkey, and almost every year England annexes another Indian principality: none of this disturbs the balance of power; but when Russia occupies Moldavia and Wallachia, albeit only temporarily, that disturbs the balance of power. France occupies Rome and stays there several years during peacetime: that is nothing; but Russia only thinks of occupying Constantinople, and the peace of Europe is threatened. The English declare war on the Chinese, who have, it seems, offended them: no one has the right to intervene; but Russia is obliged to ask Europe for permission if it quarrels with its neighbour. England threatens Greece to support the false claims of a miserable Jew and burns its fleet: that is a lawful action; but Russia demands a treaty to protect millions of Christians, and that is deemed to strengthen its position in the East at the expense of the balance of power. We can expect nothing from the West but blind hatred and malice . . . .

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War#Eastern_Question

War is the appropriate response when one nation is invaded or attacked by another. The most recent obvious example, in Ukraine, illustrates the case: Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022 set off a war between the two nations that continues today. Ukraine is completely justified in defending itself by going to war against Russia.

War is the wrong response, however, to terrorist attacks. George W. Bush made this mistake when he responded to Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks in 2001 by sending armies to Afghanistan and Iraq. The result? Two decades of war, thousands and thousands of deaths, two countries devastated, and trillions of dollars expended—with no discernible reduction in terrorist activity by Al-Qaeda, Isis, Iran, Hezbollah, etc. Going to war against terrorism leads only to bloodshed, destruction, and hatred.

Now Israel is making the same mistake—not for the first time—in Gaza and the West Bank, with the same results.

So what is the appropriate response to terrorism?

Criminal investigation, arrests, and prosecution.

Terrorist acts are criminal acts. Send investigators. Offer rewards. Make arrests. Put suspects on trial. Then make damned sure that your system of justice is truly just, and is not actually a system of injustice that promotes . . . terrorism.

Nations that go to war against criminals commit criminal acts: they become criminals.

In the summer of 1987 Mike Radow and I were driving the back roads of France in my crappy Renault 5 and stumbled on Oradour-sur-Glane, the site of a notorious massacre carried out by Nazi SS troops. The village has been preserved as the Nazis left it, as a memorial. We stopped and walked through the burned-out main street: hulks of old cars, houses missing roofs and fronts, a chimney here, a sewing machine there.

We came on a tour group. The speaker was an older man who was one of about thirty people who escaped the slaughter. His audience had tears running down their faces as he told the story.

The men had been gathered in several barns; the women and children in the church. The Nazis machine-gunned their victims, often just in the legs. They threw grenades into the church. They piled straw and other combustibles on top of the wounded, then set fire to the church and to the barns. They pillaged the houses of food and valuables, setting each house afire once it was looted, and finally burned the whole village. People found hiding in their homes during this pillaging were killed. Most of the victims died by being burned alive.

The old man saw me standing at the back in my Moroccan black leather jacket, looking very Aryan. “D’ou venez-vous?” he asked. Where are you from?

It was one of the few times in my life that I was completely happy to say, “Je suis Americain.” The whole group sighed in relief.

The massacre took place on my birthday, June 10th, in 1944, eight years before I was born. It was apparently a reprisal for some Résistance attack in the days following the Normandy landings on June 6th—an attack that had nothing to do with Oradour-sur-Glane or any of its residents. The total number of people killed was 642, but only 52 of the bodies could be identified. The rest were beyond recognition.

In the spring of 1992 I was living in Vienna, Austria. One day I found, in the International Herald-Tribune, this brief article:

I had no words to express my disgust and outrage then, and thirty years later that has not changed, even though the account given of the massacre on the French version of Wikipedia (see below) describes Stadler as a colonel, not the regiment commander.

Almost none of the perpetrators were prosecuted; most of those that were imprisoned served less than five years before being released. One SS Sergeant was sentenced to life in prison in 1981. In 1997 he was released on humanitarian grounds. He died in 2007, age 86.

Here is an English-language account of the massacre, and a more detailed account in French.

The man telling the story of the massacre in 1987 might have been Robert Hébras, who was wounded by machine-gun fire in his leg, abdomen, and wrist, but played dead. He and four others remained hidden underneath the corpses of their friends and neighbours even after the fire was set, waiting until the last possible moment to make their escape. He died this past February 11th, 2023, 97 years old. May he rest in peace.

When you go on holiday and rent an Airbnb, you are actively promoting the housing crisis for renters.

“Jasper, Alberta has hundreds of Airbnbs, but not a single place to live

“‘Desperate to find housing’: In resort towns, landlords are pulling units from the long-term rental market to convert them to short-term rentals”

Read the article here:

https://ricochet.media/en/3974/jasper-alberta-has-hundreds-of-airbnbs-but-not-a-single-place-to-live

Let them know what you think of them.

