Daily Archives: July 21, 2021

While shopping at Wal-Mart, I saw a gentleman wearing what I believed to be a Pakistani hat (I looked up hats and found "kufi" hats in the library computer yay library!) and complimented his wife on her clothing. I will never know what nationality they were it is politically incorrect to ask but we shared the common language of a smile for a compliment given and accepted.

Near the service desk at the front of the store, a gentleman was dressed in a kilt. I was compelled to walk over and compliment him. Again, we shared smiles.

I often listen to the Spanish speaking workers, and the flowing musicality of the speech pleases my ear. I admit to finding it a bit annoying, but that is only because I worked with bilingual people who spoke English better than I speak Spanish. One of them said something, then they all turned and laughed in my direction, an indication that perhaps I should at least learn some rudimentary Spanish!

On my way out of the store, I was politically incorrect. I asked the young worker where he was from (lovely accent) and he replied he is from Mexico originally. He didn't seem to mind when I told him I was writing an article in favor of diversity, and did not mean to be politically incorrect, but wanted to share the adventure.

What adventure can one find at the stores? People not like me. Different dress, different colors, different accents.

Other cultures may be a bit odd in my view, but I'd win the bet they think I'm odd, too! We may not totally understand one another, but I believe we should try to enjoy diversity.

I do not know about anyone else, but I would find it deadly dull to have nothing but people exactly like me in the world. It may lead to differences, but a totally calm life is, I feel, boring beyond belief.

Nan Hassall resides in Lockport.

How about this ...

Eat white bread

morning, noon and night

but no butter.

It is yellow.

and

Drink purified water,

morning, noon, and night,

but no cherry Kool-Aid.

It is red.

Or

Drink cold milk

morning, noon, and night

but not chocolate.

It is brown.

And

Eat sweet candy,

morning, noon, and night,

But not licorice.

It is black.

and

Isn't that menu

just

Too, too restrictive

And damn bloody

Boring?

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GUEST VIEW: Diversity is the spice of life - Niagara Gazette

Comedy Central was in a tight spot. With Bill Mahers Politically Incorrect moving to ABC, the fledgling network was in desperate need of a talk-show replacement. And so, on July 22, 1996, The Daily Show was born.

Co-created by Lizz Winstead and Madeleine Smithberg, who had worked together on the short-lived The Jon Stewart Show, it was a novel concept: a parody of newscasts delivered with deadpan panache by ex-ESPN anchor Craig Kilborn and a roving team of kooky field correspondents, including Stephen Colbert and Lewis Black. It began as a blend of politics and pop culture but tensions between Winstead and Smithberg and Kilborn came to a head two years in, culminating with a deeply sexist Esquire interview wherein Kilborn called the staff bitches and said of Winstead, If I wanted her to blow me, she would.

That was the final straw for Winstead, who walked away from the show in 1998. The following year, Jon Stewart took over as host of The Daily Show, and the rest is history.

If it had never gotten on the path, it would have been difficult to walk away. But it was on the path. It was going. It was all happening, explains Winstead.

Winstead would go on to co-found Air America Radio, which helped launch the careers of Rachel Maddow and Marc Maron, as well as Abortion Access Front, an organization fighting for womens reproductive rights. On July 19, Winstead, Smithberg, and a number of original Daily Show correspondents will reunite for a talk in honor of the shows 25th anniversary, with proceeds benefitting AAF.

Weve never all been together and told these stories publicly before, so its going to be a lot of fun, offers Winstead.

But first, she spoke with The Daily Beast about the early days of The Daily Show and how she and her team laid the groundwork for 25 years of groundbreaking comedy.

Its crazy that its been 25 years of The Daily Show. What goes through your mind when you hear that?

It feels surreal in the sense of how, 25 years ago, we created a show because our media wasnt doing its job, and through all the iterations of how the media wasnt doing its job, weve landed now in 2021 where the media finally started doing its job and right-wing conspiracy theorists have decided that the media isnt doing its job because its doing its job. Its really wild. But the thing thats the coolest for me is, the one thing you have in this worldyou as a journalist, me as a comic, writer, and produceris if your instincts are right, it keeps you going forever. And just to know that all the instincts I had about that showthe framework, who to hire, what subjects to tacklepaid off in spades to the point where you could bring in new hosts, and new casts, and new writers and have a foundation so solid that they could reimagine it while the basic structure held up.

