On 2 November 2008, the New York Times Magazine headlined “Questions for James K. Galbraith: The Populist,” which was an “Interview by Deborah Solomon” of the prominent liberal economist and son of John Kenneth Galbraith. She asked him, “There are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and you’re saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis” which had brought on the second Great Depression?

He answered: “Ten or twelve would be closer than two or three.”

She very appropriately followed up immediately with “What does this say about the field of economics, which claims to be a science?”

He didn’t answer by straight-out saying that economics isn’t any more of a science than physics was before Galileo, or than biology was before Darwin. He didn’t proceed to explain that the very idea of a Nobel Prize in Economics was based upon a lie which alleged that economics was the first field to become scientific within all of the “social sciences,” when, in fact, there weren’t yet any social sciences, none yet at all. But he came close to admitting these things, when he said: “It’s an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession. There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless.” His term “useless” was a euphemism for false. His term “blot” was a euphemism for “nullification.”

On 9 January 2009, economist Jeff Madrick headlined at The Daily Beast, “How the Entire Economics Profession Failed,” and he opened:

At the annual meeting of American Economists, most everyone refused to admit their failures to prepare or warn about the second worst crisis of the century.

I could find no shame in the halls of the San Francisco Hilton, the location at the annual meeting of American economists. Mainstream economists from major universities dominate the meetings, and some of them are the anointed cream of the crop, including former Clinton, Bush and even Reagan advisers.

There was no session on the schedule about how the vast majority of economists should deal with their failure to anticipate or even seriously warn about the possibility that the second worst economic crisis of the last hundred years was imminent.

I heard no calls to reform educational curricula because of a crisis so threatening and surprising that it undermines, at least if the academicians were honest, the key assumptions of the economic theory currently being taught. …

I found no one fundamentally changing his or her mind about the value of economics, economists, or their work.”

He observed a scandalous profession of quacks who are satisfied to remain quacks. The public possesses faith in them because it possesses faith in the “invisible hand” of God, and everyone is taught to believe in that from the crib. In no way is it science.

In a science, when facts prove that the theory is false, the theory gets replaced, it’s no longer taught. In a scholarly field, however, that’s not so — proven-false theory continues being taught. In economics, the proven-false theory continued being taught, and still continues today to be taught. This demonstrates that economics is still a religion or some other type of philosophy, not yet any sort of science.

Mankind is still coming out of the Dark Ages. The Bible is still being viewed as history, not as myth (which it is), not as some sort of religious or even political propaganda. It makes a difference — a huge difference: the difference between truth and falsehood.

The Dutch economist Dirk J. Bezemer, at Groningen University, posted on 16 June 2009 a soon-classic paper, “‘No One Saw This Coming’: Understanding Financial Crisis Through Accounting Models,” in which he surveyed the work of 12 economists who did see it (the economic collapse of 2008) coming; and he found there that they had all used accounting or “Flow of Funds” models, instead of the standard microeconomic theory. (In other words: they accounted for, instead of ignored, debts.) From 2005 through 2007, these accounting-based economists had published specific and accurate predictions of what would happen: Dean Baker, Wynne Godley, Fred Harrison, Michael Hudson, Eric Janszen, Stephen (“Steve”) Keen, Jakob B. Madsen, Jens K. Sorensen, Kurt Richebaecher, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, and Robert Shiller.

He should have added several others. Paul Krugman, wrote a NYT column on 12 August 2005 headlined “Safe as Houses” and he said “Houses aren’t safe at all” and that they would likely decline in price. On 25 August 2006, he bannered “Housing Gets Ugly” and concluded “It’s hard to see how we can avoid a serious slowdown.” Bezemer should also have included Merrill Lynch’s Chief North American Economist, David A. Rosenberg, whose The Market Economist article “Rosie’s Housing Call August 2004” on 6 August 2004 already concluded, “The housing sector has entered a ‘bubble’ phase,” and who presented a series of graphs showing it. Bezemer should also have included Satyajit Das, about whom TheStreet had headlined on 21 September 21 2007, “The Credit Crisis Could Be Just Beginning.” He should certainly have included Ann Pettifor, whose 2003 The Real World Economic Outlook, and her masterpiece the 2006 The Coming First World Debt Crisis, predicted exactly what happened and why. Her next book, the 2009 The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of Bankers, was almost a masterpiece, but it failed to present any alternative to the existing microeconomic theory — as if microeconomic theory isn’t a necessary part of economic theory. Another great economist he should have mentioned was Charles Hugh Smith, who had been accurately predicting since at least 2005 the sequence of events that culminated in the 2008 collapse. And Bezemer should especially have listed the BIS’s chief economist, William White, regarding whom Germany’s Spiegel headlined on 8 July 2009, “Global Banking Economist Warned of Coming Crisis.” (It is about but doesn’t mention nor link to https://www.bis.org/publ/work147.pdf.) White had been at war against the policies of America’s Fed chief Alan Greenspan ever since 1998, and especially since 2003, but the world’s aristocrats muzzled White’s view and promoted Greenspan’s instead. (The economics profession have always been propagandists for the super-rich.) Bezemer should also have listed Charles R. Morris, who in 2007 told his publisher Peter Osnos that the crash would start in Summer 2008, which was basically correct. Moreover, James K. Galbraith had written for years saying that a demand-led depression would result, such as in his American Prospect “How the Economists Got It Wrong,” 30 November 2002; and “Bankers Versus Base,” 15 April 2004, and culminating finally in his 2008 The Predator State, which blamed the aristocracy in the strongest possible terms for the maelstrom to come. Bezemer should also have listed Barry Ritholtz, who, in his “Recession Predictor,” on 18 August 2005, noted the optimistic view of establishment economists and then said, “I disagree … due to Psychology of consumers.” He noted “consumer debt, not as a percentage of GDP, but relative to net asset wealth,” and also declining “median personal income,” as pointing toward a crash from this mounting debt-overload. Then, on 31 May 2006, he headlined “Recent Housing Data: Charts & Analysis,” and opened: “It has long been our view that Real Estate is the prime driver of this economy, and its eventual cooling will be a major crimp in GDP, durable goods, and consumer spending.” Bezemer should also have listed both Paul Kasriel and Asha Bangalore at Northern Trust. Kasriel headlined on 22 May 2007, “US Economy May Wake Up Without Consumers’ Prodding?” and said it wouldn’t happen – and consumers were too much in debt. Then on 8 August 2007, he bannered: “US Economic Growth in Domestic Final Demand,” and said that “the housing recession is … spreading to other parts of the economy.” On 25 May 2006, Bangalore headlined “Housing Market Is Cooling Down, No Doubts About It.” and that was one of two Asha Bangalore articles which were central to Ritholtz’s 31 May 2006 article showing that all of the main indicators pointed to a plunge in house-prices that had started in March 2005; so, by May 2006, it was already clear from the relevant data, that a huge economic crash was comning soon. Another whom Bezemer should have listed was L. Randall Wray, whose 2005 Levy Economics Institute article, “The Ownership Society: Social Security Is Only the Beginning” asserted that it was being published “at the peak of what appears to be a real estate bubble.” Bezemer should also have listed Paul B. Farrell, columnist at marketwatch.com, who saw practically all the correct signs, in his 26 June 2005 “Global Megabubble? You Decide. Real Estate Is Only Tip of Iceberg; or Is It?”; and his 17 July 2005 “Best Strategies to Beat the Megabubble: Real Estate Bubble Could Trigger Global Economic Meltdown”; and his 9 January 2006 “Meltdown in 2006? Cast Your Vote”; and 15 May 2006 “Party Time (Until Real Estate Collapses)”; and his 21 August 2006 “Tipping Point Pops Bubble, Triggers Bear: Ten Warnings the Economy, Markets Have Pushed into Danger Zone”; and his 30 July 2007 “You Pick: Which of 20 Tipping Points Ignites Long Bear Market?” Farrell’s commentaries also highlighted the same reform-recommendations that most of the others did, such as Baker, Keen, Pettifor, Galbraith, Ritholtz, and Wray; such as break up the mega-banks, and stiffen regulation of financial institutions. However, the vast majority of academically respected economists disagreed with all of this and were wildly wrong in their predictions, and in their analyses. The Nobel Committee should have withdrawn their previous awards in economics to still-practicing economists (except to Krugman who did win a Nobel) and re-assigned them to these 25 economists, who showed that they had really deserved it.

And there was another: economicpredictions.org tracked four economists who predicted correctly the 2008 crash: Dean Baker, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, and Med Jones, the latter of whom had actually the best overall record regarding the predictions that were tracked there.

And still others should also be on the list: for example, Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider headlined on 21 November 2012, “The Genius Who Invented Economics Blogging Reveals How He Got Everything Right And What’s Coming Next” and he interviewed Bill McBride, who had started his calculated riskblog in January 2005. So I looked in the archives there at December 2005, and noticed December 28th, “Looking Forward: 2006 Top Economic Stories.” He started there with four trends that he expected everyone to think of, and then listed another five that weren’t so easy, including “Housing Slowdown. In my opinion, the Housing Bubble was the top economic story of 2005, but I expect the slowdown to be a form of Chinese water torture. Sales for both existing and new homes will probably fall next year from the records set in 2005. And median prices will probably increase slightly, with declines in the more ‘heated markets.’” McBride also had predicted that the economic rebound would start in 2009, and he was now, in 2012, predicting a strong 2013. Probably Joe Weisenthal was right in calling McBride a “Genius.”

And also, Mike Whitney at InformationClearinghouse.info and other sites, headlined on 20 November 2006, “Housing Bubble Smack-Down,” and he nailed the credit-boom and Fed easy-money policy as the cause of the housing bubble and the source of an imminent crash.

Furthermore, Ian Welsh headlined on 28 November 2007, “Looking Forward At the Consequences of This Bubble Bursting,” and listed 10 features of the crash to come, of which 7 actually happened.

In addition, Gail Tverberg, an actuary, headlined on 9 January 2008 “Peak Oil and the Financial Markets: A Forecast for 2008,” and provided the most detailed of all the prescient descriptions of the collapse that would happen that year.

Furthermore, Gary Shilling’s January 2007 Insight newsletter listed “12 investment themes” which described perfectly what subsequently happened, starting with “The housing bubble has burst.”

And the individual investing blogger Jesse Colombo started noticing the housing bubble even as early as 6 September 2004, blogging at his stock-market-crash.net “The Housing Bubble” and documenting that it would happen (“Here is the evidence that we are in a massive housing bubble:”) and what the economic impact was going to be. Then on 7 February 2006 he headlined “The Coming Crash!” and said “Based on today’s overvalued housing prices, a 20 percent crash is certainly in the cards.”

Also: Stephanie Pomboy of MacroMavens issued an analysis and appropriate graphs on 7 December 2007, headlined “When Animals Attack” and predicting imminently a huge economic crash.

In alphabetical order, they are: Dean Baker, Asha Bangalore, Jesse Colombo, Satyajit Das, Paul B. Farrell, James K. Galbraith, Wynne Godley, Fred Harrison, Michael Hudson, Eric Janszen, Med Jones, Paul Kasriel, Steve Keen, Paul Krugman, Jakob B. Madsen, Bill McBride, Charles R. Morris, Ann Pettifor, Stehanie Pomboy, Kurt Richebaeker, Barry Ritholtz, David A. Rosenberg, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, Robert Shiller, Gary Shilling, Charles Hugh Smith, Jens K. Sorensen, Gail Tverberg, Ian Welsh, William White, Mike Whitney, L. Randall Wray.

Thus, at least 33 economists were contenders as having been worth their salt as economic professionals. One can say that only 33 economists predicted the 2008 collapse, or that only 33 economists predicted accurately or reasonably accurately the collapse. However, some of those 33 were’t actually professional economists. So, some of the world’s 33 best economists aren’t even professional economists, as accepted in that rotten profession.

So, the few honest and open-eyed economists (these 33, at least) tried to warn the world. Did the economics profession honor them for their having foretold the 2008 collapse? Did President Barack Obama hire them, and fire the incompetents he had previously hired for his Council of Economic Advisers? Did the Nobel Committee acknowledge that it had given Nobel Economics Prizes to the wrong people, including people such as the conservative Milton Friedman whose works were instrumental in causing the 2008 crash? Also complicit in causing the 2008 crash was the multiple-award-winning liberal economist Lawrence Summers, who largely agreed with Friedman but was nonetheless called a liberal. Evidently, the world was too corrupt for any of these 33 to reach such heights of power or of authority. Like Galbraith had said at the close of his 2002 “How the Economists Got It Wrong“: “Being right doesn’t count for much in this club.” If anything, being right means being excluded from such posts. In an authentically scientific field, the performance of one’s predictions (their accuracy) is the chief (if not SOLE) determinant of one’s reputation and honor amongst the profession, but that’s actually not the way things yet are in any of the social “sciences,” including economics; they’re all just witch-doctory, not yet real science. The fraudulence of these fields is just ghastly. In fact, as Steve Keen scandalously noted in Chapter 7 of his 2001 Debunking Economics: “As this book shows, economics [theory] is replete with logical inconsistencies.” In any science, illogic is the surest sign of non-science, but it is common and accepted in the social ‘sciences’, including economics. The economics profession itself is garbage, a bad joke, instead of any science at all.

These 33 were actually only candidates for being scientific economists, but I have found the predictions of some of them to have been very wrong on some subsequent matters of economic performance. For example, the best-known of the 33, Paul Krugman, is a “military Keynesian” — a liberal neoconservative (and military Keynesianism is empirically VERY discredited: false worldwide, and false even in the country that champions it, the U.S.) — and he is unfavorable toward the poor, and favorable toward the rich; so, he is acceptable to the Establishment.) Perhaps a few of these 33 economists (perhaps half of whom aren’t even members of the economics profession) ARE scientific (in their underlying economic beliefs — their operating economic theory) if a scientific economics means that it’s based upon a scientific theory of economics — a theory that is derived not from any opinions but only from the relevant empirical data. Although virtually all of the 33 are basically some sort of Keynesian, even that (Keynes’s theory) isn’t a full-fledged theory of economics (it has many vagaries, and it has no microeconomics). The economics profession is still a field of philosophy, instead of a field of science.

The last chapter of my America’s Empire of Evil presents what I believe to be the first-ever scientific theory of economics, a theory that replaces all of microeconomic theory (including a micro that’s integrated with its macro) and is consistent with Keynes in macroeconomic theory; and all of which theory is derived and documented from only the relevant empirical economic data — NOT from anyone’s opinions. The economics profession think that replacing existing economic theory isn’t necessary after the crash of 2008, but I think it clearly IS necessary (because — as that chapter of my book shows — all of the relevant empirical economic data CONTRADICT the existing economic theory, ESPECIALLY the existing microeconomic theory).

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Zuesse.

How can a cat be alive and dead at the same time?

I love how science has rediscovered religion. Leaving aside the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, the universe itself is conscious. In the beginning was consciousness — inner light. Then there was outer light, etc. Mind you it took billions of years, but what’s that in divine reckoning? Religion was the first ‘science’, followed by astrology. Now both despised. How times have changed.

The scientific method, induction, deduction, math/physics, Darwin are all latecomers, though Darwin marks the beginning of the return to metaphysics. His theory was turned into a mindless, machine-like Nature, to be deconstructed, dissected (gruesomely for billions of guinea pigs), but a careful reading shows he was not so scientistic as the Darwinian Establishment that followed him. He admitted we’ll never understand the peacock. Beauty.

Henri Bergson started from there and developed a more lively ‘creative evolution‘ which was more or less politely ignored by science, though the Nobel committee awarded him the prize for literature in 1927, ‘in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented.’ For a conscious being to exist is to change, to mature, i.e. to go on creating oneself endlessly. Realizing that, Bergson asked: Is it the same for existence in general? Nature is the epitome of creative change, leading to a dazzling, even outrageous variety and beauty.

Is beauty the end goal of a divine process that started with pure consciousness? We bemoan species extinction (rightly as we are here as stewards of Nature), but already 99% of species over time have gone extinct, replaced by others, better adapted to the changing environment (at least until humans starting wiping them out like a house on fire).

I’m okay with the idea of antimatter, dark matter, dark energy, quantum theory, being in two places at the same time, time slowing down the faster you go, everyone ‘marching to their own tune’, but I could never get a grip on multiverses, Schrodinger’s cat being alive and dead at the same time. I’d given up until today, finishing The Mindight Library (2020) by Matt Haig.

Who was that? Oh, just someone I knew in another life.

It starts with Nora’s countdown to her decision to commit suicide. Everything she wanted or tried to do seemed to lead to failure and when she backed out of her marriage, was fired and then her cat died (outside in the rain by the road, retrieved and buried by Ash) and when no one answered her texts/ phone – all this in a dank flat in dreary Bedford, she swallowed sleeping pills and passed out. Nora enters a twilight zone, a library run by her high-school librarian Mrs Elm, a soulmate that had seen her through parental death and her own depressive state.

Mrs Elm gives her The Book of Regrets, Nora’s own missed opportunities in life, roads not taken, and Nora begins her adventures, seeking out her one ‘true’ happy, successful life journey, which she can try out, as each missed opportunity represents an alternate universe in what science now insists is a multiverse, though no one really understands what that means.

Haig seems to, and puts meat on Schrodinger’s bones. Nora wants a live where she took better care of Voltaire, her rescue kitty, so it would live longer. Suddenly she’s lying in bed again, awake, calling for Volts, finally finding him under the bed, cold and dead. He’s still dead! Not the life she wants, so she’s spirited back to the library to try again.

Mrs Elm explains that Volts had a weak heart and no doubt knew its time was near, asked to go out and die alone in peace, i.e., it wasn’t her fault. ‘Some regrets,’ the prim librarian tells Nora, ‘are a load of bullshit. The only way to learn that is to live.’ So one regret down, many to go. In another alt-life, Voltaire, aka Schrodinger’s Cat, is still alive, a healthy Siamese.

The novel really just describes Nora’s last minutes before death as an out-of-body event, a fact that is well-documented. There are many instances of people who have experienced a near- or after-death experience (NDE), an alternate reality, where they could choose to stay or return to the ‘real’ world (though that would be painful).

Coppola’s Youth without Youth (1976) is based on Mircea Eliade’s eponymous novel explaining time, consciousness, and the fantastic foundations of reality. Protagonist Dominic manages to live a few alternate realities after lightning gave him a new life. This is also a take on Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. I like Haig’s variation on this theme because, well, consciousness is enough of a miracle for me.

So the original Voltaire is dead in one universe and alive in another. Nora standing up her fiance turns out to have been a very wise decision, as were all but one of her alt-lives, where she is happily married to Ash, but …

You are the library card

I won’t ruin the plot for you, but I don’t think it’s a spoiler alert to say she felt each time it was like she had joined the movie halfway. And the prison wasn’t the place, but the perspective. The bluebird of happiness is actually you-know-where. Most/all of these alternate lives turned out to be what others thought Nora should do, not her ‘root life’, making her lose any sense of who she was.

I’ve been doing this sort of musing for a few years now, as I get closer to the end. I like the pro-activeness of The Book of Regrets. You work through each of your alternate universes in your mind, fantasizing happier alt-lives, realizing they wouldn’t ‘be me’, that I wouldn’t be who I am if, say, I had become a musician, or sportsman, or teacher. Probably no books written, no extreme travels, near deaths, polyglot/ polymath (even if half-assed).

I don’t know if these alt-lives exist in some multiverse, with angels and djinn from them occasionally making a visit ‘here’, but like much of science, they are useful constructs to help explain the mystery of consciousness, the mind. You don’t exist because of the library; this library exists because of you. This is just your brain translating something significant. I remember the sense of a new beginning after a near-death experience. I wasn’t in a library, but when I recovered, I had my blank library book to write in, and I’m slowly burning up my Book of Regrets. That’s freedom.

In old age, you must learn to travel, have adventures in you mind. You are only limited by your imagination. You don’t need booze or drugs like in your salad days. The real world experience is too much work and so often disappointing. Your time is short, precious.

Suicide comes a poor second. Nora thinks she wants to die, but you don’t go to death. Death comes to you. You are the library card. So long as there are still books on the shelves, you are never trapped. Every book is a possible escape. That’s what NDEs are all about. Coming back from one is like getting the only book left in your library, one with blank pages. Mrs Elm: That’s the beauty, isn’t it? You just never know how it ends.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Walberg.

There are calls for greater transparency about what the HMNZS Manawanui was doing before it sank in Samoa last October — including whether the New Zealand warship was performing specific security for King Charles and Queen Camilla.

The Manawanui grounded on the reef off the south coast of Upolu in bad weather on 5 October 2024 before catching fire and sinking. Its 75 crew and passengers were safely rescued.

The Court of Inquiry’s final report released on 4 April 2025 found human error and a long list of “deficiencies” grounded the $100 million vessel on the Tafitoala Reef, south of Upolu, where it caught fire and sank.

• READ MORE: Other RNZ Navy reports

Equipment including weapons and ammunition continue to be removed from the vessel as its future hangs in the balance.

The Court of Inquiry’s report explains the Royal New Zealand Navy was asked by “CHOGM Command” to conduct “a hydrographic survey of the area in the vicinity of Sinalei whilst en route to Samoa”.

When it grounded on the Tafitoala Reef, the ship was following orders received from Headquarters Joint Forces New Zealand. The report incorrectly calls it the “Sinalei Reef”.

Sinalei is the name of the resort which hosted King Charles and Queen Camilla for CHOGM — the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting — which began in Samoa 19 days after the Manawanui sank from 25-26 October 2024. The Royals arrived two days before CHOGM began.

Support of CHOGM
Speaking at the release of the court’s final report, Chief of Navy Rear Admiral Garin Golding described the Manawanui’s activity on the south coast of Upolu.

“So the operation was done in support of CHOGM — a very high-profile security activity on behalf of a nation, so it wasn’t just a peacetime operation,” he said.

“It was done in what we call rapid environmental assessment so we were going in and undertaking something that we had to do a quick turnaround of that information so it wasn’t a deliberate high grade survey. It was a rapid environmental assessment so it does come with additional complexity and it did have an operational outcome. It’s just, um you know, we we are operating in complex environments.

“It doesn’t say that we did everything right and that’s what the report indicates and we just need to get after fixing those mistakes and improving.”

The report explained the Manawanui was tasked with “conducting the Sinalei survey task” “to survey a defined area of uncharted waters.” But Pacific security fellow at Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University Iati Iati questions what is meant by “in support of the upcoming CHOGM”.

“All we’ve been told in the report is that it was to support CHOGM. What that means is unclear. I think that needs to be explained. I think it also needs to be explained to the Samoan people, who initiated this.

“Whether it was just a New Zealand initiative. Whether it was done for CHOGM by the CHOGM committee or whether it was something that involved the Samoa government,” Iati said.

What-for questions
“So a lot of the, you know, who was behind this and the what-for questions haven’t been answered.”

Iati said CHOGM’s organising committee included representatives from Samoa as well as New Zealand.

“But who exactly initiated that additional task which I think is on paragraph 37 of the report after the ship had sailed, the extra task was then confirmed. Who initiated that I’m not sure and I think that needs to be explained. Why it was confirmed after the sailing that also needs to be explained.

“In terms of security, I guess the closest we can come to is the fact that you know King Charles was staying on that side and Sinalei Reef. It may have something to do with that but this is just really unclear at the moment and I think all those questions need to be addressed.”

The wreck of the Manawanui lies 2.1 nautical miles — 3.89km — from the white sandy beach of the presidential suite at Sinalei Resort where King Charles and Queen Camilla stayed during CHOGM.

Just over the fence from the Royals’ island residence, Royal New Zealand Navy divers were coming and going from the sunken vessel in the early days of their recovery operation, and now salvors and the navy continue to work from there.

AUT Law School professor Paul Myburgh said the nature of the work the Manawanui was carrying out when it ran aground on the reef has implications for determining compensation for people impacted by its sinking.

Sovereign immunity
“Historically, if it was a naval vessel that was the end of the story. You could never be sued in normal courts about anything that happened on board a naval vessel. But nowadays, of course, governmental vessels are often involved in commercial activity as well,” he said.

“So we now have what we call the restrictive theory of sovereign immunity which states that if you are involved in commercial or ordinary activity that is non-governmental you are subject to the jurisdiction of the courts, so this is why I’ve been wanting to get to the bottom of exactly what they were doing.

“Who instructed whom and that sort of thing. And it seems to me that in line with the findings of the report all of this seems to have been done on a very adhoc basis.”

RNZ first asked the New Zealand Defence Force detailed questions on Friday, April 11, but it declined to respond.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

In the United States, for more than a hundred years, the ruling class interests tirelessly propagated anti-communism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy.

— Michael Parenti, “Left Anticommunism”

I will argue below that the liberal Russia-phobic meltdown over Ukraine is because allowing a truthful dialogue would reveal that it was a proxy war against Russia, provoked by the United States. This, in turn, would risk a political identity crisis among those for whom belief in “The Russia Threat” has been a touchstone of their political identity. What are the consequences when one’s deepest political beliefs are exposed as not just deeply flawed but morally wrong? What if one concludes or even suspects that they’ve been complicit in sending over one million Ukrainian soldiers — human beings — to their needless deaths? What if the 80-year narrative about a Russian invasion of Europe never had any basis in fact and that remains true today? Why are the real reasons that European leaders went along with Biden and now seek to sabotage peace in Ukraine? What if one discovers that NATO was an extension of US imperialism? If the “Russian threat” is called into question by the evidence, what else is one forced to rethink about the United States, one’s political identity and past behavior? What happens when it’s no longer possible for one to claim the moral high ground? I wrote the essay (abridged here) some five years ago and I’m reposting it because I believe it has special salience today.

To know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand. — Charles Taylor

In the early 1980s, which now seems a few lifetimes ago, I began offering a college seminar course titled “The Politics of Personal Identity,” quickly dubbed “POPI” by students. It was designed as a capstone course and limited to twelve seniors. Most of the identity groupings around today were addressed in readings, films and guest speakers. During the final weeks of the course, each student was responsible for giving a 45-minute oral presentation: “Who Am I? What Do I Believe? Why Do I Believe It?” This was followed by a lengthy period of questioning from the other seminar members and myself. Each of our guest speakers gave presentations on this topic and I presented my own on the last day of class. Germane to this was an exploration one’s political beliefs and their consequences was the critical component of the course and in what follows below.

Before exploring identities like race, gender, class, ethnicity and others, we attempted to establish a framework by including the work of Canadian philosopher and political activist Charles Taylor and specifically, his pioneering ideas on the politics of identity. [Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).]

For Taylor, “Selfhood and the good, or in another way, selfhood and morality, turn out to be inextricably intertwined themes. We are selves only in that certain issues matter to us. What I am as a self, my identity, is essentially defined by the way things have significance for me… We are selves only in that we move in a certain space of questions, as we seek and find an orientation to the good.” By his light, “Who I am” is most crucially this space of moral orientation “within which my most defining relations are lived out.”

Taylor goes on, “My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame within which I can attempt to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose. In other words it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand.” [Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (1989).]

And this isn’t just a strong preference or attachment. It means that people are saying that if they were to lose this commitment or identification, “they would be at sea, as it were, they wouldn’t know anymore, for an important range of questions, what the significance of things was for them.”

There is a sense of the ‘self’ that conveys to these beings of requisite depth to their identity or those who at the very least are struggling to find one. Others, who we judge as shallow, also have commitments but we see them as conventional and not the result of deep searching. And, as Taylor notes, those without any framework at all are pathologically amoral.

We also read some work by the character actor and playwright Wallace Shawn, including this passage about how to act in a morally responsible way:

My daily obligation was, first and foremost, to learn how to make a correct and careful study of the world. If I didn’t know what the world was like, how could I know what action to take? And so it turns out that morality insists upon accuracy — painstakingly steady and researched. (Wallace Shawn, Appendix to Aunt Dan & Lemon (1987).

Shawn’s prescriptive obligation to study how the world works is especially difficult given that Americans are the most heavily propagandized citizens in the word. In any event, I hoped that Shawn’s words would resonate with the students, most of whom had also taken my intro course: International Politics: How the World Works, the bookend course to POPI. I was gratified that virtually all of the seminar participants made the connection and often referenced the intro course. (Note: I’m painfully aware of the immense difference between an intro course with two sessions for fourteen weeks to examine a subject versus the forced, frustrated and episodic nature of most exchanges about politics on Facebook and elsewhere.)

And further, one cannot be a self strictly on one’s own. For starters, who did I interact with that helped me achieve self-realization? Who are those around me right now who contribute to my self-understanding? Beyond the standard sources, how widely have I searched? Is there evidence to support my conclusions — in this case about the USSR/Russia — or am I relying only on tradition, feelings and the accepted authorities? How has the “community” or culture within which I identify, affected my moral stands? Finally, it’s virtually impossible to have a sense of who/where I am without some grasp of how we got there. This can be painful and tempting to avoid, especially as one advances in age and possible regrets loom. Taylor asks us to consider what type of life is worth living? “E.g., what would a rich meaningful life, as against an empty one, or what would constitute an honorable life or the like?”

In sum, my argument was that there’s a virtually seamless web connecting knowing ourselves, knowing how the world works, and knowing that something needs to be done — starting with oneself. Uncertainty, deliberation and experimentation about the specific course of action don’t detract from the wisdom found in the Asian proverb “To know and not to act is not to know.”

Change is scary. My cautionary note to younger folks was that the older one gets the harder it is to rethink one’s political identity and question beliefs in which one has a considerable material and especially, psychic investment. Too many people adopt conventional liberal views and behavior in hopes this will stave off the gnawing feeling that something is seriously wrong.

The post A Few Thoughts on Political Identity, Morality and Ukraine first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Gary Olson.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/22/a-few-thoughts-on-political-identity-morality-and-ukraine/feed/ 0 520874 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/02/14/luke-charles-harris-on-critical-race-theory-2021/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/02/14/luke-charles-harris-on-critical-race-theory-2021/#respond Fri, 14 Feb 2025 16:03:05 +0000 https://fair.org/?p=9044223  

Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).

 

New York Times (1/29/25)

This week on CounterSpin: A number of federal agencies rushed to make clear they would be scrubbing activities and events that “celebrate cultural awareness” in an effort to stay on the good side of the weird new White House. Trump and his abettors’ anti-anti-discrimination agenda is as subtle as a sledgehammer. “DEI hire,” for instance, is super-complicated code for the idea that if a person who isn’t white, cis and male got a job, that can only mean a better qualified white cis man was unfairly denied it. That’s just, Trump says, “common sense.”

The irony is not lost that history itself is seen as being manipulated for political purpose when it comes to Black History Month—because we know that history is constantly invoked, if implicitly, as a way of justifying present-day unfairness. White supremacy can be presented as natural if  white people invented everything, discovered everything, created all the wealth, and defined civilization. That lies back of many public and media conversations…so just saying Charles Drew invented blood banks is disruptive! What if Black people aren’t subhuman?

What people try to silence tells us what they fear. So what is so scary about everyone, not just Black people, acknowledging the particular circumstances and responses to those circumstances of Black people in these United States—our experience, challenges, accomplishments? Is it that history—real history, and not comforting tall tales—connects the past with the present in ways that are powerful, grounding and inspiring?

In March 2021, a hitherto no-name right-wing activist openly declared an intention to mislead around racism and to vilify any questioning of enduring racial inequities: “The goal,” wrote Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo,  “is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’” He bragged that he had “successfully frozen” the “brand” of critical race theory, and was “steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.”

A self-respecting press corps would have taken that as a shot across the bow. The corporate news media we have dutifully signed on to present a campaign openly defined as uninterested in truth or humanity and concerned only with rolling back the clock on racial equity as a totally valid, “grassroots” perspective, deserving respectful inclusion in national conversation.

That was a jumping-off point for our conversation with law professor Luke Charles Harris, co-founder with Kimberle Crenshaw of the African American Policy Forum. We’ll hear that important conversation again this week.

 

Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at recent press coverage of Venezuela, Elon Musk and ICE.

 

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by CounterSpin.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/02/14/luke-charles-harris-on-critical-race-theory-2021/feed/ 0 513750 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/01/11/france-plans-to-deploy-flagship-carrier-charles-de-gaulle-to-pacific-this-year/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/01/11/france-plans-to-deploy-flagship-carrier-charles-de-gaulle-to-pacific-this-year/#respond Sat, 11 Jan 2025 23:20:14 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=109266 By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

France’s naval flagship, the 261m aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, is to be deployed to the Pacific later this year, as part of an exercise codenamed “Clémenceau 25”.

French Naval Command Etat-Major’s Commodore Jacques Mallard told a French media briefing that the main objective of the planned exercise, labelled a “high-level strategic posture”, was to boost aero naval “interoperability”, as well as information and intelligence sharing.

The exact date of the 2025 deployment has not yet been disclosed, even though Commodore Mallard said last November it would be “very soon”.

• READ MORE: Other Indo-Pacific reports

Clémenceau 25, spanning over “almost four months”, would fall under an international 20-year Strategic Interoperability Framework signed between French and US naval forces in 2021.

Apart from the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, the Royal Australian Navy and Japan’s Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force are also part of the deployment.

France’s main naval bases in the Pacific are located in French Polynesia — Pacific naval command, ALPACI — and New Caledonia.

As part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, France also intends to show it has the capacity to deploy significant means — including the 42,000-tonne aircraft carrier — in the most distant regions, including the Pacific.

“To deploy a significant naval force in an area which, during the next 10 years, will be the transit point for more than 40 percent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product, shows France’s interest in this area,” Mallard told French media.

“The roadmap, with our regional partners, is to foster a free, open and stable Indo-Pacific space within the framework of international law, and to contribute to the protection of our populations and our interests.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/01/11/france-plans-to-deploy-flagship-carrier-charles-de-gaulle-to-pacific-this-year/feed/ 0 509302 https://www.radiofree.org/2024/11/20/haitian-journalist-attacked-as-gang-violence-again-surges-in-country/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/11/20/haitian-journalist-attacked-as-gang-violence-again-surges-in-country/#respond Wed, 20 Nov 2024 19:56:19 +0000 https://cpj.org/?p=436908 Miami, November 20, 2024—Gang members shot at journalist Wandy Charles and his family outside his home in a suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince, on November 11, shortly before the local gang overran the area. Gang violence has again surged through sections of Haiti’s capital after Prime Minister Garry Conille was ousted on November 11, six months after he took office.

In a separate attack, suspected gang members burned the home of Lookens Jean-Baptiste, a reporter with radio Tropic FM, on November 5 in Port-au-Prince’s Fort National district. “They found out I was a journalist, and they think we all have connections with the police,” Jean-Baptiste told CPJ.

“We are concerned by the surge in gang violence in Haiti and general instability following the collapse of Prime Minister Garry Conille’s government, which have both made the already tenuous situation in Haiti all the more dangerous for the country’s reporters,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, from New York. “We are concerned by the recent attack against journalist Wandy Charles and the burning of the home of reporter Lookens Jean-Baptiste. Journalists must be able to report on the recent surge in violence without fear of gang retaliation.”

Charles, editor-in-chief of the independent local media outlet Vent Bef, told CPJ that he was wearing his flak jacket marked “Press,” but he quickly removed it, fearing the shooters were targeting him for his work as a journalist.

“The gangs don’t want us to criticize them or give a voice to the victims, or the police, or the government,” Charles told CPJ. “The bandits have their own propaganda organ, and the press often goes against what they say — it bothers them.”

His brother was treated at a hospital for gunshot wounds to the arm and leg, Charles told CPJ, adding that his brother was given a blood transfusion and is now in stable condition.

Local media reported that the shooters were members of the Kraze Baryè gang led by Vitel’homme Innocent, who is wanted by the FBI for kidnapping and murder.

Charles told CPJ that gangs have attacked his family at least four other times, most recently in March when their home was ransacked, looted, and then set on fire.

In recent years, the unrest in Haiti has made it one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. Haiti ranked No. 1 in CPJ’s 2024 impunity index, a ranking of nations where journalists’ murderers are most likely to go free.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/11/20/haitian-journalist-attacked-as-gang-violence-again-surges-in-country/feed/ 0 502821 https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/29/climate-chogm-success-for-samoa-but-whats-in-it-for-the-pacific/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/29/climate-chogm-success-for-samoa-but-whats-in-it-for-the-pacific/#respond Tue, 29 Oct 2024 01:58:36 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=106068 COMMENTARY: By Tess Newton Cain

As CHOGM came to a close, Samoa rightfully basked in the resounding success for the country and people as hosts of the Commonwealth leaders’ meeting.

Footage of Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa swaying along to the siva dance as she sat beside Britain’s King Charles III encapsulated a palpable national pride, well deserved on delivering such a high-profile gathering.

Getting down to the business of dissecting the meeting outcomes — in the leaders’ statement and Samoa communiqué — there are several issues that are significant for the Pacific island members of this post-colonial club.

• READ MORE: Other CHOGM 2024 reports

As expected, climate change features prominently in the text, with more than 30 mentions including three that refer to the “climate crisis”. This will resonate highly for Pacific members, as will the support for COP 31 in 2026 to be jointly hosted by Australia and the Pacific.

Samoa’s Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa opening CHOGM 2024. Video: Talamua Media

One of the glaring contradictions of this joint COP bid is illustrated by the lack of any call to end fossil fuel extraction in the final outcomes.

Tuvalu, Fiji and Vanuatu used the CHOGM to launch the latest Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative report, with a focus on Australia’s coal and gas mining. This reflects the diversity of Commonwealth membership, which includes some states whose economies remain reliant on fossil fuel extractive industries.

As highlighted ahead of CHOGM, this multilateral gave the 56 members a chance to consider positions to take to COP 29 next month in Baku, Azerbaijan. The communiqué from the leaders highlights the importance of increased ambition when it comes to climate finance at COP 29, and particularly to address the needs of developing countries.

Another drawcard
That speaks to all the Pacific island nations and gives the region’s negotiators another drawcard on the international stage.

Then came the unexpected, Papua New Guinea made a surprise announcement that it will not attend the global conference in Baku next month. Speaking at the Commonwealth Ministerial Meeting on Small States, PNG’s Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko framed this decision as a stand on behalf of small island nations as a protest against “empty promises and inaction.”

As promised, a major output of this meeting was the Apia Commonwealth Ocean Declaration for One Resilient Common Future. This is the first oceans-focused declaration by the Commonwealth of Nations, and is somewhat belated given 49 of its 56 member states have ocean borders.

The declaration has positions familiar to Pacific policymakers and activists, including the recognition of national maritime boundaries despite the impacts of climate change and the need to reduce emissions from global shipping. A noticeable omission is any reference to deep-sea mining, which is also a faultline within the Pacific collective.

The text relating to reparations for trans-Atlantic slavery required extensive negotiation among the leaders, Australia’s ABC reported. While this issue has been driven by African and Caribbean states, it is one that touches the Pacific as well.

‘Blackbirding’ reparative justice
South Sea Islander “blackbirding” is one of the colonial practices that will be considered within the context of reparative justice. During the period many tens-of-thousands of Pacific Islanders were indentured to Australia’s cane fields, Fiji’s coconut plantations and elsewhere.

The trade to Queensland and New South Wales lasted from 1847 to 1904, while those destinations were British colonies until 1901. Indeed, the so-called “sugar slaves” were a way of getting cheap labour once Britain officially abolished slavery in 1834.

The next secretary-general of the Commonwealth will be Ghana’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey. Questions have been raised about the quality of her predecessor Patricia Scotland’s leadership for some time and the change will hopefully go some way in alleviating concerns.

Notably, the CHOGM has selected another woman to lead its secretariat. This is an important endorsement of female leadership among member countries where women are often dramatically underrepresented at national levels.

While it received little or no fanfare, the Commonwealth has also released its revised Commonwealth Principles on Freedom of Expression and the Role of the Media in Good Governance. This is a welcome contribution, given the threats to media freedom in the Pacific and elsewhere. It reflects a longstanding commitment by the Commonwealth to supporting democratic resilience among its members.

These principles do not come with any enforcement mechanism behind them, and the most that can be done is to encourage or exhort adherence. However, they provide another potential buffer against attempts to curtail their remit for publishers, journalists, and bloggers in Commonwealth countries.

The outcomes reveal both progress and persistent challenges for Pacific island nations. While Apia’s Commonwealth Ocean Declaration emphasises oceanic issues, its lack of provisions on deep-sea mining exposes intra-Commonwealth tensions. The change in leadership offers a pivotal opportunity to prioritise equity and actionable commitments.

Ultimately, the success of this gathering will depend on translating discussions into concrete actions that address the urgent needs of Pacific communities facing an uncertain future.

But as the guests waved farewell, the question of what the Commonwealth really means for its Pacific members remains until leaders meet in two years time in Antigua and Barbuda, a small island state in the Caribbean.

Tess Newton Cain is a principal consultant at Sustineo P/L and adjunct associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute. She is a former lecturer at the University of the South Pacific and has more than 25 years of experience working in the Pacific Islands region. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/29/climate-chogm-success-for-samoa-but-whats-in-it-for-the-pacific/feed/ 0 499446 https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/23/king-charles-arrives-in-samoa-for-resilient-environment-chogm/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/23/king-charles-arrives-in-samoa-for-resilient-environment-chogm/#respond Wed, 23 Oct 2024 22:17:28 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=105811 By Susana Suisuiki, RNZ Pacific journalist in Apia

King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla have landed in Apia, Samoa.

The monarch has been greeted by a guard of honour at the airport before being escorted to his accommodation in Siumu.

Local villagers have lined the roadsides with lanterns to welcome His Royal Highness.

• READ MORE: King Charles arrives in Samoa — matai titles planned
• Apia Ocean Declaration to be ‘crown jewel’ of CHOGM climate ‘fight back’
• Other CHOGM reports, October 21-26

King Charles will deliver an address to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) on Friday.

The royal office said as well as attending CHOGM, the King’s programme in Samoa would be supportive of one of the meeting’s key themes, “a resilient environment”, and the meeting’s focus on oceans.

The King and Queen were to be formally welcomed by an ‘Ava Fa’atupu ceremony before meeting people at an engagement to highlight aspects of Samoan traditions and culture.

As we head towards Apia, we can’t wait to visit Samoa for the first time together and to experience the warmth of ancient traditions with your remarkable people. Feiloa’i ma le manuia!

– Charles R & Camilla R.

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) October 23, 2024

Charles will also attend the CHOGM Business Forum to hear about progress on sustainable urbanisation and investment in solutions to tackle climate change.

He will visit a mangrove forest, a National Park, and Samoa’s Botanical Garden, where he will plant a tree marking the opening of a new area within the site, which will be called ‘The King’s Garden’.

Queen Camilla’s engagements include visiting an aoga faifeau to see first-hand how pupils are taught to read and write, and will visiting the Samoa Victim Support Group, an organisation which assists survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Page one: Thursday, 24th October 2024.

Photo: Junior S Ami / Samoa Observer
Design: Terry Tovio / Samoa Observer

Story:https://t.co/8qqBwGqAnP pic.twitter.com/ZfJUIm8IF7

— Samoa Observer (@samoaobserver) October 23, 2024

Since 1969, King Charles III has visited 44 of 53 Commonwealth countries, many of them on several occasions.

His visits to the Pacific — before he was King — included representing his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, at Fiji’s independence celebrations in 1970; and visiting Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012.

Queen Elizabeth II visited the Pacific multiple times during her reign.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/23/king-charles-arrives-in-samoa-for-resilient-environment-chogm/feed/ 0 498788 https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/19/the-myopia-of-anglo-american-rulers/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/19/the-myopia-of-anglo-american-rulers/#respond Sat, 19 Oct 2024 08:55:52 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=154334 In the last 20 years, China, Russia, India and Iran are blossoming in harnessing energy and building infrastructures. Economically BRICS currency will eventually marginalize the dollar. What is amazing to us is the vast denial system that Mordor and its vassal has hypnotized itself into believing. Bruce Lerro's article is about how the ideology of Eurocentrism, paternalism, racism and imperialism keeps the West in a fog about how bad its situation actually is.

The post The Myopia of Anglo-American Rulers first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]>

International Relations (IR) theory fails to deliver on one of its key promises, specifically to produce positivist, value free analysis. What we encounter in the vast majority of international theory is the provincial or parochial normative purpose of defending and celebrating the ideal of the West in world politics. IR theory can no longer be represented as positivist, objective or value free.
~ John M. Hobson

Orientation

In 1981, Eric Jones wrote a very powerful book called The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia. He was not alone in claiming there was something unique about Europe compared to the rest of the world. Though I doubt it was his intention, his work perhaps unintentionally supported a Eurocentric, paternalistic, racist orientation of a Wren theory which claimed to explain world politics. This is called International Relations Theory which claimed to be positivist, objective and value free. International relations theory is so deeply embedded in Western triumphalism that it has failed to notice that the West has been losing to China, Russia and Iran for the last 20 to 30 years. International  relations theory barely understands that this has happened and it has no theory to explain it. What we are witnessing today is a “Eurasian Miracle.”

In my article “Neocon Realists and Global Neoliberals Dead on Arrival,” I identify five international relation theories: Neocon Realists; Neoliberal Globalists; Liberal Institutionalists; Constructivists and World-Systems Theorists. Most of my criticism in that article was leveled at the first three theories for their inability to account for the rise of China, Russia and Iran and the whole multipolar world. In this article, following the work of John A. Hobson in his book “The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics,” I point out a good reason for this is because of the Eurocentric nature of Neocon Realists, Neoliberal Globalists and Liberal Institutionalists theory. However, Hobson’s criticism of Eurocentrism does not stop there. He argues that even left-wing theories like constructionism and world-systems theory are guilty of Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism, not only because it takes different forms, but that some of these are even anti-imperialist. The conventional contrast of a Eurocentric or racist conception of imperialism from a constructivist and Marxist point of view is too simple and Eurocentrism is too deep.

What is Eurocentrism?
Hobson’s claim that there two steps in Eurocentric big-bang theory of world politics:

• Europeans single-handedly created a European capitalist international state system through their pioneering and exceptional institutional genius.
• They export their civilization to remake the world in their own image through globalization, imperialism or hegemony.
  To add to this, Eurocentrism claims the Eastern and Southern part of the world had no independent status. There was no East or South big bang. In the West the various movements of the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation the scientific revolution, capitalism, the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution or socialism were purely Western. The East and South either helped out or they were left behind. With rare exceptions. Eastern and Southern parts of the world system never led Western development.

What is paternalism?
Historians of the modern West sought to explain social evolution. In doing so, they divided societies into three stages:

• savagery (hunter-gatherers);
• barbarism (horticultural and agricultural states) and
• civilization—industrial capitalist societies

Supposedly Europeans hoped that all societies would want to become civilized. But when societies of the East and South did not aspire to this, they were labelled either savages or barbarians. However, some historians and anthropologist thought it was their duty (white man’s burden) for the savages and barbarians to see the light. This led to paternalism.

An example of well-intentioned paternalist Eurocentrism: Rawls
John Rawls believed that his liberal vision has genuinely universalist criteria that do not offend cultural sensibilities of non-Western people. He was interested in culturally converting Eastern people rather than containing them as in Western liberal realism.

Yet there are five key Eurocentric dimensions of his theory:

• All well-ordered hierarchical societies must exhibit a separation of church and state (this will not work for Muslims).
• Imposition of free trade (free trade can only work with wealthy societies).
• Governed by a liberal law of peoples (teaching Eastern women to have less babies won’t work if they are being blocked by the IMF and the World bank from industrializing.
• Eastern states receive only conditional sovereignty because they are classified as despotic states and “failed” states are deemed uncivilized.
• Developed societies have a duty to assist burdened societies (paternalism).

Hobson’s claims

Hobson’s explicit claims are first that International Relations Theory contains six myths:

• the noble identity and foundational myth of the discipline;
• the positive myth of International Relations Theory;
• the great debates myth and reconceptualizing the clash of IR theories;
• the sovereignty or anarchy myth;
• the globalization myth; and
• the theoretical great traditions myth.

Hobson’s 2nd claim is there are six types of imperialism which are laid out over 250 years. His third claim is that Western racism was not always triumphant but was based on fear of what would become of Europe if Easterners and Southerners of the world  got the upper hand. Lastly, I close out with theories that are exceptions to the rule and are not Eurocentric or paternalistic and with a minimum of racism.

Hobson’s implicit claim is that without “the rest” there might be no West. The West was not an early, but a latedevelopment. This topic will be covered in my future article based on another of Hobson’s books, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization.

Six Eurocentric Myths of International Relations Theory
Hobson tells us the conscious or unconscious moral purpose of IR is to be a defender and promoter of Western Civilization. The key of disciplinary assumptions that are presently revered as self-evident truths really are largely Eurocentric myths. As stated above, these include the above myths.

The noble identity foundation myth: Whig and progress theory of history
International Relations Theory has embedded in a Whig an interpretation of its intellectual history. Whiggish means that the past is reorganized to make it seem that the present was the only possible passage that could have led to contemporary life. The Whig theory of history has the theory of progress embedded in it. The theory of progress claims that the later in time we go in social evolution the better societies get in material wealth, less labor, higher morality and happiness.

It is a now conventional assumption that the discipline of International Relations was born in 1919. Supposedly, it had a moral purpose to finding ways to solve the universal problem of war. This now conventional view was originally constructed by E.H. Carr in his classical text The Twenty Year’s Crisis (1946).

Contrary to this convention, IR theory did not appear all of a sudden after WW I out of the head of Zeus. It continued from its pre-1914 roots which were neither positive, objective nor value free. Rather they were paternalist, Eurocentric and intentionally or unintentionally racist. There are deep continuities that the 1919-1945 period of international theory has with the pre-1914 period of international theory. The Eurocentric racism and paternalism that underpinned it had been forged in the previous century. In addition, there is a continuum of imperialism that goes all the way back to the middle of the 18th century. Thirdly, there was an explosion of anti-colonial resistance. What were colonists resisting – those noble Western powers that colonialized them. In this larger scheme of things, the end of World War I was not the only game in town. As positivists, what Neocon realists and liberal globalists ignore is that the noble identity myth can also be a ideological justification for Eurocentrism, capitalism, racism and imperialism. The four stages are of Hobsons history if International relations include:

• 1760-1914 Manifest Eurocentrism and scientific racism
• 1914-1945 Manifest Eurocentrism and scientific racism
• 1945-1989 Subliminal Eurocentrism
• 1989-2010 Manifest Eurocentrism

The positive myth of IR of theory of liberalism as emerging between the wars

This myth was that the between the wars IR theory was dominated by liberal globalists who searched for a new cooperative global order as a reaction to the Neocon realism of World War I. It was characterized as a harmonious and optimistic theory because it stands for peace. But as Hobson points out, interwar international theory was not monopolized by idealism or liberalism because it also exhibited a vibrant racism realist stream that emerged after 1889, especially in the world of geopolitical theorists, Ratzel, Mackinder, Mahan and others.

IR claims to be positivist with a value free epistemological base. This has been challenged by African-American Marxists Ralph Bunche, WEB Dubois and CLR James. They say that when viewed through a non-European lens, the vast majority of international theory produces a parochial or provincial analysis of the West that can masquerade as if it were universal. Further, the imperialist aspect of interwar idealist theory has not been widely noticed among modern IR scholars. Realist and so-called Liberal Idealists were united by the concern to restore the mandate of Western civilizational hegemony in one guise of another.

The great debate myth and reconceptualizing the idea of the clash of IR theories

These debates include the controversy between realism and idealism in the interwar period between history and scientism in the 1960s and between positivists and post-positivists in the 1990s. The first two appear as if these were great qualitative struggles, but like with Republicans and Democrats in Mordor, all parties have far more in common than they have in differences. The struggle between positivists and post-positivists are real but it are presented in too stark a manner. There were post-positivists as far back as the 1960s and those political scientists who were more statistical and quantitative also go back to the 50s and 60s. In other words that debate did not begin in the 1990s as IR theorists claim but thirty years earlier. In spite of these differences, there is consensus of virtually all parties concerning the politics of defending and celebrating Western civilization in world politics. These theories supported the Western powers. Their differences were small compared to the paternalism, racism and imperialism that they all shared.