Colt’s Manufacturing Company http://www.colt.com/
Barrett Firearms Manufacturing https://barrett.net/
Bushmaster Firearms International https://www.bushmaster.com
Caracal International http://caracalusa.com/
C.G. Haenel https://www.cg-haenel.de/en/
Heckler & Koch http://heckler-koch.com/
Remington Arms http://www.remarms.com/
Sturm, Ruger & Co. http://ruger.com/
SIG Sauer http://sigsauer.com/
Smith & Wesson http://smith-wesson.com/
Springfield Armory, Inc. http://www.springfield-armory.com/
Norinco http://en.norincogroup.com.cn/

My message to these companies:

Why are you selling weapons to civilians that are designed for warfare and end up being used in mass killings?

You are worse than murderers: too cowardly to pull the triggers yourselves, but happy to profit from the carnage.

You are despicable.

• Most voters are in the center, when they pay attention; and most don’t pay attention. They aren’t interested. They just want to work and fall in love and follow sports and watch TV.
• It is outrages on the right that push uninvolved voters to pay attention and become involved, that motivate them to vote, and to vote for progress. Think about Bull Conner’s thugs attacking kids with firehouses and dogs in 1963. In recent days we have the right-wing Supreme Court overturning abortion rights, or DeSantis et al banning books, etc.
• The progressive left’s best strategy is to make their votes necessary for liberals to get elected and pass legislation. This is much easier in a parliamentary system (Canada, the U.K.) than in the U.S., with its two-party system so firmly entrenched. But it’s not easy anywhere.
• Progress is multi-generational. One lifetime is barely the blink of an eye on history’s timeline. It is natural, from the perspective of a single lifetime, to feel enormously frustrated. And it is very difficult to take heart over incremental improvements that, with rare exceptions, began long before you were born and will not be completed until long after you die.
• Start local! National politics is really, really hard to change. City councils, school boards, county commissions, and state/provincial legislatures are where progressives need to start. But this is slow, tedious work and, historically, progressives have been more inclined to street demonstrations that usually have limited (sometimes counterproductive) effects—although we tend to remember the spectacular exceptions.

1. Not just people, but entire cultures can be pigheaded
There is a pigheaded resistance to government in Anglo culture that persists even when public health measures are desperately needed to save lives. We have seen this during the COVID-19 pandemic, but history shows that it is nothing new.

British liberals, in particular, saw quarantine regulations as an irrational infringement of the principle of free trade, and bent every effort toward the eradication of such traces of tyranny and Roman Catholic folly. . . .

In England . . . a libertarian prejudice against regulations infringing the individual’s right to do what he chose with his own property was deeply rooted . . . .

[As Asiatic cholera approached, Parliament established a Central Board of Health in 1848] and began installation of water and sewer systems all over the country. . . .

Intrusion upon private property to allow water mains and sewer pipes to maintain the straight lines needed for efficient patterns of flow was also necessary. To many Englishmen at the time this seemed an unwarranted intrusion on their rights and, of course, the capital expenditures involved were substantial. It therefore took the lively fear that cholera provoked to overcome entrenched opposition.

—William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples, pp. 272, 276-77

Pigheaded resistance to common-sense public health measures can be found outside of Anglo culture, of course. McNeill notes elsewhere in the same book that, confronted with bubonic plague during the annual hadj to Mecca, Islamic authorities shrugged it off on the theory that Allah alone determines who lives and dies, and when. Similarly, regular outbreaks of cholera among during Hindu pilgrimages to the Ganges River did nothing to diminish enthusiasm to join the crowds.

2. Money talks
Scurvy had been a problem for sailors ever since Columbus. When the British navy learned that the disease resulted from a Vitamin C deficiency, they decided to supply British warships with citrus fruits. As it turned out, however, Mediterranean lemons were more expensive, so they opted for limes from the West Indies, which were much cheaper. Unfortunately, the West Indies varieties were also much lower in Vitamin C, so scurvy outbreaks in the British navy continued for another 80 years. But think of the money they saved! [McNeill, pp. 273-74]

3. Public health is not private health
As I have noted previously, governments are not particularly concerned with your health, or mine. They are only concerned about health when it becomes a public problem by swamping hospitals or impacting the workforce and damaging the economy. Soft-headed dopes like me who continue to think that my governments, local and national, ought to be concerned about my health, are bound to be disappointed.

To British Columbia Premier Dave Eby

Dear Mr. Eby,

Before Dr. Henry’s latest announcement that health care workers would no longer be wearing masks on the job, I was already extremely reluctant to go to the hospital because of the outrageous waiting times in the emergency department.

In August 2021 I was forced to call an ambulance and go to the ER when I had an attack of vertigo. Nauseous, miserable, and dry-heaving into a cardboard bucket, I sat for 12 hours in a waiting room filled with scores of sick people. It was horrible.