Youd worked on The Jon Stewart Show just prior to co-creating The Daily Show, and I remember when that show ended, David Letterman came on as one of the final guests and basically said, This is only the beginning for you, Jon.

And then Letterman signed up Jon for a development deal for two years, and we launched The Daily Show with Craig Kilborn. I think Letterman saw Jon as a threat because of his talent, and thought, What if I locked this guy up with a deal and kept him off the market for a while? I remember how Letterman came on the show and was enamored with how young the audience was, and how youthful the staff was. He really seemed to like the vibe and I think he really liked Jon a lot.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Well, we know he was generally enamored of youthful staff. With The Daily Show, Comedy Central was looking for a replacement for Bill Mahers Politically Incorrect, right?

Yeah. They wanted a replacement for Politically Incorrect, and they wanted a show that was responding to the world. What was interestingand lucky for us, and crazywas that they recognized that, in developing a show that was going to be on five nights a week, just doing a pilot wasnt going to work, so they gave us a year without a pilot in order to allow us to grow on the air. What Madeleine and I knew for sure was that the media and the news had to be a character on the show, and we had to do everything in our power to not be some extended version of Weekend Update. So, in order to hold a mirror up to the media, we hired people from the media who were writing at magazines, producing at TV news, and working as correspondents on TV news. We realized that we had to bring the news and be funny, so we formatted the show each day as you would in a newsroom. And people forget, this is before YouTube and Google, so I think we stole a LexisNexis account from somebody, had the AP wire, and would get dozens and dozens of newspapers delivered to the office every day, with producers divided into regions. It was really ragtag and really fun. We only had six writers at the beginning. It was insane.

And Comedy Central were the ones who chose Craig Kilborn to be the host, right?

Yup. [Viacom President] Doug Herzog loved SportsCenter and wanted this kind of SportsCenter vibe, so Kilborn filled the role. When the show launched, the show was more like Colberts original show [The Colbert Report], in that there wasnt anyone who was really the voice of the peopleeverybody was in characterand Craig looked and sounded like every local news anchor, and was a person where everybody wondered, Are you in on the joke? Or are you not in on the joke? And we never wanted to give that part away, because that was part of the magic of the show.

I had read how in the early days there was this tension between Comedy Central and Craig, who wanted it to be more pop culture-focused, and yourself and Madeleine, who wanted it to be more of a riff on media, politics, and the news.

Yes. Its no secret that the core creative team fought very hard against prioritizing pop culture. A) They wanted to have celebrity guests on, and we thought, Why are we shitting on Hollywood if you want to have these people on our show?, and B) An entertainment satire of Entertainment Tonight is called Entertainment Tonight. I cant make that show any more hilarious than it already is. We certainly did not make lasting friendships by fighting tooth and nail against this, but I would argue that if Madeleine and I had not fought as hard as we did to keep politics front and center, I dont think wed be having a conversation about the 25th anniversary of The Daily Show. I dont think we would have created a show that Jon would have wanted to step into. People werent getting information from the news, and to be able to point that out was a real catharsis for people.

As you said, you, Madeleine, and your staff were responsible for laying the foundation. And a big way you did that was through hiring people like Stephen Colbert, Lewis Black, and a number of other folks.

Stephen Colbert was on Good Morning America doing these interviews, and I was watching one morning and went to Madeleine, Stephen Colbert is on Good Morning America and he is winking to us, and I think we should talk to him and see if he wants to come over here. So, we got him over here. Stephen Colbert, Lewis Blackand Brian Unger is the reason you know what a Daily Show correspondent is. He came from CBS News and literally trained every correspondent on how to do that ridiculous, skeptical, know-it-all, Stone Phillips-y kind of thing. Right when I was leaving Carell came on, and Madeleine shepherded through him and a bunch of other people.

I think Stephen observed a myriad combination of the OReillys, the Hannitys, and that self-important, bombastic thing, and he ran with it.

What was Colbert like when he arrived? Had he developed that Colbert persona yet?