Sovereignty vs anarchy myth
The sovereignty vs anarchy myth claims that in International Relations Theory all states are sovereign. But because there is no world-state the relations between nation-states are characterized as anarchistic. In the first place, IR theory limits which nation-states are considered sovereign to European countries. Eastern and Southern states are not considered sovereign because they lack the proper Western European credentials such as voting systems, more than one party, and capitalism. The school of Realism operates with universalist analytical principles that supposedly apply to all states regardless of how 2nd class some states are treated in practice. The problem for IR theorists is that the post the 1648 era there had been a proliferation of international imperial hierarchies, which were comprised of a series of single sovereign colonial powers, many of which were not nation-states. Its supposedly universal and ideologically unbiased principles of state-centrism sovereignty directly contradict its practice. For example, in 1878 the conference in Berlin divided Africa between European imperial powers. These sovereign states had colonies.

Furthermore if by anarchy they mean disorder, the relationship between sovereign states without a world state is by no means disorderly. There are shifting alliances between states rather than a Hobbesian war of all single states against each other. Secondly, to characterize this disorder as “anarchy” reveals either complete political bias or ignorance of anarchism as a respectable political tendency on the socialist left. Anarchism has involved thousands of people in many countries around the world since the late 1840s. It has had some success in the Paris Commune, the Russian and especially the Spanish revolutions. To characterize this as disorderly is an unforgivable omission from theorists who claim to be political scientists.

The globalization myth
The myth is that globalization has only recently (the last century) become an issue for international theorists. But to Hobson’s own surprise in his initial research, in many areas including some though not all realists, international theorists since 1760 have placed considerable emphasis on globalization. In his book The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization,Hobson points out that there were globalizing trade networks of, Africa, West Asia, India and China as far back as 500 CE.

The theoretical great traditions myth
IR theorists are no different than those who initiate artistic or spiritual movements in their search for origins. All political, artistic or spiritual movements seek to find their origins in the deep past rather than the recent past. In the IR traditional textbooks realism is claimed to go back to Thucydides in the ancient world and then forward to Hobbes and Machiavelli to culminate in Waltz, Gilpin and Mearsheimer via Carr and Morgenthau. But each of these theories are not air-tight. In fact IR theories mix with other theories within a given moment in time and each theory changes internally due to  changes in history.

Defining Imperialism and Anti-imperialism International Theory
Hobson claims that the vast literature on imperialism and anti-imperialism generally lacks conceptual precision. Here Hobson confront two broad definitional approaches:

• Narrow Eurocentric
• Expansive postcolonial

Most of modern Eurocentric international theory embraces a narrow definition and allows for considerable wiggle room when confronted with a charge of imperialism. It sees Eurocentrism and imperialism as distinct. You can be Eurocentric and not imperialist and conversely imperialist without being Eurocentric. At the other extreme, by contrast, post-colonial theorists seek to completely shut down this wiggle room by assuming that being Eurocentric is inherently imperialist and imperialism is always Eurocentric.

In table 1 I have a divided a spectrum of imperialism throughout history into 6 types. The three types on the left accept that they are imperialists and don’t apologize for it. The theories on the right deny they are imperialists. The theories on the left are formal empires, while the theories on the right are informal liberal empires. The people in the last cell are the theorists of various types of imperialism. The cell above it include the nature and justification of their mission. The names of the theorists are not important for now, but some of the more famous ones might be familiar to you. The importance of this table are not the theorists but rather the systems of justification, none of which are value free, universal and objective.

Table 1 The Definitional Continuum of Imperialism, Past and Present

Definitional Consensus Most coercive definition Accept they are imperialists	Definitional Controversy Least coercive definition Deny they are imperialists
Formal Empire	Informal liberal empire

Tributary relations, political containment conquest of barbarism	National civilizing mission/cultural conversion	Civilizing mission, via international government protectorates	Anglo-Saxon hegemony	To protect, duty to prevent, duty to assist concept of democracies	Universalization of Western civilization and global empire of liberal democratic peace
Gumplowicz, Ward, Mahan Mackinder, K. Pearson, Hitler, Von Treitschke, Kidd, Spykman Haushofer	Cobden, Bright, Angell, Mill, Marx, Reinsch, W.Wilson	Hobson, Buell, Woolf Krasner, Fukuyama	Gilpin Kindleberger Kagan, Brzezinski, Cooper, Ignatieff	Slaughter, Ikenberry, Wheeler, Risse, Finnermore Rawls, Held Nussbaum	Friedman, Wolf, Russet, Owen

Eurocentric Imperialism: Liberal and Marxism

In Table 2 below, one interesting but expected difference between liberalism and Marxism is that liberals see imperialism as benign. J. A. Hobson and John Stuart Mill see imperialism is benign at an international level, but Cobden, Bright and Angell see imperialism as benign at a national level. The fact that Marxists thinks imperialism as coerced rather than benign should not come as a surprise to anyone. Traditional International Relations Theory sees liberal internationalism and classical Marxism as the antithesis of imperialism. However, John Hobson’s main point is what Marxism and liberals have in common. They all agree that:

• The East can be characterized as “barbaric oriental despotism”
• The capitalist peripheral countries (Third world) are savage, anarchistic societies residing in a domestic state of nature
• Western agency is always pioneering, learning nothing from the rest of the world
• Eastern agency even at its best is conditional, always learning from the West

It is these four points that show how deep Eurocentrism of all Western theories, even Marxism. These are the type of deep assumptions, hundreds of years old the keep Western theorists of world politics that the BRICS world of the East is bypassing them.

Table 2 Paternalistic, Eurocentric. Institutional Imperial Concepts of World Politics

Marxism	Left Liberal	Liberal
Marx	Mill and Hobson	Cobden, Bright, Angell
Coerced national civilizing mission	Benign international mission	Benign national mission
East as barbaric Oriental Despotism	East as barbaric Oriental Despotism	East as barbaric Oriental Despotism
South as savage—3rd world anarchistic societies residing in a domestic state of nature	South as savage—3rd world anarchistic societies residing in a domestic state of nature	South as savage—3rd world anarchistic societies residing in a domestic state of nature
Pioneering Western agency	Pioneering Western agency	Pioneering Western agency
Conditional Eastern agency	Conditional Eastern agency	Conditional Eastern agency

Here are some further examples of Eurocentrism. In the 19th century, even when IR theory was sensitive to interdependence, it wasn’t world interdependence. Rather it was interdependence among the civilized states of Europe. Outside of Europe there was no recognition of interdependence. Eastern societies only got recognition once they became colonies or only if these countries were at war with Europe. It is something like calling the ultimate baseball playoffs “the World Series” even when it only includes the United States.

At the same time, the Eurocentrists had no problem imagining war with the East if it was profitable. But when it came to the civilized states of Europe, war was seen as unprofitable. Also, as we shall see later, racist theories bemoaned Europeans fighting because this would result in the depletion of the white race. Colonial annexation was entirely appropriate when it come to Europe’s relation with the East. The East has  conditional agency, such as Japan during World War II. However, the East cannot take the lead in historical development without being predator (as in the Yellow Peril).

As for the Global South, (Africa) for it  to be a respectable civilized state, Western core countries took a page out of Calvinism and insisted that these “savage societies” have a duty to develop their land productivity (meaning agriculturally) and abandon their primitivism (hunting and gathering). Non-Western politics, whether they be monarchies without constitutions or the egalitarian political consensus societies of hunting and gathering, are not recognized as sovereign. It was representative bourgeois state politics that was the “civilized” norm. As late as 1993 Paul Johnson said most African states are not fit to govern themselves. Their continued existence and the violence of human degradation they bring are a threat to the stability and peace as well as an affront to our moral sense. As of today Zionist Israel has massacred over 200,000 Palestinians. Yet there is no call from the United Nations (controlled by the West) to intervene in this “failed state”.

European imperialists hide their protectionist policies. As Friedrich List remarked, once imperialists have attained their summit of greatness, they kick away the ladder by which they climbed up in order to deprive others of the means of climbing up afterwards behind them.

Both the US and Britain industrialized on the back of extremely protectionist regimes and only turned to free trade once they arrived at the top of the global economic hierarchy. Thus, the imposition of free trade on developing countries by Britain after 1846 and the US after 1945 prevents Third World states from using tariffs to protect the infant industries. The projection of “free trade” by Americans…constitute an economic containment strategy to keep the Third World down.

A Century of Marxist Eurocentrism

Karl Marx’s paternal Eurocentrism and the political necessity of the Western civilizing mission
Marx appears to have had little appreciation for the complexity of ancient Chinese and Indian civilizations. For him China and India were the home of “Oriental Despotism”. The East could only be emancipated from its backwardness by the British colonialists. India stands outside world history and China was understood as a rotting semi-civilization. Believe it or not, for Marx, opium wars were emancipatory for China. Without British intervention there would be no future emancipatory socialist revolution. Imperialism was an instrument for both political progress and a requirement of global primitive accumulation. Was the result of British colonization Chinese emancipation? No, it was a century of Chinese humiliation (1839-1949). The imperialist engagement with China did not lead to order but to massive social-dislocation. The various Chinese revolutions were in part stimulated by a reaction against the encounter with the West.

For Marx and Engels, the East could belatedly jump aboard the Western developmental plane as Hobson says as “The Oriental Express”. It could participate in the construction of world history. But they could never lead the train in a progressive direction. They only had conditional agency. The Western states on the other hand had hyper-sovereignty. Sadly, Hobson says there hasn’t been much effort to reconstruct Marx’s theory along non-Eurocentric lines in traditional Marxism.

Lenin has no theory of Eastern emancipation
According to Hobson, Lenin says the East is inherently incapable of self-development. Lenin discusses how the period of free competition within Europe was succeeded after 1873 with the rise of cartels which intensified after 1903 into full-fledged monopoly capital and finance capital. But the causes of the crisis lay in the West whether underconsumption (Hobson) or the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (Marx and Engels). There was no mention of resistance in the colonies. Lenin discussed the right of self-determination of nations, but those nations would never influence the West or provide leadership.

World-systems theory
Wallerstein
Immanuel Wallerstein was heavily criticized by Robert Brenner and other classical Marxists for overstating the interdependence of trade and hierarchy between societies and understating the class struggle within societies. But he maintains his traditional Marxian orientation in emphasizing the dynamics for the evolution of the world-system clearly in the Western part of the world. The West represents the civilized world, the core countries. The second division in the world is occupied by the regressive redistributive world empires in Asia. Division three of the world system is occupied by primitive reciprocal mini-systems found in North America, parts of Africa and Australasia (savage societies in the 19^thcentury parlance).

World-empires mainly in Asia saw their state structures weakened while their boundaries underwent a forced contraction and the surviving mini-systems of North American, Caribbean and Australia underwent wholesale destruction. 

Arrighi and Chase-Dunn

Other world-systems theorists like Giovanni Arrighi and Christopher Chase Dunn suggested that the world-system didn’t consist of just a core and a periphery but consisted of a semi-periphery which may or may not be Western. They argued that when core Western countries experienced crisis and decline, it was the semi-periphery countries that provided a new resource which allowed them to become a new core.

Exceptions to the rule Gunder Frank, Abu-Lughod

To be fair, both a sympathizer and an arch-critic of World-Systems theory, Andre Gunder Frank accused Wallerstein of Eurocentrism in his writings culminating in hisbook Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. The work of Janet Anu-Lughod Before European Hegemony was so very powerful in showing the advanced state of non-Western trade networks  between 1250 and 1350 CE.

Exceptions to the Rule Outside of Marxism: James Watson

Watson’s analysis starts out with typical Eurocentrism with the Westphalian origins of European international society. He emphasizes the uniqueness of European restlessness and exceptional turbulence. Dynamic and enterprising as it is, it is  contrasted to the closed or isolated world of Asian cultures. The rise of the West is located in Weberian liberalism, neorealism and Marxism. Watson’s unusually explorative book The Evolution of International Society moves from the Italian city-state system and then proceeds with the emergence of sovereignly at the Westphalia conference by way of the Renaissance and the Reformation to arrive at the balance of power in 1713 at Utrecht. Yet he does talk about Eastern developments as reacting back on Europe as in a dialectical way. What the East contributed from the West included:

• the Italian city-state system was dependent on Eastern trade;
• financially cheques, bills of exchange, banks and commercial partnerships which had been pioneered in the Islamic and pre-Islamic Middle-East;
• overseas expansion which began in 1492 was only possible with the navigational and nautical techniques that were pioneered by Chinese and especially Muslims; and
• Industrialization, centerpiece of “British genius” was significantly enabled by Chinese innovations that stem back several millenniums.

Further, Watson analyzes in considerable detail many non-Western political formations prior to 1648.

Western Fear of Eastern and Southern Power

Most interesting is that many anti-imperialist racists argue against imperialism because it brings the white race in racially fatal conflict with the contaminating influences of non-white races. The impossibility of Eastern progressive development renders the Western civilizing mission all but futile.

Charles Henry Pearson: the decline of white supremacy and the barbaric rise of the yellow peril
Charles Henry Pearson (1830-1894) achieved immediate fame with the dire prophesy that he issued for the  white race in his book National Life and Character, a Forecast.  He argued that white racial supremacy was being superseded by very high levels of predatory Eastern agency. But in Pearson’s racist imagination it is the white West that has been fated to remain within its stationary limits while the yellow races are destined to expand and triumph over the higher whites. The barbaric threat also came from within as a result of the socialist states’ preference to prop up the unfit white working classes and from without via the Yellow Peril were all leading to deterioration.

James Blair and David Jordan

Jordan’s defensive social Darwinist racism was a pacifist’s eugenics. It had three components:

• The white race cannot survive in the topics.

It serves to affect a degeneration of the physical and intellectual energy of the Europeans. He gives an example of that as the Philippines lie in the heat of the torrid zone which he called natures asylum for degeneration. Benjamin Kidd argued though we in Europe have the greatest food-producing regions of the earth, we want to administer the tropic from a distance. The white races needed to wake up because the topics will lure them to their death. Kidd wanted to absolve the West of its home-grown liberal imperial guilt syndrome. His key concern about colonizing the tropics was the degenerative impact that the climate would have on white imperialists.

• The second anti-imperialist argument concerned the perils of immigration.

The Oriental is of the past. They have not progressed for centuries. The Easterner hates progress. He contends that the constitution of China is said to not have been changed for thousands of years. One the other hand, the West is progressive, energetic and intolerant of the very thing which is the East’s most marked characteristic, indolence. The two races should never amalgamate.

• Anti-war because the fittest white people would get kille

Jordan argues that warfare selects the best or fittest elements of the civilized white race to go out and fight, but in so doing leads to a reduction in the numbers of the fittest element as they lose their lives in futile colonial wars. Meanwhile the infirm and cowardly and feckless stay home, away from the battlefield. Some defensive racists were against the war between white countries so they could preserve white unity.

To summarize the threat from the East:

• Domestic white barbaric threat – unfit working class
• Racist interbreeding threat – contamination
• Tropical climatic threat
• Threat of European wars depleting the white race

The crisis of Western self-doubting and deep anxiety was reflected in a host of books which included:

• Spengler’s Decline of the West (European Institutionalist) (1919,1932)
• Madison Grant’s the Passing of the White Race (1918)
• Lothrop Stoddard The Rising Tide of Color Against White Supremacy (1920)
• Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)

 Stoddard

Eurocentrism and racism do not always deny non-white race’s agency. The climax of eugenics reflected not the moment of supreme white confidence but an acute  sense of anxiety regardless the future hegemony of the white race. For Stoddard, globalization is a real threat. The greatest threat to white racial existence lies

• in colored immigration problem
• a demographic explosion

The white races are under siege and disunited within their inner sanctum excavated by the Trojan horse of Western liberalism. Stoddard takes the notion of predatory Eastern agency beyond Mahan and Mackinder. He wants to call out the hubris of the white race. He is nervous and panicked about the Japanese victory over the white Russians in 1905. Further, rise of communism dealt a cruel blow to white racial unity. He is afraid of the white wars in which the best white stock would be lost on the battlefields. The white need to retreat from their imperial bases in Asia and leave the land to yellow and brown rule.

Madison Grant
Grant claimed colonialism weakens the white races. The Nordic race is unable to survive south of the line of latitude on white Virginia because of the detrimental impact of the hot climate. Nordics must keep away from the native population for fear of racial contamination from the sun’s actinic rays. Grant says the rapid decline in the birthrate of native white Americans is gradually withdrawing from the scene, abandoning to these aliens the land which they once conquered and developed. The man of the old stock is being crowded out.

Patrick Moynihan
In Patrick Moynihan book Pandemonium, he explores a  Malthusian logic in predicting the demographic doomsday scenario at the hands of the Eastern Hordes as does Paul Kennedy in his book Preparing for the 21^st Century. For them, the greatest challenge to world order in the coming century is the rising relative demographic gap between West and East. Western civilizations will have stable or declining populations and would be swamped by the East and the South. While Malthus in his day did not prevent a rising demographic to Europe from the East, by the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries these became a staple of much of racist Western thought.

Huntington and Lind on demographics
In the work of Huntington and Lind a close parallel can be drawn between their work and the racist imperialist thinker Mahan. But an even closer link can be found with CH Pearson’s National Life and Character, a Forecast; Stoddard’s The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920);  Clashing Tides of Color (1935).  In Huntington’s book The Clash of Civilizations (1996). The roots of the barbaric threat that the Chinese and Muslims pose for the Western Civilization are located within a neo-Malthusian framework. It begins with the Eastern population explosion. This surplus population is problematic because it will seek to flood into the heartlands of the West.

For Huntington and Lind, non-Western societies were increasingly becoming the movers and shakers of their own history and of Western history. This meant in their ability to economically develop as well as resist imperialism. Lind writes that with the break-up of the Soviet “empire” the West’s great right flank will almost certainly be endangered as the Islamic republics will seek to join their Muslim brothers. Islam will be at the gates of Vienna as either immigrants or terrorists. Domestically multiculturalism in the West today is a “political virus” for it serves to boost the vitality of foreign cultures within the West.

Conclusion
The purpose of this article is to expose the theoretical blockages to the West’s understanding that they are being left beyond by the multipolar world of BRICS.

First, their Western International Relations Theory history has hardly been a positivist value free theory. It oozes Eurocentrism, paternalism, racism and imperialism. Secondly International Relations Theory only dimly perceives that these theories are not 100 years deep, starting after World War I, but have a 250 year history as Table 3 below shows. Thirdly, table 3 shows over 50 theorists over that 250 years, thus cementing a deep ideological commitment to “the rise of the West”. Those international theorists who have really understood that the East and the South are not merely passive recipients of the wisdom of the West but are themselves innovators. These theorists are isolated and could be counted on two hands.

Table 3 Eurocentrism, Paternalism and Racism  in International Theory 1760-2010

1760-1914 Manifest Eurocentrism	Paternalism Cobden/ Bright, Angell, Hobson, Mill, Marx	Ant-paternalism Smith, Kant
Scientific racism	Offensive racism Ward, Reinsch, Kidd, Mahan, Mackinder and von Treitschke	Defensive Racism Spencer, Sumner, Blair, Jordan, CH Pearson, Ripley, Brinton
1914-1945 Manifest Eurocentrism	Paternalism Wolff, Zimmern, Murray, Angell	Anti-paternalism Subliminal Eurocentrism Laski/ Brailsford, Lenin, Bukharin
Scientific racism	Offensive Racism	Defensive racism
	Wilson, Buell, Kjellen, Spykman, Haushofer, Hitler	Stoddard, Grant, E. Huntington
1945-1989 Subliminal Eurocentrism	Paternalism Gilpin, Keohane Walz, Bull, Watson	Anti-Paternalism Carr, Morgenthau
1989-2010 Manifest Eurocentrism	Paternalist Rawls, Held, Nussbaum, Fukuyama	Anti-paternalist World-system theory, Cox
	Offensive Eurocentrism Kagan, Cooper, Ferguson	Defensive Eurocentrism SP Huntington, Lind

 

Below is the Conventional linear narrative of Liberal great tradition:

• From 1760 to 1816 there is classical liberal internationalism of Smith, Kant and Ricardo.
• From 1830 to 1913 classical liberal internationalism continues in the work of Cobden, Bright, JS Mill and Angell.
• Between 1900 to 1945 the emphasis switches to interdependence theory of liberal institutionalism of Hobson, Wilson, Zimmerman and Murray.
• Between 1989 and 2010 liberal cosmopolitanism is embodied in the theories of Fukuyama, Held and Rawls.

The Table 4 below shows Hobson’s very different breakdown of liberalism, calling it “paternalistic imperial liberalism”.

See Table 4 Hobson’s history in international Liberalism on Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism

Table 5 shows that history of realism has also been filled with political activity about as far from positivism as one can imagine.

See Table 5 Hobson’s history of international realism on Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism

Lastly Hobson charts the history of Marxism from 1840 to post 1989.

• With classical Marxism of Marx and Engels between 1840-1895. Hobson calls it explicit imperialism which is paternalist Eurocentrism.
• Between 1910 and the 1920s classical Marxism continues with the work of Lenin, Luxemburg, Hilferding and Bukharin which Hobson characterizes as anti-imperialist, but a subliminal anti-paternalist Eurocentrism.
• Between 1967 and 1989 although World-Systems Theory differs from classical Marxism with its emphasis on conflicts between states more than class struggles within states, it shares the same combination of anti-imperialist, subliminal, anti-paternalist Eurocentrism of the Marxists of 1910-1920. The same is true for Robert Cox’s Gramscian hegemony theory.
• In the post 1989 period we find in the work of Giovanni Arrighi and Christopher Chase-Dunn a continuation of anti-imperialist, anti-paternalist emphasis on Europe, but both are more willing to grant autonomy to non-Western countries. If Eastern or Southern countries  occupy what both call the capitalist  semi-periphery of the world system. Arrighi’s last book was called Adam Smith in Beijing, showing his interest in China as the new global hegemon
• In the same period It is in the work of Andre Gunder Frank and Janet Abu-Lughod that we finally theories that challenge any Eurocentrism or paternalism. Gunder Frank has always contended that World Systems Theory is Eurocentric and claims, as Hobson argues in another book that Europe only surpassed China after 1800. His book Re-Orient claims, correctly I think that the new Asian Age is on the horizon.

The post The Myopia of Anglo-American Rulers first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/19/the-myopia-of-anglo-american-rulers/feed/ 0 498260 https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/19/the-myopia-of-anglo-american-rulers/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/19/the-myopia-of-anglo-american-rulers/#respond Sat, 19 Oct 2024 08:55:52 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=154334 In the last 20 years, China, Russia, India and Iran are blossoming in harnessing energy and building infrastructures. Economically BRICS currency will eventually marginalize the dollar. What is amazing to us is the vast denial system that Mordor and its vassal has hypnotized itself into believing. Bruce Lerro's article is about how the ideology of Eurocentrism, paternalism, racism and imperialism keeps the West in a fog about how bad its situation actually is.

The post The Myopia of Anglo-American Rulers first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]>

International Relations (IR) theory fails to deliver on one of its key promises, specifically to produce positivist, value free analysis. What we encounter in the vast majority of international theory is the provincial or parochial normative purpose of defending and celebrating the ideal of the West in world politics. IR theory can no longer be represented as positivist, objective or value free.
~ John M. Hobson

Orientation

In 1981, Eric Jones wrote a very powerful book called The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia. He was not alone in claiming there was something unique about Europe compared to the rest of the world. Though I doubt it was his intention, his work perhaps unintentionally supported a Eurocentric, paternalistic, racist orientation of a Wren theory which claimed to explain world politics. This is called International Relations Theory which claimed to be positivist, objective and value free. International relations theory is so deeply embedded in Western triumphalism that it has failed to notice that the West has been losing to China, Russia and Iran for the last 20 to 30 years. International  relations theory barely understands that this has happened and it has no theory to explain it. What we are witnessing today is a “Eurasian Miracle.”

In my article “Neocon Realists and Global Neoliberals Dead on Arrival,” I identify five international relation theories: Neocon Realists; Neoliberal Globalists; Liberal Institutionalists; Constructivists and World-Systems Theorists. Most of my criticism in that article was leveled at the first three theories for their inability to account for the rise of China, Russia and Iran and the whole multipolar world. In this article, following the work of John A. Hobson in his book “The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics,” I point out a good reason for this is because of the Eurocentric nature of Neocon Realists, Neoliberal Globalists and Liberal Institutionalists theory. However, Hobson’s criticism of Eurocentrism does not stop there. He argues that even left-wing theories like constructionism and world-systems theory are guilty of Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism, not only because it takes different forms, but that some of these are even anti-imperialist. The conventional contrast of a Eurocentric or racist conception of imperialism from a constructivist and Marxist point of view is too simple and Eurocentrism is too deep.

What is Eurocentrism?
Hobson’s claim that there two steps in Eurocentric big-bang theory of world politics:

• Europeans single-handedly created a European capitalist international state system through their pioneering and exceptional institutional genius.
• They export their civilization to remake the world in their own image through globalization, imperialism or hegemony.
  To add to this, Eurocentrism claims the Eastern and Southern part of the world had no independent status. There was no East or South big bang. In the West the various movements of the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation the scientific revolution, capitalism, the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution or socialism were purely Western. The East and South either helped out or they were left behind. With rare exceptions. Eastern and Southern parts of the world system never led Western development.

What is paternalism?
Historians of the modern West sought to explain social evolution. In doing so, they divided societies into three stages:

• savagery (hunter-gatherers);
• barbarism (horticultural and agricultural states) and
• civilization—industrial capitalist societies

Supposedly Europeans hoped that all societies would want to become civilized. But when societies of the East and South did not aspire to this, they were labelled either savages or barbarians. However, some historians and anthropologist thought it was their duty (white man’s burden) for the savages and barbarians to see the light. This led to paternalism.

An example of well-intentioned paternalist Eurocentrism: Rawls
John Rawls believed that his liberal vision has genuinely universalist criteria that do not offend cultural sensibilities of non-Western people. He was interested in culturally converting Eastern people rather than containing them as in Western liberal realism.

Yet there are five key Eurocentric dimensions of his theory:

• All well-ordered hierarchical societies must exhibit a separation of church and state (this will not work for Muslims).
• Imposition of free trade (free trade can only work with wealthy societies).
• Governed by a liberal law of peoples (teaching Eastern women to have less babies won’t work if they are being blocked by the IMF and the World bank from industrializing.
• Eastern states receive only conditional sovereignty because they are classified as despotic states and “failed” states are deemed uncivilized.
• Developed societies have a duty to assist burdened societies (paternalism).

Hobson’s claims

Hobson’s explicit claims are first that International Relations Theory contains six myths:

• the noble identity and foundational myth of the discipline;
• the positive myth of International Relations Theory;
• the great debates myth and reconceptualizing the clash of IR theories;
• the sovereignty or anarchy myth;
• the globalization myth; and
• the theoretical great traditions myth.

Hobson’s 2nd claim is there are six types of imperialism which are laid out over 250 years. His third claim is that Western racism was not always triumphant but was based on fear of what would become of Europe if Easterners and Southerners of the world  got the upper hand. Lastly, I close out with theories that are exceptions to the rule and are not Eurocentric or paternalistic and with a minimum of racism.

Hobson’s implicit claim is that without “the rest” there might be no West. The West was not an early, but a latedevelopment. This topic will be covered in my future article based on another of Hobson’s books, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization.

Six Eurocentric Myths of International Relations Theory
Hobson tells us the conscious or unconscious moral purpose of IR is to be a defender and promoter of Western Civilization. The key of disciplinary assumptions that are presently revered as self-evident truths really are largely Eurocentric myths. As stated above, these include the above myths.

The noble identity foundation myth: Whig and progress theory of history
International Relations Theory has embedded in a Whig an interpretation of its intellectual history. Whiggish means that the past is reorganized to make it seem that the present was the only possible passage that could have led to contemporary life. The Whig theory of history has the theory of progress embedded in it. The theory of progress claims that the later in time we go in social evolution the better societies get in material wealth, less labor, higher morality and happiness.

It is a now conventional assumption that the discipline of International Relations was born in 1919. Supposedly, it had a moral purpose to finding ways to solve the universal problem of war. This now conventional view was originally constructed by E.H. Carr in his classical text The Twenty Year’s Crisis (1946).

Contrary to this convention, IR theory did not appear all of a sudden after WW I out of the head of Zeus. It continued from its pre-1914 roots which were neither positive, objective nor value free. Rather they were paternalist, Eurocentric and intentionally or unintentionally racist. There are deep continuities that the 1919-1945 period of international theory has with the pre-1914 period of international theory. The Eurocentric racism and paternalism that underpinned it had been forged in the previous century. In addition, there is a continuum of imperialism that goes all the way back to the middle of the 18th century. Thirdly, there was an explosion of anti-colonial resistance. What were colonists resisting – those noble Western powers that colonialized them. In this larger scheme of things, the end of World War I was not the only game in town. As positivists, what Neocon realists and liberal globalists ignore is that the noble identity myth can also be a ideological justification for Eurocentrism, capitalism, racism and imperialism. The four stages are of Hobsons history if International relations include:

• 1760-1914 Manifest Eurocentrism and scientific racism
• 1914-1945 Manifest Eurocentrism and scientific racism
• 1945-1989 Subliminal Eurocentrism
• 1989-2010 Manifest Eurocentrism

The positive myth of IR of theory of liberalism as emerging between the wars

This myth was that the between the wars IR theory was dominated by liberal globalists who searched for a new cooperative global order as a reaction to the Neocon realism of World War I. It was characterized as a harmonious and optimistic theory because it stands for peace. But as Hobson points out, interwar international theory was not monopolized by idealism or liberalism because it also exhibited a vibrant racism realist stream that emerged after 1889, especially in the world of geopolitical theorists, Ratzel, Mackinder, Mahan and others.

IR claims to be positivist with a value free epistemological base. This has been challenged by African-American Marxists Ralph Bunche, WEB Dubois and CLR James. They say that when viewed through a non-European lens, the vast majority of international theory produces a parochial or provincial analysis of the West that can masquerade as if it were universal. Further, the imperialist aspect of interwar idealist theory has not been widely noticed among modern IR scholars. Realist and so-called Liberal Idealists were united by the concern to restore the mandate of Western civilizational hegemony in one guise of another.

The great debate myth and reconceptualizing the idea of the clash of IR theories

These debates include the controversy between realism and idealism in the interwar period between history and scientism in the 1960s and between positivists and post-positivists in the 1990s. The first two appear as if these were great qualitative struggles, but like with Republicans and Democrats in Mordor, all parties have far more in common than they have in differences. The struggle between positivists and post-positivists are real but it are presented in too stark a manner. There were post-positivists as far back as the 1960s and those political scientists who were more statistical and quantitative also go back to the 50s and 60s. In other words that debate did not begin in the 1990s as IR theorists claim but thirty years earlier. In spite of these differences, there is consensus of virtually all parties concerning the politics of defending and celebrating Western civilization in world politics. These theories supported the Western powers. Their differences were small compared to the paternalism, racism and imperialism that they all shared.

Sovereignty vs anarchy myth
The sovereignty vs anarchy myth claims that in International Relations Theory all states are sovereign. But because there is no world-state the relations between nation-states are characterized as anarchistic. In the first place, IR theory limits which nation-states are considered sovereign to European countries. Eastern and Southern states are not considered sovereign because they lack the proper Western European credentials such as voting systems, more than one party, and capitalism. The school of Realism operates with universalist analytical principles that supposedly apply to all states regardless of how 2nd class some states are treated in practice. The problem for IR theorists is that the post the 1648 era there had been a proliferation of international imperial hierarchies, which were comprised of a series of single sovereign colonial powers, many of which were not nation-states. Its supposedly universal and ideologically unbiased principles of state-centrism sovereignty directly contradict its practice. For example, in 1878 the conference in Berlin divided Africa between European imperial powers. These sovereign states had colonies.

Furthermore if by anarchy they mean disorder, the relationship between sovereign states without a world state is by no means disorderly. There are shifting alliances between states rather than a Hobbesian war of all single states against each other. Secondly, to characterize this disorder as “anarchy” reveals either complete political bias or ignorance of anarchism as a respectable political tendency on the socialist left. Anarchism has involved thousands of people in many countries around the world since the late 1840s. It has had some success in the Paris Commune, the Russian and especially the Spanish revolutions. To characterize this as disorderly is an unforgivable omission from theorists who claim to be political scientists.

The globalization myth
The myth is that globalization has only recently (the last century) become an issue for international theorists. But to Hobson’s own surprise in his initial research, in many areas including some though not all realists, international theorists since 1760 have placed considerable emphasis on globalization. In his book The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization,Hobson points out that there were globalizing trade networks of, Africa, West Asia, India and China as far back as 500 CE.

The theoretical great traditions myth
IR theorists are no different than those who initiate artistic or spiritual movements in their search for origins. All political, artistic or spiritual movements seek to find their origins in the deep past rather than the recent past. In the IR traditional textbooks realism is claimed to go back to Thucydides in the ancient world and then forward to Hobbes and Machiavelli to culminate in Waltz, Gilpin and Mearsheimer via Carr and Morgenthau. But each of these theories are not air-tight. In fact IR theories mix with other theories within a given moment in time and each theory changes internally due to  changes in history.

Defining Imperialism and Anti-imperialism International Theory
Hobson claims that the vast literature on imperialism and anti-imperialism generally lacks conceptual precision. Here Hobson confront two broad definitional approaches:

• Narrow Eurocentric
• Expansive postcolonial

Most of modern Eurocentric international theory embraces a narrow definition and allows for considerable wiggle room when confronted with a charge of imperialism. It sees Eurocentrism and imperialism as distinct. You can be Eurocentric and not imperialist and conversely imperialist without being Eurocentric. At the other extreme, by contrast, post-colonial theorists seek to completely shut down this wiggle room by assuming that being Eurocentric is inherently imperialist and imperialism is always Eurocentric.

In table 1 I have a divided a spectrum of imperialism throughout history into 6 types. The three types on the left accept that they are imperialists and don’t apologize for it. The theories on the right deny they are imperialists. The theories on the left are formal empires, while the theories on the right are informal liberal empires. The people in the last cell are the theorists of various types of imperialism. The cell above it include the nature and justification of their mission. The names of the theorists are not important for now, but some of the more famous ones might be familiar to you. The importance of this table are not the theorists but rather the systems of justification, none of which are value free, universal and objective.

Table 1 The Definitional Continuum of Imperialism, Past and Present

Definitional Consensus Most coercive definition Accept they are imperialists	Definitional Controversy Least coercive definition Deny they are imperialists
Formal Empire	Informal liberal empire

Tributary relations, political containment conquest of barbarism	National civilizing mission/cultural conversion	Civilizing mission, via international government protectorates	Anglo-Saxon hegemony	To protect, duty to prevent, duty to assist concept of democracies	Universalization of Western civilization and global empire of liberal democratic peace
Gumplowicz, Ward, Mahan Mackinder, K. Pearson, Hitler, Von Treitschke, Kidd, Spykman Haushofer	Cobden, Bright, Angell, Mill, Marx, Reinsch, W.Wilson	Hobson, Buell, Woolf Krasner, Fukuyama	Gilpin Kindleberger Kagan, Brzezinski, Cooper, Ignatieff	Slaughter, Ikenberry, Wheeler, Risse, Finnermore Rawls, Held Nussbaum	Friedman, Wolf, Russet, Owen

Eurocentric Imperialism: Liberal and Marxism

In Table 2 below, one interesting but expected difference between liberalism and Marxism is that liberals see imperialism as benign. J. A. Hobson and John Stuart Mill see imperialism is benign at an international level, but Cobden, Bright and Angell see imperialism as benign at a national level. The fact that Marxists thinks imperialism as coerced rather than benign should not come as a surprise to anyone. Traditional International Relations Theory sees liberal internationalism and classical Marxism as the antithesis of imperialism. However, John Hobson’s main point is what Marxism and liberals have in common. They all agree that:

• The East can be characterized as “barbaric oriental despotism”
• The capitalist peripheral countries (Third world) are savage, anarchistic societies residing in a domestic state of nature
• Western agency is always pioneering, learning nothing from the rest of the world
• Eastern agency even at its best is conditional, always learning from the West

It is these four points that show how deep Eurocentrism of all Western theories, even Marxism. These are the type of deep assumptions, hundreds of years old the keep Western theorists of world politics that the BRICS world of the East is bypassing them.

Table 2 Paternalistic, Eurocentric. Institutional Imperial Concepts of World Politics

Marxism	Left Liberal	Liberal
Marx	Mill and Hobson	Cobden, Bright, Angell
Coerced national civilizing mission	Benign international mission	Benign national mission
East as barbaric Oriental Despotism	East as barbaric Oriental Despotism	East as barbaric Oriental Despotism
South as savage—3rd world anarchistic societies residing in a domestic state of nature	South as savage—3rd world anarchistic societies residing in a domestic state of nature	South as savage—3rd world anarchistic societies residing in a domestic state of nature
Pioneering Western agency	Pioneering Western agency	Pioneering Western agency
Conditional Eastern agency	Conditional Eastern agency	Conditional Eastern agency

Here are some further examples of Eurocentrism. In the 19th century, even when IR theory was sensitive to interdependence, it wasn’t world interdependence. Rather it was interdependence among the civilized states of Europe. Outside of Europe there was no recognition of interdependence. Eastern societies only got recognition once they became colonies or only if these countries were at war with Europe. It is something like calling the ultimate baseball playoffs “the World Series” even when it only includes the United States.

At the same time, the Eurocentrists had no problem imagining war with the East if it was profitable. But when it came to the civilized states of Europe, war was seen as unprofitable. Also, as we shall see later, racist theories bemoaned Europeans fighting because this would result in the depletion of the white race. Colonial annexation was entirely appropriate when it come to Europe’s relation with the East. The East has  conditional agency, such as Japan during World War II. However, the East cannot take the lead in historical development without being predator (as in the Yellow Peril).

As for the Global South, (Africa) for it  to be a respectable civilized state, Western core countries took a page out of Calvinism and insisted that these “savage societies” have a duty to develop their land productivity (meaning agriculturally) and abandon their primitivism (hunting and gathering). Non-Western politics, whether they be monarchies without constitutions or the egalitarian political consensus societies of hunting and gathering, are not recognized as sovereign. It was representative bourgeois state politics that was the “civilized” norm. As late as 1993 Paul Johnson said most African states are not fit to govern themselves. Their continued existence and the violence of human degradation they bring are a threat to the stability and peace as well as an affront to our moral sense. As of today Zionist Israel has massacred over 200,000 Palestinians. Yet there is no call from the United Nations (controlled by the West) to intervene in this “failed state”.

European imperialists hide their protectionist policies. As Friedrich List remarked, once imperialists have attained their summit of greatness, they kick away the ladder by which they climbed up in order to deprive others of the means of climbing up afterwards behind them.

Both the US and Britain industrialized on the back of extremely protectionist regimes and only turned to free trade once they arrived at the top of the global economic hierarchy. Thus, the imposition of free trade on developing countries by Britain after 1846 and the US after 1945 prevents Third World states from using tariffs to protect the infant industries. The projection of “free trade” by Americans…constitute an economic containment strategy to keep the Third World down.

A Century of Marxist Eurocentrism

Karl Marx’s paternal Eurocentrism and the political necessity of the Western civilizing mission
Marx appears to have had little appreciation for the complexity of ancient Chinese and Indian civilizations. For him China and India were the home of “Oriental Despotism”. The East could only be emancipated from its backwardness by the British colonialists. India stands outside world history and China was understood as a rotting semi-civilization. Believe it or not, for Marx, opium wars were emancipatory for China. Without British intervention there would be no future emancipatory socialist revolution. Imperialism was an instrument for both political progress and a requirement of global primitive accumulation. Was the result of British colonization Chinese emancipation? No, it was a century of Chinese humiliation (1839-1949). The imperialist engagement with China did not lead to order but to massive social-dislocation. The various Chinese revolutions were in part stimulated by a reaction against the encounter with the West.

For Marx and Engels, the East could belatedly jump aboard the Western developmental plane as Hobson says as “The Oriental Express”. It could participate in the construction of world history. But they could never lead the train in a progressive direction. They only had conditional agency. The Western states on the other hand had hyper-sovereignty. Sadly, Hobson says there hasn’t been much effort to reconstruct Marx’s theory along non-Eurocentric lines in traditional Marxism.

Lenin has no theory of Eastern emancipation
According to Hobson, Lenin says the East is inherently incapable of self-development. Lenin discusses how the period of free competition within Europe was succeeded after 1873 with the rise of cartels which intensified after 1903 into full-fledged monopoly capital and finance capital. But the causes of the crisis lay in the West whether underconsumption (Hobson) or the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (Marx and Engels). There was no mention of resistance in the colonies. Lenin discussed the right of self-determination of nations, but those nations would never influence the West or provide leadership.

World-systems theory
Wallerstein
Immanuel Wallerstein was heavily criticized by Robert Brenner and other classical Marxists for overstating the interdependence of trade and hierarchy between societies and understating the class struggle within societies. But he maintains his traditional Marxian orientation in emphasizing the dynamics for the evolution of the world-system clearly in the Western part of the world. The West represents the civilized world, the core countries. The second division in the world is occupied by the regressive redistributive world empires in Asia. Division three of the world system is occupied by primitive reciprocal mini-systems found in North America, parts of Africa and Australasia (savage societies in the 19^thcentury parlance).

World-empires mainly in Asia saw their state structures weakened while their boundaries underwent a forced contraction and the surviving mini-systems of North American, Caribbean and Australia underwent wholesale destruction. 

Arrighi and Chase-Dunn

Other world-systems theorists like Giovanni Arrighi and Christopher Chase Dunn suggested that the world-system didn’t consist of just a core and a periphery but consisted of a semi-periphery which may or may not be Western. They argued that when core Western countries experienced crisis and decline, it was the semi-periphery countries that provided a new resource which allowed them to become a new core.

Exceptions to the rule Gunder Frank, Abu-Lughod

To be fair, both a sympathizer and an arch-critic of World-Systems theory, Andre Gunder Frank accused Wallerstein of Eurocentrism in his writings culminating in hisbook Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. The work of Janet Anu-Lughod Before European Hegemony was so very powerful in showing the advanced state of non-Western trade networks  between 1250 and 1350 CE.

Exceptions to the Rule Outside of Marxism: James Watson

Watson’s analysis starts out with typical Eurocentrism with the Westphalian origins of European international society. He emphasizes the uniqueness of European restlessness and exceptional turbulence. Dynamic and enterprising as it is, it is  contrasted to the closed or isolated world of Asian cultures. The rise of the West is located in Weberian liberalism, neorealism and Marxism. Watson’s unusually explorative book The Evolution of International Society moves from the Italian city-state system and then proceeds with the emergence of sovereignly at the Westphalia conference by way of the Renaissance and the Reformation to arrive at the balance of power in 1713 at Utrecht. Yet he does talk about Eastern developments as reacting back on Europe as in a dialectical way. What the East contributed from the West included:

• the Italian city-state system was dependent on Eastern trade;
• financially cheques, bills of exchange, banks and commercial partnerships which had been pioneered in the Islamic and pre-Islamic Middle-East;
• overseas expansion which began in 1492 was only possible with the navigational and nautical techniques that were pioneered by Chinese and especially Muslims; and
• Industrialization, centerpiece of “British genius” was significantly enabled by Chinese innovations that stem back several millenniums.

Further, Watson analyzes in considerable detail many non-Western political formations prior to 1648.

Western Fear of Eastern and Southern Power

Most interesting is that many anti-imperialist racists argue against imperialism because it brings the white race in racially fatal conflict with the contaminating influences of non-white races. The impossibility of Eastern progressive development renders the Western civilizing mission all but futile.

Charles Henry Pearson: the decline of white supremacy and the barbaric rise of the yellow peril
Charles Henry Pearson (1830-1894) achieved immediate fame with the dire prophesy that he issued for the  white race in his book National Life and Character, a Forecast.  He argued that white racial supremacy was being superseded by very high levels of predatory Eastern agency. But in Pearson’s racist imagination it is the white West that has been fated to remain within its stationary limits while the yellow races are destined to expand and triumph over the higher whites. The barbaric threat also came from within as a result of the socialist states’ preference to prop up the unfit white working classes and from without via the Yellow Peril were all leading to deterioration.

James Blair and David Jordan

Jordan’s defensive social Darwinist racism was a pacifist’s eugenics. It had three components:

• The white race cannot survive in the topics.

It serves to affect a degeneration of the physical and intellectual energy of the Europeans. He gives an example of that as the Philippines lie in the heat of the torrid zone which he called natures asylum for degeneration. Benjamin Kidd argued though we in Europe have the greatest food-producing regions of the earth, we want to administer the tropic from a distance. The white races needed to wake up because the topics will lure them to their death. Kidd wanted to absolve the West of its home-grown liberal imperial guilt syndrome. His key concern about colonizing the tropics was the degenerative impact that the climate would have on white imperialists.

• The second anti-imperialist argument concerned the perils of immigration.

The Oriental is of the past. They have not progressed for centuries. The Easterner hates progress. He contends that the constitution of China is said to not have been changed for thousands of years. One the other hand, the West is progressive, energetic and intolerant of the very thing which is the East’s most marked characteristic, indolence. The two races should never amalgamate.

• Anti-war because the fittest white people would get kille

Jordan argues that warfare selects the best or fittest elements of the civilized white race to go out and fight, but in so doing leads to a reduction in the numbers of the fittest element as they lose their lives in futile colonial wars. Meanwhile the infirm and cowardly and feckless stay home, away from the battlefield. Some defensive racists were against the war between white countries so they could preserve white unity.

To summarize the threat from the East:

• Domestic white barbaric threat – unfit working class
• Racist interbreeding threat – contamination
• Tropical climatic threat
• Threat of European wars depleting the white race

The crisis of Western self-doubting and deep anxiety was reflected in a host of books which included:

• Spengler’s Decline of the West (European Institutionalist) (1919,1932)
• Madison Grant’s the Passing of the White Race (1918)
• Lothrop Stoddard The Rising Tide of Color Against White Supremacy (1920)
• Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)

 Stoddard

Eurocentrism and racism do not always deny non-white race’s agency. The climax of eugenics reflected not the moment of supreme white confidence but an acute  sense of anxiety regardless the future hegemony of the white race. For Stoddard, globalization is a real threat. The greatest threat to white racial existence lies

• in colored immigration problem
• a demographic explosion

The white races are under siege and disunited within their inner sanctum excavated by the Trojan horse of Western liberalism. Stoddard takes the notion of predatory Eastern agency beyond Mahan and Mackinder. He wants to call out the hubris of the white race. He is nervous and panicked about the Japanese victory over the white Russians in 1905. Further, rise of communism dealt a cruel blow to white racial unity. He is afraid of the white wars in which the best white stock would be lost on the battlefields. The white need to retreat from their imperial bases in Asia and leave the land to yellow and brown rule.

Madison Grant
Grant claimed colonialism weakens the white races. The Nordic race is unable to survive south of the line of latitude on white Virginia because of the detrimental impact of the hot climate. Nordics must keep away from the native population for fear of racial contamination from the sun’s actinic rays. Grant says the rapid decline in the birthrate of native white Americans is gradually withdrawing from the scene, abandoning to these aliens the land which they once conquered and developed. The man of the old stock is being crowded out.

Patrick Moynihan
In Patrick Moynihan book Pandemonium, he explores a  Malthusian logic in predicting the demographic doomsday scenario at the hands of the Eastern Hordes as does Paul Kennedy in his book Preparing for the 21^st Century. For them, the greatest challenge to world order in the coming century is the rising relative demographic gap between West and East. Western civilizations will have stable or declining populations and would be swamped by the East and the South. While Malthus in his day did not prevent a rising demographic to Europe from the East, by the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries these became a staple of much of racist Western thought.

Huntington and Lind on demographics
In the work of Huntington and Lind a close parallel can be drawn between their work and the racist imperialist thinker Mahan. But an even closer link can be found with CH Pearson’s National Life and Character, a Forecast; Stoddard’s The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920);  Clashing Tides of Color (1935).  In Huntington’s book The Clash of Civilizations (1996). The roots of the barbaric threat that the Chinese and Muslims pose for the Western Civilization are located within a neo-Malthusian framework. It begins with the Eastern population explosion. This surplus population is problematic because it will seek to flood into the heartlands of the West.

For Huntington and Lind, non-Western societies were increasingly becoming the movers and shakers of their own history and of Western history. This meant in their ability to economically develop as well as resist imperialism. Lind writes that with the break-up of the Soviet “empire” the West’s great right flank will almost certainly be endangered as the Islamic republics will seek to join their Muslim brothers. Islam will be at the gates of Vienna as either immigrants or terrorists. Domestically multiculturalism in the West today is a “political virus” for it serves to boost the vitality of foreign cultures within the West.

Conclusion
The purpose of this article is to expose the theoretical blockages to the West’s understanding that they are being left beyond by the multipolar world of BRICS.

First, their Western International Relations Theory history has hardly been a positivist value free theory. It oozes Eurocentrism, paternalism, racism and imperialism. Secondly International Relations Theory only dimly perceives that these theories are not 100 years deep, starting after World War I, but have a 250 year history as Table 3 below shows. Thirdly, table 3 shows over 50 theorists over that 250 years, thus cementing a deep ideological commitment to “the rise of the West”. Those international theorists who have really understood that the East and the South are not merely passive recipients of the wisdom of the West but are themselves innovators. These theorists are isolated and could be counted on two hands.

Table 3 Eurocentrism, Paternalism and Racism  in International Theory 1760-2010

1760-1914 Manifest Eurocentrism	Paternalism Cobden/ Bright, Angell, Hobson, Mill, Marx	Ant-paternalism Smith, Kant
Scientific racism	Offensive racism Ward, Reinsch, Kidd, Mahan, Mackinder and von Treitschke	Defensive Racism Spencer, Sumner, Blair, Jordan, CH Pearson, Ripley, Brinton
1914-1945 Manifest Eurocentrism	Paternalism Wolff, Zimmern, Murray, Angell	Anti-paternalism Subliminal Eurocentrism Laski/ Brailsford, Lenin, Bukharin
Scientific racism	Offensive Racism	Defensive racism
	Wilson, Buell, Kjellen, Spykman, Haushofer, Hitler	Stoddard, Grant, E. Huntington
1945-1989 Subliminal Eurocentrism	Paternalism Gilpin, Keohane Walz, Bull, Watson	Anti-Paternalism Carr, Morgenthau
1989-2010 Manifest Eurocentrism	Paternalist Rawls, Held, Nussbaum, Fukuyama	Anti-paternalist World-system theory, Cox
	Offensive Eurocentrism Kagan, Cooper, Ferguson	Defensive Eurocentrism SP Huntington, Lind

 

Below is the Conventional linear narrative of Liberal great tradition:

• From 1760 to 1816 there is classical liberal internationalism of Smith, Kant and Ricardo.
• From 1830 to 1913 classical liberal internationalism continues in the work of Cobden, Bright, JS Mill and Angell.
• Between 1900 to 1945 the emphasis switches to interdependence theory of liberal institutionalism of Hobson, Wilson, Zimmerman and Murray.
• Between 1989 and 2010 liberal cosmopolitanism is embodied in the theories of Fukuyama, Held and Rawls.

The Table 4 below shows Hobson’s very different breakdown of liberalism, calling it “paternalistic imperial liberalism”.

See Table 4 Hobson’s history in international Liberalism on Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism

Table 5 shows that history of realism has also been filled with political activity about as far from positivism as one can imagine.