Now, in addition to inhumane waiting times, going to the hospital will mean being needlessly exposed to every airborne disease around.

If these policies were being promulgated by a right-wing party I would not be surprised. But the NDP??

What the hell has happened to the NDP??

Whatever it is, it’s appalling.

Sincerely yours, [etc.]

In 16th-century France the Wars of Religion tore the nation apart for almost forty years. The atrocities committed make 21st-century terrorists look like Boy Scouts. King Henri IV finally restored peace (for a while) by addressing the real causes of the conflict: not religious doctrine, but economics and political power.

I was reminded of this today talking with a friend about the latest wave of gun homicides in the U.S. Those eager to prolong the status quo want you to think that this is an ideological disagreement about the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, about the right of citizens to own guns.

Wrong. It’s about the profits of gun manufacturers and sellers. The ideological hysteria is stirred up by people who profit from it.

Remember when bar owners were held liable if they allowed customers to get drunk, and those customers subsequently got behind the wheel and caused accidents? The epidemic of drunk driving, seemingly insoluble, stopped. There are still drunk drivers, but not nearly so many.

The same approach could dramatically reduce gun violence in the U.S. Make it possible for victims and their families to sue gun makers and gun sellers whose guns are used in mass killings. Suddenly sellers will be much more careful about who they sell guns to, and manufacturers will change the kinds of guns they sell.

Follow the money.

I highly recommend this recent episode of the BBC World Service programme, “The Real Story”: How do you stop police brutality? It inspired me to think about the problem of police brutality in broader terms.

Previously I was thinking more about the problems inherent in the kind of people sometimes attracted to policing (and the military):

We need police officers. We need soldiers. Unfortunately, both professions tend to attract people who enjoy weapons, conflict, and power—sometimes to the point of psychopathy. Not all, but a significant percentage. And that turns out to be a significant problem for which we do not have a solution.

But the problem is bigger than that. Surprisingly, that may mean that it is more possible to find solutions. Not easier, but more possible.

Coercive policing was an essential element of colonialism. Colonial police were given a job by their governments with clear mandates:

1. Surveil the population, looking for potential troublemakers who might threaten the colonial system.
2. Control those groups and individuals who would dissent, demonstrate, and organize to change or overthrow the system.
3. Use whatever means are necessary, including coercion and violence, to ensure order and stability.

This pattern can be recognized immediately in the histories of African, Asian, and Middle Eastern peoples colonized by European nations in the 19th century. In all such cases, the European police officers were supplemented by large numbers of policemen recruited from among the local population. These native policemen, in return for job security and a certain kind of power and status, gave their loyalty to the colonial regimes that were exploiting their own people. Decolonization after World War II led, most often, to colonial governments being replaced by despotic native rulers who used the same system of coercive policing to control the population and keep themselves in power.

In the Americas we see the same coercive policing used against domestically colonized populations: indigenous people and racialized minorities. These domestically colonized people have provided cheap labour essential to the prosperity of the affluent majority. To ensure the supply of cheap labour, such people must be kept in their place. Dissent, demonstrations, and organization against the status quo must be quashed, and coercive policing is used to suppress such activities, in exactly the same way that colonial police forces operated in the 19th century. And, again, police recruited from among the colonized population have been essential to making the system work. We should not be surprised, then, when a Native American band council subsidized by the US government forms a local police force that proceeds to use violence against their own band members who oppose the leadership; or when Black police officers in an American city commit violence against Black citizens. In both cases, the police officers’ loyalty is to the system in power that has employed them and raised their status, not to the people they have been hired to, theoretically, “serve.”

We see similar coercive policing used against immigrant populations in European countries.

So the actual motto of such police forces is not “Protect and Serve” but “Surveil, Control, and Coerce.”

If this is correct, we have good news and bad news. On one hand, the problem of identifying and removing officers or recruits with psychopathic personalities appears quite manageable. As noted in the BBC programme, Norway has an effective system of screening out such individuals. Once that is done, we are no longer dealing with chronic but seemingly random acts of violence involving rogue police officers.

On the other hand, trying to solve the problem of police violence by reforming the police with better training, body cameras, etc., is doomed to fail. It is like reforming school curricula to address racism and poverty. Hence the bad news: the system of coercive policing supports a social and economic system that is inherently unfair and unequal. Without poverty, without income and wealth inequality, the affluence and social status of the privileged classes disappear. Moreover, in places like the United States there is a culture of violence that compounds the problem. An armed and often violent population seems inevitably to require an armed and violent police force.

And so, just as we must repair broken communities to repair broken schools, we must reform the system that employs coercive policing if we want to reform policing itself.

No justice, no peace.