When I saw him on Good Morning America, it already seemed like he knew how to be a journalist, and hes also a really funny comedic actor, so I dont think he needed a whole bunch of coaching. I just think that every single person came in thinking about how they were gonna be, and as the news stars of cable emergedFox News came into the realm in October of 1996, and we launched in Julypaying attention to these personas that were being built and what he wanted to take on, I think Stephen observed a myriad combination of the OReillys, the Hannitys, and that self-important, bombastic thing, and he ran with it.

I wanted to talk to you about the falling-out with Craig.

Oh, I dont ever talk about that. You can google it and write about it.

I re-read the things that he has said at the time and it was pretty shocking.

Yeah. It wasnt great. But I worked in television at a time when shit happens, and I think things would have been very different if it had happened now.

Did you tell Comedy Central, Him or me? And how difficult was it to walk away from your creation?

You know, I think anybody whos got any confidence and who says, I made this thing, I can make a lot of other things Truth be told, it was in me to say, There cant just be one of these shows. I could stay here forever and do this show, or I could go out there and try to do other things so that the media landscape starts to get populated with cool stuff. So, I left there, and then Brian Unger and I did a pilot that I wish wouldve gotten picked up, which was a satire of a news magazine, and then went off to launch Air America. When I look at Rachel Maddow, and Marc Maron, and Sam Seder, they all leapt out of that. I got to write a book, and now Im running a reproductive rights organization thats talking about abortion in a way thats really provocative, and edgy, and funny. I just feel like Ive been following my path, and all the while doing stand-up as it was happening.

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart #JonVoyage on August 6, 2015, in New York City.

Brad Barket/Getty

Did you have a hand in Jon Stewart ultimately getting the gig, given your past with him on The Jon Stewart Show?

Everybody would have loved for Jon to not be in a development deal with Letterman, because we loved working with him. So, it was just a perfect storm where when Craig was leaving, Jons development deal with Letterman was coming to a head, so people thought, Lets see if he wants to come in and do this. And when he did, it was such a good transition because I think the show just grew. Having somebody in the chair who was the voice of the viewer allowed him to bring the antics in the field back to the reality of what they were satirizing, and when you have somebody as profound in their own persona to be able to fill that chair, it was an incredible direction and ended up bringing the show to the next level. He asked me to come back, and at that point I was like, You know what? Youre filling the role that I was doing and youre also in the chair, so good. You just do that. What would I do? It would just be like having two brains there. I feel so lucky that, in the iterations of this show, people made really good decisions about who was going to be in that chair.

Lastly, lets talk about Abortion Access Frontyour organization that the Monday Daily Show reunion is benefiting.

Its a relentless fight. For the amount of bad stuff thats happening, the lack of media coverage around it is staggering. The fact that Roe v. Wade is probably going to be overturned in 2022and thats not hyperbole, that is factsand theres been hardly any cable news coverage around it, I was like, you know what? I want to hold these people accountable and bring information to the people. We go out on the road and do shows with comedians and musicians, have conversations with local abortion providers and activists on the ground, make hilarious videos that are really poignantour TikTok is blowing upand were launching our own YouTube talk show in October called Feminist Buzzkills Livebasically, if there was a talk show that discussed real issues in a real way around patriarchy, and women, and abortion, with really great comics and musicians, as well as experts and providers in the field. Its not talked about enough, and is so stigmatized, that were just going to blow the roof off the motherfucking abortion building.

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Inside the Chaotic Early Days of 'The Daily Show' - Daily Beast - The Daily Beast

Greg Gutfeld on the set of his late-night Fox News show. (Photo: Fox News)

The new late-night vehicle for longtime Fox News Channel contributor Greg Gutfeld, excitedly named Gutfeld!, is the ratings surprise of the year. Since debuting this spring it has routinely finished second in the ratings to Stephen Colberts Late Show and, despite being on cable instead of network, it often comes in second to Colbert among all shows inthe 25-to-54 demo hour. This is entirely appropriate, because Gutfeld! islargely an answer to the partisanship of Colberts show.

Before you reach for your keyboard: I didnt say it was like Colberts show. If youre a big fan of Colberts show, youll probably hate Gutfeld! But its arrival was inevitable. In the current politicized atmosphere of American entertainment, having a right-wing answer to Colbert was too tempting for Fox News to pass up.And Gutfeld was the obvious choice to host, since he had experience running Foxs overnight yukfest Red Eye from 2007 to 2015. On that show Gutfeld would review offbeat news stories and the foibles of Democrats with a panel that included comedians, entertainment writers, and other not-obviously-right-wing-shills. Imagine Chelsea Handler as a Republican and youd be close.