See Table 5 Hobson’s history of international realism on Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism

Lastly Hobson charts the history of Marxism from 1840 to post 1989.

• With classical Marxism of Marx and Engels between 1840-1895. Hobson calls it explicit imperialism which is paternalist Eurocentrism.
• Between 1910 and the 1920s classical Marxism continues with the work of Lenin, Luxemburg, Hilferding and Bukharin which Hobson characterizes as anti-imperialist, but a subliminal anti-paternalist Eurocentrism.
• Between 1967 and 1989 although World-Systems Theory differs from classical Marxism with its emphasis on conflicts between states more than class struggles within states, it shares the same combination of anti-imperialist, subliminal, anti-paternalist Eurocentrism of the Marxists of 1910-1920. The same is true for Robert Cox’s Gramscian hegemony theory.
• In the post 1989 period we find in the work of Giovanni Arrighi and Christopher Chase-Dunn a continuation of anti-imperialist, anti-paternalist emphasis on Europe, but both are more willing to grant autonomy to non-Western countries. If Eastern or Southern countries  occupy what both call the capitalist  semi-periphery of the world system. Arrighi’s last book was called Adam Smith in Beijing, showing his interest in China as the new global hegemon
• In the same period It is in the work of Andre Gunder Frank and Janet Abu-Lughod that we finally theories that challenge any Eurocentrism or paternalism. Gunder Frank has always contended that World Systems Theory is Eurocentric and claims, as Hobson argues in another book that Europe only surpassed China after 1800. His book Re-Orient claims, correctly I think that the new Asian Age is on the horizon.

The post The Myopia of Anglo-American Rulers first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/19/the-myopia-of-anglo-american-rulers/feed/ 0 498259 https://grist.org/state-of-emergency/what-back-to-back-storms-did-to-lake-charles-louisiana/ https://grist.org/state-of-emergency/what-back-to-back-storms-did-to-lake-charles-louisiana/#respond Tue, 03 Sep 2024 13:00:00 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=e3179b8d1ffde1daa2d37a8ce96d56e8 Hello, and welcome back to State of Emergency. My name is Zoya Teirstein, and today we’re going to be talking about a place one journalist dubbed, “the most unfortunate city in the United States.”

It’s been just over four years since Hurricane Laura slammed into southwest Louisiana just shy of Category 5 status — the fiercest storm the state had seen in a century. Six weeks later, Hurricane Delta, a Category 2, carved a near-identical gash through the Bayou State. That winter, a deadly freeze gripped the ravaged region. A few months later, spring floods dropped a foot and a half of rain on Lake Charles, the city that had already endured, at that point, three epochal disasters.

Hurricanes Laura and Delta took the city and shook it like a snowglobe, picking people up and putting them down in new parts of town. 

I traveled to Louisiana in July to report on the community’s recovery, and examine how the string of storms impacted its politics. Before I went, I watched a meeting of the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, the administrative and legislative body that oversees Lake Charles and the rest of Louisiana’s Calcasieu Parish (pronounced cal-kuh-shoo). It was apparent how eager officials were to move on from talk of the disasters. An assessment presented at the gathering noted that “there is excitement among our leaders to make great strides in areas that do not involve hurricane recovery.” Minutes later, the jurors approved the use of the parish courthouse grounds for a food and music festival that its organizer promised would be the “go-to festival for the month of November for the state and the region.”

But when I visited Lake Charles and talked to residents there, I saw that, while the city is making progress recovering from the storms’ physical and economic damages, it’s still grappling with another legacy the storms left behind: Laura and Delta took the city and shook it like a snowglobe, picking people up and putting them down in new parts of town as they sought refuge from storm-battered homes and neighborhoods. Others left the city entirely, ending up in places like Houston and New Orleans. Lake Charles, the larger parish, the state, and even the federal government, however, don’t have uniform or effective ways of tracking where all these people have drifted.

That has long-lasting political implications for both the people who leave and those who stay. When a city or neighborhood loses citizens, it doesn’t just lose some of the social fabric that imbues a place with feeling. Where people end up dictates district lines, congressional representation, and how state and federal resources are distributed. So what happens when a state fails to capture the population-level impacts of natural disasters? How can cities account for storms that hollow out a generation of working-class families?

Lake Charles is one of many places across the country contending with these questions, whether their represented officials are willing to acknowledge it or not. Up until now, the invisible population trend lines being etched into Lake Charles have been a lot easier to ignore than scarred rooftops and abandoned buildings.

Read the full story, and see more pictures from my trip to Lake Charles, here.

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“I’m not giving up. I ain’t got nowhere else to go.”

Lake Charles resident Edward Gallien Jr., 67, lives with his pit bull, Red, on Pear Street in northern Lake Charles. His house was destroyed by Hurricane Laura in 2020. Gallien, who inherited his property from his parents, is still holding out hope that help will come so he can rebuild. Read more here.

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Extreme heat sickens Harris, Trump rallygoers: An analysis from The Washington Post found that at least 78 Trump rally attendees were hospitalized with heat-related sickness over the past few months. And a Harris rally in Wisconsin in August was paused after an attendee “appeared to suffer from heatstroke,” the Post reported. The two candidates have vastly differing views on climate change, which is contributing to dangerously high temperatures across the U.S. and around the world.
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The Atlantic wakes up: The National Hurricane Center is tracking two systems in the Atlantic, one potentially headed for the Caribbean and the other developing near Africa. September is the busiest month for hurricanes in the Atlantic hurricane season. The next named storm will be called Francine.
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Tropical Storm Hone floods the Big Island: A strong tropical storm dropped 10 to 15 inches of rain on Hawai‘i’s Big Island last week, causing widespread flooding and temporarily knocking out power for 24,000 customers. Another storm, Hurricane Gilma, is headed for the Aloha State this week.
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Schools in Michigan close due to extreme heat and power outages: Multiple districts in the state, including Detroit Public Schools Community District, closed or called a half-day during their first week of classes after extreme heat and inclement weather caused power outages. Outdated cooling systems in some schools couldn’t keep up with the high temperatures, which reached into the 90s.
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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What back-to-back storms did to Lake Charles, Louisiana on Sep 3, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Zoya Teirstein.

]]> https://grist.org/state-of-emergency/what-back-to-back-storms-did-to-lake-charles-louisiana/feed/ 0 491650 https://www.radiofree.org/2024/08/07/sacred-economics-shylock-as-anti-christ/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/08/07/sacred-economics-shylock-as-anti-christ/#respond Wed, 07 Aug 2024 14:30:42 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=152551 Money vs the gift Sacred Economics 100 Deconstructing the Story of Self/ the World Life without prisons Marx’s ‘death knell’ of capitalism, revolution, was the first answer to capitalism’s ills, after which the state would wither away, and we would live in a utopian bliss. The 20th century put paid to that vision, as revolution, […]

The post Sacred Economics: Shylock as Anti-Christ first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]>

Money vs the gift
Sacred Economics 100
Deconstructing the Story of Self/ the World
Life without prisons

Marx’s ‘death knell’ of capitalism, revolution, was the first answer to capitalism’s ills, after which the state would wither away, and we would live in a utopian bliss. The 20th century put paid to that vision, as revolution, as most revolutions do, disappointed, mostly unravelled, and predatory capitalism took hold again. Are we stuck with a system that’s quickly leading us to the cliff edge with seemingly no turning back?

Happily, no, and happily no need for messy revolution, though there is already growing hardship from (and growing resistance to) our economic system’s gross injustices, insanities. The transition to a new economic logic is already underway, and we can all help nurse it into reality. In Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition (2021), Charles Eisenstein draws on anthropology and the prophetic writings of 20th century social critics to provide the way, hidden in plain sight. To return to the gift economy, to get rid of usury, debt money. For 90% of human history, that was how we lived, not in a mindset of artificial scarcity, where even the wealthiest pinch pennies, but one of abundance, where selfishness was despised, and ‘trade’ was a way of fostering peace, not ‘war by other means’.

Basically an ecological communism, where moneyS are based on real wealth and prices include all the environmental costs of your product. We have to make most of nature (land, water, air) a ‘commons’ again, as in feudal times when most land was commons, under the authority of lords but not an alienable commodity to be bought or sold.

Eisenstein picks up where Marx left off, or rather he takes out the rhetorical flourishes and puts the economy back into ecology, and in the process, establishes the underlying laws of the human-nature nexus. The Law of Return the most fundamental: Everything you consume is consumed somewhere else in nature. The uroboros. Pioneer species pave the way for keystone species, which provide microniches for other species and circle back to benefit pioneer species as they move into new territories. Actually a tautology but one that we’ve ignored until violating its logic has brought us to the brink of catastrophe.

Uroboros vs Sorcerer’s apprenticeMoney vs the gift

First, chuck out your guns-and-butter Eco 101 text. We must look at not-so-innocent words like money, interest, profit, investment, goods&services, and put them to work for us and the world, not against us and the world.

The real human economy for at least 100,000 years was a gift economy, with daily life needs, division of labor, ensured through tradition rather than a punch-clock and cash. Money was originally used ceremonially, in a complex system of exchange to ensure trust between tribes, and as tribute. Social currencies were for consolidating relations (marriages, funerals, blood money, intertribal peace).

With the rise of agriculture, money transformed, secularized, as a form of credit (tallies of loans denominated in common unit of account, periodically settled by deliver of commodities). This conflation quickly led to debt peonage i.e., slavery, and the demotion of women. Behind every ledger is a man with a sword/gun. The world was no longer sacred, and man part of it, worshipping it. Our spiritual connection with nature was sundered, our spirit thin and now identified with gold-as-fetish, not with God. A king-god must be carried aloft, high above lowly earth. Man became divorced from nature, culminating in Descartes’ lonely ‘I’. We were already transforming nature 4,000 years ago, creating empires, replacing ‘sinless’ God with ‘sinless’ gold, a lethal case of misplaced concreteness.

This ushered in the Age of Separation – spirit-matter, mind-body, human-nature. This Story of Self/ World, the Ascent of Humanity,¹ as Eisenstein called his earlier book dealing with this separation. It starts with the farming virtues of hard work, thrift, accumulation, but also the darker master-slave relation where slaves were often debtors who would never be able to pay. That isn’t in the Storybooks. Instead we have the story of isolated individuals rationally maximizing ‘utility’ (pleasure, which is still unmeasurable).

This Story as depicted in economics textbooks makes a bizarre kind of sense in a scientistic, timeless Newtonian world of atoms, but it has nothing to do with how we live our lives. What is it but a denial of spirituality, embodied mind, humanity itself? So the ‘ascent’ is a delusional one from the start, actually the opposite, as we see all around us today. If this is the crowning achievement of science, we would be healthier, happier in some (almost any) precapitalist society, absent money, certainly absent money as a hoarded store-of-value, and interest, a pointless and dangerous attempt to annihilate time-space. Of course, this is impossible. We live in space-time. You can’t go back in time, and the ‘space’ is already taken. We are long overdue for a Story that reflects us-in-the-world. Heidegger calls that dasein.

Reimagining our economy means first of all gaining control over our simple, elegant, now global money system which lets you do everything, everywhere, all at once. i.e., the antithesis of ceremonial money, which was attached to time, place, giver and receiver, as part of reinforcing that traditional way of life, with money as a sacred binding force. Now, instead of a simple, functional broom, we have the sorcerer’s apprentice. A hammer to kill a fly. Unnecessary power over everything, everywhere, all at once, which imprisons us in unreal fantasies and requires prisons for trigger-happy types.

Key reforms immediately suggest themselves:

• Return us to localized, ritualized methods of exchange. Reinvent the fly swatter to deal with fly problems. That looks ridiculous to our individualistic mindset, captivated by the supercharged power of money, gold-as-god. Most precapitalist societies worshipped the sun as god, or all of nature. What we can call ‘the collective West’, formerly the imperialist power, latched on to gold as the ideal money by the 15th century, when Europeans travelled the Earth, invading and stealing wealth, especially gold, wherever it was found. That obsession marks the great divide in human history, total war of conquest of the planet, fittingly symbolized by gold. Inert, eternal, beautiful, heavy (i.e., important).

• Following on the Law of Return, internalize all costs of whatever you produce/ consume. Right down to working conditions in the DVD factory in Bangladesh if that’s where your DVD player is made. Immediately it is clear that the majority of what we now produce and consume won’t make sense anymore. You will produce and consume more and more locally as the Age of Transition gets under way.

Eisenstein (and Keynes) argue that the short reign of gold as THE currency (1870–1932 and 1944–1971) was perhaps a necessary stage in our maturing as a species, but that it has outlived its purpose and, as we have witnessed over the past century, has already been replaced, though it is still a totem, a fetish that we secretly worship, many convinced that a return to the gold standard would solve all our problems. The fetishism is now secularized and represents the vast fortunes of Wall Street as if in a separate, disembodied realm. We need to take money off its pedestal, to invent new forms of money that will encourage good hoarding (of the commons) not the bad version (destruction of the commons).

The conquerors laughed at the cowrie shells that Polynesians carried thousands of miles by canoe to ‘trade’, seemingly senselessly, with other tribes. Or the wampum beads of Turtle Island natives. Even the most warlike tribes lived more or less peacefully, with their interactions centered on this ritual giving, before ‘we’ arrived with guns and declared total war of conquest on the world, inspired by gold.

It proved easy to unravel the complex, ritualistic societies outside Europe, once the Europeans launched their world war in search of gold for their very special and lethal money. ‘We’ ruined the complex web of world culture (just like we destroyed the anti-capitalist Soviet Union), and are quickly ruining what’s left of nature and now humanity itself, with total all-out war (not our low-grade ‘cold wars’) threatening like a Damocles sword over all our heads. And it is our very bloody form of money, or rather its pretend substitute, electronic money) that now governs a godless, global reality on the brink. Goethe’s (and Disney’s) sorcerer’s apprentice.

But our neurotic fetish is also responsible (everything is connected and money has been our hammer for everything) for the explosion of knowledge in the past five centuries. As we clear-cut the precious legacy of the our social evolution, the dazzling mini-civilizations everywhere on Earth, our scribes, anthropologists (or better, morticians) document(ed) the fast-dying remains of precapitalist civilizations, their (to us) bizarre customs, revealing discoveries about precapitalist societies every bit as marvelous as the potato, rubber trees and other gifts. ‘We’ quickly adopted the potatoes etc as they were profitable, ‘produced’ more gold, adapted to our industrial ‘civilization’, and wiped out the giver, the keeper of that miracle food.

As for the cultural wealth of those other civilizations, who cares? If they don’t make more gold, they are the enemy to be conquered or eliminated. Even the great thinkers of the 19th century, Hegel, Darwin, Marx assumed that these ‘primitive’ societies would be wiped out. But thanks to our morticians, we have salvaged some of what we realize now are precious gifts from the past. Most important of these human cultural artifacts is the gift culture, the social glue that let humanity prosper for millennia with destroying their world, Earth.

We must return to the gift, our traditional way of relating to nature and each other, but at a higher level. Thatcher’s TINA. There is no alternative. Just as tribes and nations have a cyclical rise and fall and, transformed, rise again as a new civilization, so does mankind’s trajectory from hunter-gatherer to agriculture to industry to information age, also have a grand overarching cycle, returning to the natural order after our spectacular but lethal bursts of creative innovation, which took us so far from the natural order.

Sacred Economics 100

Law: Everything is sacred. In the first place, money. Money has magical qualities, the power to alter human behavior and coordinate human activity. The simplest way to inspire belief is to appeal to our instinct of self preservation, ‘me first’. So ‘greed’ is a kind of default attribute for money, a lowest-common-denominator money, supposedly appealing to our natural state. Like a person stuck at the level of a two-year-old, ‘ME!’ is then our belief system, which our money reflects, urging us to hoard, take by force.² And what better than using an inert metal that never decays? So gold.

But this was much later. Hunter-gatherers actually grew up without gold, not stuck at the ‘terrible twos’, never ‘greedy’. Their money was constantly exchanged as part of their foreign relations. They couldn’t hoard anything and didn’t need to. Any accumulation was seasonal. They lived in abundance and shared everything, treated everything as a gift, promoting generosity and gratitude, not greed and war. So they had no need of this base money, our money.

We have learned that early humans did not see themselves as apart, above nature. They were part of a complex world of man-nature, matter-spirit, where everything is sacred. Everything. including our consciousness is a gift. For Muslims this is our God-given nature, fitra. We dismiss this worldview of the world as a huge gift as a charming metaphor, but the gifters were serious.

For atheists this is a problem. Who to thank? For me, my existence alone is enough proof of a higher order reality. If I’m right, then I should be thanking God every second of the day and night. Sufis strive for that mindset. For Muslims, praying 5 times a day is a religious duty. And the implication is you must treat every gift with respect. Use it and leave nature as rich and beautiful as it was before. So the Alberta tarsands, a huge toxic wound on the beautiful gift of the land and resources, is sacrilege. The guilty parties are traitors to our heritage and deserve the highest punishment. Instead, we laud them and give them billions of dollars to poison more of our gifts. ARGH.

Some things are more sacred than others (thunderstorms, waterfalls, rainbows, orchids), that were there to remind us of the sacredness of all things. With the rise of agriculture and greed money, we became progressively more divorced from nature, culminating in our modern economy, where gold is valued above all else, though, apart from sitting in vaults, hoarded for its magically quality, it is useful only as ornament. Ditto mankind as a kind of secular embodiment of gold, the supreme living creature as ‘golden boy’, is valued above all else to the point of destroying all else.

The rot really set in with Descartes’ disembodied soul, divorced from the body, observing but not participating in the world, which is run by a robotic Newtonian watchmaker god. As if Descartes was intuiting what the best Story of the Self was for our Story of the World, modern capitalism, governed by the abstract, now secular spirit, money. Your soul, mind is outside of science and not that interesting in a materialist, secular world anyway.

Shakespeare, writing at the birth of the new secular, capitalist order, made the usurer Shylock the archetype for the new man of finance: cruel, ruthless, paranoid, greedy. Shakespeare’s most compelling villain. The Merchant of Venice is the only play focusing on the economics of society, on an abstract idea, usury. Shylock loses everything including his daughter, who steals her inheritance and converts to Christianity. The play was problematic from the start, Jessica seen as a schemer betraying her father. Philosemitism runs deep in Britain, a product of the Protestant Reformation and the condoning of usury as good for business.

Shakespeare wanted us to detest the usurer, but already usury was an integral part of the now accelerating commercial and industrial revolutions. His audiences had usurers among them, and the immortal words of Shylock and Portia calling for tolerance and mercy have been emphasized, without Shakespeare’s anti-capitalist message. It took Marx and a century of anti-capitalist revolution for Jessica’s rejection of Shylock’s clear villainy to be appreciated for what it is, Shakespeare’s genius at penetrating to the heart of the new order and warning us. The answer is there in the rejection of usury, the demonetization of hoarded wealth, i.e., Jessica’s jewels revert to baubles, not capital, Christianity (still outlawing usury in the 17th century) the already ineffectual antidote to the usury of the Jew.

Paradox: Even as we realize the evil of usury/ interest, we outlaw criticism of Jewry for its adoption of usury as the basis of Jewish world power, such is the power of money. It force-feeds us illusions and forces us to spout lies to maintain the system. For all that, The Merchant of Venice is Shakespeare’s most popular play in Israel. (Only Jews in their Jewish state are free to be ‘anti-semitic’.)

Marx argued that money has become a world power, and, as the practical Jewish spirit, has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations, which became the spirit of the capitalist age. A Jew himself, he identified the Jewish practice of usury as the source of the evils of the day, and assumed Jews would disappear as a persecuted race once usury was abolished. He wrote before the secrets of past civilizations had been documented and jumped to ‘revolution’ and a very abstract communism as the one-size-fits-all answer. Another hammer to kill a fly.

We have built our lives as autonomous individuals worshipping this secular, material god, rather than the traditional spiritual god. We see the world crumbling before our eyes, we know the culprit, but, like a druggie, we just keep looking for our next fix, our disembodied soul no help at all.

So first, rewrite our economic textbooks, demystifying money. Money’s ‘natural’ purpose is to connect human gifts to human needs. Now money is based on artificial scarcity and rationality. Nothing about gifts, abundance. Our thinking too must change, though the change is just a reversion to our naturally/ socially evolved generosity and gratitude, adult emotions that we have suppressed as we live out our ‘terrible twos’, still dressed in diapers, unable to metabolize what we take from nature in a civilized way.

Deconstructing the Story of Self/ the World

Our Story of Self as autonomous individuals governed by instinct (mistakenly called greed) breaks down with observed reality. We are all found under the proverbial cabbage leaf. Our lives are given to us. A gift. Let that sink in. We are walking miracles! So our default is gratitude. Even in our Age of Separation, we still honor our parents for the gift of life, which we can never repay in money. That is the truth of our existence.

I still need to pause and reread that. We are so totally programmed to blot out that essential truth. Our new Story of the Self and consequently our Story of the World must start there. Life as a gift, ‘the gift of life’, gratitude to parents, responsibility to pass on the gift of life and the gifts of nature to the next generation (natives think in terms of seven generations). No wonder ancient religious thinkers said God made the world, and gave it to us to enjoy, i.e., gave us reflective consciousness. So the basic ‘units of account’ in economics should be humility and gratitude not selfishness and egotism.

The Big Bang is like God’s humongous gift – everything for nothing. As if the universe was created for us to see and reflect on (and be thankful for). Does any of this sound like today’s Eco 101? It starts with separate selves competing for scarce resources to maximize self-interest. Our bankers create money and divvy it out to profit-maximizers, so that we can maximize our utility in this world of efficiency.

This turns out to be as depressing and destructive as it sounds. It is a neurosis-inducing Story of the People, robotic, defying our natural emotions. Ditto with the Story of the World, on the surface rational and profitable, but with scarcity and fear lurking at the unconscious level. Barter and comparative advantage in a Hobbesian brutish and nasty world. New stories, please!

Rule of the gift: What comes to you is not kept for oneself unless one cannot do without it.

Rule of the gift: Everything is related, so economic relations are mutual, we always owe someone/ nature for our taking. Toaripi, Arabic, Chinese, German, Japanese have only one word for borrowing/ lending. The Arabic din means religion and debt. The Lord’s prayer used to be ‘forgive us our debts, as we forgive other’ until capitalism got a hold of it and changed that to ‘trespasses’.

Modern money transaction are closed, no obligation, at most a ‘money-back’ guarantee, but the buck stops there. The gift is open-ended, a relationship between participants. With a gift, you give some of yourself. Now you are just sell a ‘good’, which could be bad, and which has nothing to do with you.

Even today we go all soft in ceremonies of giving presents, without the hard edge of money involved. The gift still embodies something special that money kills – the sense of uniqueness and relatedness (the self expanding to whole community) that we all know we are, not the diminished robotic self that buys and sells as the ‘greatest good’.

Law: In the money economy, more for me is less for you. Zero-sum game. In the gift economy: more for me is also more you. Positive-sum game. I.e., those who have give to those who need. Gifts cement the mystical reality of participation in something greater than oneself. Axioms of rational self-interest do not apply, as the self has expanded to include some of the other.

There is no need to distinguish between work and play, business and personal relationships. Think hunter-gatherer: you do what you have to each day which takes a few hours, all the time social networking, telling Stories. Work and play are one. Economics was linked to cosmology, religion, psyche. You, John, need x from me. So you give me wampum, which means: ‘John met the needs of others in the past and earned gratitude.’ So I can give John’s wampum later when I am gifted by someone. The Story of the gift. Now, instead of giving me wampum, I get money, which no longer satisfies the need-gratitude problem, which has no story behind it. There’s no one to thank, not even God. Today, especially not God.

When the division of labor exceeds the tribal or village level, there is the need to extend the range of our gifts. Yes, trade, progress. Comparative advantage. Eco 101. By facilitating trade, we reward efficiency in production. Money facilitates trade and should enrich life.

So what happened that turned trade-as-nice-novelty into a weapon of mass destruction, destroying entire nations through boycotts, enriching others obscenely? Now money is the source of anxiety, hardship, polarization of wealth. The US boycotts, sanctions a third of the world for daring to disobey orders, killing as many as actual warfare and bombing.

Paradox. Dollar bills still show deified presidents, ‘out of many one’, ‘in God we trust’. Not. We need a true Story of wholeness and harmony, return to the hunter-gatherer, our most successfully evolved social organism, at a higher level.

Our ‘gifts’, given by God have some of Him in them. Prometheus’s fire, the Apollonian gift of music, agriculture, all ‘made in His image’. We have the desire to develop those gifts and give from them (from Him) to the world. Nothing beats the joy of giving.³ You are playing God in the best sense. Rational self-interest does not apply in our interactions with others. Just our innate generosity. You can’t live a fulfilled life without developing those gifts, sharing them with others. But our gifts are mortgaged to the demands of money, survival. We fret about the ‘cost of living’, we are ruled by the specter of scarcity.

Where did this ‘scarcity’ in a world of plenty come from? It invaded our epistemology of i/ biology with ‘selfish genes’, ii/ socio-biology with competing selves. It is more a projection of our own capitalist culture of artificial scarcity than an understanding of nature. Recent advances in biology shows that nature gives primacy to cooperation, symbiosis, merging of organisms into larger wholes, with competition playing a secondary role. And there is no stasis in nature. Everything is always in motion, evolving, living/ dying. The world is alive.

Nature is both complex and radically simple. Human nature is the same. In nature headlong growth is sign of immature ecosystems, followed by renewed interdependency, symbiosis, cooperation, always returning, recycling of resources. Ditto human societies. We have lived through a few centuries of wild, uncontrolled exploitation of nature and this is coming to an end even as I write. Money is already frayed and will continue to unravel as our lives take on more and more the properties of gift, as we return to our true nature, our fitra. The economy will shrink, our lives will grow. What a rousing, cliff-hanger Story of Transition this will make.

Law: In a dynamic system, there is no equilibrium but a state of controlled disequilibrium, infinitely complex.

Life without prisons

Our Stories’ economics axioms: scarcity + rational maximization of self-interest. Result: Wealth makes you greedy. We need prisons to prevent greedy people from being too greedy.

Money’s basic function is to facilitate exchange, connect human gifts with needs, from each according to his ability to each according to her needs. That’s right. Communism. But also any religion worth its salt. And ‘we’ turned money into a corrosive agent of scarcity. Starvation a constant for much of the world, though there’s more than enough for everyone, and most people want to help, but can’t because there’s no money in it.

Indigenous Turtle Islanders from the start shook their heads at their dangerous visitors. They had no problem of greedy people (though the Europeans saw their disdain for things as sacrilegious), no need for prisons. None voluntarily joined the Europeans’ cruel, arbitrary society of violence and slavery. Many whites ‘went native’, enjoying the freedom and beauty of moneyless society and had to be dragged back or killed. No room for traitors.

Basically, capitalist society was/is a system of warfare, a zero-sum game where the natives lived life as a positive-sum game. Captured debtors and thieves like POWs, requiring prisons. Natives understood that if you have a good community, you don’t need prisons, or (today) a complicated maze of private daycare at $10,000+ a year (nice prisons to control your children).

Natives were so busy enjoying life, they don’t have time to get bored. No one got ‘bored’ before the word was invented in 1760 at the dawn of assembly lines, mass production urban ghettoes devoid of community, no contact at all with nature.

‘Bedouins can sit for hours in the desert, feeling the ripples of time, without being bored.’⁴ Boredom, the yearning for stimulation, distraction, for something (rather than a relation) to pass the time. Life is not about things, but relations. But we are isolated automatons in our Story of Self. We don’t need relations, but as a result we are stuck with things to soothe the existential pain of separation, lack of relations. Camus.

Now we get bored in an instant. We demand to be entertained. Reality is boring, alien. Media is more real.

As for economic growth, the mantra promising greater happiness, really just means the economy, the commons, life in general, is more and more monetized, colonized, producing lots of things to soothe us. But when everything is monetized, a scarcity of money makes everything scarce, even when drown in a sea of ‘goods’. Nothing has changed in the real world, but now you starve. Magic.

‘Evergreen’ container ship blocked Suez Canal for a week in 2021

From Perpetual sacrifice

by William Wordsworth

Men, maidens, youths,
mother and little children, boys and girls,
enter, and each the wonted task resumes
within this temple, where is offered up
to Gain, the master idol of the realm,
perpetual sacrifice.

Wow. Buddhism sees spiritual value in suffering, but that’s in pursuit of enlightenment. To commit someone to ‘perpetual sacrifice’, wage slavery, in the service of profit is about as low as you can go. We have reached the physical limits of our Stories, where abundance is cloaked in artificial scarcity, where the engine of growth is greed. How did our natural impulse of giving, generosity, turn into its opposite? Greed doesn’t make sense, even in the context of real scarcity. We naturally share especially in times of danger. We need scarcity to penetrate into our minds, emotions, so we will discard, repress our higher impulses, our social instincts, honed over millennia, in favor of the more primitive self-preservation instinct we are taught to call ‘greed’. Greed must be built into our Story of Self, and taught in schools and universities, so that there are no traitors to the cause.

Contrary to Eco 101 wishful thinking, there is no biological gene to maximize reproduction of a self-interested, economically rational actor. Greed is not written into our biology, but is a symptom of the perception of scarcity. In a psychology experiment a group of poor vs rich were given $1000 to share. Guess who is more generous? That’s right, the poor. You knew that ‘instinctively’, 2 times more generous! When you’re rich, anxiety is always there, scarcity just a step away. It’s not greed makes you wealthy, but wealth makes you greedy. I.e., they are so ‘invested’ in their wealth, they can’t let go. Pity poor Midas.

ENDNOTES:

The post Sacred Economics: Shylock as Anti-Christ first appeared on Dissident Voice.

1    Charles Eisenstein, The Ascent of Humanity: Civilization and the Human Sense of Self , p21, 2007.

2    But children quickly move beyond that, naturally sharing when they’ve had enough.

3    Readers joke I intentionally get lost on my biking adventures to feast on the selfless generosity of strangers.

4    Ziauddin Sardar, Cyberspace as the darker side of the West, 2000.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Walberg.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/08/07/sacred-economics-shylock-as-anti-christ/feed/ 0 487529 https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/25/king-charles-property-empire-earns-334000-from-housing-benefit/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/25/king-charles-property-empire-earns-334000-from-housing-benefit/#respond Thu, 25 Jul 2024 15:53:59 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/king-charles-crown-estate-housing-benefit-royal-tenants-evictions/
This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Martin Williams.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/25/king-charles-property-empire-earns-334000-from-housing-benefit/feed/ 0 485667 https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/03/george-c-marshall-founder-of-orwellian-deep-state/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/03/george-c-marshall-founder-of-orwellian-deep-state/#respond Wed, 03 Jul 2024 15:15:53 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=151614 Most geopolitics’ nerds know George C. Marshall as President Harry S. Truman’s Secretary of State, 1947-49, and Secretary of Defense, 1950-51, credited with initiating $13 billion Marshall Plan for rebuilding European economies devastated by the war. But few people know that as Chief of Staff of the US Army during World War II, Gen. George […]

The post George C. Marshall: Founder of Orwellian Deep State first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]> Most geopolitics’ nerds know George C. Marshall as President Harry S. Truman’s Secretary of State, 1947-49, and Secretary of Defense, 1950-51, credited with initiating $13 billion Marshall Plan for rebuilding European economies devastated by the war.

But few people know that as Chief of Staff of the US Army during World War II, Gen. George C. Marshall organized the largest military expansion in the US history, inheriting an outmoded, poorly equipped army of 189,000 men that grew into a force of over eight million soldiers by 1942, a forty-fold increase within the short span of three years.

Rumors circulated by the end of the war that Marshall would become the Supreme Allied Commander for the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. However, Franklin D. Roosevelt selected relatively modest Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower for the momentous march to victory, because Roosevelt felt threatened by Marshall’s power and ambitions.

Thus, after the war, Eisenhower was hailed as liberator of Europe from the Nazi occupation who subsequently rose to prominence as the president, whereas the principal architect of the US deep state and a military genius who was instrumental in making the United States a global power died in relative obscurity.

Ever since Marshall, however, the United States has been ruled by the top brass of the Pentagon while presidents have been reduced to the ceremonial role of being public relations’ representatives of the deep state, pontificating and sermonizing like priests to gullible audiences at home and abroad on the virtues of supposed American democracy, rule of law and civil liberties.

Though a clarification is required here that US presidents indeed have the power to order withdrawal of troops from inconsequential theaters of war, such as the evacuation of US forces from Iraq as directed by former President Obama in 2011 or the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan as ordered by President Biden in 2021, as the perceptive military brass is courteous enough to bow to sane advice of purported chosen representatives of the people and ostensible commander-in-chief of the armed forces in order to maintain the charade of democracy in the eyes of the public.

But in military oligarchy’s perpetual conflict with other major world powers deemed existential threats to the US security interests, such as arch-rivals Russia and China, as in the Ukraine War, civilian presidents, whether Biden or Trump, don’t have the authority to overrule the global domination agenda of the Pentagon.

In fact, the deep state has murdered US presidents in cold blood for appeasing adversaries and daring to stand up to the deep state, for instance the assassination of the Kennedy brothers in the sixties after the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

Though credulous readers of mainstream media designate alternative media’s erudite writers casting aspersions over perfectly “natural murders” of John and Robert F. Kennedy that were nothing more than “coincidences” as cynical “conspiracists.”

The gullible sheeple believe the Kennedy brothers didn’t die at all. In fact, they were raised from the dead by the Almighty and ascended alive into heaven like Jesus Christ and will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment to give credible testimony regarding their real executioners. Religiously held beliefs regarding the purported strength of American democracy are just beliefs, no matter how absurd, hence there is no cure for “the united state of denial.”

Sarcasm aside, it’s noteworthy the national security and defense policies of the United States are formulated by the all-powerful civil-military bureaucracy, dubbed the deep state, whereas the president, elected through heavily manipulated electoral process with disproportionate influence of corporate interests, political lobbyists and billionaire donors, is only a figurehead meant to legitimize militarist stranglehold of the deep state, not only over the domestic politics of the United States but also over the neocolonial world order dictated by the self-styled global hegemon.

All the militaries of the 32 NATO member states operate under the integrated military command led by the Pentagon. Before being elected president, General Dwight Eisenhower was the first commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE).

The commander of Allied Command Operations has been given the title Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), and is always a US four-star general officer or flag officer who also serves as the Commander US European Command, and is subordinate to the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The incumbent Godfather of the Cosa Nostra is Gen. Charles Q. Brown since October 2023 following the retirement of Gen. Mark Milley who completed his tenure of four tumultuous years, including the Ukraine War and the Capitol riots, in September as the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Although officially the CIA falls under the Department of State, the FBI under the Department of Justice and the NSA under the Department of Defense, all of these security agencies take orders from the Pentagon’s top brass, the de facto rulers of the imperial United States.

Moreover, it’s worth pointing out that although the Pentagon is officially headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is typically a high-ranking retired military officer, the Secretary is simply a liaison between the civilian president and the military’s top brass, and it’s the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff who calls the shots on military affairs, defense and national security policy.

In Europe, 400,000 US troops were deployed at the height of the Cold War in the sixties, though the number has since been brought down after European clients developed their own military capacity following the devastation of the Second World War. The number of American troops deployed in Europe now stands at 50,000 in Germany, 15,000 in Italy and 10,000 in the United Kingdom.

Since the beginning of Ukraine War in 2022, the United States has substantially ramped up US military footprint in the Eastern Europe by deploying tens of thousands of additional NATO troops, strategic armaments, nuclear-capable missiles and air force squadrons aimed at Russia, and NATO forces alongside regional clients have been provocatively exercising so-called “freedom of navigation” right in the Black Sea and conducting joint military exercises and naval drills.

Regarding the global footprint of the United States troops, 275,000 US military personnel are currently deployed across the world, including 45,000 in Japan, 28,500 in South Korea and 36,000 in the Middle East, in addition to the aforementioned number of US troops deployed in Europe.

Clearly, through the transatlantic NATO military alliance, the overseas deployment of US forces in client states and the presence of aircraft-carriers in the international waters that are similar to floating air bases, the deep state rules not only the imperial United States but the entire unipolar world.

The post George C. Marshall: Founder of Orwellian Deep State first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Nauman Sadiq.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/03/george-c-marshall-founder-of-orwellian-deep-state/feed/ 0 482349 https://www.radiofree.org/2024/01/08/samantha-power-ebola-and-obamas-scramble-for-africa/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/01/08/samantha-power-ebola-and-obamas-scramble-for-africa/#respond Mon, 08 Jan 2024 11:19:20 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=147250 It is crucial to re-examine Samantha Power’s actions and decision-making during the Ebola epidemic in relation to the broader historical context of President Barack Obama and AFRICOM (Africa Command)’s covert Scramble for Africa. AFRICOM is the brainchild of Dick Cheney who, after his energy task force identified African oil as ripe for the picking, conspired […]

The post Samantha Power, Ebola, and Obama’s Scramble for Africa first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]> It is crucial to re-examine Samantha Power’s actions and decision-making during the Ebola epidemic in relation to the broader historical context of President Barack Obama and AFRICOM (Africa Command)’s covert Scramble for Africa.

AFRICOM is the brainchild of Dick Cheney who, after his energy task force identified African oil as ripe for the picking, conspired with Donald Rumsfeld to create Africa Command. (1) However, African governments wanted nothing to do with AFRICOM. South African officials in particular criticized the US for attempting to impose AFRICOM to undermine China’s growing influence on the continent. (2) Mao Zedong deserves credit for masterminding China’s original “pivot to Africa” in the sixties, sending engineers and guerrilla warfare instructors to coach aspiring revolutionaries in Zambia, Rhodesia, and Zanzibar. (3) Following the Berlin Wall’s fall in 1989 and the USSR’s dissolution in 1991, China’s engagement with Africa focused strictly on trade. By 2006, Sino-African trade skyrocketed to $55.5 billion—a very worrying development for Washington policymakers anxious about China’s rapid  ascendency to superpower status. The US was getting “lapped” (to borrow athlete Samantha Power’s phrase) by the Asian Dragon in Africa and AFRICOM seemed like a solution. But American foreign policy was a public relations catastrophe due to the Iraqi and Afghan quagmires. Everyone knew why the US courted Africa and it had little to do with disaster relief. Material benefits tempted poorer African nations to welcome AFRICOM bases, but Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi quickly cajoled them back into line. (4)

Whether you admire or despise him, Ghaddafi was nothing if not consistent in his anti-imperialist foreign policy. Within a year of ousting the British-backed King Idris during the 1969 Libyan Revolution, Ghaddafi dismantled the US Wheelus Air Base and expelled all foreign military personnel. The US never forgave this defiance and endeavoured to destroy Libya via protracted proxy wars. In 1978, a nearly decade long conflict erupted between Libya and Chad’s rulers. One of whom, Hissène Habré, “the creation of the Americans in no small measure”, was convicted of war crimes in 2015 for murdering 40,000 people. (5) While Cuban troops inflicted humiliating defeats on US-backed South African apartheid armies in Namibia and Angola, the Libyans, after a string of victories in the early eighties, were eventually booted out of northern Chad by 1987, outmatched by combined US and French firepower. Yet Ghaddafi ‘s regime lived to fight another day, and he sprang into action once again as the spectre of American imperialism returned to haunt Africa in the form of AFRICOM.

By 2008, the US offered massive sums of money to African governments in return for hosting US military bases. In response, Ghaddafi doubled the money so that African nations withdrew from the bargain —a tactic which paid-off handsomely when the African Union rejected AFRICOM. Moreover, Ghaddafi was a staunch pan-Africanist who aimed to terminate Africa’s reliance on Western finance. The African Investment Bank based in Libya, whose goal was to fund African development at no interest, could have posed a serious challenge to the IMF’s domination if the regime had survived. In short, as Dan Glazebrook argues, Ghaddafi’s Libya, for all its faults, represented the last line of defence for Africa’s political and economic independence. Libya’s descent into anarchy, piracy, terrorism, and modern-day slavery in the wake of Ghaddafi’s execution cleared the way for AFRICOM’s stealth invasion of Africa. (6)

Shortly after NATO’s destruction of Libya left the continent exposed to unprecedented levels of US meddling, the Obama administration ignored African hostility to AFRICOM and imposed a US military hardware “superhighway” in the Horn of Africa. As Nick Turse observed, “operations in Africa have accelerated far beyond the limited interventions of the Bush years”. (7) From Chabelley base in Djibouti to Camp Gilbert in Ethiopia, the latter replete with modern gyms and video game parlours, AFRICOM’s tentacles slithered deeper into the continent by 2012. The US hired mercenaries or contractors to man surveillance-aircraft jetting out of Entebbe in Uganda as hundreds of US commandos shared bases with Kenyan soldiers in Manda Bay. US marines trained recruits in the Burundi National Defence Force, while AFRICOM oversaw fourteen major joint-training exercises with armed forces in Morocco, Botswana, Lesotho, Senegal, and South Africa in a single year. Before drones took headlines by storm, cumbersome reconnaissance planes flying out of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso dotted the skies above Mali and Mauritania like parched vultures scouring for prey. A new era of colonial misadventure and exploitation was well and truly underway in Africa. (8)

Less than a year before she purportedly saved the world from Ebola, Samantha Power set her sights lower and saved the civil-war ridden Central African Republic in December 2013. Dreading that another Rwandan genocide was in the offing as Muslim Seleka insurgents and Christian militias threatened to hack each other to pieces, Power begged the international community and the US in particular to intervene before it was too late. (9) By April 2014, Power got her wish. The UN Security Council authorized the deployment of thousands of US-backed African Union peacekeeping troops into the CAR. (10) Within three years, the US “provided more than $800 million to fund humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping operations, peacebuilding and reconciliation programs”. (11)

AFRICOM already established a foothold in the CAR before Power’s intervention, nominally hot on the heels of the deranged Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony lurking in the thick jungles straddling the border between Uganda and the CAR. (12) Curiously, according to the Washington Post, US advisors tasked with bringing Kony to the ICC (International Criminal Court) weren’t keen on completing their mission. Locals in the southern CAR region of Obo grew fearful of their new American visitors, while Ugandan and Congolese officers wondered why US Special forces soldiers, equipped with the latest high-tech gadgets and satellite imagery, never bothered to pursue Kony into the forests. (13) In fact, Kony, the Osama Bin Laden of sub-Saharan Africa, is still on the run today.

This is pure speculation, but it is doubtful capturing Kony was the real reason why AFRICOM ventured into the CAR. It’s even harder to believe US officials claiming they were driven by the goodness of their hearts to prevent ethnic cleansing:  “I mean [CAR] is not a strategic target. Outside of “never again”, why else would we have gotten involved?” (14) Aside from the fact the CAR is renowned for harbouring vast diamond, gold, copper, uranium, and timber reserves, virtually all neighbouring states like Chad, Sudan, the DRC, and even South Africa took turns vying for control of the CAR’s resources for forty years by sponsoring violent coups and rebellions. (15) Was the US any nobler in its intentions? Evidence is scant at this time, but history and common sense suggest otherwise.

Samantha’s soft power posturing in the CAR, wittingly or not, was part and parcel of the Obama administration’s scramble for Africa. The old-fashioned, fire-and-fury, full-spectrum dominance-styled interventionism of the Bush/Cheney era was inconceivable and unpopular both at home and abroad. Therefore, Obama and Power looked elsewhere to legitimize US imperialism in Africa. They settled on a new doctrine centred around “human security”, a term borrowed from Global Health Governance lingo.

Maryam Deloffre defines this relatively novel doctrine thusly: “human security broadens the notion of security to focus on the individual and then considers things such as poverty, pandemics, and climate-change disasters…as security threats”. (16) This doctrine sounds reasonable in theory. Who can deny that deadly viruses like Ebola or Covid are a danger to our collective human security? But the practical application of this doctrine is problematic. As Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh argues, the developing world sees no noticeable difference between “human security” and traditional interventionist agendas like R2P (Responsibility to Protect- the thesis of Samantha Power’s book A Problem From Hell). For the Global South, “human security” policies are code for brutal interventions. (17) Nefarious actors like the US military are much too likely to instrumentalize “human security” to further the interests of corporations on the lookout for resources to plunder.

The weaponization of global health has been the bedrock of AFRICOM’s “human security” doctrine since the organisation’s inception. Stephen Harrow, former director of the Africa program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, stated in 2008 that AFRICOM would strive to gain a foothold on the continent via “rising commitments with respect to global health in Africa”. Dr Dan Henk at the US Air War College stressed that military planners in AFRICOM focused on health, infrastructural rehabilitation, environmental renewal, and human security to interfere in Africa nations. (18) In 2009, reports at the Department of Defence’s Global Health Engagement programme recommended the creation of “an overall global health security plan that combines civilian and military disease surveillance capabilities”. In February 2014, Assistant Secretary of Defence Jonathan Woodson emphasised once again that the US military had to expand its global health engagement strategy. (19) Clearly, AFRICOM planned to use “human security” crises as justifications to intervene in whatever natural disaster African nations will suffer next. The Ebola epidemic happened to be that opportunity.

By September 2014, both President Obama and Samantha Power spoke fluent “human security” parlance in speeches warning of the existential threat that Ebola posed to the world. Obama likened Ebola to ISIS terrorists and declared “ This is an epidemic that is not just a threat to regional security…it’s a potential threat to global security if these countries break down…” (20) At the UN Security Council Power echoed her boss and announced “…we have declared the current outbreak a threat to international peace and security”. (21) The rhetoric worked like a charm. Swept up by fear, confusion, and panic, 130 nations co-sponsored UN Resolution 2177 on Ebola Relief, guaranteeing the militarization of medical and humanitarian responses to the pandemic—much to the delight of AFRICOM. Power’s behind-the-scenes schmoozing at the UN, to get member states to back the bill, certainly was a “significant achievement”— it gave the West and the US military carte blanche to “intervene anywhere in the developing world”. (22) Power didn’t save the world from Ebola, but she definitely made it easier for the US to conquer it.

As Jacob Levich noted, “the Ebola crisis offered a useful cover for a substantial escalation in US military presence” in West Africa. The White House authorized the transfer of 3,000 troops to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal under AFRICOM command by September 2014. Another US military base was constructed in Monrovia during this deployment as well. (23) If the Bush administration spent years courting, flattering, and hosting dictators like Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea in return for oil, Obama jettisoned the pleasantries and let the military swoop right into West Africa. (24) Lest there be any lingering doubt about Washington’s true objectives in the region, consider this: war game simulations at the Pentagon imagined a terrorist attack in New York would be the perfect excuse to invade Mauritania. (25)

For West Africans on the ground, US military aid was no different to an occupation. Cartoon sketches in Monrovian newspapers joked that Liberians should prepare themselves for the day US soldiers come barging into homes with guns akimbo shouting “ KNOCK KNOCK !! HUMANITARIAN AID!! Alongside the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, France, and African Union states all sent troops to pacify the virus. China was the only nation to deploy mostly medical personnel. (26) Marouf Hasain Jr contends that the overwhelming militarization and securitization of social life in West Africa during the epidemic remains one of the most defining memories for survivors and witnesses today. (27) Medical anthropologist Adia Benton concedes that local armies and police were guilty of repressing certain segments of their own people, while foreign troops were generally well-behaved but indifferent to local populations. (28) As Mark Honigsbaum observed in his analysis of the WHO’s initial mismanagement of the Ebola pandemic, many Liberians, Guineans, and Sierra Leonians did not think highly of foreign medical or military staff, who often only treated Westerners airlifted to Europe or the US, while Africans were left to die in abysmal hospitals. (29)

This blatantly colonial conduct and rhetoric (Airforce Colonel Clint Hinote compared Ebola to ideological contamination and encouraged public health workers to employ counter-insurgency measures) is jarring, given that the CIA is largely responsible for ruining Liberia as a functioning democracy. (30) Three decades worth of CIA destabilization campaigns doomed Liberia’s healthcare system long before Ebola struck—an inconvenient truth everyone in mainstream media avoided like the plague.

Historian Jeremy Kuzmarov argues that, had the CIA never conspired to topple President William Tolbert in 1980, Liberia may have avoided the disastrous fate so many African nations now endure. Despite immense pressure from Jimmy Carter to relinquish Liberia’s sovereignty, Tolbert refused to allow another US base to deface his country. He liberalized Liberia’s political system, advocated for African economic independence, and introduced universal healthcare and free education. Much like Ghaddafi, Tolbert paid the ultimate price for his heresy. He was killed by US-backed rebels led by Samuel Doe, who allowed US embassy staff to dictate policy in every Liberian ministry. Doe embraced neoliberalism, worked closely with the IMF to privatize industries, and granted US military personnel unlimited access to local airports to funnel weapons to anti-communist “contras”.

The CIA tired of Doe as well and schemed to replace him with Charles Taylor, who plunged Liberia into a devastating civil war throughout the nineties. The US, hedging its bets, backed Taylor’s rebels who were “advised…on how to carry out the conflict in Liberia”, while President Bill Clinton helped fund the West-African peacekeeping force allied with Doe’s loyalists. Following years of atrocities, Taylor emerged victorious after winning elections in 1997. Clinton and, bizarrely, Jesse Jackson warmed up to Taylor until George Bush ruined the party. Taylor resigned as president of Liberia in 2003 after the ICC convicted him of war crimes, only to be succeeded by another US embassy favourite, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. (31) The Harvard-educated and Nobel Peace Prize-winning Sirleaf presided over a capital where none of its citizens could access running water for six years during her tenure as president. She surrendered the countryside to bands of rampaging warlords and paramilitaries, proved powerless to prevent Liberian death squads from collaborating with a French army that killed thousands in the Ivory Coast, and is the only leader on the continent to offer AFRICOM Liberian territory to build a base. (32)

With such a long record of unspeakable poverty, criminal leadership, and CIA wrongdoing, is it any wonder Liberia was ill-equipped to face Ebola? Western media hardly mentioned this history when lamenting woefully understaffed and ramshackle West African hospitals. Not a hint of sympathy for these public health systems can be found in the US press. Journalists from Medical Daily heaped praise on authoritarian corporate entities instead, like the Firestone Rubber company , whose innovative managers took it upon themselves to do the job governments and socialised healthcare proved incapable of doing. (33) We are told Firestone spared no expense to protect its approximately 80,000 strong workforce. Accomplishments included training medical personnel, using bribes and bullying to acquire resources, and the construction of makeshift quarantine shelters. Yet not a word about Firestone’s appalling human rights record and working conditions tantamount to “the modern equivalent of slavery”. (34)

None of this bothered the head honchos at AFRICOM. It didn’t matter that most Ebola Treatment Units (mainly large tents filled with cheap plastic mattresses) the US military erected in West Africa remained empty for the duration of the epidemic. It didn’t matter that even the Washington Post admitted Obama’s militarized aid intervention made little discernible impact on halting the spread of Ebola. The disease had already subsided before the ETUs were set-up. (35) What did matter was that the “human security” doctrine Obama trumpeted and Samantha Power legitimized at the UN had become reality. The White House kicked one nasty intervention habit, only to pick up a “healthier” one. AFRICOM solidified its stranglehold further via partnerships like APORA (African Partner Outbreak Response Alliance), which sees the US Armed Forces Health Surveillance Centre “help improve African militaries’ ability to effectively support civilian authorities to identify and respond to a disease outbreak”. (36) African nations like Rwanda are now cooperating with APORA in some capacity. (37) Mission accomplished.

Here is a summary of the numerous AFRICOM military installations and operations which proliferated throughout Africa since the Ebola epidemic:

• In 2014 the US built a gargantuan drone base in Agadez, Niger, to spy on or eliminate various Islamic groups, born out of the chaos of NATO’s disastrous regime change war in Libya, scattered across the Sahel region in Mauritania, Chad, and Sudan. (38)
• One of AFRICOM’s permanent bases at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti has exponentially grown in size as more drones and military hardware flood the Horn of Africa.
• Airports in Entebbe, Uganda, have been especially active since 2014, as the US military helps ship “equipment and soldiers to the Central African Republic in support of the African Union’s effort to confront destabilizing forces and violence”. (39) (referring to the ongoing civil war between Christians and Muslims in the CAR—a quagmire which Russia is now embroiled in)
• The US now frequently leads joint military exercises with the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea—to keep a sharp eye on the safe passage of Nigerian oil tankers to the US. The “official” justification for this military presence is, according to Ghanaian socialist groups, to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. (40)
• For over a decade, the US has trained the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo)’s army—a relationship which deepens with each passing year. A separatist Ugandan rebel group called the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) is keeping US military advisors, along with their Congolese and Ugandan counterparts, extremely busy in the oil-rich Lake Albert region. (41)
• AFRICOM even acts as the European Union’s informal customs officer. Since EU nations have quietly moved their borders from the Mediterranean sea all the way down to the southern reaches of the Sahara Desert, US and French bases in Mauritania and Chad keep watch on masses of refugees desperately trying to escape uninhabitable weather conditions and incessant warfare. (42)
• In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was caught granting waivers for military aid to the South Sudanese military, despite its employ of child soldiers. (43)
• In 2018, geographer Adam Moore noted Air Forces Africa intended to construct 30 permanent or temporary bases in four African nations. Vice News alleged the US military set-up six new facilities in Somalia alone, while smaller “contingency” bases were present in Cameroon and Mali. A contingency outpost in Gabon was soon converted into a forward command centre. (44)
• In 2018, the US roped Ghana into its sphere of influence by persuading Plagiariser-in-chief Nana Akufo-Addo to sign a 20 million dollar “Status of Forces” agreement, which allows US military personnel to carry arms, grants them immunity if accused of crimes, and heavily implies a base will eventually be built on Ghanaian soil. The President lied to protesters opposing this capitulation, promising US bases would stay away from Ghana.
• In 2021, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari pleaded with the US to relocate AFRICOM from Stuttgart, Germany, to somewhere in Africa so as to coordinate attacks against Islamic militants. Once upon a time, Nigeria was one of AFRICOM’s most vociferous critics.
• Finally, AFRICOM is sending attachés and consultants to the African Union’s meetings, arousing fears that the AU’s security and response framework is being slowly co-opted to benefit American corporate and military interests at the expense of member states. (45)

Samantha Power served her purpose, intentionally or not, as an agent of US empire. One might file her actions under the heading ‘benevolent imperialism’. The US’ militarized response to the Ebola epidemic precipitated AFRICOM’s far from benign incursions into West Africa—and Power was there to see it through.

END NOTES

(1) Horace G. Campbell, “Obama in Africa”, (26/6/2013),

(2) Abel Esterhuyse, “The Iraqization of Africa? Looking at AFRICOM from a South African Perspective”, Strategic Studies Quarterly, (2008), pp. 111-115.

(3) Julia Lovell, Maoism: A Global History (London,2019), pp. 185-223.

(4) A. Carl LeVan, “The Political Economy of African responses to the US Africa Command”, Africa Today (2010), p. 2.

(5) Jeremy Kuzmarov, “How the CIA Helped Ruin Liberia”, (30/7/2021).

(6) Dan Glazebrook, “NATO’s War on Libya is an Attack on African Development”, (6/9/2011).

(7) Nick Turse, “Obama’s Scramble for Africa”, (12/7/2012),

(8) Ibid.

(9) Bate Felix and Pascal Fletcher, “Ghost of Rwanda” haunts as US envoy visits Central African Republic”, (19/12/2013).

(10) Andrew Katz, “UN Authorizes Peacekeeping Mission to Central African Republic”, (9/4/2014).

(11) Charles J. Brown, “The Obama Administration and the struggle to prevent atrocities in the Central Republic December 2012-September 2014”, (November 2016), p. 7.

(12) Nick Turse, “Obama’s Scramble for Africa”, (12/7/2012).

(13) Sudarsan Raghavan, “In Africa, US troops moving slowly against Joseph Kony and his militia”, (16/4/2012).

(14) Brown, “The Obama Administration…”, p. 8.

(15) Henry Kam Kah, “History, External Influence, and Political Volatility in Central African Republic (CAR)”, (2014), pp. 18-20.

(16) Jacob Levich, “The Gates Foundation, Ebola, and Global Health Imperialism”, The American Journal of Economics and Sociology (September 2015), p. 726.

(17) Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, “Human Security twenty years on”, (June 2014).

(18) Esterhuyse, “The Iraqization of Africa?…”, pp. 115-116.

(19) Thomas Cullison, Charles Beadling, Elizabeth Erickson, “Global Health Engagement: A Military Medicine Core Competency”, (1/1/2016).

(20) Cheryl Pellerin, “Obama: UN will Mobilize Countries to fight Ebola Outbreak”, (25/9/2014).

(21) Samantha Power, “Remarks by Ambassador Samantha Power at an Emergency Security Council Meeting on Ebola”, (18/9/2014).

(22)  Levich, Ibid, pp. 726-727.

(23) Ibid, pp. 724-725.  

(24) Vijay Prashad, “A New Cold War Over Oil”, (11/8/2007).

(25) Nick Turse, “The US will Invade West Africa in 2023 After an attack in New York—According to Pentagon War Game”, (22/10/2017).

(26) Adia Benton, “Whose Security?: Militarisation and Securitisation During West Africa’s Ebola Outbreak”, in The Politics of Fear: Médecins sans Frontières and the West African Ebola Epidemic, edited by Michiel Hofman and Sokhieng, (2017), pp. 28-30.

(27) Marouf Hasain Jr, Decolonizing Ebola Rhetorics Following the 2013-2016 West African Ebola Outbreak (2019).

(28) Benton, Ibid, pp. 26-27.

(29) Mark Honigsbaum, “Between Securitisation and Neglect: Managing Ebola at the Borders of Global Health”, Medical History Journal, (2017), p. 286.

(30) Levich, “The Gates Foundation…”, pp. 722-723.

(31) Kuzmarov, “How the CIA Helped Ruin Liberia”.

(32) Thomas Mountain, “Nobel for President, No Water for Citizens”, (12/10/2011).

(33) Levich, “The Gates Foundation..”, p. 723. See Susan Scutti, “Firestone keeping Ebola Away From Employers In Liberia through Low-tech Intervention program”, (13/10/2014).

(34) Levich, “The Gates Foundation…”, pp. 722-723.

(35) Ibid, p. 725.

(36) Thomas Cullison et al.

(37) MOD Updates, “RDF Hosts Seventh African Partner Outbreak Response Alliance (APORA 2019)”, (20/5/2019).

(38) Socialist Movement of Ghana’s Research Group, “Defending Our Sovereignty: US military Bases in Africa and the Future of the African Union”, (8/7/2021).

(39) Captain Christine Guthrie, “Uganda troops support US airlift missions”, (22/1/2014).

(40) Socialist Movement of Ghana, Ibid.

(41) Ibid.

(42) Ibid.

(43) Nick Turse, “Hillary Clinton’s State Department Gave South Sudan’s Military a Pass for its Child Soldiers”, (9/6/2016).

(44) Nick Turse, “US military says it has a “light footprint in Africa. These documents show a vast network of bases”, (1/12/2018).

(45) Socialist Movement of Ghana, Ibid.

The post Samantha Power, Ebola, and Obama’s Scramble for Africa first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jean-Philippe Stone.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/01/08/samantha-power-ebola-and-obamas-scramble-for-africa/feed/ 0 450270 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/12/08/royal-shakeup-king-charles-takes-drastic-measures-prince-harry-cut-off-completely/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/12/08/royal-shakeup-king-charles-takes-drastic-measures-prince-harry-cut-off-completely/#respond Fri, 08 Dec 2023 06:48:23 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=307245 This is certainly a new twist to the UK royal story. The heading above was reinforced by the accompanying graphic showing the King and Princes Harry and Andrew with somewhat pixellated black text “FINAL THE END FOR HARRY!” on a glaring yellow background. I read on, intrigued, only to be progressively perplexed and disappointed, as More

The post Royal Shakeup: King Charles Takes Drastic Measures, Prince Harry Cut Off Completely appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

]]> This is certainly a new twist to the UK royal story. The heading above was reinforced by the accompanying graphic showing the King and Princes Harry and Andrew with somewhat pixellated black text “FINAL THE END FOR HARRY!” on a glaring yellow background.

The Execution of Prince Harry, 2023, after The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche, 1833.

I read on, intrigued, only to be progressively perplexed and disappointed, as the “astonishing turn of events” of “the controversial decision” for “ultimate blow to Prince Harry” (simultaneously involving “the unexpected bestowment of a significant privilege upon Prince Andrew” turned out to not hard news but merely “reported by daily [sic] Express from “sources within Buckingham Palace”.

We do not even find out what this “ultimate blow” is, as “details of the privileges revoked are yet to be fully disclosed,” but “insiders suggest they include ceremonial roles”, which as far as I can recall were revoked months ago, though it is now an “unprecedented move”. Simultaneously “reports indicate that King Charles has bestowed upon Prince Andrew a privilege previously held by Prince Harry,” though what this is remains another mystery. Any guesses? Marriage to Meghan Markle perhaps?

All of this gobbledygook is credited to feednews.com, which supplies frequent stories to the Opera browser news feed. The text is full of nothingnesses, such as “public reactions to the news have been mixed with some expressing support for King Charles’s decisive action, while others criticize the move”. That is what journalists write when they don’t know what they’re talking about, which in this case is axiomatic, as the “decisive action” has already been reported in the same story as “undisclosed”, which makes a nonsense of the statement there has been any reaction at all.

The level of argument might be expected from an average thirteen-year-old’s current affairs essay (I might be doing teenagers a disservice) and it makes The Sun newspaper look like a PhD thesis. It reads like the smooth non-sequiturs happily trotted out at length by AI (which in case you’ve missed it is Artificial Intelligence, a computer program purportedly reproducing human thought patterns, and actually succeeding in doing so for a drunk human).

Another stunning click-bait headline from feednews.com tells us “Buckingham Palace Shaken as Prime Minister Delivers Brutal Rebuke to King Charles”, an “unprecedented moment”, that “has sent shockwaves through the political landscape.” “Reports by Express” are in action again, though which Express is not specific. It is content that even the Slough Express (“Mum unhappy after discovery of large bone in fish”) would be ashamed of.

The anonymized Express details an “undisclosed Prime Minister” making the “sharp and biting comment”. There have so far been 19 prime ministers during the reign of King Charles III, mostly from Commonwealth countries such as Canada and the Solomon Islands, but as the article specifies “the highest echelons of power in the United Kingdom”, that narrows it down to Liz Truss, who had 45 days in office to deliver a “brutal slap down” and Rishi Sunak.

Presumably, the details of the altercation will clarify who is the protagonist, but both the royal household and the Prime Minister’s office have cited “the confidentiality of discussions”, disclosing nothing about this “verbal altercation” which had nevertheless “triggered fervent discussions and speculation among political analysts and royal observations”. It is a fervor that has so far eluded my attempts to find it elsewhere in the media.

The best I have been able to come up with is a YouTube clip from the Netflix series The Crown, where a prime minister is indeed shown berating a monarch by declaring it is the elected official who runs the country not the hereditary monarch, but the politician in question is Margaret Thatcher and the monarch is Queen Elizabeth II.

You will by now not be surprised to learn that the feednews.com story titled “What Charles and Kate Really Said About Archie’s Skin Color” does not tell us what they really said about Archie’s skin color, and that the story “Prince Harry’s chilling one-word thought when he saw Kate and William get married” fails to inform us what the word is.

“‘Cruel and Unfair’: Harry Loses His Title as King Charles Shows No Mercy” goes on to tell us about a new proposal by an MP Bo Seely to strip Harry’s title in a parliamentary process (Titles Deprivation 1917 Act Amendment Bill) that will probably get nowhere and does not involve King Charles anyway, merciless or otherwise.

I can’t refrain from pointing out the irony of critics supposedly arguing that the mooted legislation drawing “historical inspiration from laws enacted during the First World War” is “anachronistic” when the monarchy is 1200 years old.

Newsfeed.com tells it like it isn’t.

While feednews.com leads us into fantasy land with its own version of reality, the rest of the media is in blatant contradiction with, for example, the Daily Mail headline stating “King Charles will never strip Harry and Meghan of their royal titles despite calls to do so as he would not want to ‘humiliate’ the Sussexes, sources say”.

Surely Opera can come up with a better basis for their news stories. How about giving the Slough Express a go?

Notes.

Collage images cropped from Wikimedia. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex: CCA2.0 Generic, Northern Ireland Office. Queen Camilla: CCA4.0 International, Mark Tantrum, New Zealand government. King Charles III, PD, US federal government.

The post Royal Shakeup: King Charles Takes Drastic Measures, Prince Harry Cut Off Completely appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Charles Thomson.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/12/08/royal-shakeup-king-charles-takes-drastic-measures-prince-harry-cut-off-completely/feed/ 0 444703 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/12/05/maori-politician-performs-haka-in-parliament-before-swearing-oath-to-king-charles-shorts-nz-haka/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/12/05/maori-politician-performs-haka-in-parliament-before-swearing-oath-to-king-charles-shorts-nz-haka/#respond Tue, 05 Dec 2023 20:00:07 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=83fb7eedde1538c0a77e5e6f1bbea2f8
This content originally appeared on VICE News and was authored by VICE News.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/12/05/maori-politician-performs-haka-in-parliament-before-swearing-oath-to-king-charles-shorts-nz-haka/feed/ 0 443843 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/12/01/king-charles-iii-cop28-dubai-uae-1-december-2023-just-stop-oil-cop28/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/12/01/king-charles-iii-cop28-dubai-uae-1-december-2023-just-stop-oil-cop28/#respond Fri, 01 Dec 2023 18:12:52 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=cbf935f397187d223497302c8202b498
This content originally appeared on Just Stop Oil and was authored by Just Stop Oil.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/12/01/king-charles-iii-cop28-dubai-uae-1-december-2023-just-stop-oil-cop28/feed/ 0 443596 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/11/29/holding-cop28-in-dubai-is-a-joke-letting-charles-open-it-is-a-bigger-one/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/11/29/holding-cop28-in-dubai-is-a-joke-letting-charles-open-it-is-a-bigger-one/#respond Wed, 29 Nov 2023 11:20:43 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/cop28-king-charles-iii-landowner-crown-un-climate-conference-dubai/
This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Felipe Viveros.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/11/29/holding-cop28-in-dubai-is-a-joke-letting-charles-open-it-is-a-bigger-one/feed/ 0 443451 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/10/02/washington-post-columnist-charles-lane-wants-autoworkers-to-lose-their-jobs/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/10/02/washington-post-columnist-charles-lane-wants-autoworkers-to-lose-their-jobs/#respond Mon, 02 Oct 2023 05:58:33 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=295965 The Washington Post, like other elite news outlets, is always happy to beat up any real or perceived market intervention that benefits ordinary workers, however, it insists it cannot see the more costly interventions that benefit many corporations and highly-educated workers. Specifically, it virtually never raises any questions, either in news articles or opinion pieces, about the costs imposed by government-granted patent monopolies and related protections. More

The post Washington Post Columnist Charles Lane Wants Autoworkers to Lose Their Jobs appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/10/02/washington-post-columnist-charles-lane-wants-autoworkers-to-lose-their-jobs/feed/ 0 431238 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/09/27/self-identity-and-conscientious-non-compliance/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/09/27/self-identity-and-conscientious-non-compliance/#respond Wed, 27 Sep 2023 23:26:08 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=144336 What of our highly active, frenetic daily lives in the early 21st century? Substantial effort is expended in developing marketable skills, in order to earn money and survive. Yet, within the oppressive constraints imposed on us every day, each person may nonetheless nurture an inner, contemplative space, perhaps ultimately unshareable but all-the-more uniquely individual for that. In fact, as mega-corporate structures have tightened their control of people’s daily habits and inclinations (“algorithms,” “nudges,” surveillance, etc.), it becomes all the more imperative that each individual steadfastly cultivate an integrated self-identity, in which autonomous choice and value-judgments are uncompromisingly inner-directed.

De-socialization–the replacement of externally-imposed behaviors with radical non-compliance and carefully chosen goals of enlightenment and social-political activism–is facilitated by frequent moments of self-observation. Notwithstanding our ongoing historical struggle for an egalitarian-communitarian social order, each of us will remain substantially alone. Indeed, this feeling of inner privacy–and thus, a modicum of alienation from others–is the price of self-directed autonomy and critical-thinking perceptions of others. And with it, the enlightened self-realization which constitutes the most intimate form of liberation.

“Impression-Management” and the “False Self”

Introduced by Thespis in the 6th-century BCE , “play-acting” quickly attained widespread popularity among Athenians who, like most people, were looking for diverting forms of entertainment to fill the evening hours. On one such evening the aged patriarch Solon, celebrated lawmaker and civic founder, was persuaded to attend a performance. At the end, boiling with indignation, he severely rebuked Thespis–who blithely responded that such “play” was harmless, merely a novel pastime. “No!” Solon retorted angrily (here paraphrasing Plutarch’s account), “It is dangerous. Such a tolerance for pretense and deception will end up infecting all our commerce and civic life.”

But Thespis merely shrugged–and, some 2500 years later, we now find ourselves enmeshed in a media-sphere of garrulous, deceitful “actors,” all clamoring for our attention as they exhibit their base arts of “persuasion.” Aristotle, in his book on Rhetoric, had warned presciently that the “base” variety of rhetoric seeks to undermine our self-directed judgment in order to manipulate and control our decisions.

Quite obviously, the job skills of the professional actor require playing different roles, displaying (false) emotions, or perhaps “sincerely” persuading us to buy sundry products. With their omnipresence in all performing media, actors have by now become absurdly over-valued as role-models in everyday life. But writing way back in the 1940s, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm was already perplexed by the rise of a new American character-type: the “marketing personality.” Persons were carefully honing a “winning” persona, comprised of looks, smiles, jokes, and convincing “self-presentation” as critical selling-points in their upward road to Success.

Social psychologists George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley had already established their claims that the self is merely the passive composite of the mirroring reactions and responses of others. And, to sociologist Erving Goffman, effective social interaction was thereby inherently “dramaturgic”: those engaged in skillful “impression-management” would get ahead (no matter how incompetent), and thereby successfully persuade others (“leadership”). Indeed, Hitler once boastingly called himself “the greatest actor in Europe,” and forty years ago journalist Lou Cannon wrote his aptly titled book President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime.

To be liked and admired: very human longings, but not the end-goal for authentic self-realization. Indeed, psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott warned that societal demands for presenting a “false self” exacted a heavy price on the individual’s sense of true identity and self-esteem. “Only connect!” exhorted the depressed novelist Virginia Woolf, who met a tragic end a century ago. But now, the more urgent question is: “Why connect?” As scholar Mary Aiken has documented in The Cyber Effect (2016), the evidence is overwhelming that adolescents and young people, trying to elicit favorable approval and attention–as in generating “likes” and “followers”–are thereby becoming more vulnerable to negative assessments of self-worth and identity-confusion.

Alienation as Autonomous Non-Compliance

From Socrates to Sartre, alienation refers to the independent, rational thinker’s questioning of the prevailing norms and practices of his socio-political context. For the vast majority, who crave a regressive belonging, the non-conformist free-thinker and critical rationalist are unwelcome. But such alienation, philosopher Walter Kaufmann argued, is not the enemy of self-realization but its positive prerequisite:

It is those who are easily satisfied that we should worry about, and it is grounds for melancholy that most people cease so soon to find the world strange and questionable…. [A]s perception increases, any sensitive person will feel a deep sense of estrangement. Seeing how society is riddled with dishonesty, stupidity, and brutality, he will feel estranged from society, and seeing how most of one’s fellow men are not deeply troubled by all this, he will feel estranged from them.
(Without Guilt and Justice, Wyden Books, 1973; p. 146-147).

The critical rationalist and free-thinker, skeptical of a corrupt status quo (“business as usual”), invokes her autonomous right to independent judgment–based on evaluation of the respective evidence and objective substantiation involved. She optimally values her autonomy, which she equates with intellectual integrity. Moreover, she is skeptical of communitarian ideologies of total group-identification. She thus revises, in individualist-libertarian terms, Jesus’s exhortation thus: “Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.”

In the present-day, one thinks with admiration of courageous whistleblowers who, alienated from corrupt, organizational cultures, confront and expose the criminality and deception of those in power. And their truth-revealing information, quite beneficial to a propagandized citizenry, is of course usually received with considerable ambivalence by a public who, at least at first, may “prefer not to know.” I’m always reminded of Ibsen’s Dr. Stockmann, tragic hero of The Enemy of the People. Although he originated and executed the plan for a health spa to bolster the economy of his beloved hometown, when he finds that the waters are in actuality contaminated and unhealthy from tannery wastes upstream, the townsfolk violently turn against him, repress his findings, and virtually drive him and his family out of town. Yet he remains defiant and steadfast, supported by those very few who always place the highest value on moral and intellectual integrity.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by William Manson.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/09/27/self-identity-and-conscientious-non-compliance/feed/ 0 430291 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/09/26/demise-of-csu-news-journalism-course-was-greatly-exaggerated/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/09/26/demise-of-csu-news-journalism-course-was-greatly-exaggerated/#respond Tue, 26 Sep 2023 18:16:52 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=93653 By Bruce Andrews

A Charles Sturt University journalism academic says the evolving communication course at his institution in Australia continues to feed the ranks of the irrepressible “Mitchell Mafia’”.

Jock Cheetham, senior lecturer in news and media in the Charles Sturt School of Information and Communication Studies in Bathurst, said recent “news” of the demise of the journalism course was greatly exaggerated.

Cheetham said he was surprised to wake up and read a media report in late July suggesting journalism was not being taught separately at Charles Sturt University.

• READ MORE: Journalism degree cohort at Charles Sturt University to cap end of 50-year-old ‘distinctive training’ programme
• CSU student reports at The Junction
• Other journalism ‘closure’ reports

“That day I spent six hours teaching news and media, also known as ‘journalism’,” he said.

“Actually, on that Tuesday we had ABC veteran Trevor Watson visit us on campus to give a guest talk on journalism, specifically news writing, which was also streamed to online students.

“Before that talk, I spent two hours with a class analysing media coverage of The Voice to Parliament Referendum campaigns. After Trevor’s talk, I held a news writing tutorial doing practice exercises on the hard news style of reporting.”

‘Pretty journalistic day’
He said it was a “pretty journalistic” day.

“We’re still teaching journalism, with practical opportunities to work in newsrooms, such as National Radio News,” he said.

Cheetham emphasised that quality journalism had never been more important, and Charles Sturt had an enviable reputation for producing some of the world’s best, most-renowned journalists.

As the original ABC article noted, over the past five decades, the university has nurtured some of the nation’s most high-profile communicators, including Andrew Denton, Melissa Doyle, Samantha Armytage, Hamish Macdonald, Chris Bath, and current ABC News Europe correspondent Nick Dole.

“Charles Sturt University will continue to educate and train journalists for the evolving media landscape,” Cheetham said.

“At the University campus in Bathurst we continue to have cutting-edge facilities, such as a TV studio, a community broadcasting radio station, and editing suites, for our students to gain skills and insights into working in their chosen fields.

“We’re also investing substantial funds in the communications hub that will provide new facilities for our future students.”

For example, graduates from 2021 include 7News (Central West) journalist Reuben Spargo who won the 2021 JERAA Ossie Award for ‘national student journalist of the year’.

“Charles Sturt threw practical skills at me and helped grow my confidence as a communicator,” Spargo said.

“The connections I made and the experiences I shared allowed me to hit the ground running within the industry.”

Keeping pace
Cheetham said to keep pace with the ever-changing media industry and digital advancements, Charles Sturt had launched a new communication course with its first intake last year, 2022.

“The new Bachelor of Communication offers specialisations in strategic communication, news and media — journalism, which I teach — and design and content creation,” he said.

“Teaching the critical role of journalism is still very much a priority at Charles Sturt. The changes represent a transition from one version of the journalism degree, which we have offered for more than 50 years, into a new degree program.

“The philosophy behind the new course remains the same — we’re aiming to produce people who are good storytellers. We have retained a lot of the strongest elements of the old course bringing them into the new course.”

Having industry and alumni co-design the course with academic staff offers students a unique combination of academic, discipline-specific specialisations with a sound understanding of the industry through the networking and industry connections embedded within the course.

The format of the new degree combines first-hand industry knowledge and advice, and to have industry professionals sharing knowledge, expertise and daily experiences will be a real game changer for the students.

Republished from CSU News with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/09/26/demise-of-csu-news-journalism-course-was-greatly-exaggerated/feed/ 0 429957 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/08/11/gussying-up-colonialism/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/08/11/gussying-up-colonialism/#respond Fri, 11 Aug 2023 16:02:30 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=141857 Colonialism has as its aim gaining ownership/control of the land and its resources regardless of whether or not the land was already populated by an Indigenous people. Morality aside, colonialism has been very successful in the context of Turtle Island. This is also true in northwestern Turtle Island, where the colonies designated “Vancouver Island” and “British Columbia” (merged in 1866 to become a province of Canada) were created through the dispossession of First Nations.

Dispossession of a people is a thoroughly nasty business, and it blatantly violates one of the biblical ten commandments, one that is encoded in law around the world, namely, “Thou shalt not steal.” Those who have gained property and wealth, and their progeny who continue to profit from the dispossession of Others, would like to paint a prettier picture of colonialism.

Sam Sullivan, a former mayor of Vancouver and former cabinet minister in the BC legislature, is the easy-to-listen-to narrator of Kumtuks, a series of historical videos which are usually interesting and informative. However, Kumtuks often presents a gussied-up narrative around the history of colonialism. Usually omitted from the discussion is that the land that settler-colonialists came into possession of was stolen from Original Peoples who had their own laws, beliefs, economies, and culture.

The Kumtuks video “1862 Smallpox Epidemic: British Columbia’s First Major Contagious Outbreak” claims to be based in the oral history of the Haida. The source given is the book Raven’s Cry (1966, 1992) by American author Christie Harris. Both versions of the book are interesting and informative for the historical perspective they shine on the Haida and the interactions they had with the Iron Men (as the Haida called the White men). The versions differ little, but the 1992 version is preferable because of the respect shown for the names and designations used by the Haida. Bill Reid, whose mother was Haida, is a renowned artist who illustrated Raven’s Cry and was a mentor to Harris. Harris also spent time with the family of Haida artist Charles Edenshaw. Harris, Reid, and Edenshaw are all deceased. So I will refer to Harris’s book to ascertain the verisimilitude of what Sullivan says in his narration.

What does Raven’s Cry indicate about Haida feelings toward the presence and behavior of the Iron Men?

Haida hostility, as well as the stormy moat around the Haida islands, discouraged American miners. Nevertheless, James Douglas, Chief Factor for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s western district and Governor of the little colony of Vancouver Island, advised Her Majesty Queen Victoria that it would be well to maintain a gunboat on the northwest coast to protect British rights. (p 102) [Italics added.]

Harris indicates the priority of Douglas. Douglas is not said to be protecting Haida rights. This was about colonialism: protecting rights claimed by the British, rights that presumably included sailing a gunboat in Haida waters.

The Haida did not acknowledge British rights. When the Company sent its schooner Recovery in with a group of Company miners in 1852, it was thwarted. The Haida simply waited for the white men to blast. Then they rushed in and grabbed the treasure. It was their gold. Let anyone else try to take it! (p 102)

Clearly, Douglas’s  priority was objectionable to the Haida.

The “native chiefs” objected to colonialism:

“What we don’t like about the [White man’s] government is their saying this, ‘We will give you this much land,’ ” they protested. “How can they give it when it is our own? We cannot understand it. They have never bought it from us or our forefathers. They have never fought and conquered our people and taken the land that way, and yet they say now they will give us so much land — our own land!” (p 134)

Sdast’a·aas Saang gaahl Eagle chief chief 7indansuu felt likewise:

“By what right do the King George men claim this land?” 7indansuu demanded of Governor Douglas. “There are no treaties with the tribes. There was no conquest by warriors.” (p 115)

The Raven and the First Men by Bill Reid

What comes across strongly in Raven’s Cry is what Raven’s cry was about. A Haida legend tells that humans were coaxed from a clamshell into the world by Raven; these people were the first Haida. With the arrival of the greedy colonialists, Raven saw his Haida robbed of their land and lifeways.

In a lighter vein, Harris wrote,

Unfortunately, Governor Douglas retired that year, though not before making a strong case for generous treatment of Indians, or before setting aside many reservations. The Queen had honored him with a knighthood. (p 132)

Harris generally comes across as respectful and sympathetic to the Haida, but she still seems mired in a colonialist mindset. Why is taking the land of a people and setting aside some reservations for them considered “generous”? If a thief steals my library and returns a few of the books, is the thief generous?

*****Author Tom Swanky has a background having studied journalism, political science, and holding a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree. Therefore, he has the bona fides to listen to the Original Peoples and research what the evidence is for the oral histories. In his latest book, The Smallpox War against the Haida (review), he relates how the Haida were wary of smallpox.

Because the narrative in “1862 Smallpox Epidemic: British Columbia’s First Major Contagious Outbreak” is starkly at odds with the narrative in The Smallpox War against the Haida, I turned to Swanky to discuss the different narratives. I also reached out to Sam Sullivan through the Global Civic Policy Society which produces the Kumtuks videos, but have yet to hear back.

*****Kim Petersen: Sullivan narrates, “Dr John Helmcken vaccinated 500…. Douglas had Helmcken send vaccine around the province.” Yet, from a reading of your book, there is so much more to say about Helmcken and how “vaccination” was carried out.

Tom Swanky: The Police Commissioner advised a journalist that Helmcken personally had administered a procedure to 500 natives on April 26, 1862, in a context where multiple observers reported that the disease – as of that date – remained confined to just one of the People represented at Victoria and these observers believed the disease still could be contained among that one People.

However, within a few days after the disclosure of Helmcken’s program, witnesses then began reporting that some noticeable number of the natives who he supposedly had “vaccinated” were seen to have the disease. Also, within ten days of Helmcken’s vaccination program being disclosed, that is, within the time usually required for an infection to become visible, the disease suddenly exploded so that it was now no longer visible among only one People, it was everywhere. This evidence is consistent with Helmcken’s program having been all or in part, not “vaccinations” but inoculation with actual smallpox. And thereby creating the opportunity for the disease to become rooted among new Peoples and spread widely as a result of inoculation epidemics. It was because of the risk of inoculation creating epidemics that Parliament had outlawed inoculation in 1840. To administer inoculations in 1862 was a violation of British law, and so any use of the procedure would have to be concealed.

There is substantial other evidence of inoculation being used to spread the disease in the North Pacific during 1862. The Oweekeno said in 1862 that the medicine the colonists sold them started the disease. Numerous other cases can be documented where doctors administered what was advertised as a “vaccination” program, but after which the disease exploded among the targeted population. In fact, there is little to no evidence that “Douglas had Helmcken send vaccines” around the colonies. At Kamloops, the HBC post manger reported administering a procedure to the surrounding natives all summer – however, by late fall, independent observers were reporting that the indigenous residents in the Kamloops area had been virtually exterminated.

Once can draw two lessons from Helmcken’s advertised “500 vaccinations.” The first lesson is that each stage of the disease undergoing an advance – beginning with its original importation in 1862 – was accompanied by some sort of public relations campaign that subsequent events would show was misdirection by those advancing the disease. The second lesson is that historians who come to this material unaware of their own colonial predispositions, or of the phenomenon of confirmation bias, seize on the first thing they read without doing the painstaking work of then seeing how events actually unfolded.

KP: The Kumtuks video mentions numerous conflicts among the Northern First Nations and the Southern First Nations, but he omits mention of any conflicts between First Nations and settler-colonialists. Instead the colonial administration of Vancouver Island is portrayed as a peacemaker in having the Northerners towed up island past Nanaimo. In Raven’s Cry, Harris wrote:

More than ever before, futile rage against the overpowering white man turned on fellow Indians. Understandably, it turned most fiercely on the Haida, the lords of the coast. Centuries of resentment burst out, especially among the northern neighbors.

The native people raged with resentment at these white men; but the rage turned on their ancient rivals. On June 12th, a thousand Haida reinforcements arrived at Victoria. (p 117-118)

The Kumtuks video seems not in concordance with Raven’s Cry or what you have written of the oral history presented to you by knowledge keepers of The People?

TS: If a researcher is unaware of the issues concerning the means through which the Crown asserted control among many of the indigenous Peoples – which diverse knowledge keepers allege was through a smallpox assisted genocide – then the researcher is unlikely to be attuned to the challenges presented by the sources.

On the one hand, among the colonial sources are the multiple efforts at misdirection – which were an integral part of the smallpox program executed by the colonial authorities – and, after 1862, there followed the usual post-genocide or post-criminal activity of denying the shameful or wrongful thing done.

On the other hand, among the indigenous sources there is the necessity of coping with having been purposefully targeted for destruction by the colonial authorities and the incoming colonial community. For the indigenous Peoples, the post-1862 task became walking a fine line so as not to offend a community that has shown a propensity to destroy you and yet wanting to work on the political task of undoing the loss of control brought about by what is understood to have been a smallpox genocide. So, for example, one will see praise offered for Douglas – politely overlooking his smallpox policies to focus on the time before April/June of 1860 when he had set a precedent of colonial respect for indigenous customs in inter-community relations and before he had begun the process of displacing indigenous authority. In addition, in things published primarily for the benefit of a colonial audience, one will see a desire not to be offensive but to cater to the colonial mythology concerning indigenous relations.

Very early in my work, I was advised by more than one elder that if I truly wanted to learn about the teaching in indigenous communities, I would learn by listening to what elders and knowledge keepers told each other or their communities and not by asking questions for someone to tell me something – for members of the colonial community often are told what they want to hear or a version satisfying some political need.

KP: The video depicts Douglas lamenting that some Indigenous peoples did not accept the preventative measures against smallpox. However, in your book, you noted how Douglas had tried to scare Haida by warning of a fake outbreak of measles. (Swanky, p 84-86) Harris in Raven’s Cry wrote:

Alarmed at the thought of what might happen next, Governor Douglas tried to banish all the natives with a measles scare, which had often worked before. But the native people weren’t frightened by it now. (p 118)

TS: This is all just fiction by someone who is not very familiar with the actual record. Nowhere does Douglas do any such lamenting. In fact, Bishop George Hills reported that the indigenous Peoples where the smallpox first broke out at Victoria were ready to do anything asked of them. Nowhere were natives reported to resist vaccinations – at least until the problems associated with inoculation began to emerge – but there are several accounts of natives going out of their way to become vaccinated.

Douglas used the false threat of an imminent outbreak of measles in June of 1860, in conjunction with his first attempt to assert control over the autonomous indigenous Peoples operating around Victoria. Dr. Helmcken proposed this plan and the hope was that all the autonomous communities would flee and then, when they returned, they would be assigned to spaces and come under the Police Commissioner’s control. Helmcken made this proposal in the Assembly and it was reported in the newspapers. Since Capt. John, the Haida leader who led the resistance to Douglas’s policies – and some other natives – were fluent in English, they would have learned from the newspapers that the threat was part of a dishonest plan to assert control over them. There was every reason not to be frightened and to be resentful of this dishonest trick.

KP: Douglas is portrayed as a defender of First Nations. The video gives Douglas a pass for having been away on the mainland when police towed Northerners into the ocean to return home. But the Kumtuks video states that the oral history of elders tells of Douglas trying to save lives by having the Haida towed home.

TS: This is not true. In another case of what turned out to be misdirection, the Police Commissioner advised the newspapers that he and a colonial gunboat would accompany north the Haida expelled on June 11 so that they would have safe passage past their enemies in Georgia Strait. British law in 1862 was that those with the custody of smallpox carriers had a legal duty to keep a safe distance between the infected people and any nearby healthy people. On this trip north, the Cowichan fired on this convoy to keep it from leaving infected people among them, the convoy did leave infected Haida at Nanaimo, and, rather than safe passage, the Police Commission delivered the Haida to the doorstep of some enemies at Cape Mudge who could be expected to kill them. This plan failed only because the enemies of the Haida at Cape Mudge already had attacked a previous Haida convoy, became infected and were dying.

The actual oral tradition is of Douglas executing a smallpox genocide “holding hands with the HBC.” This tradition is conveyed in “The Story of Bones Bay” and the next generation of knowledge keepers was instructed in the oral tradition during a formal ceremony and pole raising in 2008. The “Story” can be found in the March 2009 edition of Haida Laas, an official publication of the Council of the Haida Nation.

KP: This brings up many questions. Why did the video mention that the police removed the Haida when Douglas was away in the lower mainland? How could he attempt to save lives from the other side of the Salish Sea? Was it an eviction or a life-saving attempt? Also, I could find no mention of the oral history of Haida elders (in either the 1966 or 1992 edition of Raven’s Cry) that testifies that Douglas was trying to save Haida lives by having them removed. After all, this is illogical at best, or at worst genocidally racist, given that 1) the video relates a Victoria newspaper editorial that settler lives were at risk from the camps, in which case gathering all Haida together without discerning who was ill or not would put some Haida potentially at risk from each other, and 2) the question of why the Northerners should be removed all the way up the long water highway, especially since the video stated that it takes 12 days for signs of smallpox to manifest and become infectious. Why send them 800 km to Haida Gwaii and not to a nearby uninhabited island of which there are many around Vancouver Island?

TS: Most serious people recognize that Douglas’ 1862 smallpox policies in the ordinary course would have been considered as criminal offences under British law. That is, everyone recognizes that it was easily foreseeable that his policies would increase dramatically the native death toll. Douglas’ apologists are left to contend that his policies – and these additional deaths – were justified because the presence of smallpox among even one of the autonomous Peoples operating in the Victoria area constituted an emergency threatening the colonial population. On examination, this turns out to be another case of misdirection. The Police Commissioner planted the theory of an emergency in the newspapers at Victoria and Douglas planted the theory at New Westminster. Douglas already had used the concept of an emergency in 1860 to justify his first attempt to assert control over the autonomous Peoples operating in the Victoria area, rather than to deal through the existing native leadership as British policy usually required. The theory of an emergency would be advanced again in a bizarre way when colonists advanced the disease to the Nuxalk and Tsilhqot’in territories.

However, there was never any emergency that constituted an existential threat to the colonial community – vaccine was readily available from San Francisco or the Catholic missions in Oregon, and most of the colonial population already had been vaccinated before the theory of an emergency had been raised. The threat to the colonial community was economic. The fear in the colonial community was that prospective miners or settlers would stay away because ordinary human beings prefer not to witness suffering on a grand scale.

If the Douglas administration had wanted to decrease the death toll from smallpox in 1862, it would have carried out the three control measures that it advertised in the newspapers: vaccinations, a pest house for isolating carriers and sanctuaries to quarantine the disease among infected communities. Instead, the administration perverted each control so that it became another means by which the disease would spread.

KP: The character of James Douglas is wrapped up very much in the colonial history of Vancouver Island and British Columbia and the attempts to extinguish Indigenous title. There are plenty of quotations that attest to Douglas being a morally centered person, but they are several quotations that point to a racist streak. Few humans are white or black. In To Share, Not Surrender: Indigenous and Settler Visions of Treaty Making in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia (UBC Press, 2022), the contributors have varying viewpoints on Douglas. Keith Thor Carlson, Canadian research chair in Indigenous and Community-Engaged History at the University of Fraser Valley captures the lack of consensus in his piece, “‘The Last Potlatch’ and James Douglas’s Vision of an Alternative Settler Colonialism,” pointing out that Douglas is less racist than others. This is neither laudatory or condemnatory. Nonetheless, relying on quotations seems to contravene the admonition that actions speak louder than words. Overall, Douglas appears lauded by contemporary academia, cultural depictions, and wider society. With the emerging acceptance of First Nations oral history, will a purported genocidaire such as Douglas continue to elude an honest rendering of history?

TS: In his correspondence with the colonial office in London, Douglas freely refers to the Haida as barbarians and savages. He seems an average representative of the British colonial culture in the North Pacific, which culture imagines anglo-saxons as a superior race – to use Dr. Helmcken’s words. However, it is a distraction to use “race” as a point of departure when seeking to understand the transition of sovereign authority that accompanied colonialism in the North Pacific. The problem facing Douglas and the colonists was to dispossess the indigenous Peoples of their communal or “national” resources through the most cost-effective means. Douglas and others make frequent references to the “great number” of natives occupying strategic locations, pointing to the projection of overwhelming political power that is inherent in great numbers. The implicit motive for this genocide, then, is not reducing another race per se, but reducing the native voice and the capacity of native authority to defend the integrity of its sovereign control.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/08/11/gussying-up-colonialism/feed/ 0 418649 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/07/31/at-least-7-ugandan-journalists-assaulted-robbed-at-news-conferences/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/07/31/at-least-7-ugandan-journalists-assaulted-robbed-at-news-conferences/#respond Mon, 31 Jul 2023 21:23:52 +0000 https://cpj.org/?p=303586 Nairobi, July 31, 2023—Ugandan authorities should investigate and prosecute those responsible for assaulting, robbing, and harassing seven journalists at two separate news conferences, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.

On July 20, unidentified men punched and kicked at least six journalists at the headquarters of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) in the capital city of Kampala and stole several of their mobile phones, according to media reports and five of the journalists, who spoke to CPJ.

In a separate incident that day, John Xerxes Ogulei, a reporter with the privately owned Teso Broadcasting Services, told CPJ that a police officer insulted him and slapped his hand, knocking his phone and tripod to the ground and breaking them. The Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda, a local rights group, tweeted a photograph of his broken tripod.

Ogulei told CPJ he was among journalists waiting to cover a meeting held by Local Government Minister Raphael Magyezi in the eastern city of Soroti when the officer accused them of harming the government’s image through their coverage and assaulted him.

“It is unacceptable that violence has become an everyday hazard for journalists on the political beat in Uganda,” said CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. “The attacks on John Xerxes Ogulei and the journalists attending an FDC news conference in Kampala should be investigated impartially and those responsible held to account. The journalists should also be compensated for damaged and stolen equipment.”

Violence began at the headquarters of the FDC—Uganda’s biggest opposition party until the 2021 elections—after party chairperson Wasswa Birigwa invited journalists to a briefing but security guards barred them from entering the compound, according to media reports and the journalists who spoke to CPJ.

Birigwa said he was held hostage at the FDC headquarters amid a power struggle inside the party. Following an hours-long standoff, about 10 people believed to be Birigwa supporters arrived, demanding his release and banging on the gate. Another group of men exited the party headquarters and started beating and punching the journalists and the Birigwa supporters, according to news reports and the journalists who spoke to CPJ.

Charles Katabalwa, a reporter with the Catholic station Radio Sapientia, told CPJ that one assailant stole his phone while another kicked him in the back. Moses Waiswa, a reporter with the privately owned Busoga One FM radio station, told CPJ that one man slapped him, punched him in the face, and stole his phone. Joseph Balikuddembe of the privately owned station CBS FM told CPJ that he was punched in the head, sustained a cut lip, and his phone was stolen.

Arnold Lawrence Kinsambwe, a reporter with the Christian station BTM TV and Radio Sapientia, told CPJ that he fell into a ditch while dodging a punch, and a man snatched his phone as he was trying to climb out. Another kicked him in the back and as he was running away.

Nowamani Ainembabazi, an intern with the state-owned Urban TV, was punched in the mouth twice, according to its sister company New Vision and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. She told CPJ that the assailants snatched a mobile phone from her hands, and stole her bag which contained a second phone and money. She said that her lip was split, requiring stiches, and she has lost two teeth as a result of the attack. Ainembabazi told CPJ on July 31 that she needed further medical treatment for her injuries.

Multiple media reports said that George William Katoloba of the privately owned Namirembe FM was also attacked and had his phone stolen, but did not provide specific information about that incident. When contacted by CPJ, Katoloba declined to comment, citing safety concerns.

FDC President Patrick Amuriat referred CPJ to party communications official Norman Turyatemba for comment. In a phone interview on July 31, Turyatemba said the attack was “regrettable,” the party planned to compensate the journalists for their stolen devices, and was negotiating compensation for the journalists’ medical care

Birigwa told CPJ that he was “disgusted” by the incident and apologized to journalists for the attack. Both Birigwa and Turyatemba said that the party would carry out internal investigations and hold those responsible to account.

In a statement sent to CPJ via messaging app on July 31, Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson Patrick Onyango said that investigations into the incident were ongoing and that police were analyzing CCTV footage and tracking stolen phones, but no arrests had been made.

National police spokesperson Fred Enanga did not respond to a request for comment sent via text message, including about the assault on Ogulei in Soroti.

CPJ has frequently documented attacks on journalists covering politics in Uganda. Last month, four reporters covering local elections in Uganda were also assaulted.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/07/31/at-least-7-ugandan-journalists-assaulted-robbed-at-news-conferences/feed/ 0 415971 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/06/08/20-mps-walk-out-as-pngs-tkatchenko-apologises-for-media-trolls-comment/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/06/08/20-mps-walk-out-as-pngs-tkatchenko-apologises-for-media-trolls-comment/#respond Thu, 08 Jun 2023 06:13:29 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=89460 By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby

The last time Papua New Guinea heard “there is a stranger in the house” was when two men walked into Parliament saying they were members of a district after the 2017 national general election.

After six years the word “stranger” has again been mentioned, this time by a fiery Vanimo-Green MP Belden Namah, who voiced his displeasure when Member for Moresby South Justin Tkatchenko — the stood down Foreign Minister — stood to make his apology in Parliament yesterday.

As Tkatchenko spoke, 20 MPs walked out of the chamber in protest.

• READ MORE: PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko steps aside over video row
• Other Justin Tkatchenko reports

Namah, who is known to not mince his words, stood saying, “This House is the House of useless people and primitive animals. Why is this stranger allowed parliamentary privileges to make a statement?”

“He made a statement to international media. He should not be allowed to make a statement today, he should resign in disgrace and get out of this Parliament,” Namah yelled on the floor of Parliament.

As the acting Speaker Koni Iguan called for Namah to allow Tkatchenko to speak, Namah said: “ Mr Acting Speaker, he should not be allowed to speak in this Parliament.”

The public gallery was on the edge as people watched the fiery interaction between Namah, Tkatchenko and Iguan.

Ministers interjected
Several ministers interjected when Namah called Tkatchenko a “stranger”, saying that “he is a member of Parliament, he had been elected by the people of Moresby South”.

Finally Iguan reminded Namah that Tkatchenko was not a “stranger” but the MP of Moresby South.

With that final response and as Tkatchenko stood to apologise, Namah walked out followed by several governors and members of Parliament.

Tkatchenko reiterated that his comments had not been made towards the country and its people, but to individuals who are better known as “social media trolls”.

“The people of our nation want to know the truth of what was said, how this was intended, how this was manipulated and what was actually meant by my words. I made comments in a media interview that were targeted at what are better known as social media trolls,” he said.

These were “faceless people” who spent their days on social media hidden behind false names.

“They say the most disgusting things and make the most vile threats on social media,” he said.

“Regardless of any office that I represent or position that I might hold, above all else in life, first and foremost, I am the father of my children. And when I saw the vile and disgusting things that were being said about my daughter, I did have a burst of blind fury at these horrible individuals,” he added.

These disgusting individuals, some in Papua New Guinea, as well as in Australia, the UK and other places, were making sexual threats against my daughter, threatening her with “all manner of disgusting remarks”, Tkatchenko said.

“I speak with every parent in this House, and every parent in our Nation today – and seek your understanding of how angry and frustrated I was, — and still am — at these trolls.”

Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/06/08/20-mps-walk-out-as-pngs-tkatchenko-apologises-for-media-trolls-comment/feed/ 0 401771 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/22/stan-grant-stands-up-to-racist-abuse-our-research-shows-many-diverse-journalists-have-copped-it-too/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/22/stan-grant-stands-up-to-racist-abuse-our-research-shows-many-diverse-journalists-have-copped-it-too/#respond Mon, 22 May 2023 01:40:27 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=88744 ANALYSIS: By Bronwyn Carlson, Macquarie University; Faith Valencia-Forrester, Griffith University; Madi Day, Macquarie University, and Susan Forde, Griffith University

Stan Grant, a well-known Aboriginal journalist and soon-to-be former host of Q+A, has made a stand against racist abuse, saying he is “stepping away” from the media industry. Grant said he has paid a heavy price for being a journalist and has been a media target for racism.

As authors of a recent Media Diversity Australia report investigating online abuse and safety of diverse journalists, we’re not surprised.

Grant was one the few diverse journalists employed in the Australian media industry. Yet his story of relentless racial abuse is one shared by other journalists who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, culturally and racially marginalised, LGBTQIA+ and/or living with disability.

• READ MORE: Australian writer Louisa Lim left ‘shocked and upset’ after being racially harassed in Auckland restaurant
• Stan Grant’s treatment is a failure of ABC’s leadership, mass media, and debate in this country

Grant said:

I want no part of it. I want to find a place of grace far from the stench of the media. I want to go where I am not reminded of the social media sewer.

ABC management has finally condemned the racist abuse directed at Stan Grant and apologised to him, but it has come far too late.

ABC staff have taken matters into their own hands, walking out in support of Grant.

“Leadership is coming from the bottom.”https://t.co/9hJuZc3ikT

— The Conversation (@ConversationEDU) May 22, 2023

Racism across the media
The latest round of racially motivated abuse came after Grant hosted the ABC’s coverage of the coronation of King Charles.

Grant said:

Since the King’s coronation, I have seen people in the media lie and distort my words. They have tried to depict me as hate filled. They have accused me of maligning Australia.

When Elizabeth II died, many Indigenous journalists and newsreaders were targeted for not sharing the same grief many non-Indigenous people expressed. Narelda Jacobs was one of many Aboriginal journalists who received abuse across social media and was also targeted by mainstream media.

Grant called the ABC’s lack of support an “institutional failure”, saying:

I am writing this because no-one at the ABC — whose producers invited me onto their coronation coverage as a guest — has uttered one word of public support.

In response to Grant’s column, a statement was issued from the ABC’s Director News, Justin Stevens, conceding Grant has, over many months, been subject to grotesque racist abuse, including threats to his safety.

The ABC’s Bonner Committee has recommended a full review into the ABC’s responses to racism affecting staff and how they can better support their staff.

pic.twitter.com/1nEj9ugH2B

— NITV (@NITV) May 21, 2023

What our research found
Our report, Online Safety of Diverse Journalists, commissioned by Media Diversity Australia and released this month, focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, culturally and racially marginalised, LGBTQIA+ and/or people living with disability.

This new research followed a 2022 Media Diversity Australia report, Who Gets to Tell Australian Stories 2.0, which detailed significant under-representation of diverse journalists in the industry, particularly Indigenous people and those from culturally and racially marginalised groups.

Our new report focused more on online safety and the high cost for diverse journalists who are often not supported or protected in the workplace. It found 85 percent of participants had experienced either personal or professional abuse online.

As one participant said:

It’s so ingrained within all parts of society, all the pillars within society, all professions, which includes the media, and I think women, particularly women of colour and from Indigenous backgrounds, they receive the most horrific and vile abuse.

The report has not yet gained interest from the Australian media other than Fourth Estate which expressed alarm at the findings.

This week an important and timely discussion of the abuse diverse journalists are experiencing for just doing their job. @BronwynCarlson @faithvalencia takes us through the latest report from @MediaDiverseAU https://t.co/uSCX8D1khO

— Fourth Estate (@fourthestateau) May 19, 2023

One of the key findings from this research was that diverse journalists often accepted that online harassment and abuse from the public was “just part of the job”. Many reported they were working in what they considered “hostile work environments”.

One participant expressed:

As soon as you say you are a journalist, the response is: you are asking for it.

It was concerning to find the normalisation of online harassment and abuse, and many diverse journalists were reluctant to report their experiences for fear of being considered a problem. Many felt if they raised the issue it would impact any chance of career progression.

A participant commented:

I am cautious revealing my struggles because I don’t want people to think I can’t handle my job.

In his recent experience, Grant said:

Aboriginal people learn to tough it out. That’s the price of survival.

Organisations have a duty of care to their employees. Online harassment and abuse of diverse journalists is a work health and safety issue and needs to be urgently treated as such.

The impact and cost to diverse journalists is high, and many make the same choice as Grant — to leave the industry to protect themselves and their health. Many spoke about how harassment and abuse was not only online; 39 percent reported the abuse moved offline.

The racist attacks on Stan Grant are sickening and sad. All of us in the media must play our part in helping quell the stench of the sewer. I am so sorry Stan. @walkleys https://t.co/TfUANxk3Ny

— Shona Martyn (@ShonaMartyn) May 19, 2023

When it comes to thinking about who gets to tell Australian stories or who gets to have a career as a journalist free of harassment and abuse, the Media Diversity Australia report evidences the hostility of the media industry for those who are not white, able bodied, and/or cis-gender and/or heterosexual.

The report also shows, as Grant points out, that online harassment and abuse actively and incessantly targets Indigenous journalists. Although many of the participants stated they were unofficially warned by their workplace to expect online violence, they said they received little support to protect and defend them from racial harassment and abuse.

I started to see exactly what I’d been warned about (…) But there was no mechanism to flag that to say that you had received a racist email to send it somewhere where that person could be put on a watch list or whatever it is, you know, where they’re going to become a serial offender.

Grant echoes the experiences of many participants when he says:

Barely a week goes by when I am not racially targeted.

The research report also reveals that workplace and online harassment in media industry involves fairly predictable culprits. As one participant highlighted, they come from a similar demographic — white men.

Grant’s resignation is a huge loss to Australian journalism. He and other diverse journalists nationally are crying out for action on the part of media bodies and organisations.

There are many other diverse journalists who have left the profession prior to Grant’s departure. One of our interviewees contacted us to say:

If a serious and well respected journalist feels the best thing to do is leave and has had no support from work — what does that mean for the rest of us?

Let’s hope the media industry is finally paying attention.

Bronwyn Carlson, professor, Indigenous Studies and director of The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie University; Faith Valencia-Forrester, lecturer and lawyer, Griffith University; Madi Day, lecturer, Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University, and Susan Forde, director, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/22/stan-grant-stands-up-to-racist-abuse-our-research-shows-many-diverse-journalists-have-copped-it-too/feed/ 0 396659 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/17/ten-invited-from-png-to-witness-coronation-in-delegation-saga/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/17/ten-invited-from-png-to-witness-coronation-in-delegation-saga/#respond Wed, 17 May 2023 22:15:56 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=88506 PNG Post-Courier

Papua New Guinea was allowed 10 people to be invited to witness the Coronation of King Charles III on in London on May 6 as the government released the names of the of 27 delegates as the controversy over the largest Pacific contingent continued.

According to the list confirmed by the Post-Courier, the 10 included:

• Governor General Sir Bob Dadae,
• Lady Emeline Dadae,
• Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko,
• Savannah Tkatchenko,
• Speaker of National Parliament – who was represented by Deputy Speaker Koni Iguan as the speaker was acting Governor-General,
• Deputy Clerk of Parliament Basil Kambuliagen — representing Parliamentary Services,
• Renbo Paita — Representing the Government as senior state minister,
• Taies Sansan — Representing the his Majesty’s loyal public servants,
• Official Secretary to Government House Bill Toraso, and
• Junelyn Veratau, Executive Officer to Secretary Personnel Management.

READ MORE: Elitist, insensitive, blatant abuse of taxpayer money – PNG’s Coronation trip saga
Other PNG Coronation saga reports

However, due to protocol to be observed, PNG had to have a flag bearer and
Noel Leana, the acting Chief Protocol Officer, carried the flag.

Due to the strict protocols in place, Minister Paita was not able to be seated inside Westminster Abbey because only 10 were allowed to observe the proceedings of the Coronation.

Only six returned invitations
Information received by the Post-Courier shows that of the 10, only six sent through their official invites to be seated inside the Westminster Abbey.

The six included Tkatchenko and his daughter Savannah, Iguan, Sansan, Ms Veratau and Minister Paita.

As is protocol, those invited to walk into the Abbey included Governor-General Sir Bob Dadae, Lady Emeline and Mr Leana.

According to Government House, all the 10 invited guests that went attended the Coronation at Westminster Abbey .

Government House has confirmed that the former Member for Nawaeb, Gisuat Siniwin, was selected to go with the delegation as a senior citizen and in recognition for his service to Morobe and the Highlands as a secondary school head teacher for 40 years and five years as Member of Parliament.

As part of the official delegation, there was supposed to be a platoon of  PNG Defence Force members but it was represented by only five soldiers who took part in the procession in  PNG royal colours.

The invitation from Buckingham Palace was sent earlier this year in January and all arrangements were made in advance.

Traditional GG’s team
According to Government House Official Secretary Bill Toraso, who provided the list before departure for the coronation, the traditional 12-member team from Government House that accompanied the Governor-General were:

• Madeline Dusse — Press Secretary to GG,
• Bill Toraso — Official Secretary to Government House,
• Basil Andon — Private Secretary,
• Inspector Arau Mairi — Police ADC,
• Sergeant Christopher Patgawi — PNGDF CPO /GG’s Driver,
• Mathew Ding — GG protocol Officer,
• Telita Uware — Official Secretary’s Personal Assistant,
• Winnie Ben — Finance Director,
• Keswol Joseph =– GG’s Valet, and
• Marlia Kukuone- Lady in waiting.

The other members of the delegation whose names were sent to London and were approved to accompany the invited guests as protocol officers and personal assistants were:

• Daniel Karara — Prime Minister’s Protocol Officer,
• Josie Pits — Prime Minister’s Personal Assistant, and
• Morea Baru — Flag Bearer. (However, Baru did not attend.)

The list of officers from the Foreign Affairs Ministry that accompanied Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko were:

• Barbara Mimino — Consultant/Protocol Officer,
• Ronnie Kwari — Bodyguard,
• Derick Michael, National Parliament Protocol Officer

Pacific Media Watch reports that it is estimated that PNG taxpayers paid out more than NZ$1 million for the London trip and a similar amount for an “unnecessary” public event in Port Moresby around the live telecast of the coronation.

Republished with permission.

King invited 10

 

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/17/ten-invited-from-png-to-witness-coronation-in-delegation-saga/feed/ 0 395527 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/11/public-mural-of-queen-and-king-charles-is-just-colonial-whitewashing/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/11/public-mural-of-queen-and-king-charles-is-just-colonial-whitewashing/#respond Thu, 11 May 2023 10:44:03 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/northampton-king-charles-queen-mural-colonial-whitewashing/
This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Tré Ventour-Griffiths.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/11/public-mural-of-queen-and-king-charles-is-just-colonial-whitewashing/feed/ 0 394063 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/11/my-daughter-didnt-misuse-public-funds-says-pngs-under-fire-minister/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/11/my-daughter-didnt-misuse-public-funds-says-pngs-under-fire-minister/#respond Thu, 11 May 2023 08:52:03 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=88203 By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby

A defiant Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko says he will not resign over the furore surrounding his daughter Savannah’s TikTok video that has angered Papua New Guineans across the country.

In an interview with the PNG Post-Courier, Tkatchenko said: “I will not be resigning over something she has not done or used public funds for.”

“Yes what she did was not appropriate at the time. However, what she did for PNG in representing the country was welcomed by all who met her.”

• READ MORE: PNG foreign minister defends daughter over ‘flaunting’ coronation trip video
• Other Coronation trip controversy reports

In two separate videos shared on social media platforms, Savannah Tkatchenko was seen as “flaunting and showing off” by many who viewed the videos in the midst of recent news of the spending of taxpayers’ money amounting to K3 million (NZ$2.7 million) on the trip to the King Charles III Coronation last week.

When asked on the spending money allocated to the travelling team from the Foreign Affairs office, Tkatchenko said: “K25,000 is equivalent to £5000. That money is given for accommodation, food, and other necessities that may be needed.

“The daily allowance given to everyone who travels and is regulated by the Public Service,” he added.

“Let me remind everyone that three months ago, I have banned travel by any other Foreign Affairs personnel unless it has been approved by the Secretary or my office.

Calls for PNG foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko to be sacked and have his citizenship stripped after labeling critics of his daughter’s TikTok video “primitive animals”.

It comes less than 2 weeks before US President Joe Biden visits PNG. https://t.co/QMJnHgXjTP

— Marian Faa (@marianfaa) May 11, 2023

Foreign Affairs contingent
“I had with me my daughter, my bodyguard and my protocol officer. We travelled as part of the Foreign Affairs contingent and not as part of the Governor-General’s contingent.”

Tkatchenko further explained the circumstances surrounding the trip and how his daughter joined him.

When it was made known that Prime Minister James Marape would not be travelling, a notice was given to Buckingham Palace that I would take his place. An invitation was sent for myself and my spouse to travel,” Tkatchenko said.

“However, my wife could not travel with me, and thus, I took my daughter. We advised Buckingham Palace of the changes and Buckingham Palace approved my plus one,” he added.

“There is nothing wrong with what happened, my daughter did not misuse any public funds and that has all been totally misrepresented.”

“She is traumatised and her character has been defamed. She understands what she has done, and I did speak to her and told her it was not appropriate for her to take that video,” the minister added.

Minister Tkatchenko said: “It was upon my advice that she deleted her TikTok account and she is aware of what she has done.”

“Again, I reiterate I will not resign.”

Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

Publicly funded Hilton Hotel at the centre of a financial black hole | PNGi

“It was APEC Minister, Justin Tkatchenko’s landscaping company, PNG Gardener that reportedly supplied many of the plants that adorn the site.” https://t.co/KYe0gaIfuG

— Stret Pasin (@Stret_Pasin) May 10, 2023

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/11/my-daughter-didnt-misuse-public-funds-says-pngs-under-fire-minister/feed/ 0 393960 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/09/king-charles-iii-policing-the-republican-protests/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/09/king-charles-iii-policing-the-republican-protests/#respond Tue, 09 May 2023 12:40:03 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=140020 In Britain, pageantry has always been a palliative and plaster for the dark and dismal. Be it in times of crisis, the chance to put on an extravagant show, usually at vast expense, is not something to forego. Central to this entertainment complex is the Royal family, that archaic vestige of an era that refuses to pass into history.

The Coronation of King Charles III was yet another instance of that complex in action. It was a spectacle, redolent of ancient ceremony, aged ritual, punctuated by the monarch’s statements of “I do”.

While this delighted a goodly number of punters, the whole affair also presented Republic and others of like mind to avail themselves of the chance to protest. Republic is one of the key groups attempting to stir the waters of change, running petitions, arranging protests and selling merchandise for the cause. On this occasion, the group was promising some of the biggest protests against the monarchy, with demonstrators sporting “Not my King” placards.

Unfortunately for the protesters, and for the right to assemble in general, the UK Parliament made sure to pass laws for that precise eventuality. Nothing would be left to chance. Security Minister, Tom Tugendhat, explained away the coincidental nature of the Public Order Act 2023 and it coming into effect just days before the Coronation. “We’re not just thinking of our own security but the security of heads of states, and we’re dealing with protest groups who have nothing to do with the UK but to do with foreign leaders visiting the UK.”

The 2023 statute builds on measures that were already used against anti-monarchy protests following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. As human rights legal academic David Mead noted at the time, the right to protest peacefully is protected in domestic law, while free expression is also protected by the European Convention on Human Rights via the Human Rights Act. But this did not prevent the police from making adventurous use of various countering provisions, though it was not clear what they were. Attention was paid to the possible use of section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, public nuisance, or arrest to prevent a breach of the peace.

Evidently, the Tory government did not feel these measures adequate in their severity. The 2023 Act specifically outlines such offences as “locking on” and “being equipped for locking on”, in addition to expanding stop and search powers. Police making use of such powers may, provided they are of or above the rank of inspector, authorise stop and search without the need for suspicion.

The locking on offence covers instances where a people “attach themselves to another person, to an object or to land”, do the same with other people, and “attach an object to another object or to land”. Such acts must also cause, or be capable of causing, serious disruption to two or more individuals or an organisation in a place other than a dwelling, and be accompanied with the requisite intent.

As for the offence of being equipped for locking on, a person is in breach “if they have an object with them in a place other than a dwelling with an intention that it may be used in the course of or in connection with the commission by any person of an offence under section 1(1) (offence of locking on).”

The government would have also delighted in the High Court’s decision to reverse a District Judge’s ruling to acquit a protester for allegedly breaching a police direction made under the Public Order Act 1986. In 2020, the protester in question sat down in Parliament Street, adjacent to Parliament Square. According to the police, the protest had stay within the confines of Parliament Square.

The decision, handed down the same week the new Public Order Act received Royal assent, held that the judge applied the wrong test in assuming that a defendant’s conviction had to be proportionate relative with their rights to free expression and assembly. It was a remarkable decision, and abysmal in the context of assembly and free expression.

In a statement from Commander Karen Findlay of the London Metropolitan Police, a fat finger of accusation was pointed at the Coronation protestors. There had “been a significant police operation after we received information protestors were determined to disrupt the Coronation procession.” It was “targeted at those we believed were intent on taking this action. It was not our intention to prevent protest”.

All in all, 64 arrests were made on May 6. Of these, 52 “related to concerns people were going to disrupt the event, and arrests included to prevent a breach of the peace and conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.” Eight arrests were also “made for other offences, including possession of an offensive weapon, drugs offences, and breaching a sexual harm prevention order.”

In the arrest count were six demonstrators from the Republic campaign group, suspected of having items among their placards that “could be used as lock on devices.” The Met investigation that followed proved otherwise. “Those arrested stated the items would be used to secure their placards, and the investigation has been unable to prove intent to use them to lock on and disrupt the event.” There was “regret that those six people arrested were unable to join the wider group of protesters in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere on the procession route.”

One of the arrestees, Republic head Graham Smith, subsequently revealed that three embarrassed officers, one with the rank of chief inspector, personally apologised to him and handed “the straps [for the placards] back to me.”

Such actions did little to douse the fire. “This,” fumed Smith, “has been a disgraceful episode and we will be speaking to lawyers about taking legal action. I also expect a full inquiry into why they repeatedly lied to us and who authorised the arrests.” The newly crowned King will be hoping that interest in the matter will be quick to die down. But even the attractive glossiness of pageantry won’t last.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/09/king-charles-iii-policing-the-republican-protests/feed/ 0 393535 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/07/brazilian-president-lula-da-silva-calls-for-freedom-for-julian-assange/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/07/brazilian-president-lula-da-silva-calls-for-freedom-for-julian-assange/#respond Sun, 07 May 2023 17:21:41 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/news/brazilian-president-lula-da-silva-calls-for-freedom-for-julian-assange

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva has called for freedom for Julian Assange and denounced the lack of concerted efforts to free the journalist.

Lula spoke to a group of reporters in London Saturday while in town to attend the coronation of King Charles III.

Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has spent four years in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison while fighting extradition to the United States.

“It is an embarrassment that a journalist who denounced trickery by one state against another is arrested, condemned to die in jail and we do nothing to free him. It’s a crazy thing,” Lula told reporters. “We talk about freedom of expression; the guy is in prison because he denounced wrongdoing. And the press doesn’t do anything in defense of this journalist. I can’t understand it.”

“I think there must be a movement of world press in his defense. Not in regard to his person, but to defend the right to denounce,” Lula told the reporters. “The guy didn’t denounce anything vulgar. He denounced that a state was spying on others, and that became a crime against the journalist. The press, which defends freedom of the press, does nothing to free this citizen. It’s sad, but it’s true.”

Also, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday he too was frustrated over the continued detention of Julian Assange: "enough is enough."

"I know it's frustrating, I share the frustration," Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. from London for the coronation of King Charles III.

"I can't do more than make very clear what my position is, and the U.S. administration is certainly very aware of what the Australian government's position is. There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration."

"Enough is enough, this needs to be brought to a conclusion, it needs to be worked through," said Albanese.

Assange has battled for years to avoid being sent to the U.S., where the journalist faces 17 charges of espionage because of WikiLeaks’ publication of a trove of classified documents in 2010.

US prosecutors allege he published 700,000 secret classified documents which exposed the United States government and its wrongdoings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wikileaks received the documents from Chelsea Manning.

Albanese said Australians cannot understand why the US would free the source who leaked the documents, Chelsea Manning, while Assange still faces life in prison.

President Joe Biden has been accused of hypocrisy for demanding the release of journalists around the world, while he actively seeks the extradition of Assange to face American espionage charges.

Assange faces a sentence of up to 175 years in a maximum security prison if extradited to the United States.

\u201cWhile in London, President Lula calls for a movement in defense of Julian Assange.\u201d

— Kawsachun News (@Kawsachun News) 1683409472

\u201c"Enough is enough."\n\nAustralian PM Anthony Albanese has expressed frustration at the US\u2019s continuing efforts to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on charges including espionage https://t.co/BFNtvAnUbR\u201d

— Al Jazeera English (@Al Jazeera English) 1683272705

\u201c'Julian Assange Writes Letter to King Charles III Inviting Him to Visit Belmarsh Prison "Kingdom"' | via @firstpost\u201d

— WikiLeaks (@WikiLeaks) 1683460894

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Common Dreams staff.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/07/brazilian-president-lula-da-silva-calls-for-freedom-for-julian-assange/feed/ 0 393143 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/06/why-australia-and-nz-could-become-republics-and-stay-in-the-commonwealth/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/06/why-australia-and-nz-could-become-republics-and-stay-in-the-commonwealth/#respond Sat, 06 May 2023 23:24:05 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=87991 ANALYSIS: By James Mehigan, University of Canterbury

The coronation of King Charles III is an ideal time for Australia and New Zealand to take stock of the British monarchy and its role in national life — including certain myths about what becoming a republic might mean.

In particular, there is a common assumption that both nations must remain monarchies to retain membership of the Commonwealth of Nations. It might sound logical, but it’s entirely wrong.

There is no basis for it in the rules of the Commonwealth or the practice of its members. Australia could ditch the monarchy and stay in the club, and New Zealand can too, whether it has a king or a Kiwi as head of state.

• READ MORE: From evolving colony to bicultural nation, Queen Elizabeth II walked a long road with Aotearoa New Zealand
• What is it about a republic that stumps our leaders?
• God save the King: why the monarchy is safe in Aotearoa New Zealand – for now

Yet this peculiar myth persists at home and abroad. Students often ask me about it when I’m teaching the structure of government. And just this week a French TV station interpreted the New Zealand prime minister’s opinion that his country would one day ideally become a republic to mean he would like to see it leave the Commonwealth.

The United Kingdom’s first coronation in 70 years. Video: Al Jazeera

What does ‘Commonwealth’ mean?
The implication that breaking from the Commonwealth would be a precursor to, or consequence of, becoming a republic relies on a faulty premise which joins two entirely separate things: the way we pick our head of state, and our membership of the Commonwealth.

It would make just as much sense to ask whether Australia or New Zealand should leave the International Cricket Council and become a republic.

The confusion may derive from the fact that the 15 countries that continue to have the British sovereign as their head of state are known as “Commonwealth Realms”.

What we usually refer to as the Commonwealth, on the other hand, is the organisation founded in 1926 as the British Commonwealth of Nations. This is the body whose membership determines the competing nations of the Commonwealth Games, the highest-profile aspect of the Commonwealth’s work.

King Charles III is the head of state of the 15 Commonwealth Realms and the head of the international governmental organisation that is the Commonwealth of Nations. The Commonwealth has 56 members — but only 15 of them continue to have the king as head of state.

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said Monday he personally favors his country becoming a republic, though it’s not a change he intends to push for as leader. https://t.co/1XEiFFtqPT pic.twitter.com/aftsZ0hHmV

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) May 2, 2023

Joining the Commonwealth club
To be fair, confusion over who heads the Commonwealth is nothing new. A 2010 poll conducted by the Royal Commonwealth Society found that, of the respondents in seven countries, only half knew the then queen was the head of the Commonwealth.

A quarter of Jamaicans believed the organisation was led by the then US president, Barack Obama. One in ten Indians and South Africans thought it was run by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Given the king’s overlapping leadership roles and the different use of the word in the contexts of Commonwealth Realms and the Commonwealth of Nations, these broad misunderstandings are perhaps understandable.

In fact, it was this ambiguity that allowed for the development of an inclusive Commonwealth during the postwar years of decolonisation.

However the confusion arose, it is also very simple to correct. The Commonwealth relaxed its membership rules regarding republics when India became one in 1950.

According to Philip Murphy, the historian and former director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, this decision was based on the erroneous idea that India’s huge standing army would underwrite Britain’s great-power status in the postwar world.

From that point on the Commonwealth of Nations no longer comprised only members who admitted to the supremacy of one sovereign. To make the change palatable, a piece of conceptual chicanery was needed. Each country did not need a king, but the king was to be head of the organisation comprising equal members.

Monarchy optional
Since then, the number of Commonwealth members has steadily increased to the 56 we have today.

As early as 1995, membership was extended to countries with no ties to the former British Empire. With the support of Nelson Mandela, Mozambique became a member, joining the six Commonwealth members with which it shared a border.

Rwanda, a former German and then Belgian colony, joined in 2009. It became an enthusiastic member and hosted the biennial meeting of states known as CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting).

The most recent countries to take up Commonwealth membership are the former French colonies of Togo and Gabon.

According to the Commonwealth’s own rules, membership is based on a variety of things, including commitment to democratic processes, human rights and good governance. Being a monarchy is entirely optional.

The new king offers the chance for a broader debate on the advantages of monarchy. But let us do so knowing Commonwealth membership is entirely unaffected by the question of whether or not the country is a republic.

Dr James Mehigan, is senior lecturer in law, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/06/why-australia-and-nz-could-become-republics-and-stay-in-the-commonwealth/feed/ 0 393072 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/06/incredibly-alarming-peaceful-protests-not-fit-for-a-king/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/06/incredibly-alarming-peaceful-protests-not-fit-for-a-king/#respond Sat, 06 May 2023 17:54:31 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/news/incredibly-alarming-peaceful-protests-not-fit-for-a-king

Thousands of King Charles III's subjects protested against the monarchy Saturday in London — and heavy-handed police detained many of them for "suspicion of breaching the peace."

Earlier this week, the Metropolitan Police tweeted that they would have an “extremely low tolerance” of those seeking to “undermine” King Charles III's coronation day.

“A significant police operation is underway in central London,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement Saturday. “The individuals have been held on suspicion of breaching the peace.”

At around 7 a.m. police stopped six of the anti-monarchy group Republic’s organizers and told them they were detaining and searching them, Republic director Harry Stratton told CNN at the protest. The group had been walking behind a rental van containing hundreds of placards. “They didn’t say why they were arresting them. They didn’t tell them or us where they were taking them. It really is like something out of a police state,” Stratton said.

Among those arrested ahead of a protest in London’s Trafalgar Square was Graham Smith, chief executive of Republic.

“This morning, Graham Smith and five members of our team were arrested. Hundreds of placards were seized,” Republic tweeted. “Is this democracy?”

Protesters say police warned them not to chant ‘anything that may be deemed offensive.’

The Metropolitan Police said those arrested were being “held on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance.”

Just Stop Oil reported that around 20 of its climate demonstrators had been arrested, with photos showing a man wearing a T-shirt with the group’s name being detained in Whitehall. “He was arrested along with 20 others,” Just Stop Oil tweeted. “Free speech is a core British value – and we have just lost it. No supporters of Just Stop Oil arrested in the crowd had glue, paint or any plans to disrupt the coronation. We are living in a dystopian nightmare.”

\u201cNo supporters of Just Stop Oil arrested in the crowd had glue, paint or any plans to disrupt the Coronation.\n\nNew policing laws mean we're now living in a dystopian nightmare \u2013 this disgraceful overreach is what you'd expect in Pyongyang, North Korea, not Westminster.\u201d

— Just Stop Oil (@Just Stop Oil) 1683364744

Human Rights Watch's UK director Yasmine Ahmed said in a statement: "The reports of people being arrested for peacefully protesting the coronation are incredibly alarming. This is something you would expect to see in Moscow not London.

"Peaceful protests allow individuals to hold those in power to account, something the UK government seems increasingly averse to.”

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said: “We need to see what details emerge around these incidents but merely being in possession of a megaphone or carrying placards should never be grounds for a police arrest.

“Peaceful protest is clearly protected under international human rights law and it’s been worrying to see the police this week making numerous statements about their ‘low tolerance’ for disruption at the coronation. The coronation shouldn’t become yet another excuse for undermining people’s basic human rights in this country and we’re awaiting more details over these concerning reports of arrests.”

“We’ve recently had the introduction of extremely draconian legislation outlawing ‘disruptive’ or ‘noisy’ protests, which has given the police excessive – and highly subjective – powers and seriously damaged people’s right of free speech and public assembly.

“The coronation shouldn’t become yet another excuse for undermining people’s basic human rights in this country.”

\u201cAbolish the monarchy, not the right to protest\n\nAs we speak the whole core team of Republic is still being detained. We are not given a reason. They will probably be released when the whole monarchy pr-show is over.\n\n#NotMyKing #AbolishTheMonarchy\u201d

— Republic (@Republic) 1683377655

\u201cOutrageous scenes of cops arresting anti-monarchy protestors and stealing their placards\n\nSo we are not allowed to show public opposition to a bloke being crowned head of state for having been born into unimaginable wealth while ppl line up at food banks and schools fall apart\u201d

— Shelly Asquith (@Shelly Asquith) 1683355250

\u201cRemember the rules folks\n\nShutting down the whole of central London to celebrate a man "chosen by God" to wear a fancy hat - your patriotic duty\n\nHolding up a sign expressing your dissent - ARREST THEM ALL\u201d

— Extinction Rebellion UK \ud83c\udf0d (@Extinction Rebellion UK \ud83c\udf0d) 1683358784

\u201cChants of \u201cshove the coronation up your arse\u201d and \u201cnot my King\u201d as thousands of Scottish independence supporters march through Glasgow city centre. @SkyNews\u201d

— Connor Gillies (@Connor Gillies) 1683372888

\u201cFirst, "Lizzie's in a Box" now "Shove Your Coronation Up Your Arse." Irish and Scottish football supporters are so based.\u201d

— Alejandra Caraballo (@Alejandra Caraballo) 1683379052

\u201cHow many men in glittery dresses will it take before @GBNEWS calls the coronation a drag show and campaigns for it to be banned?\u201d

— Ed MB (@Ed MB) 1683373489

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Common Dreams staff.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/06/incredibly-alarming-peaceful-protests-not-fit-for-a-king/feed/ 0 393030 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/05/charles-camilla-biden-putin-trump-harry-meghan-and-annie-zamero/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/05/charles-camilla-biden-putin-trump-harry-meghan-and-annie-zamero/#respond Fri, 05 May 2023 05:54:55 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=281313 Annie Zamero hasn’t been invited to the Coronation on Saturday despite, or more likely because of, her paintings of the royals, the latest being titled “The Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla”, though that’s still a drawing at the moment with a finished painting some months away. Previously she received a polite letter More

The post Charles, Camilla, Biden, Putin, Trump, Harry, Meghan and Annie Zamero  appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Charles Thomson.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/05/charles-camilla-biden-putin-trump-harry-meghan-and-annie-zamero/feed/ 0 392608 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/05/you-should-be-ashamed-charles/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/05/you-should-be-ashamed-charles/#respond Fri, 05 May 2023 05:54:43 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=281409 Let’s remember Toyin Azgbetu of the African Rights organization named Ligali.  Let’s remember soaring numbers of slaves that began to bloody the waters between Africa and America, bloody the waters and enrich the English monarchy so recently restored under Charles II in 1660.  Ever since all the glam, magic, jewels, gold and silver, of coronation are More

The post You Should be Ashamed, Charles appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Peter Linebaugh.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/05/you-should-be-ashamed-charles/feed/ 0 392720 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/05/scrapping-charles-darwin-hindutvas-anti-scientific-maladies-2/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/05/scrapping-charles-darwin-hindutvas-anti-scientific-maladies-2/#respond Fri, 05 May 2023 05:47:43 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=281109 Welcome the canons of pseudoscience.  Open your arms to the dribbling, sponsored charlatans.  According to a growing number of India’s top officialdom, teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to children in their ninth and 10th grades is simply not on. Last month, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), a purportedly autonomous government More

The post Scrapping Charles Darwin: Hindutva’s Anti-Scientific Maladies appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/05/scrapping-charles-darwin-hindutvas-anti-scientific-maladies-2/feed/ 0 393010 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/04/king-charles-wants-to-appear-progressive-on-race-hes-not/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/04/king-charles-wants-to-appear-progressive-on-race-hes-not/#respond Thu, 04 May 2023 22:01:07 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/king-charles-coronation-slavery-race-royal-family-reparations/
This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Banseka Kayembe.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/04/king-charles-wants-to-appear-progressive-on-race-hes-not/feed/ 0 392574 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/04/why-king-charles-iii-should-apologize-to-chagossian-people/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/04/why-king-charles-iii-should-apologize-to-chagossian-people/#respond Thu, 04 May 2023 16:00:29 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=c03cd440ccf33579638d7f7541b782ce
This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/04/why-king-charles-iii-should-apologize-to-chagossian-people/feed/ 0 392489 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/03/king-charles-must-rise-above-impotent-talk-of-sorrow-for-slavery/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/03/king-charles-must-rise-above-impotent-talk-of-sorrow-for-slavery/#respond Wed, 03 May 2023 12:37:27 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/king-charles-iii-coronation-caribbean-jamaica-carolyn-cooper/
This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Carolyn Cooper.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/03/king-charles-must-rise-above-impotent-talk-of-sorrow-for-slavery/feed/ 0 392218 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/02/scrapping-charles-darwin-hindutvas-anti-scientific-maladies/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/02/scrapping-charles-darwin-hindutvas-anti-scientific-maladies/#respond Tue, 02 May 2023 08:07:29 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=139816 Welcome the canons of pseudoscience. Open your arms to the dribbling, sponsored charlatans. According to a growing number of India’s top officialdom, teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to children in their ninth and 10^th grades is simply not on.

Last month, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), a purportedly autonomous government organisation responsible for curricula content and textbook publishing for India’s 256 million primary and secondary students, continued its hostility against Darwin as part of its “content rationalisation” process. NCERT had taken the scrub to evolution during the COVID-19 pandemic, implausibly arguing that it was necessary to drop its teaching in moving classes online. (Darwin would have been most bemused.)

A closer look at the list of dropped and excluded subjects in the NCERT publication of “rationalised content in textbooks” from May last year is impressive in its philistinism. In addition to dropping teaching on Darwin, the origin of life on earth, evolution, fossils and molecular phylogeny, we also see the scrapping of such subjects as electricity, the magnetic effects of electric current and the “sustainable management of natural resources”.

Evolutionary biologist Amitabh Joshi of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research was less than impressed, calling the measure “a travesty of the notion of a well-rounded secondary education”.

On April 20, the non-profit Breakthrough Science Society launched an open letter demanding a reversal of the decision. “Knowledge and understanding of evolutionary biology is important not just to any subfield of biology, but is also key to understanding the world around us.” Though not evident at first glance, “the principles of natural selection help us understand how any pandemic progresses or why certain species go extinct, among many other critical issues.”

A sense of despondency reigns on whether NCERT will change course, even in the face of protest. In the view of biologist Satyajit Rath, “Given the recent trajectories of such decisions of the government of India, probably not, at least over the short term. Sustained progressive efforts will be required to influence the long-term outcomes.”

The anti-evolutionary streak in Indian politics, spearheaded by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been present for some time, always threatening to spill over with acid implications into the education syllabus. In 2018, India’s then Minister for Higher Education, Satyapal Singh, urged the removal of evolution from school curricula, remarking that no one had ever seen “an ape turning into a human being.” Before a university gathering at a university in Assam, he claimed to “have a list of around 10 to 15 great scientists of the world who have said there is no evidence to prove that the theory of evolution is correct.” He even threw poor Albert Einstein into the mix to justify the stance, claiming that the physicist had thought the theory “unscientific”.

As ever with such characters, ignorance is garlanded with claims of expertise. Singh was speaking as a “man of science”. As a man of science, “Darwin’s theory is scientifically wrong”. Man, he claimed, “has always been a man.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure has been characterised by a coupling of mythologisation and anti-scientific inquiry, grouped under the notion of Hindutva – that India was, and is, the sacred homeland of Hindus, with all other religious groups foreign aberrations. By blending the two, outrageous claims purportedly scientific can be drawn from ancient folklore and texts. Myth is rendered victorious.

In 2014, Modi gave a most extravagant example of this exercise by claiming that “plastic surgery” and “genetic science” explained the creation of Lord Ganesh’s elephantine head and Karna’s birth respectively. Given that the latter, an epic figure of the Mahabharata, “was not born from his mother’s womb”, Modi could confidently state that “genetic science was present at that time.”

Such astonishing, crude literalism is tantamount to stubborn claims that Indians were the first to discover the means of flying, given Arjuna’s ride in a chariot piloted by Lord Krishna at the Battle of Kurukshetra. And sure enough, the 102^nd session of the India Science Congress, hosted in January 2015, featured a panel led by a number of BJP government members claiming that Indians had pioneered aviation that could fly not only across planet Earth but between planets.

Other instances of this abound, some blatantly, and dangerously irresponsible. In April 2019, BJP parliamentary member Pragya Singh Thakur told the television network India Today that a heady “mixture of gau mutra” (cow urine), along with “other cow products”, including dung and milk, cured her breast cancer. Oncologists mocked the conclusions, but the damaging claim caught on.

With such instances far from infrequent, academics and researchers feel beleaguered in a landscape saturated by the credo of Hindutva. In 2016, number theorist Rajat Tandon observed that the Modi approach to knowledge was “really dangerous”. Along with more than 100 scientists, including many heads of institutions, he signed a statement protesting “the ways in which science and reason are being eroded in the country.”

A number trying to buck the trend, notably those numbered among rationalists and the anti-superstition activists, have been threatened and, in some cases, murdered. The scholar and writer M. M. Kalburgi paid with his life in North Karnataka in August 2015 for a remark made quoting Jnanpith awardee U. R. Ananthamurthy that urinating on idols was not a transgression that would necessarily attract divine retribution.

In September 2017, the progressive journalist and publisher Gauri Lankesh was gunned down returning to her home from work. She had become yet another victim of what the police in India euphemistically call “encounters”, drawing attention to herself for her stand against the Hindutva stampede and her sympathetic stance towards the Maoist Naxalites.

The recent bureaucratic assault on Darwin and the continued elevation of mythology above sceptical scientific inquiry, bode ill for India’s rationalists. But despite being browbeaten and threatened, many continue to do battle, defiantly and proudly.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/02/scrapping-charles-darwin-hindutvas-anti-scientific-maladies/feed/ 0 391839 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/01/not-the-last-white-man-in-san-francisco-a-conversation-with-artist-charles-albert/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/05/01/not-the-last-white-man-in-san-francisco-a-conversation-with-artist-charles-albert/#respond Mon, 01 May 2023 05:30:38 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=280550

White Man Walking by Charles Albert

Charles Albert is not the last white man in San Francisco. Not by a long shot. 43% of the population identifies as white. 49% are female. Hordes of white men live and work in The City: from Russian Hill—where Albert shares his apartment with a parrot named “Bird”— to the Financial District, where he holds up in a space not much bigger than a bird cage.

In a city where world weary reporters and editors lament the decline of local art, Bay Area literary communities and what’s known as “culture,” individual artists are producing innovative work in the very heart of corporate capitalism. Joan Brown did it in her time and so did Diego Rivera and Freda Kahlo who arrived from Mexico and stormed the San Francisco art world. Charles Albert has been on a roll since January 1, 2023 and hasn’t slowed down since then.

The walls of his sun-lit apartment explode with paintings and sketches he has created in a variety of styles over the last four months. Some are abstract, others are figurative and made with a few simple lines. Perhaps the one that stands out more than any other has the working title, “White Man Walking.”

The colors are black and white. The medium is compressed charcoal. The anonymous white man walks toward the viewer. That much is clear from the angle of his legs and the movement of his feet. Curiously, or perhaps not, his face is not visible.

In fact, he doesn’t have a face or a head, either, though a black hat—a kind of halo— hovers above the space where his head ought to be. He might be a twenty-first century Everyman. Feather-like black lines radiate from around him— above, below and on both sides—and suggest that he’s at the center of a field of magnetic energy.

Albert’s sketch prompted me to think about white men I have known such as Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden. It also prompted me to think of myself as a writer who has written not only about white men, including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, but also about women and people of color like Alice Walker and Frederick Douglass. I wondered what Albert was thinking about whiteness and maleness. My questions and his answers follow.

You have a show coming up with a great many new works, but given the state of the world and the heightened awareness about ethnicity and gender it seems that viewers will be drawn to “White Man Walking.” Who is the white man in your sketch?

He’s me as a generic representative of my generation of white dudes, and a placeholder for me to explore how the world seems an odd place for us these days. Moving about each day, something’s changed, like the shoes I’ve worn for years suddenly don’t fit right. Something is off.

Why the title?

It’s a term from prison: condemned prisoners walking to the death chamber. Book by the same name written in the 1980s by Sister Helen Prejean; a movie followed. The title is a nod to the idea that the time of the white man is over. White men ruling is ending. We won’t be in control much longer.

You’re conscious of yourself as a white man?

Absolutely. As my grown-up kids—son, George, 21, and daughter, Iza, 23—point out, white dudes like me have been in charge for generations. And look at the mess we’re in! Perhaps because I’m white, male and almost 60, I’m now “the establishment,” though as an art school graduate, and therefore a little outside the norm, I never considered myself “establishment.” Security guards at Walgreens nod at me. Gen Zers aren’t shy about discussing what they see as the failings of my generation

As a white man, are you sure you’re not paranoid?

Ha! Probably a little. I don’t walk into every room with Gen Zers and feel their disdain. But understand this: they do look at us as responsible for the mess the world is in. As young adults, they see inequality, income disparity, race issues, and the relative lack of power they have to make money and affect change. I recently read that Gen Z is the first US generation not expected to surpass its parents in terms of income and quality of life.

You grew up in Baltimore in the 1960s and 1970s, and you’ve revisited the city, so to speak, by watching The Wire, the acclaimed series about your birthplace. How would you characterize Baltimore then and now?

“It’s funny, The Wire came out 20 years ago. I didn’t watch it then. It reminded me too much of home. The “Towers” where the drug dealing goes on was about one mile from my grandmother’s house.  20 years on, having lost most of my family, I find I’m watching The Wire because it reminds me of Home! It’s also a powerfully written and performed series.

What can you say about race in Baltimore? 

Racism is real everywhere but feels ever-present and in your face in Baltimore. My own kids tell me my generation has failed to eradicate racism. They are right, but I point out that the racial climate seems better today than it was when I was growing up in Baltimore in the 70’s. I’m glad that it’s making top headlines and helped to spawn movements. Our society needs to grapple with race to bring about real change.

How do you describe San Francisco, where you now live and work?

Economically and demographically, San Francisco and Baltimore are world’s apart. SF is arguably one of the most tolerant and diverse cities in the country. We’re also one of the most expensive cities in the country which I believe contributes to racial problems here. As I understand it, SF has a declining Black population. We rarely see Black people in many neighborhoods in SF, compared to Baltimore.

Look, I’m an artist, not a sociologist, but it seems to me that racism ends only after there is genuine understanding and empathy between each other. Maybe we need to get rid of the word and the concept of “The Other.”

I hate to use the word “hopeful.” It’s so abused and misused. But how do you see the future?

I’m optimistic. We’re in embattled times and we need to bring about needed change. I’m optimistic because of the values I see in younger generations. I’m happy to see that my kids have the focus and commitment they seem to have about eliminating inequality. They put their lifestyles, and career choices on the line in a way that I and many in my generation did not. Perhaps they will accelerate the transition to a more just, fair system. I’m ready to pitch in. I do that in part through my art.

What drives you to draw, paint, create? What’s the motivation?

I’m cranking out the work because the practice of making art is a meditation, helps me keep from going crazy, committing murder, or worse! The past year, I separated from my wife, lost my dad and moved my mom into assisted living. Making art for me is therapy, an exploration, and a lesson all at once, And you get something at the end of the process.

I’ve told friends the universe is giving me a crash course in middle age parenting. It’s been a stressful time. The variety of work I’ve been producing reflects the range of emotions I’ve been experiencing. To go from 20 years of very little drawing to one drawing a week for the past year….there’s a lot of energy grinding out the art.

You seem to get into a groove when you’re especially creative. Do you know why that happens?

It’s “Flow.” Athletes experience it, most creative people and anyone really into their work. To me flow is like listening to music. My music. We can hear music all the time, but when it’s your jam, your song, well, that’s different. Your music moves you, your mood, your emotions, your body. Something connects. You identify with it. When drawing, there is a dynamic between your intent and the marks you’re making in real time. You’re watching it happen, you’re making it happen, and you’re present for the event. It’s powerful.

Do you have an audience or viewers in mind when you draw?

No. I started drawing last year with the intent of learning. I’m specifically not trying to make a masterpiece, or even ‘Art.’ I’m in it for the experience, the learning. I’m looking more carefully now at What I want to make, what message/theme I want to work in. I do consider the message, and how it will be received. But the interest is in achieving clarity, not preaching or selling.

On the one hand you’ve done the compressed charcoal sketch in black and white of “white man walking” and on the other hand the colorful drawing of a chair in a corner of a room. You also have abstract geometric forms. What’s it like to go back and forth from those seemingly very different kinds of works of art?

Normal I suppose. I’ve a lot to learn. I’m wary of color, and my skills in general have a long way to go. So, I’ve been game to try pretty much whatever idea pops up. When you’re not making art with the intent of selling, you can be kinda fearless. Just say “Why not” and have at it. It also helps to have formal artistic training, resources, and time. Luxuries few young artists have. It helps to have bare walls, too. Sometimes I wonder if I draw to populate my apartment. Explains why I slow down when I’m out of wall space.

Do you go to SF museums like the de Young and to galleries to see paintings and sculpture?

Absolutely. Lane Myer, a friend, brilliant artist and instructor at Rhode Island School of Design, said, “We’re artists not because of what we make, but how we see.” Seeing is the artist’s lingua franca.

Every painting, every sculpture, tells a story of what the artist was thinking.

We ask, “why did she choose to create this piece”? “Why did she make the choices she made about the message, medium, scale, color, texture and more.

Seeing art is an opportunity to understand how another mind sees and how it thinks. Leaving the museum, or a good gallery, is like leaving a cocktail party where several conversations have set you on fire with ideas. The only real thing to do is to explore the ideas in your art.

How do you see your future as an artist?

I’m trying to keep the future simple! I enjoy the process of making art, the learning and the discovery. I hope to continue developing my skills. Perhaps to arrive at an idea, medium, style and theme that ‘clicks.’ When all of those elements come together just right, well, that’s the best. It’s the difference between hitting all the right notes, and making music. It’s a subtle, but undeniable shift. One worth striving towards.

To see Albert’s show at the Canessa Gallery in San Francisco contact him at Ca3723@gmail.com and 415. 307. 2280

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jonah Raskin.

The post Demagogues Three: Charles Foster Kane, Willie Stark, and Tucker Carlson appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Stephen F. Eisenman.

Around noon on April 8, in the eastern district of Petauke, six supporters of the ruling United Party for National Development went to the office of privately owned broadcaster Radio Explorer and assaulted reporter Charles Chimwemwe Banda, according to news reports and the journalist, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app. His attackers accused him of collaborating to take down the government, kicked him in the face and head, and punched him all over his body.   

Separately, at about 2 p.m. that day, at least 20 UPND supporters beat privately owned broadcaster Serenje Radio’s station manager Male Kapema and reporter Sheila Kalunga, as well as accountant Enoch Kile Champo, at a police station in the district of Serenje, according to news reports, a statement by Serenje Radio, and Kapema, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app. Champo drove the journalists to the police station to confirm reports of a clash between members of the UPND and the opposition Socialist Party. 

“Politically motivated violence against journalists in Zambia is a serious concern, and United Party for National Development leaders must condemn the recent attacks on three members of the press by the party’s supporters,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “Authorities must thoroughly investigate these attacks. Impunity for crimes against journalists should not be tolerated in a country whose president has committed to ensuring press freedom.”

Banda told CPJ that he received a call from a number registered to “Mwika Petauke UPND,” and the caller asked to meet, claiming he had a news tip. Banda refused and asked to meet at the radio station instead. 

When the six UPND supporters arrived, a party official identified only as “Mwika” asked Banda why he aired a program that featured a song for an independent member of parliament, why he had given that member of parliament airtime, and accused him of collaborating against the government. Banda told CPJ that the parliamentarian had paid for a block of airtime on the station but denied that the outlet was involved in any anti-government activities.

After he explained the situation, “they started beating me up with their fists all over the body, my face, and head,” he said, adding that the attack left him bleeding from the mouth. He received medical treatment at Petauke District Hospital for neck and general body pains, according to a medical report reviewed by CPJ. 

Banda said he did not report the matter to the police as the UPND party leadership in Petauke told him they were seeking to resolve the matter by issuing an official apology, which he has not received as of April 18. CPJ’s phone call and app message to UPND spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa were unanswered.

In Serenje, Kapema told CPJ that his crew was filming a standoff between approximately 40 UPND and Socialist Party members after allegations that a Socialist Party leader shot a UPND member.

A woman on the UPND side noticed Kalunga filming and shouted that they were being recorded, Kapema said, adding, “That’s how they ran toward up and pounced on us.” The crowd, most of whom were wearing UPND emblems, punched and kicked the three Serenje Radio employees all over their bodies.

Kalunga told CPJ by messaging app that her beating was more severe than Kile or Kapema’s, as she was the one filming. Police ultimately dispersed the crowd.

“I sought medical attention at Serenje hospital, but I’m still in pain. My back was hurt from the kicks they unleashed on me,” Kalunga said, adding that they filed complaints with the police, but no arrests have been made. 

Serenje police referred all queries to spokesperson Danny Mwale, who did not return CPJ’s phone calls or messages. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Orientation

Most people who call themselves Marxists will tip their hat to Darwin and then move on. They laude his theory of natural selection for why species go extinct. They will support his gradualist theory that change is slow in the biological world. Of course, they will celebrate how humans evolved from the ape line rather than descended from the heavens. But once this is acknowledged and socio-cultural evolution for humans  begins, Darwin seems not to be needed. In present time, Marxists are fine when they hear Darwinian explanations for other species (Stephen Jay Gould). But when it comes to applying Darwin to the human species in the present, Marxists become suspicious. Why? Because they say we are now socio-historical creatures. The argument in this article is that Darwinism, in the form of evolutionary psychology, explains a great deal about human conflict as it exists today as well as in the future.

The Social and Psychological Impact of Darwin Over the last 100 years

As many of you know, the period between 1880 to the end of World War II was a rough time for Darwinism. Social Darwinism began in the 1870s, then was joined by the eugenics movement at the turn of the century. The rise of fascism in the 20th century had a biological basis for its ideology. Then two world wars in which fascism played a major part, not just in Germany but also in Italy, Japan and Spain. By the end of World War II, and for the next thirty years you couldn’t make a biological argument for any social problems without being called racist or sexist. Even in the fields of personality, biological arguments were isolated into one school of personality (Hans Eysenck).

In 1975, E.O. Wilson threw down the gauntlet. Wilson’s specialty was the study of animal societies and he tried to explain how much of human behavior was not very different from the behavior of other animals in their own societies. Wilson emphasized genes as the major causal variable while limiting human culture to a secondary factor. He founded a new field called sociobiology. The attacks on Wilson came fast and furious and Marxists were right in the thick of things, calling Wilson a reductionist. Others implied there were racist, sexist, and class implications for what Wilson was saying. Wilson held on and over the years adapted and qualified his views, giving culture a more prominent role.

In the middle of the 1980s a new field developed called evolutionary psychology.

Among other things, evolutionary psychology was more sensitive than sociobiology to social evolution, explaining that there were different types of society. Different social formations interact with natural selection in different ways depending on whether the societies were hunter-gathering, horticulturalists, agricultural states, herding societies or industrial capitalist societies. In addition, evolutionary psychology was about how psychological conflict arises when biological evolution and social evolution clash. About one third of my article is about these conflicts which are called by evolutionary psychologists “evolutionary mismatches”.

Common Misunderstandings of Evolutionary Psychology

• Human behavior is genetically determined

Genes are a necessary but not sufficient condition for determining human behavior. Biology and social life together interact all the way back in the mammalian kingdom. Together they concreate strategies of adaption. Genes are far from being the sole determinate of what people do.

• If it is evolutionary, we can’t change it

Evolutionary adaptations set the framework for what can or can’t happen. But within that framework there is lots of room for bio-social creativity. However, the adaptations we developed as hunter-gatherers are at least 90% of our history. What we have learned over these 100,000 years won’t be easy to change.

• Evolutionary theories require improbable mathematical computational abilities to weigh the pros and cons of different adaptation choices

  Most of the decisions evolutionary organisms make in adaptation occurs through unconscious processes. Being conscious of how they work is not necessary. In fact, in some cases this knowledge would get in the way. Evolutionary processes only become conscious when there is a problem at the lower level.

  • Current mechanisms of adaptation are optimally designed

  This is a common misunderstanding of religious creationists who imagine Darwinists have to explain how every adaptation is a perfect solution. Darwinians, however, recognize that adaptations are often imperfect compromises which are only satisfactory or just good enough. An example is the skin coloring of mammalian males. On one hand, males’ coloring must blend enough into the environment to act as camouflage so as to not be eaten by other animals. Yet they cannot be so blended that they are not sexually attractive to females. One the other hand males aspiring to look like peacocks to attract females cannot be so brilliant that they turn into dead meat.

  • Evolutionary theory implies a motivation to maximize gene reproduction

  As we know, males and females do not look at each other consciously with the intention of maximizing their genes. Males and females do this without knowing anything about Darwin, adaptation or sexual selection. Males and females have different mating strategies and these strategies play out unconsciously. For example, men will be attracted to women with a bust-waist-hip ration of 3-2-3 of 4-6-4 because these ratios are a good bet that women will be fertile. This preference is hard-wired into men whether or not they consciously want to have children. On the other hand, women will be drawn to men with wide-shoulders and narrow hips because that appears as a way for men to offer women protection and strength against threat. Men go to the gym to strive for this, whether or not they want to have children. Good genes for men and woman translate as “beautiful” or “handsome”. Bad genetic bets translate as “ugly”.

  What is Human Nature?

  As soon as Marxists hear the word “human nature” being thrown around they think the explanation will be both a) biological, and b) static and impossible to change. Often, they will counter this by saying human nature is social rather than biological, dynamic rather than static. The problem with Marxist explanations are that human nature is bio-social not just social. Also, when Marx says human nature is the ensemble of social relations, he ignores the fact that in some societies biology has more influence on others, as we will see.

  Human societies are said to be between 100,000 – 150,000 years old. 90-95% of that time has been spent as hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gathering societies have been the cauldron in which human nature was formed. Whatever adaptation skills or sexual selection strategies were learned during this time, they have gone deep into our plumbing and aren’t about to change quickly or easily.

  The following have been our biological social predispositions for most of 100,000 years:

  • Preference for groups of 50-150 in number
  • Ethnocentrism (belief in the superiority of one’s group)
  • A division of labor between men and women (men big-game hunting, woman gathering)
  • The propensity to cooperate and share within the group
  • Egalitarian political relations with no institutional leadership
  • No political hierarchies or social classes
  • Economics based on generalized reciprocity
  • Presence of social property, not private property
  • A tension between polygamy and monogamy
  • Men marrying younger women
  • Life expectancy of between ages 28-35
  • Apprenticeship-type education
  • Belief in earth spirits, ancestor spirits and totems rather than gods or goddesses
  • Loyalty to local groups (no nationalism)

  It is only due to the propaganda of state civilizations and capitalist societies that so much of our biological social predispositions has been reversed.

  The Darwinian Unconscious

  Western Marxists bet on the wrong horse and nominate Freud

  When “western Marxists” became enthralled with the Frankfurt School, they were all aflutter with psychology.  But instead of maintaining a materialist framework and looking into Vygotsky and sociohistorical psychology in the Soviet Union, they went elsewhere. Even within western bourgeois psychological schools of psychology they could have explored behaviorism or the cognitive schools which had a good reputation for doing good scientific follow-up. Did they try to integrate them with Marxism? No. Instead they selected the most unscientific school of all: Freudian. A few books came out attempting  to synthesize Marx and Freud. One problem was that Freudians (and all of western societies)  had a liberal social contract epistemology that is fundamentally opposed to a Marxian social materialist framework.

  Additionally, the content of the Freudian unconscious is filled with far-fetched sexual motivations about babies wanting to murder their parents. Try explaining the workings of the Freudian unconscious to the working class. They would dismiss Marxists even more than they do now. Does this mean Marxists should abandon explaining unconscious motivation completely because Freud engaged in such far-fetched fantasies about it?  No. We think instead that a Darwinian theory of the unconscious has a lot more to offer, as I will explain.

  History of human societies: from bio-social beings to socio-historical biological  beings

  As we said, in the history of human societies we humans spent at least 100,000 years as hunter-gatherers. About 8,000 BCE we began to live in simple and complex horticultural villages. Complex horticultural societies (chiefdoms) had the first hierarchies. Around three thousand BCE, the first agricultural states emerged in Mesopotamia and Egypt. About 1000 years later, the same archaic state system irrupted in China and India. Alongside these planting societies there emerged herding societies using camels, sheep and goats.  Beginning with the Phoenicians and Greeks  in the ancient world and the Carthaginians, maritime states dotted the some of the global sea coasts. Then in the 14th century, the first of four forms of capitalism emerged. The first was in mercantile capitalism of Venice and Genoa; then with the seafaring Dutch in the 17thcentury; then agricultural slave capitalism in the United States and Britain; and finally the industrial and finance capital of the British and the United States in the 18th to 20th centuries. Why am I telling you this? Because the later in time we go, the more people become social-historical beings and the less we are determined by biology.

  Driving Darwin into our social unconscious

  Furthermore, as different as these societies were from each other, there is a general trend that reversed most of our biological social predispositions in which we formed our human nature. Our novel socio-historical institutions included:

  • Societies that grew from 150 people to thousands and eventually millions of people
  • The state emerged from camps and villages
  • Hierarchical political class relations grew out of egalitarian relations
  • Capitalism arose – a movement away from economic generalized reciprocity to surplus appropriation and exploitation
  • The existence of private property out of social property
  • Harnessing of animate and inanimate sources of energy as opposed to human energy
  • Life expectancy rose from 40 to 72 by the last third of the 20th century
  • Polytheism and monotheism replaced animism
  • Nationalism became the basis of politics and overrode identification with the local

  In hunting and gathering societies, we were primarily bio-social beings and consciously followed biological adaptations. At the other extreme, in industrial capitalist societies, we are primarily socio-historical beingsand we consciously follow new needs and desires that grew out of social institutions that were formed away from the conditions of our human nature. These include the nine bullet points above. Our biological adaptations are no longer consciously pursued and are now in our social Darwinian unconscious which is ready to spring up. Please see the table below for a summary.

  Evolutionary Mismatches and the Darwinian Unconscious

  Hunter-gatherers	Type of Society	Industrial Capitalist Societies
  Bio-social	Type of Being	Primarily sociohistorical, biological
  Consciously pursued Formation of human nature	Biological Adaptations	Live on as a Darwinian unconscious
  Conflicts over survival between humanity and biophysical nature	Realm in which Conflicts Take Place	Evolutionary mismatches between our Darwinian unconscious and the new needs and desires created by industrial capitalist societies

  Defining evolutionary mismatches

  Evolutionary psychologists claim that there is a fundamental contradiction between how we lived our lives as hunter-gatherers and how we have lived today in industrial capitalist societies. Our hard wiring as hunter-gatherers is like our Darwinian unconscious. What we consciously pursue today are the needs and desires that emerge as a result of the emergence of the state, capitalism, nationalism, industrialization, social classes and private property.

  Examples of Evolutionary Mismatches

  Attraction to fat and sugar

  Countless dieticians and health educators tell us fat and sugar are bad for us – yet we keep eating them. Why is this? Why hasn’t natural selection eliminated the attraction after over 100,000 years? What does fat and sugar give us? Quick energy. In the era of hunter-gatherers fat and sugar was scarce and finding some might come in handy against large animals during a hunt. Besides that, fat and sugar could not accumulate on bodies that walked and ran numerous miles in a single day. But between 8,000 and 2,000 BCE, life became more sedentary for the middle and upper classes in state civilizations as these classes grew heavier. Peasants working on a farm certainly maintained a rich physical life but they often lacked protein (which was monopolized by the upper classes) and loaded up on carbohydrates, gaining weight. Then the slave trade began in Europe. While sugar was once a delicacy of the upper classes, in the 20th century sugar in large quantities has been made available to the working class and even poor people. The result is an epidemic of diabetes.

  Here is a case where are Darwinian unconscious is still firing — craving fat and sugar. However current social conditions are far from the conditions in which we formed our human nature and are operating to undermine our health. At the same time, capitalists have also organized the production globally so that of a great deal of healthy food can be had from all over the world in far greater variety than in hunting and gathering days.

  Sedentary work requires a need for exercise

  Today middle and upper-middle class citizens in Mordor struggle mightily to stay physically fit because of being locked into desk work. Gyms spring up along with personal trainers to keep people physically healthy. Doctors ask us how much exercise during the day we get. During the hunting and gathering period, there was no such thing as exercise. Both women and men were constantly moving. Neither did they have low back pain from too much sitting. Sitting in chairs was not something people did. They squatted, stood up or lay down. Leg weights, arm weights and all that gyms have to offer was unnecessary during our hunting-gathering period.

  Loneliness: living among millions of strangers

  The psychological experience of loneliness is for the most part unique to the last century or so. Hunter-gathers of up to 150 people were grouped to families where everyone mostly knew everyone else. In horticulture societies, kin groups and clans locked people into social networks. In agricultural states people lived in intergenerational families where elders passed on ways of life. It wasn’t until the breakup of communities at the end of the 19th century and rise of mass society — movies, mass transit and radios that people began to be feel cut off. So today we hire professionals comfort us in our loneliness: professional therapists for our minds and  cuddlers to give us body contact.

  On the positive side, the presence of large groups of strangers frees us from what could be the stifling conformity that life in smaller group can perpetuate. We can try new things — new forms of music, art or invention — that we might hesitate to try among tribes’ clan members or nosey extended family members.

  Explosion of occupational opportunities

  During the hunting and gathering period and, in fact up until about 1500 CE, no relative or neighbor ever asked children what they wanted to be when they grew up. It was understood that whatever work your parents did was the work you did. But with the rise of the modern state, bureaucratic positions opened up for middle class people as translators, scribes and civil servants. The industrial revolution opened up a variety of jobs for the working class, middle class and upper middle class, including those of doctors, lawyers, architects. This was an advance for humanity as people could pursue talents and skills that would lay dormant in a hunting and gathering society.

  Advanced technology dissolves dependence on human muscle power

  During the hunting and gathering times, it was necessary for men to do the big-game hunting and women to the gathering because of what big-game hunting requires.

  Running, tumbling, sphere-throwing and wrestling with dead carcasses requires upper body strength that women didn’t have. This division stayed in place when the plow was invented during the agricultural era because pulling a plow and working with large draft animals also required upper body muscles. But along with the industrial revolution came tractors. This was a boon for women, because women could more actively participate in farming activities since the tractor made upper body strength  irrelevant. Here is an evolutionary mismatch that contributed (unconsciously) to feminism.

  The intensification of ethnocentrism

  As I mentioned earlier, ethnocentrism goes all the way back to hunter-gatherers. However, the only time hunter-gatherers mixed outside their group were in exceptional circumstances such as war. Those agricultural states that developed empires brought in subjugated populations with whom the natives had to mix.  On the whole, cultures did pretty well with each other. The evolutionary mismatch came about with the slave trade which created much harder boundaries between groups, especially between whites and the subjugated slaves. So, in one sense ethnocentrism was made worse within modern people by turning ethnocentrism into racism.

  On the other hand, race relations in the United States were improved through the interaction of Blacks and whites in the music of blues, country music and jazz. Furthermore, thanks to the emergence of socialism in integrated unions like the IWW negative race relations were challenged. However, the modern ideology of racism has tenaciously hung on, as any look at structural racism in Yankeedom today in the area of wages, housing, or education can attest to.

  From voluptuous to skinny women

  As stated earlier, men are naturally attracted to women with large breasts, narrow waists and large hips because these are signs that a woman is fertile and healthy. But if that is the case then why do we see so many magazines with 12-year-old girls with makeup dressed up  to look about 17 and held up as icons of femineity and attraction? Why would women be interested in becoming skinny if it goes against evolutionary psychology? Why wouldn’t sexual selection filter this aspiration out? The answer is that in the 20th century advertisers have created cultural institutions that override sexual selection preferences, at least for some classes and races of women.

  If advertisers for diet programs simply appealed to women’s existing bodies there is a limit in how much money they could make. This is because women’s bodies are naturally voluptuous, especially after they have children. This means that diet programs might be limited to losing fat around the belly. But if you advertise that the ideal woman has small breasts and narrow hips in addition to a slim waste, you might be able to sell three times the products. Few women over 20 can compete with a 17-year-old in terms of the skinny woman ideal, and this is exactly what advertisers want.

  If you can convince women they need to be skinny, they will buy your products for very long time. There is no anorexia or bulimia in hunting and gathering societies. This is the result of insecure teenage girls who get sucked into this trend. Thankfully most working-class women have not caught the “thin is in” contagion. Neither have black or Hispanic women. Essentially it is white upper middle-class women who have become successful targets. Many have actually successfully become slim because they are more likely to have time to go to a gym and cook or pay for healthy meals which are the result of slow cooking.

  Expectations of better looks

  Speaking of appearances, in hunting-gathering societies there were slim pickings when it came to finding a partner. In societies of 50-150 people, marriage partners were found either within their societies or as a result of sacred ceremonies or trading opportunities with other societies. That meant that for most men and women their partners had average looks and that was good enough. However, in the 20th century with the rise of advertising, movie stars and fashion magazines, the men and women who bought them began to compare local prospects to movie stars, musicians and models they found in mass media. Of course, this did not mean their chances of finding some “hunks” were any better. What it did was destabilize the psychology of males and females by raising their expectations while never really fulfilling them.

  Timing and age range of marriages

  During the hunting-gathering period men and women bonded when young. Unconsciously, people were following the sexual selection probability that 15-year-old boys and girls are less likely to have contracted any diseases, so their children would be likely to be fit. While girls would choose boys that were a little older, there was little to gain in holding out for an older guy because hunter-gatherers had no private property and did not accumulate wealth. As chiefdoms developed rank societies, chiefs could marry more than one woman. To be a chief’s wife was a step up for women because of chief’s accumulated wealth. In agricultural civilizations, the same pattern expanded. Women who were captured as slaves could actually improve their situation by being chosen as a member of the harem.

  At the end of the 19th century, the life expectancy began to climb. In marriage dynamics the gap in age between men and woman began to grow. Working class women strove to marry outside their social class and held out for older men because chances of these men accumulating more wealth was greater. With the rise of the sexual revolution in the late 1960s, the tendency for men to marry younger women was challenged. Having lived through that age, I can say that my life choices were counter to Darwinian sexual selection dictates. My current partner is six years older than I and I had no desire to have children. These choices were much easier to make because the counter-culture was like a womb which made it safe to buck the evolutionary trends without feeling like an outcast.

  Increase in the rate of divorce

  The extent to which women are willing to consider divorce has a great deal to do with whether the work they do could support an independent life. In hunting and gathering societies men and women practiced serial monogamy and gender relations were relatively equal. In horticultural societies women were in charge of gardening and worked in public. When horticultural societies switched to agriculture, the men took over the cultivation of fields. Women lost control over working in public and began canning and weaving indoors. There was constant pressure on women to have more children, especially boys, to assist their fathers in the fields. There was also a rise in domestic violence because women were isolated from other women and could not rely on them for protection (as they could in foraging and horticulture societies). Peasant women (90% of the population of agricultural civilizations) put up with abusive marriages because they couldn’t afford to leave. This was the beginning of patriarchy. This martial abuse continued in industrial capitalist societies for the working class and to a lesser extent middle class women.

  However, in the early 1970s things began to change for the better for women. Yankee capitalists decided the way to combat competition from Japan and Germany was to relocate factories overseas where land and labor were cheaper. The union jobs in US manufacturing dried up for men. Working class women began to go from working part-time to full time. Meanwhile middle-class jobs were created in corporations which middle class women flocked to. A natural expression for the women’s movement was for women to work full time professionally as middle or senior managers, lawyers, or college teachers. All this work paid enough money that if a woman wanted to leave a bad marriage she could. The divorce rate rose in the 1970s because middle class and upper-middle class women could afford to leave bad marriages or they could insist that men go to therapy with them.

  Conclusion

  This article began by stating that Marxists are generally aware of the value of Darwin when it came to the origin of species as well as how other species operate today. But Marxists are usually less aware of how much Darwin’s ideas are relevant today as they apply to the human species. The reason for this lack of awareness is because right-wing conservatives have used Darwin’s ideas over the last 100 years from Social Darwinism to eugenics to fascist ideology. By the time sociobiology emerged in the 1970s, Marxists remained skeptical of any Darwinian application to the human species today. It was only Stephen Jay Gould and a few others who bridged the gap between Darwin and Marx.

  The bulk of this article is about what happened to Darwinism after sociobiology. A new field of Darwinism, evolutionary psychology, emerged in the middle of the 1980s. After explaining the differences between sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, I take the reader through five of the most common misunderstandings of Darwinism. I point out that evolutionary psychologists claim that there is such a thing as human nature and it was formed over a 100,000-year period with human as hunter-gatherers. I identify fourteen social predispositions that were rooted in this 100,000-year period.

  Evolutionary psychology does not advocate that biology is destiny. I describe how, as human beings moved away from our hunting and gathering origins where we formed our human nature, a tension was created. This tension was between what we learned as hunter-gatherers and what was expected by social institutions of later societies, especially industrial capitalist societies. This tension resulted in evolutionary mismatches.I illustrated these tensions in ten areas: attraction to fat and sugar; the need for exercise; loneliness; explosion of occupational opportunities; advanced technology; ethnic relations; body shape preferences; expectations of better looks; the timing of and age range of marriages; and the increase in divorce rates.

  These evolutionary psychological mismatches explain many conflicts that people living in industrial capitalist societies must grapple with. These do not compete or replace Marxian explanations for conflict within the individual. Conflicts due to capitalist crisis, to the alienation of labor, class humiliation, exploitation of labor, overwork and other Marxian explanations are still in place. Evolutionary psychology is meant to fill in the crevices where Marxism is incomplete or left unexplored. Darwin and Marx should be understood as complementing each other in how we understand the alienated individual of industrial capitalist societies as well as the tools in creating the foundation for a realistic socialist human nature in the future.

   

  
  This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/04/15/why-marxists-need-darwin/feed/ 0 388072 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/04/what-would-charles-bukowski-say-today/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/04/what-would-charles-bukowski-say-today/#respond Sat, 04 Mar 2023 15:38:57 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=138346 The prolific underground writer Charles Bukowski used his pen to illustrate the despair of city life, especially for the down and out in American.
  The post What Would Charles Bukowski Say Today? first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]>
  The post What Would Charles Bukowski Say Today? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  
  This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/04/what-would-charles-bukowski-say-today/feed/ 0 377145 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/10/charles-austin-beard-a-racist-historian/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/10/charles-austin-beard-a-racist-historian/#respond Fri, 10 Feb 2023 06:51:27 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=273743 Controversy about Charles Austin Beard began in 1913 when he published An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. He turned thirty-nine that year. Until then, his books had appeared to widespread praise within the profession and to the benign neglect of the general reading public. A highly successful teacher at Columbia University More

  The post Charles Austin Beard, a Racist Historian? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  
  This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard Drake.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/10/charles-austin-beard-a-racist-historian/feed/ 0 371556 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/01/12/supporters-of-zambias-ruling-party-raid-2-radio-stations-for-hosting-opposition-party-leader/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/01/12/supporters-of-zambias-ruling-party-raid-2-radio-stations-for-hosting-opposition-party-leader/#respond Thu, 12 Jan 2023 18:53:39 +0000 https://cpj.org/?p=252592 On December 31, 2022, and January 1, 2023, supporters of Zambia’s ruling United Party for National Development (UPND) raided two radio stations and disrupted broadcasts by Chilufya Tayali, president of the opposition Economic and Equity Party, according to news reports and journalists who spoke to CPJ.

  On December 31, a group of about 10 people who identified themselves as UPND supporters raided the privately owned Kokoliko FM radio station in the city of Chingola, while it aired a sponsored program by Tayali, according to a statement by the Zambian chapter of the regional press freedom group Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), a Facebook post by station director Charles Mubonda, and radio station staffers who spoke with CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

  UPND supporters shoved station manager Eunice Phiri and used abusive language against the other journalists there, according to the staff and the MISA statement.

  After the station complied with their demands and ended the interview, the UPND supporters ordered Tayali to leave the studio and get into his car, and then they got into their own vehicles and escorted him out of Chingola, according to the MISA statement and a video shared on Tayali’s personal Facebook page. 

  Police later warned two of those UPND supporters about their disruption of the radio program, according to news reports, which said Mubonda planned to file charges against the supporters for trespassing, harming his business, and making threats.

  On January 1, a group of about 25 UPND supporters, led by acting youth UPND chairperson Kennedy Sikazwe, surrounded the privately owned Mafken FM radio station in the neighboring town of Mufulira and made their way into the studios, where they threatened to burn down the station if they broadcast a sponsored radio program featuring Tayali, according to a video posted on the station’s Facebook page and station manager Nchimunya Chilwalo and presenter Barnabas Chisha, both of whom spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

  “It was Mr. Sikazwe who made the threats about burning down the radio station,” Chilwalo told CPJ. “He even boasted to say, ‘Even if you inform the police, nothing will happen because those are our people.’”

  As UPND supporters surrounded the radio station to block Tayali, Sikazwe and others remained inside until they all left the premises about four hours later, Chilwalo added. 

  When CPJ called Sikazwe for comment on January 9, he promised to return CPJ’s call, but did not do so and did not answer follow-up calls.

  “When I asked in what capacity they were stopping us from running the program, they said in their capacity as UPND youths, and that they have the right to stop the program,” Chisha said. 

  On January 2, UPND National Youth Chairman Gilbert Liswaniso apologized to the radio stations during a media briefing and told his cadres to stop harassing journalists.

  CPJ repeatedly called and texted Liswaniso for comment but did not receive any replies.

  
  This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/01/12/supporters-of-zambias-ruling-party-raid-2-radio-stations-for-hosting-opposition-party-leader/feed/ 0 364105 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/04/king-charles-accused-of-helping-bp-greenwash-its-image-with-royal-seal/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/04/king-charles-accused-of-helping-bp-greenwash-its-image-with-royal-seal/#respond Fri, 04 Nov 2022 14:17:51 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/king-charles-greenwash-bp-sustainable-markets-initiative/ The oil giant was recognised by the Sustainable Markets Initiative – despite missing out on top sustainability score

  
  This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Dimitris Dimitriadis, Ben Webster.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/04/king-charles-accused-of-helping-bp-greenwash-its-image-with-royal-seal/feed/ 0 347987 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/01/pro-independence-palika-ready-to-join-dialogue-on-future-of-kanaky-new-caledonia/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/01/pro-independence-palika-ready-to-join-dialogue-on-future-of-kanaky-new-caledonia/#respond Tue, 01 Nov 2022 21:56:42 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=80671

  RNZ Pacific

  One of New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties, Palika, says it is prepared to meet the French ministers due in Noumea this month to follow up on the aftermath of the 1998 Noumea Accord.

  Among a dearth of formal contact this year, the Palika said the talks could be about a possible framework allowing for New Caledonia’s independence in partnership with France.

  Last week, Palika, along with the other parties making up the FLNKS movement, stayed away from what Paris called the Convention of Partners, hosted by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne to discuss the future status of New Caledonia.

  • READ MORE: French PM meets New Caledonia’s anti-independence leaders in Paris
  • Other reports on Kanaky New Caledonia decolonisation

  The meeting was the first gathering involving the prime minister since last December’s third and last referendum, in which 96 percent voted against full sovereignty.

  The Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) refuses to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process, calling instead for bilateral talks with the French government.

  A Palika spokesperson, Charles Washetine told La Premiere television that Palika wanted to attend the Paris talks but followed the stance of other FLNKS parties which had reneged on a commitment made in September to travel to France.

  Washetine said he was keen to start discussions as quite a bit was on the agenda for 2024 when the next provincial elections are due.

  Dealing with decolonisation
  He said for his side it was important to know how to deal with the decolonisation as outlined in the Noumea Accord, which is transitional in nature.

  At the heart of it, he said, was the transfer of power from France to New Caledonia, adding that work had to be done to complete the process.

  He said the outstanding powers, which include defence and policing, could be shared in a partnership with France.

  At last Friday’s Paris talks, attended by New Caledonia’s leading anti-independence politicians, Borne said they marked the beginning of discussions on the future status of New Caledonia.

  She added that Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco would visit Noumea in November.

  With a target date of mid-2023, Borne wants to conclude an audit of the decolonisation to assess the support given to New Caledonia by the French state since 1988.

  She said it was agreed with the anti-independence leaders in attendance that they would broaden the scope of the discussions beyond the institutional questions, by also addressing vital subjects for the future of New Caledonians.

  Equal opportunities
  These include equal opportunities and social cohesion, economic development and employment, energy sovereignty and ecological transition as well as common values and reconciliation.

  Borne said working groups would be organised in Noumea by the High Commissioner.

  Washetine said the pro-independence side would co-operate but added that amalgams should be avoided as some powers were within the competences of New Caledonia.

  This year, there has been little formal contact between the pro-independence leaders and the French government, with Paris being accused of being deaf to their demands.

  Washetine said if the referendum had been held under normal conditions, the situation would perhaps be different.

  In Paris, however, Borne said after meeting the anti-independence politicians that she was delighted with the spirit of responsibility and consensus of the exchanges, describing them as “faithful to the tradition of the agreements of 1988 and 1998”.

  With talks now likely in New Caledonia, Washetine said he hoped that the upcoming period would deal with the fundamental questions, adding that “things can’t be done without the Kanak people”.

  This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  
  This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/11/01/pro-independence-palika-ready-to-join-dialogue-on-future-of-kanaky-new-caledonia/feed/ 0 347067 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/10/18/charles-iii-architectural-meddler-and-saboteur-2/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/10/18/charles-iii-architectural-meddler-and-saboteur-2/#respond Tue, 18 Oct 2022 05:29:40 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=259996 As a prince, the new British monarch developed some curious attitudes to architecture.  He also proved to be a dedicated meddler behind building projects he did not like. Combined, this led to a number of interventions that cast a shadow over his accession to the throne.  What will Charles III do when it comes to More

  The post Charles III: Architectural Meddler and Saboteur appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  
  This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/10/18/charles-iii-architectural-meddler-and-saboteur-2/feed/ 0 342667 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/10/17/architectural-democracy/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/10/17/architectural-democracy/#respond Mon, 17 Oct 2022 15:16:49 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=134486 Can we, as limited cognitive beings, ever be able to cope with the growing complexity of cities and be a part of its decision-making structure or are we doomed to go into an automated democracy? One thing we can say about a city, unlike a power regime, is that cities have very long lives. They […]
  The post Architectural Democracy first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]>

  Can we, as limited cognitive beings, ever be able to cope with the growing complexity of cities and be a part of its decision-making structure or are we doomed to go into an automated democracy?

  One thing we can say about a city, unlike a power regime, is that cities have very long lives. They may suffer massive destruction, but they recover in a way that a king etc might not. Cities are resilient.¹ But cities are never independent of the broader power regime in which they are born and in which they exist and survive through time. Cities are shaped differently if they are under a monarchy, a despotism, an empire, or an imperial setting. Time runs through cities, and their durability is striking. The German historian Reinhardt Koselleck wrote in Sediments Of Time, that it is the way in which cities developed certain customs, institutions and rules that makes them survive the mover time. If we think within the European tradition, the language of civil society is very important for the way we think about democracy today: civility, citizen, citizen of a town. This language of citizenship of civil society was born at a much earlier point, it is a product of urban life. Cities in early, late medieval times, and early modern Europe were small. In the 1500s, maybe only three or four cities had a population of 100,000 residents or more. For example, Naples, the largest of the time. And yet, those cities contributed a great deal to the whole subject of democracy and the way we think about power and the right to resist tyranny. The call to abolish monarchy, constitutional conventions, popular elections, the right of toleration of religious differences, liberty of the press, and later inventions like municipal socialism. All of these were creations of urban settings of citizens and their representatives in a broader power context. And those customs, the whole spirit of those innovations, survive until today. They’re a very important part of our urban history.

  But now, we are seeing the rise of a different type of cities, the mega cities. Has that changed that perception? Are cities still connected with their power regimes in the same way as before? Or is that continuity being lost? Georg Simmel was one of the very first analysts of modern urban life. He was inspired by living in Berlin that was back then, becoming one of the great European cities, one of the great global cities. His emphasis lied on the restlessness of life and of the institutions inside cities. His emphasis was on the conflicts. Cities are never zones of harmony. Urban life sharpens the sense of complexity of the world in which subjects live. But what about the cities of today? The scale is clearly different if we look at the Chinese plans for a Greater Bay Area, to include Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. This is to be the largest mega city in the history of the human species.² And as researchers, as architects, no doubt, there’s a lot of work to be done to make sense of how that mega city is going to operate. Complexity is a challenge that was noted 100 years ago, and it continues to be with us. The implication here is that there is a warning whenever we talk about cities, in the present, and in the past, these are always interpretations. These are selective accounts of vast totalities that are in a way ungraspable. And it’s one of the magic of cities. It’s one of the attractiveness of cities. It was so historically, and it remains so today. When you arrive in a city which is unknown to you, one is struck by the contrast between rich and poor, between decadence and innovation. One is struck by the blight of concrete, and one is struck by the rewilding projects that go on. It puts one’s head in a world of a certain dizziness. And that should be borne in mind when we talk about the subject: modesty.

  Charles Montgomery’s happy city work or Jan Gehl’s clearly show the impact of designs of cities that can create more empathic people. Researchers and activists do awesome work, but it almost never reaches planners at the city levels that implement it. How can we bridge this?

  Most cities are small and they come by anonymously, almost never to be invaded, say, by the masses of foreigners who want to visit them. Now, the big cities contain within them very important contributions to a system, to a situation, to a kingdom, to whatever it might be. They generate complexities, and not all complexities can work in those cities. So, we have these two moments, we have poor, and we have rich, and we have bandits and we have honesty, that is part of the city, the city is that institution. The city is an open domain, with multiple options, multiple positives, multiple negatives. And it never completely stands still. When it stands still, it’s a dead city.

  There is a danger of romanticizing small cities. There are small cities where indeed there is a sense of communitarianism, let’s say, but many small towns and cities are not happy places. Size is not the key variable for explaining if cities are happy or happier. Frank Lloyd Wright talked about the ideal city³ being a small city, where there is harmony, there is “organic architecture”. And even goes on to say that America is the place where the true democratic architecture⁴ is being built because it’s natural, and those cities are thus democratic, because they are organic, they are harmonious whole. Wright was a kind of communitarian, a green aristocratic, he was well ahead of his time in that he thought in terms of the embedding of cities within the biomes, which they depend upon. But the image of a city as a place of communitarian equality, where each individual flourishes like an aristocratic dignity is an impossible idealization. It’s a false description of cities. So we are back to the question of the self paralyzing trends of large cities, the way in which pluralism cripples itself. And the question therefore becomes, how democratically? Can that city be regulated? How can it be governed? This is the central question, and cities that are unhappy cities that are full of negative negatives are cities which are badly governed, or badly self governed, via abuses of power that destroy solidarities and that destroy the dignities of at least some of its population.

  Democracy is a central ingredient of a well governed city, well functioning and happy city. Cities have been democratic laboratories. That was true for the ancient cities of Syria, Mesopotamia, Nepal, for example, or Babylon, where assemblies were invented.⁵ Cities have a history of being democratic laboratories. But in our time, are cities still the innovators? Are they innovator sin matters of power? And in matters of good government? Are they spaces of innovation? And the short answer is, yes! Despite the commercialization, the destruction of zones of solidarity, degradations and the surveillance that plagues cities, there are things going on in our times, such as, police monitoring groups, sanctuary cities, citizens’ innovations to protect mosques, synagogues, churches, to protect the right to be different, or in matters of for example queer politics… Cities are spaces where the “greening” of democracy has been going on for a generation.

  Let’s hope one day we can talk about how cities have actually contributed to the whole idea and practice of democracy that has never happened before, which is the extension of the rights of representation. Democracy comes to mean not just the self government of people who can decide on Earth whatever they want, but democracy is coming to mean slowly, but surely, the self government of people that refuse arbitrary power. That acknowledges human’s dependence upon the nonhuman. This is a very fundamental innovation that largely happened in cities. And so we witness innovation, such as the Opal project in London, where citizens are called upon to note the birds and living beings in their back gardens, to try to publicly monitor species’ survival or destruction. Or the Butterfly Bridges, a small but very powerful simile of this trend. Butterflies and other insects don’t like traffic, they don’t like urbanization, it’s destructive of their meeting and of their feeding patterns. But good citizens build bridges of flowers, across roads, to enable butterflies to survive and to thrive in urban settings. And in general, the greening of cities is of striking historical importance. It’s one of the great examples of how cities today continue to function as democratic laboratories.
  
  Cities survived corporations, kings, all of them. Have cities, being a design, emergent or planned, induced democracy or are they improving it, or rather is it the opposite effect?

  In other words, is the rise of cities or maybe city states linked to the rise of democracies and now then new despotisms (despots hiding themselves behind fake democracies)?

  A city exists under certain conditions, and there is considerable variety of power of who wins and who loses. At the same time, everybody is in principle, enabled, not at the same level, but that means that you have the rich and you have the poor, and they both benefit in many ways from the city, do the rich benefit more? Of course they do. But the poor exist too as they are distracted about their condition to survive. In Latin America you have a brutality of poverty versus wealth. The Americas are among the most extreme versions of the urban and of the kind of brutality and indifference towards the poor and those who suffer, makes the Americas not the most attractive when it comes to what a great city is. The Europeans do better, the Japanese do better.

  Let’s take the example of public transport and of the fate of democracy in India.⁶ India’s public transport networks are on the whole disgraceful and this has a powerful destructive effect on people’s lives. There is no natural harmony. When there is a good functioning public transportation, as for example in Copenhagen or Berlin, London or Barcelona, this enables everybody in the city (if it is affordable) to move around. The right of motion makes us as equal citizens, when one boards into a tram or a bus or a metro and pays a standard price, rich and poor, and everybody in between black and white, yellow and brown, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, non believer and so on, they enjoy the entitlement to move through space in time as equals. And cities that do not have decent public transport systems are much more miserable places.

  Argentina is considered a democracy, but 40% of its population lives in the equivalent of shantytown settings. The measure of a good city should be if all residents of the city, all inhabitants and those who move in and out, enjoy equal capacities to live well, and to live in environmentally sustainable conditions. So there is no natural law towards the survival of cities that promote well being, this is a matter for citizens themselves to co determine it. It’s a matter of the governments and businesses and other nongovernmental organizations, and whether they are prepared to nurture that city and to nurture it well.

  New despotisms are building cities that are architecturally astonishing. In which there is good public transport, they are clean, there is an effort to purify the air cities, like Dubai,⁷ with it’s tree shaped Palm Jumeirah Island, or the artificial new city in Colombo, reclaiming land from the sea, or Doha’s Lusail complex, which is built for the World Cup next year, or go to Kazakhstan to the new capital city Nur-Sultan and you will find amazing architecture. You will find a well functioning public transport. But you will also find that self government of citizens is a phantom. That is to say that these are cities without democracy. These are cities that are governed despotically with, of course, the support of the people of those cities. But where elections don’t function as free and fair, in which accountability mechanisms are in short supply. These cities are kind of phantom democracies. And that complicates the discussion about cities, happiness, well being and self-government.

  We cannot import democracy, it is to grow from within, in our own cities. Do citizens and regulators and other organizations within cities, do they share experiences, do they network?

  There are networks, initiatives, such as city net. It’s a network of cities of local governments in the Asia Pacific region. The point is to share information practices about how to improve the quality of life in cities, be it water recycling, or techniques of restricting automobile traffic, so that they do not choke cities, or for example participatory budgeting. If you go to Seoul, outside of the municipal hall of the city government, there is a large, big red and white ear. And you can as a citizen, dictate a message into that big ear, which goes straight into the government. Another example from Seoul, university engineering departments are putting their students to go out to inspect the safety of bridges. And this is simple innovation. But it’s the kind of innovation that is a shared knowledge that is shared among cities, and they help keep the spirit of democracy alive. If democracy means equality or equalization of life chances, if it means free and fair elections as well, and if it means the public scrutiny of arbitrary power, then innovations like the big ear in Seoul, are the sediments of time for which cities are justly famous.
  
  Would there be a possible link where people agglomerated in such densified spaces tend to organize themselves for fairer decisions, more critical, or is the urban densification with lack of a social plan leading us into ever more loneliness and extremist positions?

  Land is being grabbed for so many different functions that the question of space becomes extremely important. And the need to protect the urban condition. For instance, we are beginning to see certain cities, where growth damages life quality. For some of the low-income workers that live at the edges of the cities, they need to travel for two or three hours every morning to get to their job. Should we maybe build new cities?

  We know densification is a very positive format, you don’t waste a lot of time, you have concentrated diversities of knowledge and needs, and intelligence, it’s all positive. That is what makes a city live, makes it significant. There is a set of conditionalities that need to be in play to have a functioning city, a city that functions for everybody. So, there are many cities now that function for everybody, for the rich, for the poor, etc. But there are also many cities that are expanding endlessly, and you see that in these, that is a negative.

  If the norm is that cities should function for everybody, then we are talking about democratic cities in the exact sense that democracy has always stood for a vision that no tyrant, no monarch, no despot, is entitled to rule over others because they are simply not good enough. And what flesh and blood people are capable of, is just good enough to govern themselves and live their lives as equals in cities. The best cities to replicate are those with that ethos, with a flourishing Montesquieu’s spirit. That’s true for public transport.

  Maybe we do not need to build more cities, maybe we need to redesign those that exist, their redesign and their improved self government, their improved democratic qualities. And here, plenty can be learned from the history of cities and their contribution as democratic laboratories from the last quarter of the 19th century in Europe and the push for what would be called, for example, in England, municipal socialism. So there ought to be decent sewage, so that it doesn’t flow and pollute and infect people in streets. Think too for example of the importance of the public library movement. The provision of gas and electricity, public parks, these were all innovations. Some of them are under great pressure as we speak, but they were all innovations designed by their own local champions to make cities places that function for everybody. The question is, what can we think globally of innovations that have similar compounding effects? Well, for instance, there are in several Asian cities, social innovation forums, where digital analysts, coders, come together with citizens and with urban planners and with elected representatives, to think about how a city could become digitally a place in which there is equal access to high speed 5g, or it will be six 6G networks, and so on.

  Or a Dutch innovation: publiques (a play on the word public), it’s a letterbox, a Julian Assange type of a letterbox into which citizens and civil servants can post anonymous messages about corruption, about the need for improved government. Or think about the way that the best functioning cities have been redesigned in the last quarter of a century for people with disabilities, they were very unfriendly places. In some cities, there’s a greater visibility of disabled people and there’s a greater generosity towards them because of public servicing of their particular needs. Commons workshops where tools are shared among citizens of particular part of a city or festivals. One of my favorite examples is the kissing fest that was developed in Mexico City. The idea is that, on a Sunday afternoon, citizens are invited to command to be with others, most of whom they do not know. And to kiss at least one person, you could kiss your partner, you could kiss your lover, you could kiss a passer by. What is the significance of this? Well, it’s an expression of affection, bodily affection, a reminder that citizenship is embodied. But it’s also there’s a kind of equalization of differences for the first time you see someone queer, someone from other LGBTQ groups kissing and this has a civilizing effect. There are multiple ways in which ideas are transferable to cities in which these can become places that function for everybody and not just for the powerful and not just for the rich.

  Historically cities are a place where those without power, can make history. Cities give a voice. Are we even relevant within these super organisms called cities?

  Competing amongst each other, cities have a voice but do we still have a voice in them? It’s an illusion that we can think we have a theory about the cities. The mix of different types of institutions, different materials for building, also the diversity of actors have made cities into very complex little animals. And now that we realize how much knowledge is involved, we discover how little of that knowledge we typical citizens have, no matter how caring they are. Let’s take something as obvious as plants. In some fancy neighborhoods, people were trying to make it all beautiful, wanting to plant certain plants. Then the experts came by and said, no, you do not want those plants here, because it’s not going to work for you, you won’t like the smells that they will produce by the time they’re three years old. There was suddenly a recognition that putting the wrong tree in a city can produce negatives. The city is a very open system, it survives because it is an open system, we can be actors, but we have voids.

  The greening of cities that is going on now, in the most advanced of examples, it is doing something to that very ideal of being a citizen. A citizen comes under pressure from this greening of urban life, that is, in its early stages, and has a great deal of opposition to it. The Citizen becomes someone who is the equal duty bound to respect the entitlements of others and who is entitled to live as an equal, but only insofar as the citizen comes to be conjoined with the biomes in which they dwell, that there is a recognition of inequality, or the need for a greater equalization of that relationship between humans and nonhumans. It’s a very important challenge to the historic originally Greek and Republican notion of a city. The greening of cities implies overcoming the dualism of city and country. And this is an unfinished process. There are some cities where the greening is more advanced than in the country. There’s a great paradox that needs imagination and fresh thinking.

  There is a need in these years of the 21st century when it comes to cities and democracy and thinking about their interrelationship to reimagine democracy, as a never ending process within a city, and in other contexts, in which citizens and their chosen representatives are on the lookout for dangers that democracy comes to be the carrier, not of blindness or illusions of omniscience, but democracy comes to be a carrier of precautionary thinking and of precautionary attitudes, that cities must be on guard in the way that they’re governed in the way that power is allocated in the way that they treat the biomes in which they’re situated. Because if they don’t, they can accelerate the destruction of large parts of our planet.

  So democracy has a quality of restraining abuses of power, restraining blindness and illusions of omnipotence, the omniscience of urban planners, or corporate builders of high rise buildings, etc. Democracy comes to be an early warning detector system. Cities need this more than ever; this is a new way of thinking about democracy. It stands for equality; it is against arbitrary power. It is a whole way of life. But it is also a set of mechanisms for blowing whistles on arbitrary reckless abuses of power. And in this sense, democracy is an early warning detector system that can prevent the self destruction of cities.

  Regarding the vertical city versus a linear city, do you see an impact on the concept of democracy as to how that city is formed?

  Is there a benefit to the vertical city because it creates more open spaces? Is there a disadvantage to that? And how would that compare to more of a linear city? There’s a balance needed between the too high and the too low because densification is important but so is human scale. If you stack human beings too much on top of each other, to maximize the return of investments for the stakeholders, then we are in trouble. We need to have a better social plan in the design of cities, in terms of, mobility, or in what kind of communities are these people being integrated into, hopefully, into existing communities, where they adapt into, because building up a community takes a long time. There are basic physical aspects of energy ratios that one must be aware of when going too high. If the local energy prices are high, going tall is nonsensical, if it’s low, like in the UAE, then skyscrapers are a good solution. Also, if you put a skyscraper of 100 floors, it might be difficult to build up a personal connection between the person on the bottom and the person on top. There’s a human scale to everything and we need to be identified with it in the cities in the micro and macro scale.

  Certainly much more research needs to be done about the impact of COVID-19 on this individualization. One of the great complaints about Paris is that it’s a clump of people who live anonymously, they don’t pass by others, they have no sense of community. It’s as if they lose themselves in a mass of people and buildings and winding streets. It’s an old complaint. But it is an empirical question. It’s a question for research as to what degree physical distancing, for instance, in the last two years of this pestilence, will irreversibly fragment or render more anonymous life in cities.

  But a vertically organized city is not just a reference to the height of buildings, but it’s also to the power structures, and unhappy and unlucky are those cities that suffer verticality. The much happier cities are those that are messier or complex, where there is a kind of entanglement of the people. There was in the history of cities, the push to socialize life and that meant to make cities happier, greater equality, equal access to libraries and public spaces into running water and electricity. So this is not a dead principle. The question is, what does it mean for these years of the 21st century? We are all aware that when we visit a city that is well governed and in which there is a sense that the city belongs to more than a few, this is a much more interesting city amidst its complexity, and dynamism. It is a place that one wants to visit again.

  In the role of the city squares, like in Shanghai or Wuhan, one sees lots of people in the evenings going into the city squares or corners around buildings to do their dances and their communal activities. But we also see a trend over the last 100 years where city squares are being privatized. What impacts is this bringing?

  Yes, that trend is a decadent trend that will result in the destruction of sociability. It will accelerate the privatization of experiences in cities. And those cities become much less interesting. Certainly less plural, and certainly less democratic. We are living through an unfinished communications revolution, we’re moving into an age of communicative abundance. When I’m staying at home I can go to places in the most private of domains, one is socially connected. I mean, this needs to be built into the understanding of city life. But unlucky are those cities where public spaces are destroyed by privatization. And it’s not accidental that there are cities such as under Erdogan in Turkey, where an uprising took place against this despotic trend under a government that has multiplied the number of shopping malls seven times. An uprising took place because of an attempt to privatize, destroy, develop, and modernize an existing public space. Public spaces remain of fundamental importance for democracy. And for the vibrance and the magnetism of cities.

  Would there be any examples of these happy but chaotic cities that we can look at just for get some further inspiration or just a consideration for how we can take those as an example for better living?

  Suvilahti is a no man’s land in the middle of Helsinki. The city wanted to change this and capitalize on that area and build office spaces. It’s an old compound with Victorian architecture “occupied” by artists. We were against the plans of the city, as Suvilahti is the last place of experimental architecture and pop up culture in the city. As we wrote back then with the late Michael Sorkin, the city of Helsinki has been promoting itself as to be experimental but to close such open systems will destroy the only place to experiment at. We should therefore have new updated zoning laws and regulations, not just residential, or office spaces, but maybe zones of the “in between”, things that progress over time and can change, or temporary structures. A city should be more adaptable in terms of experiments and in terms of temporary structures.

  We could also speak about Hong Kong here as an allegory of the city in the 21st century. This city is large and vibrant. People live in very high-density settings. It is a city connected to thereat of the world. It’s the one of the largest air freight airports in the world that connects China to the rest of the world. It is a city of considerable diversity. It’s geographically filled with ups and downs. There are rich and poor alongside each other, the cost of living is very high, unaffordable for so many people. There are surprises at every time in the city. The food is very interesting. There is a bizarre liveliness 24/7. It has all the qualities of a functioning viable city with a great deal of inner complexity and anonymity plus sociability. But it is also a city that is now under great pressure to conform to a national security law in which public life in the last six months has been attenuated. Its public life has been suffering. And it’s a less of a happy city now. It’s a city from which there are now large numbers of emigrants. It is an allegory of the way in which cities have this democratic potential but they can also be transformed relatively quickly into sites of despotic rule. Where their vibrancy, their plurality, their openness can suddenly be chucked. It is an open question as to the future of Hong Kong but it stands as an allegory of these competing trends.

  This transcript has been condensed, edited and referenced for clarity. Full debate can be seen below.

  1. Fraccascia, L., Giannoccaro, I., & Albino, V. “Resilience of complex systems: state of the art and directions for future research,” Complexity, 2018. “A common property of many complex systems is resilience, that is, the ability of the system to react to perturbations, internal failures, and environmental events by absorbing the disturbance and/or reorganizing to maintain its functions.”
  2. Or maybe even Delhi. See Bansal, S. (2022, January 20). “The Plans for the World’s Next Largest City Are Incomplete,” New York Times. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
  3. Wright, F. L. (1945). When democracy builds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  4. Not to confuse with Pedro Aibéo’s term of “Architectural Democracy.”
  5. Assemblies of citizens who consider themselves as equals who discuss and decide who gets what, when and how is not a Western invention, archaeologists tell us it happened much earlier. See Keane, J. (2009). The life and death of democracy. Simon and Schuster.
  6. See Chowdhury, D. R. and Keane, J. (2021). To Kill A Democracy: India’s Passage to Despotism. Oxford University Press.
  7. Dubai in 2019 invited a couple of urban planners, to make an urban planning participatory program. 100 million US dollars investment. Everyone knew it was a facade of participation. But at the same time, everyone knows that if you don’t start somewhere, you never start. So what changes first? The political regime, the participation, the education, the cities?
  The post Architectural Democracy first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  
  This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Pedro Aibéo, John Keane and Saskia Sassen.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/10/17/architectural-democracy/feed/ 0 342515 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/10/15/charles-iii-architectural-meddler-and-saboteur/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/10/15/charles-iii-architectural-meddler-and-saboteur/#respond Sat, 15 Oct 2022 02:03:31 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=134421 As a prince, the new British monarch developed some curious attitudes to architecture.  He also proved to be a dedicated meddler behind building projects he did not like. Combined, this led to a number of interventions that cast a shadow over his accession to the throne.  What will Charles III do when it comes to […]
  The post Charles III: Architectural Meddler and Saboteur first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]> As a prince, the new British monarch developed some curious attitudes to architecture.  He also proved to be a dedicated meddler behind building projects he did not like. Combined, this led to a number of interventions that cast a shadow over his accession to the throne.  What will Charles III do when it comes to the next grand building proposal to interrupt the London skyline?

  On the evening of May 30, 1984, the then Prince Charles told leading architects assembled at Hampton Court to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects how exactly he felt about architecture, modern and past.  At last, he claimed, people were “beginning to see that it is possible, and important in human terms, to respect old buildings, street plans and traditional scales at the same time not to feel guilty about a preference for facades, ornaments and soft materials.”

  A few bombs of accusation were also hurled at his unsuspecting audience.  Many planners and architects had “consistently ignored the feelings and wishes of the mass of ordinary people in this country.”  They were the destroyers and rebuilders, not the rehabilitators.

  His preference was for “community architecture”, one that enabled “ordinary” people to express their views about how things should be done, breaking the “monopoly” architects had on taste, style and planning.  He took the Mansion House Square project of the great modernist Mies van der Rohe to build an office tower in the City of London as one example of a program that could have done with “a community approach”.

  With a philistine’s sentiment, the Prince of Wales let his prejudices be known.  “It would be a tragedy if the character and skyline of our capital city were to be further ruined and St. Paul’s dwarfed by yet another giant glass stump better suited to downtown Chicago than the City of London.”

  The proposal to extend the National Gallery also gave Charles his chance to utter those now famous words. The plan envisaged did not, he emphatically noted, complement the Gallery building, looking instead like “a kind of municipal fire station, complete with the sort of tower that contains the siren.”  Such a “high-tech approach” might make sense in the event that all of Trafalgar Square was abolished and built from scratch, “again with a single architect responsible for the entire layout, but what is proposed is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.”

  The efforts by the Prince of Wales to scupper the Mansion House Square project proved outrageously successful.  He received support from another quarter: the urban planners and government officials concerned about the creation of public spaces that might be used for protest.

  His views were also expressed in an atmosphere of reaction and rejection – this was Thatcher’s Britain, a time, as Jack Self writes, of “historical pastiche” allied with “an obsession with preservation”.  The attack on modernism as brutalist, inhuman and of poor quality was misguided but powerful.

  In May 2009, in another address to RIBA, Charles apologised for his “monstrous carbuncle” remark, declaring that he had not intended “to kick-start some kind of style war between classicists and modernists”, let alone wishing to “drag the world back to the eighteenth century”.  But the speech did little to conceal the fact that Charles was engaged in another enterprise of disruption, this time against the design of Lord Richard Roberts for the £1 billion redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks.  While wishing for the project to be dropped altogether, Prince Charles had successfully convinced the developer to make adjustments, including using more brick and stone buildings at the expense of glass and steel proposed in the original design.  Lord Palumbo’s assessment of that effort was acerbic: “I can only say God bless the Prince of Wales, and God save us from his architectural judgment.”

  It was such behaviour that led to a spirited defence of Rogers by a number of architects, including five winners of the Pritzker prize, including Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron and Frank Gehry.  Published in the Sunday Times, the letter, which was also signed by such luminaries as Ricky Burdett, David Adjaye and Renzo Piano, rebuked the Prince of Wales for his intervention.  “It is essential in a modern democracy that private comments and behind-the-scenes lobbying by the prince should not be used to skew the course of an open and democratic planning process that is under way.”

  The parties urged that the Westminster planning committee be permitted to reach their decision without interference.  “Rogers and his team have played their part in engaging with the democratic process.  The prince and his advisors should do the same.”  If the prince wished to “comment on the design of this or any other project, we urge him to do so through the established planning consultation processes.”

  As things transpired, this was not to be.  God, on this occasion, was not on the side of Rogers and his team, and Qatari Diyar, with links to the Qatari Royal family, duly withdrew the design.

  In terms of architectural visions, Charles can point to Poundbury, his own faux-18th century, anti-modernist village project in Dorset, replete with its own stunning anachronisms.  To aid his building projects in the Duchy of Cornwall, the prince secured the services of Léon Krier, a devotee of Nazi Germany’s chief architect and armaments minister, Albert Speer.  Krier was a perfect foil to Charles, both wishing to impose the re-invented past, in some form, on the present.  It should then come as little surprise that Poundbury’s realisation was of a project described by Stephen Bayley as “fake, heartless, authoritarian and grimly cute.”

  As a constitutional monarch, Charles may well have to shield the more combative side of his interventionist approach to policy.  His fields of interest – in terms of hectoring officials to get his way – are many, a point revealed in the Black Spider Memos.  The 27 letters he authored to various government departments between late 2004 and early 2005 point to an individual very much at ease with being a meddler.  For a man who hates carbuncles, he is very willing for the world to have a few of his own.

  The post Charles III: Architectural Meddler and Saboteur first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  
  This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/10/15/charles-iii-architectural-meddler-and-saboteur/feed/ 0 342206 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/30/king-mourns-mother-breaking-news-democracy-under-threat-not-so-much/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/30/king-mourns-mother-breaking-news-democracy-under-threat-not-so-much/#respond Fri, 30 Sep 2022 20:46:35 +0000 https://fair.org/?p=9030427 President Joe Biden on September 1 delivered a roughly 25-minute primetime speech from Independence Hall in Philadelphia about Trumpism’s threat to US democracy. Primetime, that is, for the two major US television networks that aired it live: MSNBC and CNN. The others—ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox—opted not to carry the address, because they deemed it […]

  The post King Mourns Mother? Breaking News. Democracy Under Threat? Not So Much. appeared first on FAIR.

  ]]> President Joe Biden on September 1 delivered a roughly 25-minute primetime speech from Independence Hall in Philadelphia about Trumpism’s threat to US democracy. Primetime, that is, for the two major US television networks that aired it live: MSNBC and CNN. The others—ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox—opted not to carry the address, because they deemed it “political” (Washington Post, 9/2/22).
  

  CNN is one of two major US TV networks that aired President Joe Biden’s speech live from Philadelphia.

  Across the Atlantic just over a week later, King Charles III addressed Britain and the world about his 96-year-old mother’s death and his preparations to take over the solely symbolic role of British monarch. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox all presumably found it more newsworthy than the President’s remarks, because they carried it live (MediaMatters, 9/9/22). (CNN and MSNBC carried both Biden’s and Charles’ speeches.)

  Biden’s speech urgently named MAGA Republican ideology as an imminent threat to democracy, rejected violence and extremism, and condemned conspiracy theories. The “political” speech took an explicitly bipartisan tone, with Biden repeatedly claiming that Trumpism doesn’t represent the majority of the Republican party, and appealing to the American public regardless of political affiliation to defend democracy.

  “I’m an American president—not the president of Red America or Blue America, but of all America,” he said.

  Charles’ speech, on the other hand, was essentially a eulogy. He waxed poetic about Queen Elizabeth II’s public and private lives, praising her “warmth” and “humor” and the “sacrifices” she made to uphold her “duty.” It was appropriately vague and inoffensive for a figurehead whose job is to be apolitical.

  Despite the President of the United States’ speech being patently more relevant to the American people than the symbolic figurehead of another country’s address, the latter had not only more networks airing it, but nearly as much analysis and coverage in the 48 hours surrounding it as the former: A Nexis database search of ABC, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS and Fox transcripts the day of and the day after each of the respective speeches turned up 113 mentions of Charles’ speech and 116 of Biden’s.

  The networks varied widely in the relative amount of coverage they gave to the two speeches. ABC and NBC had roughly twice as many segments on Charles’ speech compared to Biden; Fox and MSNBC had closer to twice as many segments on Biden’s speech. CBS and CNN had roughly similar numbers of segments on each speech.

  

  ‘Politically charged’

  However much time they gave it, each of these networks characterized the president’s speech as inflammatory, ignoring much of its content, and “balancing” it with a chorus of Trump-aligned politicians.

  

  Fox characterized Biden’s speech as a “dark and depressing” “diatribe.”

  Unsurprisingly, on Fox News’s Hannity (9/2/22), fill-in host Tammy Bruce whined that Biden “bashe[d]” Republicans in his “rage-filled speech” that she later described as a “dark and depressing” “diatribe.” But this same right-wing indignation could be heard across network news, regardless of their presumed political leanings.

  ABC’s World News Tonight anchor Mary Bruce (9/2/22) called the remarks “scathing,” saying the speech “slam[med]” MAGA Republicans. The segment quoted Republican former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as UN ambassador for Trump: “It was one of the most unbelievable things I’ve seen in a long time. It’s unthinkable he would be so condescending and criticize half of America.”

  Putting aside that Haley’s own history of opinions about Trump are mixed—“He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him,” she said after January 6—the segment did not bring up Biden’s repeated clarifications:

  • “Now, I want to be very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.”
  • “There are far more Americans—far more Americans from every background and belief—who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that accept it.”
  • “Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans: We must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to destroying American democracy.”

  Reporter Craig Melvin on NBC’s Today show (9/2/22) described the speech as “politically charged,” and anchor Peter Alexander called it “blistering,” including derisions from Republican California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, without including any voices of those who found Biden’s condemnation of Trumpism necessary. The segment also described the speech being delivered in front of a “military backdrop”—that is, two Marines standing behind Biden. (Marines have been present at other debatably “political” presidential speeches, including Trump’s at the RNC in 2020.)

  CBS Morning News’ Bradley Blackburn (9/2/22) chose the word “sharp.” And though CNN opted to air the remarks in primetime, they included the opinion of former Trump White House official Gavin Smith, who posited that threats to democracy are not a priority to discuss in a 25-minute speech, and that Biden should have spoken instead about rising prices (CNN New Day, 9/2/22). (To her credit, anchor Brianna Keilar pushed back against this statement.)

  MSNBC’s The Beat (9/2/22) took Biden’s speech more seriously, with anchor Katie Phang calling out the irony of the GOP labeling a speech about the GOP’s divisiveness as divisive. “There’s so many Trump supporters,” she said:

  They’re screaming about how Joe Biden now has promoted this divisiveness. But you know, the reality is, they’re not looking in the mirrors, right? There’s this hypocrisy that seems to be the currency that these Republicans are trading in.

  Believers in the ‘storm’

  Instead of engaging in handwringing over Biden’s tone, these outlets could have investigated the truth of his claims that MAGA ideology—regardless of what percentage of the Republican party subscribes to it—is a threat to democracy. Beyond the deadly January 6 insurrection itself, polling backs up Biden’s assertions that there are  widespread anti-democratic tendencies within the Republican Party.

  In February, a PRRI report found that a quarter of Republicans consider themselves believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory. When polled on the three central delusions of QAnon, 16% completely or mostly agreed that  media and economy are run by a Satan-worshiping cabal of child sex-traffickers; 22% completely or mostly agreed that a coming “storm” will wipe away these elites and restore the country to its rightful leaders; and 18% completely or mostly agreed that violence may be necessary to save the country.

  Additionally, the Washington Post (9/18/22) recently questioned 19 GOP candidates running in gubernatorial and Senate races about whether they’d accept the results of the upcoming elections. Twelve either refused to commit or declined to respond. All 19 Democratic nominees committed to accepting the results of the elections.

  Sowing distrust in legitimate democratic processes—and resorting to violence in an attempt to prevent them—is certainly dangerous to democracy.

  ‘A very significant event’

  Of course, Charles’ address the day after the queen’s death served a much different purpose than Biden’s: celebrating and remembering a figurehead, versus warning against a rising domestic threat to American democracy. While comparing the content of these two addresses would be comparing apples and oranges, networks’ attitudes toward each are telling.

  

  “Breaking News”: CBS had extensive live coverage from London surrounding King Charles III’s speech.

  On Chris Jansing Reports (9/9/22), MSNBC’s British historian Andrew Roberts called Charles’ speech “very significant.” CBS Evening News’ Norah O’Donnell and Charlie D’Agatta (9/9/22) called it “historic.” On CNN’s Erin Burnett Outfront (9/9/22), CNN International diplomatic editor Nic Robertson foreshadowed the upcoming ceremony that marked Charles’ official ascension to the throne, also calling it “perhaps a very significant event.”

  While the death of the 96-year-old queen and ascension of her son might be significant for royalists—and the pomp, circumstance, anachronism and celebrity of the monarchy might be entertaining and appealing to many Americans—it has almost no political implications for the world. That’s because the British monarch’s role is ceremonial, and, as the constitution dictates, apolitical.

  But the British monarch is also inextricably linked to the British Empire and is a living symbol of that imperial legacy, as well as of an extreme elitism based on nothing more than the privilege of birth (Economist, 9/15/22). Elizabeth’s death spurred significant conversations about Britain’s brutal, bloody legacy of colonialism around the world and abolishing the monarchy—all of which was left out of the above segments, and the majority of network news coverage.

  US news networks instead largely discussed the queen’s death as if everyone agreed on her legacy. “The world mourns the death of Queen Elizabeth,” said CBS Mornings’ Anne-Marie Green (9/9/22), who described the late monarch as “one of the most beloved women in the world.”

  ‘We need to examine that history’

  The entire world was not, in fact, mourning the death of Britain’s queen. On Democracy Now! (9/13/22), Amy Goodman discussed the possibility that “British Overseas Territory” (read: colony) Antigua and Barbuda might cut ties with the British monarch. When asked to respond to the queen’s death, Dorbrene O’Marde, chair of the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Commission, said:

  I’m under no obligation, I think, to be mourning her death. And that is simply because of, I think, my understanding of history, my understanding of the relationships of the British monarchy to African people and Asian people, but to African people certainly, on the continent and here in the Caribbean. And so that my response is perhaps to recognize the role that the queen, Queen Elizabeth II, has played, how she has managed to cloak the historical brutality of empire in this veneer of grandeur and pomp and pageantry, I guess, and graciousness. But I think that at this point in time, we need to examine that history a lot more closely.

  The British Empire committed many atrocities during Elizabeth II’s reign (Liberation News, 9/9/22):

  • The “Malayan Emergency” (1948–60) was a guerilla war fought between Britain and the Communist Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) after the territory sought independence from British rule. During this 12-year-long war (of which eight years were fought under Elizabeth), British forces set fire to homes and farmland of those suspected to be affiliated with the MNLA, sent 400,000 people to concentration camps and destroyed crops with Agent Orange. 6,700 MNLA fighters and more than 3,000 civilians were killed.
  • The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–60) took place in Kenya when the Mau Mau rebels launched an uprising against colonial powers, white settlers and loyalists in the country. The British launched a counterinsurgency campaign, sending more than 100,000 people to detainment camps where they were tortured, interrogated and abused. The Kenyan Human Rights Commission estimated 90,000 Kenyans were killed, maimed or tortured, and 160,000 were detained in camps.
  • The Covert War in Yemen (1962–69) cost an estimated 200,000 lives. After the death of Yemeni King Ahmed in 1962, Arab Army nationalists backed by the Egyptian army seized power and declared the country a republic, with popular support. Britain claimed it would not intervene, but supplied fighter jets and weapons to royalist forces.
  • Bloody Sunday (January 30, 1972) was just one incident during the Northern Irish Troubles, a 30-year fight for independence from Britain. Marchers in Derry, in British-occupied Ireland, were protesting against British legislation that allowed suspected Irish nationals to be imprisoned without trial; the British military opened fire on them, killing 14.

  Even though Elizabeth II had no legislative abilities, this colonial violence was enacted to uphold the empire she helmed (Vox, 9/13/22).

  ‘They know nothing about colonialism’

  Fox specifically scolded those criticizing the monarchy, claiming colonized countries should be grateful for the image of stability Elizabeth upheld, arguing she led the decolonization process. Contributor Douglas Murry claimed on Hannity (9/9/22):

  They know nothing about colonialism. They clearly know nothing about the decolonization process. They know nothing about the late queen’s extraordinary work with the commonwealth countries. If the queen would preside over this, was it a genocidal empire? Unbelievable. There’d be nobody alive if it had been a genocidal empire. And they smear her with this total lack of knowledge.

  There are a handful of scholarly and international legal definitions of genocide. “Everyone has to be dead” is not one of them.

  Other programs may not have engaged in this kind of royalist admonishment, but they still delighted in the royal corgis (ABC’s Nightline, 9/9/22), swooned over Charles’ “emotion” (CNN Newsroom, 9/9/22), admired his handshaking with the crowd (Fox Special Report, 9/9/22) and saluted his promise of a “life of service” (NBC Nightly News, 9/9/22), with little space given to substantive critique of what the monarchy represents.

  

  Outlets aired King Charles III’s speech live and spent the surrounding hours commending his life in service and glossing over Britain’s colonialism.

  As noted, none of the aforementioned TV segments that effusively memorialized the queen and relished in the pomp and circumstance of the monarchy addressed colonialism. In fact, of the total 113 segments on network TV that mentioned Charles’ speech, only 29 mentioned—even in passing—Britain’s colonial legacy or calls to abolish the monarchy. Fifteen of those were from CNN, five from MSNBC, four from NBC, three from Fox (all of which condemned criticism of the monarchy), one from ABC and one from CBS.

  CBS’s mention denied that there was any movement for change: “There is no current, no modern, serious movement to abolish the monarchy,” journalist and royal-watcher Tina Brown said on CBS Mornings (9/9/22).

  That depends on what you define as “serious.” In Australia, thousands marched for abolishment, shutting down streets in Melbourne on the country’s National Day of Mourning for the queen (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 9/22/22). #AbolishTheMonarchy trended on social media (Forbes, 9/9/22). Pro-republican campaigns in Australia, New Zealand and Canada are expected to gain traction now (Wall Street Journal, 9/11/22).

  Many shows repeated the term “colonial past” (e.g., NBC’s Today, 9/9/22; CNN Newsroom, 9/9/22), as if British colonialism is not ongoing. Today, British companies still own $1 trillion of Africa’s gold, diamonds, gas and oil, and an area of land in the continent about four times the size of Britain itself (Guardian, 4/17/18).

  Other legacies of colonialism still reverberate: In 2013, Carribbean heads of governments established the Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC) to demand reparations for Britain’s genocide, slave trade and apartheid in the region, citing illiteracy, physical and mental health issues and generational poverty as modern-day effects of British rule and slave trade.

  Suffice it to say, worldwide opinion about the British monarchy, the death of Queen Elizabeth and the rise of King Charles is far from unanimous, despite US television news framing Charles’ speech—unlike Biden sounding the alarm over the threat to democracy—as something we all could agree on.

  The post King Mourns Mother? Breaking News. Democracy Under Threat? Not So Much. appeared first on FAIR.

  
  This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Olivia Riggio.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/30/king-mourns-mother-breaking-news-democracy-under-threat-not-so-much/feed/ 0 337813 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/24/sean-irish-and-charles-goadby-gb-news-24-september-2022-just-stop-oil/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/24/sean-irish-and-charles-goadby-gb-news-24-september-2022-just-stop-oil/#respond Sat, 24 Sep 2022 17:03:43 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=d69a287ac7040354e2133b244cd9854a
  This content originally appeared on Just Stop Oil and was authored by Just Stop Oil.
  
  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/24/sean-irish-and-charles-goadby-gb-news-24-september-2022-just-stop-oil/feed/ 0 336713 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/24/petition-calls-for-monarchy-to-be-replaced-on-new-zealand-money/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/24/petition-calls-for-monarchy-to-be-replaced-on-new-zealand-money/#respond Sat, 24 Sep 2022 01:30:04 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=79536 By Giles Dexter, RNZ News political reporter

  A Wellington tauira (scholar) has launched a petition calling for Aotearoa New Zealand’s Reserve Bank to replace the monarch in the next redesign of coins and notes, with images that better represent the country.

  Rangatahi Māori, Te Matahiapo Safari Hynes (Rangitāne, Ngāti Kahungunu) said it was a chance for New Zealand to think about the role of the monarchy, and the currency was a good start.

  “I think these are the sorts of things we should start thinking about — what are the different things that colonisation and the Crown has entrenched over the years that we can perhaps start to pick at, and that we can perhaps start to peel back on?”

  • READ MORE: The late Queen Elizabeth and the Pacific

  Hynes said although these kinds of conversations had already been happening for a long time, the accession of King Charles III had provided an opportunity.

  “There are times where [these conversations] will come into the public eye for a short span, and they’ll dominate the headlines for a little time, and then they’ll go back, and they’ll come back eventually when something else happens,” he said.

  The #ourownmoney campaign asks the Reserve Bank “to reconsider ensuring our money represents us as a country, that the people and the symbols on our money are people that are from here, that come from these places, have been in this country, even at a minimum have lived in this country.”

  Hynes hoped to honour the people who had contributed to New Zealand, and showcase more New Zealand symbols.

  Historical figures, blossoms
  “We have so many people in our country’s history that have paved the way for us to be where we are today and how we will be in the future. This is an opportunity to acknowledge and recognise their hard work,” the petition says.

  He suggested using figures like Dame Whina Cooper, Eva Rickard or Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia on the $20 note. He also proposes putting native plants like kōwhai blossom, harakeke, or kawakawa on the coins.

  A constitutional scholar who has participated in the Māori Constitutional Convention, Hynes waited until after the Queen’s funeral to launch his petition, out of respect.

  He said the currency conversation is one New Zealand could have without going into the immediate and impulsive calls for a republic, which he believed was a much bigger and more nuanced conversation.

  “I’m sceptical of people who are attempting to push a kind of republic-based agenda because they perhaps think in some technical way Māori rights can be extinguished.”

  The Reserve Bank has already signalled the next redesign will feature King Charles III, but the change is still a long way off. It will take several years before coins featuring Queen Elizabeth II are replaced, and even longer for the $20 note to change.

  “We manufacture these notes infrequently and do not plan to destroy stock or shorten the life of existing banknotes just because they show the Queen. This would be wasteful and poor environmental practice,” the Reserve Bank said.

  This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  
  This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/24/petition-calls-for-monarchy-to-be-replaced-on-new-zealand-money/feed/ 0 336011 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/22/how-northern-irelands-unionists-are-embarrassing-themselves-over-king-charles-meeting-with-sinn-fein/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/22/how-northern-irelands-unionists-are-embarrassing-themselves-over-king-charles-meeting-with-sinn-fein/#respond Thu, 22 Sep 2022 05:57:41 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=255680 Trust Northern Ireland to inject a few drops of rancour into the royal obsequies, though this is scarcely a surprise in a place where murals of Queen Elizabeth II adorn gable ends in unionist districts and republicans have just become the largest political party. More

  The post How Northern Ireland’s Unionists are Embarrassing Themselves Over King Charles’ Meeting with Sinn Féin appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  
  This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Patrick Cockburn.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/22/how-northern-irelands-unionists-are-embarrassing-themselves-over-king-charles-meeting-with-sinn-fein/feed/ 0 335254 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/21/armed-men-in-military-uniforms-raid-congolese-broadcaster-beat-technician-and-seize-equipment-forcing-radio-station-off-air/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/21/armed-men-in-military-uniforms-raid-congolese-broadcaster-beat-technician-and-seize-equipment-forcing-radio-station-off-air/#respond Wed, 21 Sep 2022 15:32:38 +0000 https://cpj.org/?p=230586 Kinshasa, September 21, 2022—Congolese authorities should thoroughly investigate and hold accountable those responsible for the attack on Radio Evangélique Butembo-Oicha, known as REBO, in North Kivu, and ensure the safety of all journalists in the country, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

  Around 9 p.m. on September 12, four armed men in uniforms resembling those of the Congolese army forced their way into the office of the privately owned faith-based radio station in Oicha, the capital of the Beni territory in North Kivu province, threatened two technicians, beat one on the back with the butt of a gun, and seized three computers, a recording device, and two mobile phones belonging to the technicians, according to media reports and Faustin Saumbire, the broadcaster’s editor-in-chief, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. The station stopped broadcasting after the attack and equipment seizures.

  In May 2021, the Congolese government imposed military governance known as the “state of siege” over the country’s eastern North Kivu and Ituri provinces; repeated attacks and harassment of journalists in those regions have followed.

  “Congolese authorities should conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the attack on the office of Radio Evangélique Butembo-Oicha, ensure those responsible are held to account, and work to bring the broadcaster back on air,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, in Nairobi. “Attacks on the press in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo by armed men in government military uniforms are far too frequent. They are grim indicators for freedom of the press in the country.”

  Saumbire said the technicians, Delphin Sibaminya and Ishara Siwako, told him that the armed men broke down the office door and threatened to harm them if they tried to stop the attackers from seizing the broadcaster’s equipment. They also confiscated their phones to prevent them from contacting others. When Sibaminya objected, the armed men hit him on the back with the butt of a gun and then began taking the equipment. Saumbire said Sibaminya received treatment at a local hospital the next day for a small wound on his back. Siwako was not physically injured in the incident.

  As their phones were taken in the incident and the station is not operating, CPJ has been unable to reach Sibaminya or Siwako.  

  Station director Caleb Wanzire, told CPJ by phone that he filed a complaint about the incident on Thursday, September 15, on behalf of the radio station, to the offices of Charles Ehuta Omeonga, military administrator of the Beni territory, and Nicolas Kambale Kikuku, mayor of Oicha.

  Contacted by CPJ via messaging app, Ehuta said he heard about the attack but had not received a complaint. He said he would investigate as soon as the complaint was received.

  Reached by phone, Kambale told CPJ that the incident was deplorable and was discussed in a security meeting of Oicha officials held on Thursday, September 15. “I condemn this attack and during (the) security meeting, we deplored and analyzed this situation by seeking effective solutions to stem general insecurity in Oicha and above all to discipline the soldiers,” Kambale told CPJ. “Investigations are ongoing to find out more.”

  Pascal Mapenzi, media coordinator for Beni territory, told CPJ by phone that, in solidarity with the station, Beni journalists gave local authorities 48 hours to find the armed men and return the materials taken from the broadcaster. However, that deadline expired and there were “days without information” on Saturday, September 17, and Monday, September 19, according to Mapenzi and a local Radio Oasis report.

  
  This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/21/armed-men-in-military-uniforms-raid-congolese-broadcaster-beat-technician-and-seize-equipment-forcing-radio-station-off-air/feed/ 0 335093 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/19/pngs-sir-julius-i-shed-tears-of-joy-and-sadness-for-a-new-beginning/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/19/pngs-sir-julius-i-shed-tears-of-joy-and-sadness-for-a-new-beginning/#respond Mon, 19 Sep 2022 09:29:40 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=79327 PNG Post-Courier

  The tears came freely as the birth of the new nation of Papua New Guinea was heralded by a new flag — the Glorious Red, Black and Gold.

  Tears of joy, tears of freedom, tears of sadness, all rolled into one on the momentous occasion of the end of an era of colonialism.

  Julius Chan, then a raw young politician and a prolific crusader for the cause of independence, remembers the occasion like it was yesterday.

  • READ MORE: Auckland’s PNG community celebrates Independence Day

  And his tears overwhelmed the man from New Ireland, which implored an euphoric realisation of freedom after years of political bickering against Australia.

  On the morning of 16 September 1975, the flag of Australia was lowered at the Sir Hubert Murray Stadium in Port Moresby.

  With pomp and ceremony, the flag of the new nation of Papua New Guinea — the Kumul soaring over the Southern Cross constellation — was raised to signify the birth of our country.

  These are solemn moments.

  Flag raising touched hearts
  The flag raising touched the hearts and lives of the people who were there, who were witnesses of a dramatic shift in colonization and democracy.

  Many people cried, many in sadness and many more in joy. It is a moment etched in time, a proud moment of nationhood.

  One man who was there, and who has carried the country through thick and thin is PNG’s longest serving parliamentarian and the Last Knight Standing, Sir Julius Chan.

  In an exclusive interview with the Post-Courier’s senior reporter Gorethy Kenneth, Sir Julius remembers the solemnity of the moment.

  “I shed tears of joy and sadness, the old had ended, and a new was beginning,” Sir Julius reminisced.

  “I do remember very clearly the Australian flag being lowered, folded and presented by John Guise to Prince Charles — now our King Charles III — who then presented it to the Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr.

  “And when the Papua New Guinea flag was hoisted, at that very moment, how I felt? …well, very sensational, I was proud, a sensation of final achievement of a goal in life, I had my head down, first, I tilted my head up watching the flag being raised, and each time the PNG flag was raised by the bearers, there was feeling of pride, sensation,” he said.

  Finally ‘broken free’
  “I had a few tears, I felt, in my gut, for the first time that I had finally broken free of the colonial yoke, that is when I knew we were free. That was probably the most memorable moment.

  “It is 47 years now and my greatest wish is that we make the best of what we have, never give up and don’t expect anything from nothing and everything.

  “Life is not meant to be easy and to achieve anything in life; we got to work for it.

  “And also probably we really have to reiterate corruption — corruption is so bad and it’s not paid for by the ordinary people that they playing with little games, corruption is wild at the top, that’s what I really think and that the three arms of government must act in accordance with the constitutional spirit of the constitution.

  “They must not fear to intervene in the area in which the Constitution requires them to.

  “It’s all about justice delayed is the cause and the root of all the evils happening today.”

  Sir Julius said that at the stroke of midnight on September 1975 a fireworks display lit up the Port Moresby sky to signal the beginning of independence for Papua New Guinea.

  The Australian flag, which had been flown since 1906, was lowered for the last time at dusk on 16 September 1975 and handed to Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, who passed it on to Australia’s Governor General, Sir John Kerr.

  Drums beat all night
  All through the day and night, the beat of drums could be heard as members of tribes from all over the new nation of jungles and mountainous islands danced in celebration of their new identity.

  Papua New Guinea, a nation of 2.6 million inhabitants most of whom lived in very rural settings, had to deal with a situation. Fifteen days before the independence, a declaration of independence was made on September 1 by a secessionist movement on Bougainville.

  This declaration which posed a direct threat to the new central government’s authority was dispelled.

  “We were still united,” Sir Julius said.

  “Our Independence Day celebrations were massive and probably organised on a scale far superior to any other form of gathering in the country before or since.

  “You ask anybody why 16 September 1975 was chosen as the official date, I do not think they could tell you.

  “Perhaps it was nominated because it was convenient for the Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr, or for Prince Charles, who came as the Queen’s special representative.

  “Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister of Australia came, as well as Malcolm Fraser, who was then opposition leader.”

  Good job governing
  Australia had governed the enormous, rugged land, and had done a good job.

  “I believe what they did was quite appropriate for a country at that stage of development,” he said.

  “Any other colonial power such as Britain or Germany would run PNG in a completely different way. Australia was a very young country as they had only come into a Federation in 1901 and they were not entrenched in colonial rule, they themselves were treading on new ground.”

  The flag lowering ceremony and fireworks display marked the end of efforts by the Australian Government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to thrust Papua New Guinea into independence and thus rid itself of the stigma of colonial rule.

  Speaking at the ceremony, Sir John Guise, the first Governor-General of Papua New Guinea, said it was important that people realised the spirit in which the flag was being lowered.

  “We are lowering it,” he said, “not tearing it down.”

  Sir John Kerr said the ceremony did not mark the end of Australia’s interest in Papua New Guinea or involvement with it.

  Australia, he said, “remains deeply and irrevocably committed to Papua New Guinea.”

  But for 39-year-old Michael Somare, the last chief minister during colonial rule and now the nation’s first prime minister, and for other members of his government, Australia’s concern and involvement could be greater than it is.

  Republished with permission.

  
  This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/19/pngs-sir-julius-i-shed-tears-of-joy-and-sadness-for-a-new-beginning/feed/ 0 334276 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/19/royal-money-charles-iii-and-the-wealth-dimension-2/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/19/royal-money-charles-iii-and-the-wealth-dimension-2/#respond Mon, 19 Sep 2022 05:54:34 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=255297 Once the fixated adoration with the late Queen Elizabeth II starts cooling, the accountants of public welfare and decency will be stunned to realise the costs and wealth associated with the royal institution.  Her successor, Charles III, is continuing in that vein, a jarring note of wealth and pomp even as prices rise and the More

  The post Royal Money: Charles III and the Wealth Dimension appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  
  This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/19/royal-money-charles-iii-and-the-wealth-dimension-2/feed/ 0 334256 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/17/not-my-king-do-we-have-the-right-to-protest-the-monarchy-at-a-time-of-mourning/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/17/not-my-king-do-we-have-the-right-to-protest-the-monarchy-at-a-time-of-mourning/#respond Sat, 17 Sep 2022 09:11:06 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=79251 ANALYSIS: By Maria O’Sullivan, Monash University

  During the present period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, public sensitivities in the United Kingdom and Australia are high. There is strong sentiment in both countries in favour of showing respect for the Queen’s death.

  Some people may wish to do this privately. Others will want to demonstrate their respect publicly by attending commemorations and processions.

  There are also cohorts within both countries that may wish to express discontent and disagreement with the monarchy at this time.

  • READ MORE: The Queen has left her mark around the world. But not all see it as something to be celebrated
  • Other reports on UK royalty

  For instance, groups such as Indigenous peoples and others who were subject to dispossession and oppression by the British monarchy may wish to express important political views about these significant and continuing injustices.

  This has caused tension across the globe. For instance, a professor from the United States who tweeted a critical comment of the Queen has been subject to significant public backlash.

  Also, an Aboriginal rugby league player is facing a ban and a fine by the NRL for similar negative comments she posted online following the Queen’s death.

  This tension has been particularly so in the UK, where police have questioned protestors expressing anti-monarchy sentiments, and in some cases, arrested them.

  Police arrest anti-monarchy protesters at royal events in England, Scotland https://t.co/GJSzOa1SKU

  — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 13, 2022

  But should such concerns about the actions of the Queen and monarchy be silenced or limited because a public declaration of mourning has been made by the government?

  This raises some difficult questions as to how the freedom of speech of both those who wish to grieve publicly and those who wish to protest should be balanced.

  What laws in the UK are being used to do this?
  There are various laws that regulate protest in the UK. At a basic level, police can arrest a person for a “breach of the peace”.

  Also, two statutes provide specific offences that allow police to arrest protesters.

  Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 UK provides that a person is guilty of a public order offence if:

  • they use threatening or abusive words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour
  • or display any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening or abusive.

  The offence provision then provides this must be “within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress” by those acts.

  There is some protection for speech in the legislation because people arrested under this provision can argue a defence of “reasonable excuse”. However, there’s still a great deal of discretion placed in the hands of the police.

  Seriously worrying that holding a sign saying #notmyking can get you removed by police. What ever your views on the monarchy, this should concern you. https://t.co/uj1TGkdL5t

  — Clay Sinclair (@claysinclair) September 12, 2022

  The other statute that was recently amended is the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act of 2022, which allows police to arrest protesters for “public nuisance”.

  In the context of the period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, the wide terms used in this legislation (such as “nuisance” and “distress”) gives a lot of discretion to police to arrest protesters who they perceive to be upsetting others.

  For instance, a protester who holds a placard saying “Not my king, abolish the monarchy” may be seen as likely to cause distress to others given the high sensitivities in the community during the period of mourning.

  Is there a right to protest under UK and Australian law?
  Protest rights are recognised in both the UK and in Australia, but in different ways.

  In the UK, the right to freedom of expression is recognised in Article 10 of the Human Rights Act.

  In Australia, there’s no equivalent of the right to freedom of expression at the federal level as Australia doesn’t have a national human rights charter. Rather, there’s a constitutional principle called the “implied freedom of political communication”.

  This isn’t a “right” as such but does provide some acknowledgement of the importance of protest.

  Also, freedom of expression is recognised in the three jurisdictions in Australia that have human rights instruments (Victoria, Queensland and the ACT).

  pic.twitter.com/8s01SZc1gx

  — Paul Powlesland (@paulpowlesland) September 12, 2022

  Can the right to protest be limited in a period of mourning?
  In this period of public mourning, people wishing to assemble in a public place to pay respect to the queen are exercising two primary human rights: the right to assembly and the right to freedom of expression.

  But these are not absolute rights. They cannot override the rights of others to also express their own views.

  Further, there is no recognised right to assemble without annoyance or disturbance from others. That is, others in the community are also permitted to gather in a public place during the period of mourning and voice their views (which may be critical of the queen or monarchy).

  It is important to also note that neither the UK nor Australia protects the monarchy against criticism. This is significant because in some countries (such as Thailand), it is a criminal offence to insult the monarch. These are called “lèse-majesté” laws — a French term meaning “to do wrong to majesty”.

  The police in the UK and Australia cannot therefore use public order offences (such breach of the peace) to unlawfully limit public criticism of the monarchy.

  It may be uncomfortable or even distressing for those wishing to publicly grieve the Queen’s passing to see anti-monarchy placards displayed. But that doesn’t make it a criminal offence that allows protesters to be arrested.

  The ability to voice dissent is vital for a functioning democracy. It is therefore arguable that people should be able to voice their concerns with the monarchy even in this period of heightened sensitivity. The only way in which anti-monarchy sentiment can lawfully be suppressed is in a state of emergency.

  A public period of mourning does not meet that standard.

  Dr Maria O’Sullivan, associate professor in the Faculty of Law, and deputy director, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

  
  This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/17/not-my-king-do-we-have-the-right-to-protest-the-monarchy-at-a-time-of-mourning/feed/ 0 334053 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/16/royal-money-charles-iii-and-the-wealth-dimension/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/16/royal-money-charles-iii-and-the-wealth-dimension/#respond Fri, 16 Sep 2022 04:15:35 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=133428 Once the fixated adoration with the late Queen Elizabeth II starts cooling, the accountants of public welfare and decency will be stunned to realise the costs and wealth associated with the royal institution.  Her successor, Charles III, is continuing in that vein, a jarring note of wealth and pomp even as prices rise and the […]
  The post Royal Money: Charles III and the Wealth Dimension first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]> Once the fixated adoration with the late Queen Elizabeth II starts cooling, the accountants of public welfare and decency will be stunned to realise the costs and wealth associated with the royal institution.  Her successor, Charles III, is continuing in that vein, a jarring note of wealth and pomp even as prices rise and the hefty bills for citizens (should we say subjects?), bite.

  The argument that the monarchy makes money for the British state and others in the Commonwealth starts to seem shallow the more one looks at the accounts and the standing of the institution.  But nonetheless, individuals such as Charles Scarlett-Smith, director of Brand Finance Canada, could only see the Queen in terms of beneficial dollars and cents.  “When we’re thinking about Queen Elizabeth II’s brand, we really are being synonymous with the royal family and the monarchy.”

  In June 2022, accounts for the Sovereign Grant, which cover funds for the official monarch and the household’s official expenses, was £86.3 million for the 2021-22 year.  Official expenditure came in at greater than the Sovereign Grant and supplementary income earned – a net expenditure amount of £102.4 million.  This registered an increase of 17% from the previous year.  Much of the inflation came from the reservicing of Buckingham Palace.

  The Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir Michael Stevens, made the following observation: “The year covered in the report reflects some return to normality in many ways for the Royal Household with physical engagements, travel and inward visits by Heads of States undertaken.”

  What can be expected of the new monarch?  In terms of cash and assets, the picture is bewilderingly archaic and expansive.  Even before coming to the throne, Charles had developed the Duchy of Cornwall, a creation of Edward III in the 14th century, into a spanning corporate enterprise, with the aid of a team of managers, worth $US1.4 billion.  The amount was such as to edge out the Queen’s own private portfolio worth US$949 million.  These figures are dwarfed by assets of the whole royal family (Forbes estimates the amount at US$28 billion), which say nothing about the actual scale of personal wealth.

  On the surface, the Duchy’s punchy economic success might suggest aptitude, thrift and industry on the part of Charles.  But this ignores the insulated benefits and encouragements granted the royal family, and, in particular, the Duchy of Cornwall.

  The Duchy in question, like much of the royal family, is an odd beast of history.  Only 13 per cent of the duchy’s 135,000 acres is located in Cornwall itself.  Other estimates range from Kevin Cahill’s assessment of 141,000 acres arrived at in his 2001 work Who Owns Britain and Ireland, and one offered by National Geographic: 135,526 acres.

  The rest is dispersed across 23 counties in England and Wales, with the heaviest concentration in the South West.  In the county itself lie a number of housing developments, much luxury holiday accommodation, monuments and estuaries, the latter dedicated to business, recreation and fishing purposes.

  Other ownings include The Oval cricket ground, with Surrey County Cricket Club being the sole leaseholder since 1874, and a number of residential and commercial properties both in and outside London.  “With these remaining properties,” says the Duchy of Cornwall’s website, “the Duchy operates a policy of retention.  In other words, it refurbishes and re-lets rather than selling a property if a vacancy arises.”  The current commercial portfolio of 18 properties is valued at £124 million.

  In its constitution, the Duchy is a creature of medieval dimension. It is not a company and is therefore exempt from Corporations Tax.  Nor is it a public body, despite being accountable to Parliament and the Treasury.  While it is subject to requests under the Environmental Information Regulations, it is immune to the workings of Freedom of Information laws.  With such opacity of financial arrangements at work, the heralded money-making talent of the new king looks somewhat misplaced.

  With the Queen’s passing, the tradition of the handout and the gift again comes into play.  There will be no inheritance tax, something common citizenry are not exempted from.  We will not know for decades what her will disposed of, but to Charles go the private estates such as Balmoral in Scotland, and Sandringham, where Royal Studs, the horse farm, is located.  Then comes the vast private collection of jewellery, art, the treasured stamp collection and a number of personal investments, which come to the value of US$500 million.

  The new monarch has also had money issues of another nature.  Last year, Norman Baker, who was Home office minister for crime and prevention between 2013 and 2014, revealed that he had written privately to the head of London’s Metropolitan Police Force and filed a complaint against Charles on the issue of awarding an honour to a donor.  The Saudi businessman in question, Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, is said to have donated over £1.5 million to Charles’ Scottish charities.

  Graham Smith, CEO of the activist group Republic, also filed a complaint against Charles along the same lines: that both he and his close aide and former valet, Michael Fawcett, had allegedly breached the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.  In the peculiar world of royal family relations, Fawcett made himself indispensable as chief squeezer of toothpaste onto the royal toothbrush when required. “I can manage without just about anyone, except for Michael,” Charles once stated.

  A published email from Fawcett to an aide of bin Mafouz, written in 2017 as chief executive of the Dumfries House Trust, promised, “In light of the ongoing and most recent generosity of His Excellency… I am happy to confirm to you, in confidence, that we are willing and happy to contribute to the application for Citizenship.”  An effort would also be made to apply “to increase His Excellency’s honour from Honorary CBE to that of KBE in accordance with Her Majesty’s Honour’s Committee.”

  Charles, for his part, denies having any knowledge of the scheme, something considered risible by Baker.  “The idea that Fawcett was running a rogue operation without telling [Charles] is simply unbelievable.”  The issue of royal money and its inscrutable mysteries is unlikely to go away.

  The post Royal Money: Charles III and the Wealth Dimension first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  
  This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/16/royal-money-charles-iii-and-the-wealth-dimension/feed/ 0 333601 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/15/haitian-journalists-frantzsen-charles-and-tayson-lartigue-shot-dead-while-covering-violence-in-port-au-prince/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/15/haitian-journalists-frantzsen-charles-and-tayson-lartigue-shot-dead-while-covering-violence-in-port-au-prince/#respond Thu, 15 Sep 2022 19:59:59 +0000 https://cpj.org/?p=229385 New York, September 15, 2022–Haitian authorities must take decisive action to investigate a brutal attack that left two reporters dead, guarantee that the journalists’ bodies are returned to their families, and ensure the Haitian press can work safely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

  Frantzsen Charles and Tayson Lartigue were shot and killed when a group of journalists was attacked while reporting on rising gang violencein the Cité Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, at around 3 p.m. on Sunday, September 11, according to news reports and Jacques Desrosiers, secretary-general of the Association of Haitian Journalists (AJH), a local trade group, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app. The bodies of the journalists have not been recovered, according to those reports.

  Charles was a reporter for online news outlet FS News Haiti, according to an obituary the outlet published, and Lartigue was the founder of Tijén Jounalis, which covered local and breaking news on social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, according to those reports and CPJ’s review of the outlet’s social media accounts.

  “Frantzsen Charles and Tayson Lartigue are the latest names added to this year’s tragic tally of journalists killed while on assignment in Haiti,” said CPJ Latin America and the Caribbean Program Coordinator Natalie Southwick. “Haitian authorities cannot continue standing idly by as the country’s journalists risk — and lose — their lives to keep their fellow citizens informed. Authorities must ensure Charles and Lartigue’s bodies are returned to their loved ones and that Haitian journalists can do their jobs safely.”

  Charles and Lartigue were among a group of seven journalists who went to Cité Soleil to report on ongoing gang violence in the neighborhood and interview the family of a 17-year-old resident  killed the day before, according to Desrosiers and Haitian news website AyiboPost, which interviewed witnesses in Cité Soleil. The group had finished their interviews and were leaving the neighborhood, with Charles and Lartigue riding on the motorbike in the lead, when they were ambushed and shot, according to those sources.

  The other five journalists were able to flee to safety, where they attempted to call Charles and Lartigue and return for them, according to news reports. One of the other journalists in the group told AyiboPost that the attackers seized Charles and Lartigue’s motorbike and reporting equipment. 

  Rival armed groups have been engaged in violent confrontations in Cité Soleil for several weeks, Desrosiers told CPJ.

  Haitian National Police spokesperson Garry Desrosiers told Spanish news agency EFE that police were “aware that five of the journalists ‘exited with difficulty’ from the location” and that they “had information” that Charles and Lartigue had been killed. He urged journalists to “be careful” when reporting in neighborhoods like Cité Soleil.

  CPJ reached out to the Haitian National Police for comment via the contact form on their website but did not immediately receive a response.

  Acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry posted a series of tweets about the case to his official Twitter account on Monday.

  “We are deeply shocked by the news of the assassination of two young journalists: Tayson Latigue and Frantzsen Charles, yesterday Sunday, in Cité-Soleil, in the exercise of their profession. We strongly condemn this barbaric act, while sending our heartfelt thoughts to the families of the victims and their colleagues,” Henry wrote.

  “Armed conflicts between rival gangs make it difficult for journalists to work in Haiti,” AJH’s Desrosiers told CPJ. “This is the second time in the year 2022 that journalists have been murdered while working in the field.”

  In January, suspected gang members shot and killed two Haitian journalists, Wilguens Louis-Saint and John Wesley Amady, while they were reporting on the lack of security in a gang-disputed area in Port-au-Prince, as CPJ documented at the time.

  In February, Haitian National Police officers opened fire on a protest by textile workers demanding a higher minimum wage in Port-au-Prince, killing broadcast reporter Maximilien Lazard and injuring two other journalists.

  
  This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jennifer Dunham.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/15/haitian-journalists-frantzsen-charles-and-tayson-lartigue-shot-dead-while-covering-violence-in-port-au-prince/feed/ 0 333514 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/13/the-most-significant-environmentalist-in-history-is-now-king-two-australian-researchers-tell-of-charles-fascination-with-nature/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/13/the-most-significant-environmentalist-in-history-is-now-king-two-australian-researchers-tell-of-charles-fascination-with-nature/#respond Tue, 13 Sep 2022 23:35:48 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=79134 ANALYSIS: By Nicole Hasham, The Conversation

  The natural world is close to the heart of Britain’s new King Charles III. For decades, he has campaigned on environmental issues such as sustainability, climate change and conservation – often championing causes well before they were mainstream concerns.

  In fact, Charles was this week hailed as “possibly most significant environmentalist in history”.

  Upon his elevation to the throne, the new king is expected to be less outspoken on environmental issues. But his advocacy work have helped create a momentum that will continue regardless.

  •  I READ MORE: I am a climate scientist – and this is my plea to our newly elected politicians
  • The Southern Ocean absorbs more heat than any other ocean on Earth, and the impacts will be felt for generations
  • Greening the greyfields: how to renew our suburbs for more liveable, net-zero cities

  As Prince of Wales, Charles regularly met scientists and other experts to learn more about environmental research in Britain and abroad. Here, two Australian researchers recall encounters with the new monarch that left an indelible impression.

  The Duke of Cornwall, Patron of the Soil Association, marked the 10th anniversary of the Innovative Farmers programme and learned more about how it’s helping farmers adopt more sustainable practices. pic.twitter.com/vvBrse5MRg

  — Clarence House (@ClarenceHouse) July 19, 2022

  Nerilie Abram, Australian National University
  In 2008, I was a climate scientist working on ice cores at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. On one memorable day, Prince Charles visited the facility — and I was tasked with giving him a tour.

  At the time, I had just returned from James Ross Island, near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. There, at one of the fastest warming regions on Earth, I had helped collect a 364-metre-long ice core.

  Ice cores are cylinders of ice drilled out of an ice sheet or glacier. They’re an exceptional record of past climate. In particular, they contain small bubbles of air trapped in the ice over thousands of years, telling us the past concentration of atmospheric gases.

  We started the tour by showing Prince Charles a video of how we collect ice cores. We then ventured into the -20℃ freezer and held a slice of ice core up to the lights to see the tiny, trapped bubbles of ancient atmosphere.

  Outside the freezer, we listened to the popping noises as the ice melted and the bubbles of ancient air were released into the atmosphere of the lab.

  Holding a piece of Antarctic ice is a profound experience. With a bit of imagination, you can cast your mind back to what was happening in human history when the air inside was last circulating.

  Prince Charles embraced this idea during the tour, making a connection back to the British monarch that would have been on the throne at the time.

  All this led into a discussion about climate change. Ice cores show us the natural rhythm of Earth’s climate, and the unprecedented magnitude and speed of the changes humans are now causing.

  At the time of the 2008 visit, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere had reached 385 parts per million — around 100 parts per million higher than before the Industrial Revolution. Today we are at 417 parts per million, and still rising each year.

  In 2017, Prince Charles co-authored a book on climate change. It includes a section on ice cores, featuring the same carbon dioxide data I showed him a decade earlier.

  Last year, the royal urged Australia’s then Prime Minister Scott Morrison to attend the COP26 climate summit at Glasgow, warning of a “catastrophic” impact to the planet if the talks did not lead to rapid action.

  And in March this year, the prince sent a message of support to people devastated by floods in Queensland and New South Wales, and said:

  “Climate change is not just about rising temperatures. It is also about the increased frequency and intensity of dangerous weather events, once considered rare.”

  As prince, Charles used his position to highlight the urgency of climate change action. His efforts have helped to bring those messages to many: from young children to business people and world leaders.

  He may no longer speak as loudly on these issues as king. But his legacy will continue to drive the climate action our planet needs.

  

  Peter Newman, Curtin University
  In the 1970s, being an environmentalist was lonely work. It meant years of standing up for something that people thought was a bit marginal. But even back then Prince Charles — now King Charles III — was an environmental hero, advocating on what we needed to do.

  I met the Prince of Wales in 2015. He and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, visited Perth on the last leg of their Australia tour. I was among a group of Order of Australia recipients asked to meet the prince at Government House. I spoke to him about my lifelong passion – sustainability, including regenerative agriculture.

  I knew earlier in their trip, Charles had toured the orchard at Oranje Tractor Wine, an organic and sustainable wine producer on Western Australia’s south coast. The vineyard is run by my friend Murray Gomm and his partner, Pam Lincoln, and I had encouraged them over the years. They had started winning awards, and it became even more special when the prince came down and blessed it!

  The Oranje Tractor is now a net-zero-emissions venture: the carbon dioxide it sucks up from the atmosphere and into the soil is well above that emitted from its operations.

  Charles’ eyes really lit up when I mentioned the Oranje Tractor. He was trying to do similar things in his gardening and at his farms – avoiding pesticides and sucking carbon from the atmosphere back into the soil.

  Charles has that same knack the Queen had — an extraordinary ability to really listen and engage. To meet him, and see he’s been involved in sustainability as long as I have, it was validating and inspirational.

  Now he is king, Charles will be a little more constrained in his comments about environment issues. But I don’t think you can change who you are. He will just be more subtle about how he goes about it.

  Climate change is now at the forefront of the global agenda. But the world needs to accelerate its emissions reduction commitments. If we don’t move fast enough, King Charles will no doubt raise a royal eyebrow — and that’s enough.

  Nicole Hasham, energy + environment editor, The Conversation. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

  
  This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/13/the-most-significant-environmentalist-in-history-is-now-king-two-australian-researchers-tell-of-charles-fascination-with-nature/feed/ 0 332640 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/13/will-charles-be-able-to-hold-the-union-together/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/13/will-charles-be-able-to-hold-the-union-together/#respond Tue, 13 Sep 2022 17:14:39 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/queen-death-charles-united-kingdom-scotland-union/ OPINION: The Queen represented a romanticised vision of Britain. With her gone, Scotland has even less reason to stay

  
  This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Adam Ramsay.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/13/will-charles-be-able-to-hold-the-union-together/feed/ 0 332541 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/12/what-kind-of-king-will-charles-be/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/12/what-kind-of-king-will-charles-be/#respond Mon, 12 Sep 2022 10:20:30 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/king-charles-queen-elizabeth-poundbury-architecture/ OPINION: For the best clue to how he might reign as monarch, look at his taste in architecture

  
  This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Laura Clancy.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/09/12/what-kind-of-king-will-charles-be/feed/ 0 332041 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/17/congolese-journalist-dimanche-kamate-arrested-detained-over-broadcast-about-rwanda-protests/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/17/congolese-journalist-dimanche-kamate-arrested-detained-over-broadcast-about-rwanda-protests/#respond Wed, 17 Aug 2022 18:08:56 +0000 https://cpj.org/?p=222774 Kinshasa, August 17, 2022—Congolese authorities should stop intimidating journalists covering conflict in the country’s east and allow the press to freely cover events of public interest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

  On Friday, August 12, officers with the national police arrested and detained for several hours Dimanche Kamate, editor in chief of the privately owned Radio Muungano broadcaster in the city of Oicha, in North Kivu province, according to media reports and Kamate, who spoke to CPJ over the phone.

  Kamate told CPJ that the officers did not present him with an arrest warrant and at the police station, questioned him about an August 7 broadcast that included guests from Véranda Mutsanga, a local social advocacy group. The broadcast discussed a recently leaked United Nations report that alleged Rwandan military support for M23, a rebel group fighting the Congolese government in the eastern part of the country, and demonstrations in the North Kivu province against the U.N. mission in the country, known as MONUSCO, the journalist said.

  Véranda Mutsanga has opposed MONUSCO’s presence and the DRC government’s “state of siege,” which implemented military governance in North Kivu and Ituri provinces last year in response to growing armed violence, according to media reports.

  “The pattern of arrests and intimidation of Congolese journalists as they work to inform the public about the conflict and social movements in the country must stop. Press freedom cannot develop under these conditions,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “The ‘state of siege’ in DRC’s east is no excuse for efforts to censor and control media coverage of the conflict there.”

  According to a report by Journaliste En Danger, a local press freedom group, police arrested Kamate on the orders of Charles Ehuta Omeonga, the military administrator of the North Kivu city of Beni, who believed the broadcast violated the “state of siege” in that part of the country.

  Reached over the phone, Ehuta told CPJ: “I arrested him because he thinks he is a super journalist above the law. I spoke with the journalist (Kamate) and gave him some advice on the security situation in Beni territory. During this period of the state of siege, there are standards to be respected even by journalists.”

  Ehuta told CPJ that Kamate must work for the Congolese nation and above all not broadcast guests who discuss issues related to the conflict in areas where military had ongoing operations, following the state of siege decree in the North Kivu province that limits freedom of expression.

  Kamate told CPJ that during his detention at the Matobo military camp, a military intelligence chief scolded him over the August 7 broadcast and instructed him to stop broadcasting programs featuring members of society while the government continued to fight M23 rebels. Kamate also said that he was later taken in a military jeep to Ehuta’s office and released on arrival with his phones and recording equipment after the intervention of a local civic leader, Richard Kirimba.

  Kirimba told CPJ in a phone interview that he had pleaded with the soldiers to release Kamate because the journalist “did not commit a fault.”

  
  This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/17/congolese-journalist-dimanche-kamate-arrested-detained-over-broadcast-about-rwanda-protests/feed/ 0 324353 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/05/end-times-a-visit-to-isle-de-jean-charles-louisiana/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/05/end-times-a-visit-to-isle-de-jean-charles-louisiana/#respond Fri, 05 Aug 2022 06:03:31 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=251375 The growth of the oil industry beginning in the 19-teens meant the digging of canals, dredging of bayous, and building of levees, all of which prevented the deposition of silt from the Mississippi River. Without it, there was no way to replenish marsh land lost to natural compaction. Even more consequential was the continued extraction of oil and natural gas, which caused still more subsidence. On top of everything, global warming – which has recently accelerated -- led to sea level rise, stronger hurricanes, and bigger storm surges. The elevation of Isle de Jean Charles, now just two feet above sea-level, is sinking 0.5 inches per year. Formerly 22,000 acres, the settlement is now 320 acres. Within a generation or less, Isle de Jean Charles will disappear, like Atlantis, beneath the waves. More

  The post End-Times: a Visit to Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  
  This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Stephen F. Eisenman.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/08/05/end-times-a-visit-to-isle-de-jean-charles-louisiana/feed/ 0 320883 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/06/30/how-charles-koch-purchased-the-supreme-courts-epa-decision/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/06/30/how-charles-koch-purchased-the-supreme-courts-epa-decision/#respond Thu, 30 Jun 2022 17:36:20 +0000 https://theintercept.com/?p=401109

  Today’s 6-3 Supreme Court decision restricting the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions will benefit power plants and fossil fuel companies throughout the U.S. and profoundly hobble the government’s ability to address the worsening climate catastrophe.

  The decision, written by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, finds that the EPA does not have the authority to impose caps on carbon emissions by mandating a shift to cleaner energy sources. The ruling means that Congress, rather than the EPA and its staff of scientific experts, will handle the critical task of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

  “Today, the Court strips the EPA of the power Congress gave it to respond to ‘the most pressing environmental challenge of our time,’” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer. “Whatever else this Court may know about, it does not have a clue about how to address climate change. Yet the Court today prevents congressionally authorized agency action to curb power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions. The Court appoints itself—instead of Congress or the expert agency—the decisionmaker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”

  A number of energy magnates and fossil fuel trade groups pushed for the case that could kneecap the agency and boost their profits. But perhaps no one did more to bring West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency to the Supreme Court — or ensure that ultraconservative justices would be on the bench to decide in the companies’ favor — than Charles Koch.

  The billionaire energy executive who reigns over Koch Industries is known for playing the long game. He bought up pipelines in advance of the fracking boom — and waited calmly until they delivered billions in profits. He invested in obscure, failing companies even though he knew that it would take years before they could add to his bottom line. And he has been cautious as he’s ventured into new markets — his empire now includes glass, pulp and paper, chemicals, agricultural products, and commodities trading — making small acquisitions to see if they’d be profitable before gradually taking over.

  Such patience and strategic use of his enormous wealth have benefited Koch handsomely. His net worth has steadily climbed to more than $60 billion. Koch Industries, which makes more than half of its money from fossil fuels and owns refineries, petrochemical plants, and thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines, is now the second-biggest privately held company in the country.
  

  

  Koch Industries’ Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend refinery in Hastings, Minn., on July 12, 2021.

  Photo: Jaida Grey Eagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

  The Kochtopus

  To ensure further growth of his riches even as science showed that the continued use of fossil fuels would accelerate climate disaster, Koch has funneled some of his vast fortune into an extraordinary network of political front groups, lobbying efforts, think tanks, and activist networks that aim to stifle climate action. For decades, the Kochtopus, as some call his many-tentacled political influence machine, has sought to undermine not just the environmental regulation in Koch Industries’ path but also the science and philosophy of government on which it is based.

  Koch’s lobbyists and political operatives helped kill a 2009 bill aimed at tackling climate change through a cap-and-trade system that could have cut into his companies’ profits. While the mounting findings of climate scientists led other titans of industry to begin adjusting their business plans to lower carbon emissions, Koch-funded groups were among the first climate denialists, flatly lying about the well-documented planetary trend of global warming and then schooling lawmakers on the alternate reality they had crafted. Koch also pioneered the attack on Republicans from the right, pushing the party into its current extremism.

  

  Related

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  Today’s Supreme Court decision marks perhaps the biggest payoff yet for Koch’s decades of plotting against environmental regulations — and the most devastating loss for everyone else. Three of the extremist judges who joined the decision — Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh — wound up on the Supreme Court in large part because of Koch’s activism and contributions.

  Americans for Prosperity, an astroturf political group founded by Charles Koch and his brother David, conducted extraordinary campaigns to put all three judges on the highest bench. To support Kavanaugh’s nomination, the group reached out to more than 1.2 million Americans through mail, phone calls, and knocking on doors, according to a flyer released by the organization. The group also pushed hard for Barrett, whose father worked for Shell and the American Petroleum Institute, a powerful trade group for the oil and gas industry. And it campaigned for Gorsuch, whose mother presided — disastrously — over the EPA under President Ronald Reagan. Charles Koch is also closely connected to Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, a conservative organization Koch has supported directly and through his family foundation.

  The case itself can also be tied directly to Koch. The challengers are 27 Republican attorneys general, who were supported by the Koch-funded Republican Attorneys General Association. At least five Koch-funded entities have filed amicus briefs in the case: the Cato Institute, which was co-founded by Charles Koch; the Competitive Enterprise Institute; the New Civil Liberties Alliance; the Landmark Legal Foundation; and Americans for Prosperity.
  

  

  The EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., on June 29, 2022.

  Photo: Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

  Taking Aim at the EPA

  Koch’s antipathy for the EPA began with the founding of the agency in 1970. “It is the one regulatory agency that is on his ass every single day and has authority over all his operations,” said Christopher Leonard, author of “Kochland,” a history of Koch Industries and its political activities. “Every single day this agency is like a traffic cop clocking Koch’s speed on the highway. The EPA is sending agents to inspect Koch’s facilities. The EPA is monitoring the level of pollution coming out of spillways from Koch facilities. Koch has to employ almost buildings full of lawyers just to document their air emissions every year from their refineries, from their natural gas plants, from the Georgia-Pacific plant.”

  The original case was about the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s effort to limit carbon emissions from power plants, which are the second-largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. But that plan no longer exists, having been struck down by the Trump administration. Nor does its Trump-era replacement. In practical terms, the ruling will hamstring the Biden administration, which has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent economywide by 2030. The administration is in the process of crafting its own rule affecting power plant emissions, which is expected next year.

  “The decision takes off the table the approach that was used in the Clean Power Plan, the most efficient, effective way to address these emissions,” said Kirti Datla, director of strategic legal advocacy at Earthjustice. While the Biden administration will still be able to take less sweeping steps to limit carbon, such as requiring emissions controls on individual power plants, “this makes their job much harder,” Datla said.

  Now Congress, rather than the EPA’s environmental experts, will be responsible for drafting the highly technical plan for limiting emissions from power plants. The regulatory process is expected to be far slower and less effective, which, according to Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research, was exactly the point of the suit.

  “These politicians in black robes know full well that, with Mitch McConnell in a leadership position doing the bidding of Koch and the oil and gas industry, this Congress will not pass any substantial climate change mitigation legislation,” said Graves, adding that the timing of the decision couldn’t be worse. “Now and in the coming years are the only window we have to really stem the tide of the truly devastating climate changes that are underway.”

  Broader Implications

  The motivations for the West Virginia case go beyond the individual and corporate pursuit of financial gain. “They’re doing it to make more money. But it’s also bigger in the sense they want to cripple the federal government,” said Leonard.

  Indeed, the effects of the ruling will likely far surpass the EPA’s ability to limit carbon emissions from power plants. “It’s going to trim back the sets of regulations that they even consider,” said Leonard. “It’s a slow pushback of the EPA and a diminishment of its power over time.”

  The West Virginia decision will also likely chasten other federal agencies, according to Datla. “It sends a signal to agencies that if they’re approaching big problems for the first time under their statutory authority, or if they’re tackling an existing problem, but using kind of a new approach, that either the court is going to be skeptical, or at the very least, somebody is going to bring a challenge based on all of the language that is in this opinion.”

  Ironically, the decision that weakens the federal government follows on the heels of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and vastly extended the reach of the state to control what people can do with their bodies. That decision, too, grew out of seeds that Charles Koch planted years ago. But the profound step backward for reproductive freedom seems to have been an incidental result of the billionaire’s effort to grow his fortune.

  One of Koch’s most effective policy creations is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a right-wing activist network that drafts model state legislation, which is then introduced around the country. “Koch funded ALEC to do stuff like deregulate the utilities industry,” said Leonard. “But what animated ALEC was anti-abortion laws.” Indeed, the grassroots network Koch created took up the issue even as he himself was indifferent about it.

  “Koch doesn’t care at all about Roe v. Wade. Religious and cultural issues have zero relevance to him,” said Leonard, who added that Koch saw the abortion issue as a “sideshow.”

  In contrast, Koch cares profoundly about West Virginia v. EPA. “This decision represents the culmination of years of attacks by Koch-funded groups on these rules,” Graves said. “It is a win for Charles Koch and the multibillion-dollar oil and gas industry and a huge loss for the American people.”

  
  This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Sharon Lerner.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/06/30/how-charles-koch-purchased-the-supreme-courts-epa-decision/feed/ 0 311511 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/05/18/kentucky-progressive-charles-booker-wins-democratic-us-senate-primary/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/05/18/kentucky-progressive-charles-booker-wins-democratic-us-senate-primary/#respond Wed, 18 May 2022 03:08:20 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/node/336968

  Charles Booker—the progressive former Kentucky state lawmaker with a plan to tackle rampant inequality—cruised to victory in Tuesday's U.S. Senate Democratic primary, setting up a November contest against two-term Republican incumbent Rand Paul in which the challenger is vowing to "make history."

  "I'm fighting for issues regardless of party because at the end of the day, putting food on the table, keeping your lights on—doesn't matter what your party is."

  "We're going to beat Rand Paul. And let me be clear with you: We're going to blow Rand Paul out," Booker said during an appearance on The Young Turks. "We're gonna do it by doing two things. One, [by] inspiring a vision that encourages people to believe things can be better."

  Booker touted his Kentucky New Deal, a plan to curb runaway inequality "which is really about us fighting for family, pushing the partisan divides aside, lifting up our common bonds, and really doing issue-based organizing."

  "We're gonna work our asses off," the 37-year-old Louisvillian vowed.

  "But on the second side of it, we're gonna beat Rand Paul by naming Rand Paul," he said. "A lot of people don't know what he does; he's a crisis actor, he's a contrarian, he's a fake libertarian, he stokes conspiracy theories."

  "We're gonna help people see that he's blocking disaster relief, that he's blocking investments in infrastructure, that he's opposing expanded healthcare—he called it akin to slavery—that he opposed the Civil Rights Act," Booker continued.

  "He doesn't believe that we should invest in our home or that we should support our allies abroad," the nominee added. "He's a joke, and we're gonna call him out."

  In a separate interview with Lex 18, Booker said he believes his campaign can reach Kentucky voters on both sides of the aisle.

  "I'm fighting for issues regardless of party because at the end of the day, putting food on the table, keeping your lights on—doesn't matter what your party is," asserted.

  If Booker defeats Paul in November, he will be the first Black U.S. senator in Kentucky history. He would also be the first Democrat from the commonwealth to win a U.S. Senate contest in 30 years.

  Kentucky Democratic consultant Kim Geveden told McClatchy that Democrats in the commonwealth "have exactly what they’ve clamored for and deserve—a unified party behind the most progressive candidate we've ever nominated for statewide office."

  However, speaking of Booker's campaign, she contended that "unless they get their own house in order, they have a steep uphill battle."

  "Most, if not all of the top level staffers who were with Charles in his 2020 primary campaign... have left," Geveden continued. "For whatever reasons, they are no longer involved and it shows."

  "To have any meaningful chance to win," she added, "the campaign has a lot of work to do, starting from within."

  
  This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/05/18/kentucky-progressive-charles-booker-wins-democratic-us-senate-primary/feed/ 0 299636 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/05/18/kentucky-progressive-charles-booker-wins-democratic-us-senate-primary/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/05/18/kentucky-progressive-charles-booker-wins-democratic-us-senate-primary/#respond Wed, 18 May 2022 03:08:20 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/node/336968

  Charles Booker—the progressive former Kentucky state lawmaker with a plan to tackle rampant inequality—cruised to victory in Tuesday's U.S. Senate Democratic primary, setting up a November contest against two-term Republican incumbent Rand Paul in which the challenger is vowing to "make history."

  "I'm fighting for issues regardless of party because at the end of the day, putting food on the table, keeping your lights on—doesn't matter what your party is."

  "We're going to beat Rand Paul. And let me be clear with you: We're going to blow Rand Paul out," Booker said during an appearance on The Young Turks. "We're gonna do it by doing two things. One, [by] inspiring a vision that encourages people to believe things can be better."

  Booker touted his Kentucky New Deal, a plan to curb runaway inequality "which is really about us fighting for family, pushing the partisan divides aside, lifting up our common bonds, and really doing issue-based organizing."

  "We're gonna work our asses off," the 37-year-old Louisvillian vowed.

  "But on the second side of it, we're gonna beat Rand Paul by naming Rand Paul," he said. "A lot of people don't know what he does; he's a crisis actor, he's a contrarian, he's a fake libertarian, he stokes conspiracy theories."

  "We're gonna help people see that he's blocking disaster relief, that he's blocking investments in infrastructure, that he's opposing expanded healthcare—he called it akin to slavery—that he opposed the Civil Rights Act," Booker continued.

  "He doesn't believe that we should invest in our home or that we should support our allies abroad," the nominee added. "He's a joke, and we're gonna call him out."

  In a separate interview with Lex 18, Booker said he believes his campaign can reach Kentucky voters on both sides of the aisle.

  "I'm fighting for issues regardless of party because at the end of the day, putting food on the table, keeping your lights on—doesn't matter what your party is," asserted.

  If Booker defeats Paul in November, he will be the first Black U.S. senator in Kentucky history. He would also be the first Democrat from the commonwealth to win a U.S. Senate contest in 30 years.

  Kentucky Democratic consultant Kim Geveden told McClatchy that Democrats in the commonwealth "have exactly what they’ve clamored for and deserve—a unified party behind the most progressive candidate we've ever nominated for statewide office."

  However, speaking of Booker's campaign, she contended that "unless they get their own house in order, they have a steep uphill battle."

  "Most, if not all of the top level staffers who were with Charles in his 2020 primary campaign... have left," Geveden continued. "For whatever reasons, they are no longer involved and it shows."

  "To have any meaningful chance to win," she added, "the campaign has a lot of work to do, starting from within."

  
  This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/05/18/kentucky-progressive-charles-booker-wins-democratic-us-senate-primary/feed/ 0 299635 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/04/05/time-to-put-charles-koch-under-oath-for-his-climate-lies/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/04/05/time-to-put-charles-koch-under-oath-for-his-climate-lies/#respond Tue, 05 Apr 2022 11:16:23 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/node/335904

  The US House Oversight and Reform Committee kicked off its investigation of the fossil fuel industry's decades-long climate change disinformation campaign last fall by inviting top executives from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell to testify about their role and subpoenaing their companies for internal documents.

  Koch family-controlled foundations donated more than $145 million to a network of 90 think tanks and advocacy groups from 1997 through 2018 to disparage climate science and block efforts to address climate change.

  The committee followed up that hearing—during which the executives disingenuously denied funding such a campaign—with another hearing on February 8 focusing on the oil companies' inadequate plans to cut their carbon emissions. The next round is slated to feature board directors from the same four oil companies testifying on their companies' climate pledges, followed by testimony from social media companies and advertising agencies about the part they have played in manufacturing doubt about climate change.

  But before the committee wraps up its investigation, it would be sorely remiss if it didn't haul in libertarian industrialist Charles Koch, the Daddy Warbucks of climate disinformation, for questioning.

  The 20th-richest person in the world with a net worth of $58 billion, Koch, 86, is the longtime CEO of Koch Industries, a conglomerate that owns oil refineries and pipelines; markets crude oil, coal, chemicals, wood pulp and paper; trades energy derivatives; and boasts annual revenues of $115 billion. The second-largest privately held company in the country, Koch Industries is one of the top 25 US corporate water and carbon polluters, is a defendant in a climate accountability lawsuit brought by the state of Minnesota, and is continuing to operate its businesses in Russia while Koch-backed groups oppose US sanctions imposed on the Kremlin after it invaded Ukraine.

  Koch family-controlled foundations donated more than $145 million to a network of 90 think tanks and advocacy groups from 1997 through 2018 to disparage climate science and block efforts to address climate change. Since the death of Charles Koch's brother David in 2019, the Charles Koch Foundation has continued to finance this disinformation campaign, giving more than $17 million to 23 groups in 2019 and 2020, pushing the Koch grand total north of $162 million. By contrast, the second-largest funder of climate disinformation, ExxonMobil, spent $39.2 million on some 70 denier groups from 1998 through 2020.

  To maintain leverage on Capitol Hill, Koch Industries' political action committee (PAC), affiliates and employees also contribute significantly more to federal candidates, party committees, outside groups, leadership PACs and 527 groups than their counterparts at BP America, Chevron, ExxonMobil or Shell. In the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, Koch Industries' total outlay of $26.7 million was more than the $21.7 million the four oil and gas companies contributed collectively.

  In addition, Koch Industries spent more than $38 million on its Washington lobbying operation during the last two full election cycles, from 2017 through 2020. That's slightly less than ExxonMobil's $40.98 million and Chevron's $39.47 million, but the company enjoyed a distinct advantage over the two oil giants besides outspending them on campaign contributions: President Donald Trump's transition team head, Vice President Mike Pence—a longtime Koch network veteran who played a key role in promoting the Koch-founded and -funded Americans for Prosperity's "No Climate Tax" pledge when he was in the House—tapped at least 50 Koch network alumni to work inside the Trump administration. They included Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short. Egged on by Koch devotees both inside and outside the government, the Trump administration rolled back at least 260 regulations, including more than 100 environmental rules.

  The Biden administration cleared out the Koch disciples when it took office and is in the process of rolling back the Trump rollbacks, but Koch and his donor network still hold considerable sway over the Republican Party. They will continue to spend hundreds of millions on Capitol Hill and, looking ahead to 2024, a number of Koch network stalwarts are considering a run for president, including Pence, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Florida Sen. Rick Scott. The Koch network, with its toxic anti-government bias, will likely cast a long shadow over Washington for years to come.

  Decades of Disinformation

  For more than two decades, the Koch network has been diligently spreading disinformation to sabotage efforts to transition to a clean energy economy, more often than not by attacking proposed climate policies on economic grounds. Examples of its malfeasance are legion:

  • To stop a version of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in the Senate after it squeaked by in the House in 2009, Americans for Prosperity persuaded a critical mass of lawmakers to sign its "No Climate Tax" pledge, disingenuously calling the bill "the largest excise tax in history." Since then, the overwhelming majority of legislators who have received campaign contributions from Koch Industries' PAC and employees have rejected a carbon tax in amendments and nonbinding resolutions.
  • To slow the exponential growth of solar power, the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council has armed utilities and state lawmakers with model legislation against net metering, which credits solar panel owners for the excess energy they generate and return to the grid, claiming that rooftop solar credits will drive up non-solar customers' electric rates. The Energy Department, however, concluded that the credits will have a negligible impact on monthly electric bills.
  • To undermine the widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), the Koch network has urged Congress to kill the federal income tax credit for EV buyers. "Congress should not be in the business of picking winners and losers by subsidizing one form of energy over others, regardless of its source," Philip Ellender, Koch Industries' president of government and public affairs, argued in a letter to Congress in October 2018. Never mind that the oil and gas industry has benefited from massive annual federal subsidies for more than 100 years.
  • After succeeding in prodding President Trump to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, arguing that the accord would threaten the "economic future of our country," the Koch network is now spearheading a campaign to kill the Biden administration's Build Back Better plan, falsely claiming that it "is the biggest spending bill in American history."

  There are plenty of other examples, but the above sample illustrates the breadth of the Koch network's reach. Charles Koch and his fellow travelers have played an outsized role scaring the public about the potential impact of climate solutions on their pocketbooks (but at the same time, they spent more than $20 million to promote President Trump's $1.5-trillion tax cut that largely benefited corporations and the ultra-wealthy). By practically any measure, Koch is as consequential a disinformer as the four oil company executives who testified last fall before the House Oversight Committee combined.

  Put Koch Under Oath

  If the House Oversight Committee called Charles Koch to testify, it could, for starters, ask him about his views on climate change.

  The executives from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell who testified last October downplayed the central role human activity—mainly burning fossil fuels—plays in triggering climate change, but after much hemming and hawing they all conceded that global warming poses an "existential threat."

  Koch, for his part, has never acknowledged that climate change is a serious problem and rarely talks about it publicly. On the rare occasion when reporters broach the topic, he responds with … disinformation.

  Koch's most recent public comments about climate change came during lengthy interviews with the Washington Post in 2015 and 2016. Asked if he worried about climate change in an August 2015 interview, Koch replied that he believes "it's been warming some" but added that "[t]here's a big debate on that, because it depends on whether you use satellite measurements, balloon[s], or you use ground ones that have been adjusted." Climate scientists, he added, "have these models that show it, but the models don't work…."

  In fact, all of the measurements Koch cited indicate that there has been a long-term global warming trend due to climate change. And, coincidentally, just a week before the Washington Post published the Koch interview, a peer-reviewed study found that global climate models are even more accurate than previously thought.

  In August 2016, the Washington Post ran another Koch interview, during which he was asked if anyone could produce a study that would convince him "that carbon regulation is necessary to heed off disastrous global warming." "Yeah," Koch replied. "If we … use the scientific method rather than trying to shut down and shout down and punish anybody who wants to enter into debate about it…. If we're all trying to find the truth of the matter, then I'm all for that."

  Notably, Koch did try to get to the truth of the matter in his own way a few years earlier. The Charles Koch Foundation donated $150,000 to Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit research institute founded in 2010 by Richard Muller, a physicist and self-proclaimed climate science skeptic, to review the temperature data that underpinned global-warming claims. Presumably to Koch's surprise—and dismay—Muller announced in a July 2012 New York Times op-ed that his investigation verified that global warming is indeed real, is "almost entirely" caused by human activity, and is even worse than what the climate science community had concluded at the time.

  It would be enlightening for the House Oversight Committee to ask Koch about Berkeley Earth's findings, especially since after Muller announced them, the Koch network stepped up its campaign to characterize climate policies as being too costly, despite the fact that the consequences of failing to curb carbon emissions will cost infinitely more than taking preventive measures.

  In late 2012, for example, the Koch brothers financed "bogus studies" falsely claiming that state standards requiring utilities to ramp up their use of renewable energy would dramatically drive up electric rates. Six years later, in 2018, when the House was about to vote on a nonbinding carbon tax resolution, Ellender—the Koch Industries lobbyist—took the same tack. "A carbon tax would make energy more expensive and raise the costs of consumer products and services on which people depend," he wrote in a letter to the lawmakers. "It would also make US producers less cost competitive, driving production and jobs to other parts of the world."

  The House passed the resolution, which stated that "a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy," by a 229 to 180 vote. Nearly 70 percent of the representatives who voted for the resolution—159—collectively received more than $1.28 million in campaign contributions from Koch Industries PAC and employees during the 2018 election cycle.

  Investing in Clean Energy While Trashing It

  Koch's jaundiced take on climate change would undoubtedly be welcomed by the 20 Republican members of the Oversight Committee, 14 of whom are climate science deniers. During the 2020 election cycle alone, Koch Industries' employees and PAC gave more than $136,000 in campaign contributions to 18 of the GOP committee members, while their counterparts at BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell collectively donated $40,347 to 14 of them.

  The committee members who are less beholden to the fossil fuel industry, however, should take the opportunity to press Koch about his company's seemingly contradictory investments in sectors that his network is still trying to knee-cap, such as electric vehicles and renewable energy.

  The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Koch Industries subsidiaries have invested at least $750 million in a range of battery technologies and battery-related raw materials, chemicals and recycling. Among the Koch conglomerate's relatively new holdings are New Jersey zinc battery startup Eos Energy Enterprises and Canada's lithium-ion battery recycler Li-Cycle Holdings, lithium development company Standard Lithium, and Lithion Power Group, a lithium-ion battery startup.

  Likewise, Koch subsidiaries have jumped into smart grid and electric vehicle charging technologies. In 2020, Koch Engineered Solutions acquired Sentient Energy, a smart grid solutions company, and last year Koch Strategic Platforms invested in EVBox, a Netherlands-based electric vehicle charging station manufacturer.

  Koch Engineered Solutions is also bullish on solar, but not on distributed rooftop solar, which the Koch network has been trying to stop. Last November, it bought DEPCOM Power, an Arizona company that builds large-scale solar power plants, and plans to supply solar farms in the United States and Canada.

  Koch Industries' relatively recent investments in batteries and renewables—which, granted, amount to a tiny percentage of the conglomerate's far-flung operations—are just the beginning, according to Koch Engineered Solutions President Dave Dotson. "We are believers in the electrification of everything, driven by economics and consumer trends," he told S&P Global Market Intelligence, "and look for where we can add value across the electric value chain from generation to end-user consumption."

  Dotson's business strategy should come as a surprise to anyone who has been closely following his boss, and should prompt the House Oversight Committee to ask Koch how his company's recent shopping spree squares with his network's ongoing campaign against climate solutions.

  An unabashed libertarian, Koch likely would respond that the private sector should take the lead, not the government, on energy—and just about everything else. For Koch, government efforts to manage the economy, protect public health and the environment, and provide social welfare programs are a slippery slope to totalitarianism and must be rolled back, if not eliminated. In his most recent book (co-authored with Brian Hooks), Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World, Koch argues that individuals, corporations and nonprofit groups are better suited to solve society's most pressing problems—including the coronavirus pandemic—than the government.

  Koch's philosophy, however, fails to account for the fact that it was the private sector—specifically the fossil fuel industry—that got us into the dire situation in which we find ourselves today, faced with increasingly severe climate change-driven impacts. Major oil companies were aware their products wreck the climate at least 50 years ago and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars since then to manufacture doubt about climate science, disparage renewables and block government action. Now that Koch Industries, as well as some oil majors, see that there is money to be made by diversifying into clean energy technologies, they are slowly adding them to their portfolios but spending a fraction of what they are still dedicating to their oil, gas and chemical operations. It's much too little, much too late.

  If the House Oversight Committee is serious about getting to the bottom of the fossil fuel industry's longtime campaign to stymie climate policy, it should call Koch on the carpet. By doing so, the committee could shine a light on his prominent role in sponsoring disinformation, as well as expose the threat he and his followers pose to US democracy.

  This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

  
  This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Elliott Negin.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/04/05/time-to-put-charles-koch-under-oath-for-his-climate-lies/feed/ 0 288071 https://grist.org/extreme-weather/lake-charles-hurricane-recovery/ https://grist.org/extreme-weather/lake-charles-hurricane-recovery/#respond Mon, 04 Apr 2022 10:30:00 +0000 https://grist.org/?p=565824 Eighteen months after Hurricane Laura, the streets of downtown Lake Charles remain eerily quiet. When Tasha Guidry drives to work at her office on Ryan Street, she passes houses with blue tarps still stretched over their roofs, decaying buildings that will soon be torn down, and restaurants that open for a few hours a day, if at all.

  “We’re still where we were two years ago,” said Guidry, who helps connect area residents with legal services and housing. “Nothing has changed. We’re at a state of emergency.”

  The Louisiana city of 85,000 has been hit by four major disasters in the last two years: The double-whammy of Hurricanes Laura and Delta in the summer of 2020 was followed by a deadly ice storm that winter, plus another devastating flood last spring. Climate change has not only made extreme weather events like these more severe and less predictable, but it has also eroded the marshland barrier that once protected coastal Louisiana from storms as they made landfall. 

  More than a year later, the region has now received an unexpected deluge of federal relief. Late last month, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, announced that it will send $1.7 billion in extra hurricane relief money to Louisiana; around $450 million will go to Lake Charles to fund long-term housing repairs. That’s enough to put a significant dent in the $3 billion of unmet needs that Governor John Bel Edwards has said remain from the 2020 storms. The money represents an unexpected boost for the ailing region, whose population has declined by at least 5 percent since Laura — one of the fastest rates in the nation.

  However, the late arrival of this money also highlights the limitations of the federal disaster relief system. Because funding depends on the whims of a gridlocked Congress, it often arrives after many people have already been forced to leave their homes for good.

  In the immediate aftermath of a major disaster like a hurricane, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, arrives on the scene to distribute aid money to victims. FEMA distributes this money out of a multi-billion-dollar pot that it can use for whatever disasters happen in a given year, and most of it helps pay out people who’ve lost their homes or their belongings. The agency spent about $1 billion on the immediate recovery from Laura, which caused around $19 billion in total damages.

  

  Because most of this money is targeted to individuals and families, though, it’s seldom enough to help a community achieve a full recovery, regaining its pre-disaster population and restoring businesses and organizations that shuttered after the storm. In the case of Lake Charles, the agency’s individual assistance payouts weren’t enough to fill a gaping hole in the city’s housing stock: The storm damaged about half the structures in the surrounding parish, and more homes fell to the subsequent disasters the following year. Even insured homeowners struggled to fund the full cost of repairs from back-to-back disasters, and many renters suddenly found themselves priced out of a city where thousands of housing units disappeared, turning what had been a soft rental market into a costly free-for-all. Many in both camps elected to leave Lake Charles altogether for larger cities like Houston and Dallas, Texas, where their temporary assistance from FEMA could be spent on more affordable housing. 

  “They can’t wait for relief, they can’t wait for housing,” Guidry told Grist. “They need a sense of normalcy.”

  The housing crisis in Lake Charles, which is roughly 50 percent Black, has kicked off a vicious cycle of disinvestment and depopulation, leaving the city unable to gather the momentum it needs to recover. More than 300 commercial buildings have been condemned since Laura, and many streets on the city’s historically Black north side are still roughshod and covered with potholes.

  This is where Congress comes in, at least in theory. Lawmakers often approve supplemental aid for major disasters, in part because FEMA lacks the resources to help communities rebuild over the long term. This money is pocket change compared to the overall size of the federal budget, but its distribution depends on the whims of various lawmakers. Since Congress passes so few standalone bills, legislators must jockey for their local priorities to be included in massive spending packages, which means that lobbying and media attention can make all the difference. In late 2020, amid a devastating pandemic and a contentious presidential election, the voices of Lake Charles’ victims got drowned out amid the din. 

  It ended up taking lawmakers over a year to pass additional aid. In September, Congress passed a bill that allocated $5 billion to HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program, which is meant to help with long-term rebuilding efforts. This bill was supposed to fund recovery from disasters that took place around the country in both 2020 and 2021. 

  Unlike FEMA funding, however, HUD’s disaster recovery program does not have permanent statutory authorization, meaning the agency has to start a lengthy bureaucratic process from scratch every time Congress authorizes it to spend money on disasters, rather than cutting checks right away. Because of this, it took another four months for HUD to announce how much money it would ultimately distribute and to issue guidance for how states could use that money.

  

  The $600 million that Louisiana ended up with was far less than local officials wanted. For the rest of the autumn and winter, both of Louisiana’s Republican senators fought to secure more relief money, but their efforts couldn’t overcome congressional gridlock: At one point Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a fellow Republican, blocked the passage of a standalone aid bill. The Louisiana delegation then hoped the money might appear in the massive omnibus spending bill negotiators hammered out last month, but it didn’t.

  To lawmakers’ surprise, however, HUD was still sitting on substantial funds from the aid bill Congress passed in September, due to a communication breakdown between the housing department and FEMA. When that bureaucratic snafu was resolved, a $450 million windfall suddenly appeared for Lake Charles. The city’s mayor, Nic Hunter, said in a press release that the money meant that the city had finally “achieved an equitable response” to the chain of disasters.

  Nevertheless, the new money arrives after 18 months of uncertainty and delay — and will likely reach the pockets of Lake Charles residents almost two years after Laura. That’s in part because Congress has never outlined a coherent policy for long-term disaster recovery. Without such a policy, residents of disaster-prone areas are more likely to pick up and move on, leaving hard-hit areas in cycles of economic and demographic decline.

  “It’s too late to get those residents back,” said Guidry. “They haven’t been here in two years; they’re not coming back. So all we can do is work to get new people in and make it attractive for them to stay.”

  Meanwhile, the housing crisis in Lake Charles is only getting worse. This month, FEMA will stop distributing temporary housing stipends to victims who lost their homes due to Hurricane Laura. This is standard procedure for the agency, which only doles out such payments for 18 months, but it rests on the assumption that a community will have made at least a partial recovery by the time the payments stop coming. In Lake Charles, that hasn’t happened.

  Last month, meanwhile, the city moved to demolish a public housing development that had been damaged during the storm, forcing residents to vacate their homes. The city may yet repair or replace the homes, but in the meantime the displaced occupants are on their own. Guidry has been trying to help them find affordable housing, but only a few major apartment complexes have come back online since the storm, and the rental market in the area is still tighter than it’s ever been.

  That might not be the case in a year: Once the new federal funding arrives, more shovels should start hitting the dirt, and the region’s housing stock should start to rebound. For the moment, though, the residents have nowhere to go — and every day of delay only makes the problem worse.

  “This should really be so turnkey at this point,” said Alexis Merdjanoff, a professor of public health at New York University who has studied the long-term impact of disasters. “People are suffering, and these are not unique events. It should be really seamless for the government at any level — whether it’s federal, state or local — to release funds to help people.”

  This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How the US government left Lake Charles in limbo after Hurricanes Laura and Delta on Apr 4, 2022.

  
  This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Jake Bittle.
  

  ]]> https://grist.org/extreme-weather/lake-charles-hurricane-recovery/feed/ 0 287682 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/04/01/its-time-for-charles-koch-to-testify-about-his-climate-disinformation-campaign/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/04/01/its-time-for-charles-koch-to-testify-about-his-climate-disinformation-campaign/#respond Fri, 01 Apr 2022 08:49:23 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=238588 The U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee kicked off its investigation of the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long climate change disinformation campaign last fall by inviting top executives from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell to testify about their role and subpoenaing their companies for internal documents. The committee followed up that hearing—during which the executives disingenuously denied More

  The post It’s Time for Charles Koch to Testify About His Climate Disinformation Campaign appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

  
  This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Elliott Negin.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/04/01/its-time-for-charles-koch-to-testify-about-his-climate-disinformation-campaign/feed/ 0 287043 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/03/30/the-money-trail-to-the-ginni-thomas-emails-to-overturn-bidens-election-leads-to-charles-koch/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/03/30/the-money-trail-to-the-ginni-thomas-emails-to-overturn-bidens-election-leads-to-charles-koch/#respond Wed, 30 Mar 2022 08:58:02 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=238209

  Photograph Source: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ – CC BY-SA 2.0

  The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Bob Costa of CBS News have unleashed a fury of renewed interest in the work of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Last Thursday, Woodward and Costa set off a political firestorm when they released the contents of emails that Ginni Thomas, wife of the sitting Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, had sent to President Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, in 2020, urging him to overturn the Biden election win and attempting to steer his efforts in that regard.

  A total of 29 emails were obtained by Woodward and Costa, with the bulk of the emails occurring in just the month of November 2020, raising questions as to how many more emails are still out there from Thomas to the White House from December 1, 2020 through January 20, 2021 when Biden was sworn in.

  Much of the current news debate around the emails is focusing on whether Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from cases involving groups with which his wife is involved and whether the Select Committee should subpoena Ginni Thomas to testify. While those are certainly important issues, what has thus far been ignored is the smoking gun trail that leads directly to the doorstep of billionaire and right-wing Republican political mastermind, Charles Koch, the Chairman, CEO (and majority owner with the heirs of his deceased brother David) of the fossil fuels conglomerate Koch Industries.

  Wall Street On Parade has previously documented that at least three of the front groups that fomented the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Trump and that actively solicited thousands of people to turn out for the January 6 event at the Capitol, were funded by Koch Industries or its front groups.

  The smoking gun in the Ginni Thomas email thread occurs in an email dated November 10, 2020 when she tells Meadows to “Listen to Rush. Mark Steyn, Bongino, Cleta.” Thomas is clearly referring to conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn and Dan Bongino, and lawyer, Cleta Mitchell.

  Cleta Mitchell is best known in the Trump election saga as the lawyer who was on the January 2, 2021 call with Donald Trump when he phoned the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, and told him this: “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.” That call took place two months after the presidential election. (Mitchell stepped down from her long-term employment at law firm Foley & Lardner after her presence on that call made the news cycle.)

  But Cleta Mitchell’s relationship with Ginni Thomas dates back at least a decade earlier – and not in a good way.

  Cleta Mitchell had filed an amicus brief in the Citizens United case before the Supreme Court that was decided on January 21, 2010. That case would be the tipping point to allow unlimited sums from corporations – like Koch Industries — in U.S. elections.

  Just eight days after Justice Thomas voted in favor of that decision to open the floodgates to corporate money in campaigns, Cleta Mitchell made a move that looked very much like a quid pro quo to Ginni Thomas. Mitchell, then still a partner at Foley & Lardner, filed an application with the Internal Revenue Service to set up a nonprofit called Liberty Central, Inc. on behalf of Ginni Thomas. According to IRS tax filings, Liberty Central received a combined $1.478 million from dark money donors in 2009 and 2010.

  On the IRS tax filings for Liberty Central for 2009 and 2010, Ginni (Virginia) Thomas is listed as President and CEO. The 2010 tax filing shows that Ginni Thomas received $120,511 in compensation from Liberty Central that year. She eventually stepped down from an official post at the nonprofit, stating she would serve as a consultant.

  Liberty Central had the fingerprints of Charles Koch all over it. Acting as General Counsel in 2010 for Liberty Central was a former lawyer for the Charles G. Koch Foundation, Sarah Field. A former Koch lobbyist, Matt Schlapp, served on the Board of Liberty Central at inception.

  Mitchell’s law firm, Foley & Lardner, employed three attorneys working as lobbyists for a Koch Industries affiliate, Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC in Madison, Wisconsin in 2011. The Koch-related lobbyists were Ray Carey, Jason Childress and Kathleen Walby.

  Mitchell, herself, was a former lobbyist at the federal level in years 2005 through 2008 for the Alliance for Charitable Reform, a project of The Philanthropy Roundtable, another tax-exempt organization. Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, two dark money groups which also have Charles Koch’s fingerprints all over them, were spun off from the Philanthropy Roundtable in 1999. (See our report: Koch Footprints Lead to Secret Slush Fund to Keep Fear Alive.)

  Mitchell is listed on the 2018 federal tax filing for Steve Bannon’s charity, Citizens of the American Republic, as an officer of the organization, holding the position of Secretary. Bannon and others were charged in August of 2021 by the Department of Justice with bilking donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars through that charity.

  Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, was one of those pushing the narrative on television that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, lawyers and staff of Foley & Lardner were the third largest donor to Johnson’s campaign committees since 2015. Employees and officials of Koch Industries ranked fifth.

  There were only eight Republican Senators who refused to certify the votes for the challenged states of Arizona and/or Pennsylvania. Those Republican Senators were: Ted Cruz of Texas; Josh Hawley of Missouri; Rick Scott of Florida; Tommy Tuberville of Alabama; Roger Marshall of Kansas; Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi; John Kennedy of Louisiana; and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. Every Republican Senator who refused to certify the election results on January 6 received funding from Koch Industries PAC.

  Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, whom Ginni Thomas enlisted in the White House to help overturn Biden’s election win, was previously a member of the House of Representatives from North Carolina from 2013 to 2020. He also received campaign funding from the Koch Industries PAC throughout his time in Congress.

  Charles Koch is usually very careful in keeping an arm’s length relationship between himself and his political operations. But on at least one occasion Koch conducted a dinner meeting directly with sitting Justice Clarence Thomas at a private club in California.

  In January 2008, Justice Thomas attended an all-expenses-paid, four-day trip to the Koch brothers’ semi-annual political gathering in the Palm Springs area of California. (According to his 2008 disclosure form and the Supreme Court’s public information office, Thomas’ expenses for that trip were paid by the Federalist Society, a conservative nonprofit that Koch foundations have generously supported.)

  Justice Thomas’ trip to the Koch event occurred in the same year that the Citizens Unitedcase was accepted by the Supreme Court.  The Court accepts less than two percent of all cases appealed to it.

  Wall Street On Parade was previously able to confirm with Scott Markley, Public Information Specialist at the Supreme Court, that during that January 2008 visit to the Koch political gathering, Justice Thomas was hosted by Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, at the private Vintage Club where Charles Koch is a member.

  The Citizens United decision did not pass the smell test when it was approved in a 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court. Four of the nine justices wrote a scathing dissent that raised the issue of unprincipled behavior, writing that the majority had ruled on issues that were not even legally before the court.

  The money that the Koch political machine pumped into putting Trump in the Oval Office quickly paid big dividends in his first term (and made it clear as to why Charles Koch would have wanted to see a second Trump term).

  Koch Industries’ law firm, Jones Day, sent 12 of its law partners to staff up key positions in the Trump administration on the very day Trump was inaugurated. Jones Day has since sacked the press release it issued at the time but you can read the reporting on it at the American Bar Association Journal.

  Once Trump was settled in the Oval Office, a Koch front group, then known as Freedom Partners, mapped out the agenda it expected Trump to march to. In a document titled “Roadmap to Repeal: Removing Regulatory Barriers to Opportunity,” the group listed the laws and regulations it expected to be repealed in the first 100 days of Trump’s administration. The Trump administration dutifully marched to the beat. Repeal the Paris Climate Accord – done. Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy – done. Gutting federal regulations and the Environmental Protection Agency – done.

  By the spring of 2018, 12 people who previously worked at Freedom Partners were working in the Trump administration. Freedom Partners has since disbanded but when we last took a look at the nonprofit in July 2018, we found that all but one of Freedom Partners’ 9-member Board of Directors was a current or former Koch company employee. The Board Chair of Freedom Partners at that time was the same Mark Holden that was the General Counsel of Koch Industries.

  It’s time for the House Select Committee to subpoena not just Ginni Thomas and Cleta Mitchell. It’s time to hear from Charles Koch directly on how so much money bearing his fingerprints ended up fomenting the attack on the Capitol on January 6.

  There will never be a better time than now for the American people to finally get at the truth.

  This originally appeared on Wall Street on Parade.

  
  This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Pam Martens - Russ Martens.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/03/30/the-money-trail-to-the-ginni-thomas-emails-to-overturn-bidens-election-leads-to-charles-koch/feed/ 0 286319 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/02/17/charles-mccrory-is-an-innocent-man-incarcerated-for-over-35-years-in-alabama-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/02/17/charles-mccrory-is-an-innocent-man-incarcerated-for-over-35-years-in-alabama-heres-what-you-need-to-know/#respond Thu, 17 Feb 2022 23:53:30 +0000 https://innocenceproject.org/?p=40690 In 1985, Innocence Project and Southern Center for Human Rights client Charles McCrory was wrongly convicted for the murder of his wife Julie Bonds in Andalusia, Alabama. Mr. McCrory, who found his wife dead

  The post Charles McCrory Is an Innocent Man Incarcerated for Over 35 Years in Alabama — Here’s What You Need to Know appeared first on Innocence Project.

  ]]> In 1985, Innocence Project and Southern Center for Human Rights client Charles McCrory was wrongly convicted for the murder of his wife Julie Bonds in Andalusia, Alabama. Mr. McCrory, who found his wife dead in their home, quickly became a suspect in the case and never had a chance to grieve her loss or console their infant son. Mr. McCrory maintained his innocence from the beginning and immediately complied with police and investigators. Sensing the District Attorney did not have a strong case against Mr. McCrory, Ms. Bonds’s family hired private attorneys Frank Tipler and his son Harvey Tipler to prosecute the case instead. The key evidence in the case against Mr. McCrory was testimony from dentist Dr. Richard Souviron, who said a “bite mark” on Ms. Bonds’s body matched her husband’s teeth. Dr. Souviron has now recanted that opinion and denied the injury was a bite mark at all. Two additional forensic dentists also provided sworn testimony that the injury was not a bite mark. In fact, “bite mark” evidence is now considered unscientific evidence and a leading contributor of wrongful convictions. 

  Despite no other evidence connecting Mr. McCroy to the crime, he was sentenced to life in prison and has suffered almost four decades of wrongful incarceration. 

  On February 14, 2022, the Circuit Court of Covington County, Alabama, denied Mr. McCrory’s petition that sought relief based on new evidence that proves his innocence.

  Read 10 key facts about this case to help fight for justice for Mr. McCrory.

  1. The only evidence that connected Mr. McCrory to the crime was a “bite mark” on his wife that Dr. Souviron had allegedly found and linked to Mr. McCrory’s teeth. Dr. Souviron has since recanted that testimony, and no other evidence connects Mr. McCrory to the crime.

  At the 1985 trial, Dr. Souviron testified that a bite mark on Ms. Bonds’s body matched her husband’s teeth. He has since recanted this evidence in a sworn statement. He and two independent experts also now agree that the testimony never should have been presented to a jury because the injury was never an actual bite mark.

  At trial, the Tiplers relied on testimony stating that a car that looked like Mr. McCrory’s may have been near the crime scene. However, evidence from the 2021 hearing demonstrated that it would have been nearly impossible to have observed any vehicle from the witness’s vantage point. 

  

  No other evidence at trial was presented that connected Mr. McCrory to killing his own wife — not an eyewitness, not a confession, not forensic evidence. At the time of the trial, there were no known wrongful convictions attributable to the use of bite mark evidence. Without the alleged bite mark, Mr. McCrory would not have been convicted. Today, at least 36 innocent people have been wrongfully convicted through the use of bite mark evidence and have lost a total of 400 years behind bars. Nearly all of these wrongful convictions occurred during the era of Mr. McCrory’s trial.

  2. Hair in Ms. Bonds’s hand did not match Mr. McCrory.

  Hairs clutched in Ms. Bonds’s hand were examined, presumably because they were pulled from the attacker’s hands during the violent struggle. Those hairs were conclusively determined not to belong to Mr. McCrory or Ms. Bonds.

  3. A red bandana like the one worn by Alton Ainsworth, who committed a similar home invasion and rape five weeks after the murder, was found at the crime scene. He worked at a construction site next to the victim’s house.
  

  Alton Ainsworth worked at a construction site next door to Ms. Bonds’s home. He was known for wearing a red bandana similar to the one found next to her body. Evidence showed an open window and a nearby footprint, indicating a likely home invasion by the attacker. Five weeks after the murder of Ms. Bonds, Mr. Ainsworth committed a home invasion and rape, similar to what had happened to Ms. Bonds, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He has never been charged in relation to her murder.

  4. A red bandana like the one worn by Alton Ainsworth, who committed a similar home invasion and rape five weeks after the murder, was found at the crime scene. He worked at a construction site next to the victim’s house.
  

  The Covington County District Attorney did not prosecute the case. Instead, Frank Tipler and his son Harvey Tipler, private attorneys, were hired by Ms. Bonds’s brother to prosecute Mr. McCrory, because Ms. Bonds’s brother believed the local county prosecutors were insufficiently invested in Mr. McCrory’s guilt. This is a rare occurrence but permitted under Alabama law.

  5. Key evidence that could have exonerated Mr. McCrory was destroyed.
  

  The physical evidence in the case, including the red bandana, was destroyed. The Innocence Project has helped free more than 200 people from prison using DNA testing,  but the absence of this key evidence makes justice for Mr. McCrory extremely challenging, especially because, in this case, the State used the lack of DNA evidence against him. 

  6. Mr. McCrory has maintained his innocence for 40 years.
  

  When he was wrongly convicted, Mr. McCrory had no previous history of violence or criminal record. The day he found his wife murdered, he cooperated with police and consented to a search of his own body, home, and vehicle. No incriminating evidence was found, despite that he was alleged to have just committed a brutal murder. He consistently explained his whereabouts at the time of the murder and testified on his own behalf at trial. At the time of the incident, Mr. McCrory was a loving father and Information Technology consultant, who had earned a college degree and served as a volunteer Emergency Medical Technician. Given his exemplary behavior while incarcerated, he is currently permitted to leave the prison on work details, notwithstanding the nature of the charge. His son, now grown, fully supports his father’s innocence.

  7. In April 2021, the current District Attorney Tippler attorneys offered Mr. McCrory a plea to time-served, but he refused it.
  

  In an effort to avoid an evidentiary hearing in this case, the current District Attorney offered Mr. McCrory a “time served” plea just moments before the 2021 hearing, but Mr. McCrory turned the offer down because he would not admit guilt for something he didn’t do. Although Mr. McCrory denied the offer, many innocent people are actually often pressured into plea deals and do accept pleas to avoid a harsher punishment and for various other reasons. 

  8. At an evidentiary hearing in April 2021, Mr. McCrory presented evidence from three forensic dentists who agreed that the injury to the victim was not a bite mark.

  At the evidentiary hearing before Judge Short in Andalusia, Alabama, in April 2021, two forensic dentists corroborated Dr. Souviron’s recantation and testified not only that the injury to Ms. Bonds was not inflicted by Mr. McCrory’s teeth, but also that it was not even a bite mark in the first place. In addition, attorneys for Mr. McCrory demonstrated why none of the other evidence presented against him at trial pointed to his involvement in the crime. In response, the current District Attorney re-read the original trial testimony and had no response to the new evidence pointing to Mr. McCrory’s innocence. 

  9. The court took nearly a year to write its opinion — only to simply sign the prosecutors’ proposed findings of fact against Mr. McCrory.

  Following the evidentiary hearing seeking a new trial in 2021, the court issued a decision on February 14, 2022.  In this decision, however, the judge simply signed a short set of proposed findings written by the prosecutors. Though experts at the hearing had unanimously testified that the injury was not a bite mark, the court found that any lay juror reliably could have matched Mr. McCrory’s teeth to the injury on Ms. Bonds themselves. In other words, the judge ruled that jurors are capable of doing what the scientific community has unanimously agreed is impossible: identify bite marks and “match” them to teeth. In fact, jurors are no better than “experts” at engaging in unvalidated science. 

  10. Following the trial, Harvey Tipler was convicted of solication of murder of an assistant state’s attorney and is now serving a 35-year sentence in prison.  

  Harvey Tipler, the prosecuting attorney, responsible for investigating and making much of the case against Mr. McCory, has since been disbarred and convicted of solicitation of murder. He is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence in Florida. 

  Act now by sharing Mr. McCrory’s story.

  Share on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram so everyone knows Mr. McCrory’s story.

   

  The post Charles McCrory Is an Innocent Man Incarcerated for Over 35 Years in Alabama — Here’s What You Need to Know appeared first on Innocence Project.

  
  This content originally appeared on Innocence Project and was authored by cat-ip-main.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/02/17/charles-mccrory-is-an-innocent-man-incarcerated-for-over-35-years-in-alabama-heres-what-you-need-to-know/feed/ 0 274794 https://www.radiofree.org/2016/07/09/charles-derber-nicholas-mokhiber/ https://www.radiofree.org/2016/07/09/charles-derber-nicholas-mokhiber/#respond Sat, 09 Jul 2016 20:22:28 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=0a92ed21f76111207e02acaa3dd36a83 Ralph talks to professor Charles Derber about how corporate capitalism has turned America into a “bully nation.”  And nineteen year old Nicholas Mokhiber shares with us his adventure hiking the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail.

  
  This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader Radio Hour.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2016/07/09/charles-derber-nicholas-mokhiber/feed/ 0 328974 https://www.radiofree.org/2015/05/03/steven-m-druker-charles-slack/ https://www.radiofree.org/2015/05/03/steven-m-druker-charles-slack/#respond Sun, 03 May 2015 03:13:47 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=50494a445a9d9026928a177f085ea927 Ralph talks to Steven M. Druker about the problems with GMOs and Charles Slack, author of Liberty's First Crisis about the fight to preserve the First Amendment. Plus, more listener questions.

  
  This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader Radio Hour.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2015/05/03/steven-m-druker-charles-slack/feed/ 0 329343 https://www.radiofree.org/2015/01/18/dr-charles-blatt-professional-cuddlers-charlie-hebdo/ https://www.radiofree.org/2015/01/18/dr-charles-blatt-professional-cuddlers-charlie-hebdo/#respond Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:57:35 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=ecc41d55c0b82e0fe85d6cc9cefbf141 for patients and less to patients."  We talk about the emerging trend of "professional cuddlers."  Ralph gives his view of the latest consumer electronics show in Vegas, and David has a surprising take on the tragic events in Paris.

  
  This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader Radio Hour.
  

  ]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2015/01/18/dr-charles-blatt-professional-cuddlers-charlie-hebdo/feed/ 0 329406