But the new Gutfeld! is less like Red Eye and more like The Five, Fox News answer to The View. There are fewer wacky news items and more harangues.The panelists all seem like they were vetted by Hannitys people. Disillusioned ex-Red Eye panelists say they hate the new show. Gossip stories portray Gutfeld as a Lonesome Rhodes type, a onetime folksy dude who let success go to his head and now specializes in alienating those around him. (If you thought Meghan McCain leaving The View was dramatic, that was a model of decorum compared with Juan Williams leaving The Five reportedly because he couldnt take any more of Gutfeld.)

All of this may be true, but I also have to admitthat I kind of like Gutfeld! The host has an appealingly weird personality. I met Robert Bork once, he offered during a recent roundtable. Best smoker I ever saw. And yes, the flashes of anger are undeniable, but every comic will tell you thats part of the package. We should start calling Jen Psaki Miss Information, Gutfeld said, archly raising his eyebrowsin the direction of radio host Lauren Chen. How do I come up with this stuff, Lauren?

And once you get beyond the tactlessopening bit unfunny cold opens are a specialty of the Colbert show as well the banter is relatively amusing. And the panelists do score some not unfair points about the usual suspects, which these days includewoke Hollywood, woke Biden, woke protestors, woke cities and woke CNN anchors. Also, I miss seeingRepublicans in late night. Theyve been almost completely shut out. Jimmy Kimmel has COVID denier Adam Carolla on his show occasionally, but that feels more like the times David Letterman would have comic George Miller on his show, not because hes funny but because you dont give up on your old friends.

Its part of a wider politicization of late-night TV that Ive bemoaned before. But this is not the national crisis that Trumpists make it out to be. Most of the people who have been canceled are still making bank. Theyre even burnishing their brands with appearances on shows like Canceled in the USA. The real problem is that entertainment is now subject to the same echo-chamber effect as news. Colbert has his anti-Trump parody videos, so it was only a matter of time before Gutfeld! came along and started doing pro-Trump parodies.

What I really miss is the sound of interesting clashes between conservatives and liberals. And there once was a show that featured that and did it well. It was called Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and it was literally canceled by ABC. Maher had carefully cultivated a following for his show featuring the likes of Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter sparring with lefty celebrity types. It graduated from Comedy Central to ABC, which paired it up with Nightline. All was going well until six days after 9/11. With the Twin Towers still smoking and Americans still reeling, one of Mahers guests, the conservative provocateur and future Trump pardonee Dinesh DSouza, pushed back against President Bushs characterization of the 9/11 attackers as cowards. Au contraire, said DSouza, they were warriors because they were willing to be slammed into concrete for their cause. Maher completely agreed, adding that Americans had been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. In the outrage that followed, sponsors and affiliates began dropping Politically Incorrect and ABC parted ways with Maher.

About a year later heemerged on HBO as host of his currentshowReal Time. I interviewed him early on (oddly at the same offices and studio hed been using for Politically Incorrect). Maher promised he would continue to have pro-Bush as well as anti-Bush viewpoints represented on his new show. He even wanted to try to balance the number of Democrats and Republicans in his studio audience. But that didnt last long. The Great Sort was underway, and soon it became clear the only people who wanted to be in his audience were Democrats. Maher, no dummy, went with the flow.

And now, all these many years later, we have Gutfeld! with a pro-Fox News studio audience, pro-Fox News panelists, pro-Fox News punchlines, and presiding over it all, the former overnight sensation turned company man, a fellow who used to fulminate at his fellow panelists for excessive Trumpsplaining who now cant Trumpsplain enough. (Why the hysteria over January 6 as opposed to the ongoing violence in Portland, Atlanta, San Francisco, L.A., New York, Seattle? he ranted the other night. Oh, I dont know, maybe because one of those types of violence is ongoing and the other is unprecedented?) It's in lockstep withthe Fox News base, just as Colbert's showiswith his liberal base. I guess we can be thankful some Fox smart-aleck didnt name itPolitically Incorrect with Greg Gutfeld!

Gutfeld! airs weeknights on Fox News at 11:00 PM ET/8:00 PM PT

Aaron Barnharthas written about television since 1994, including 15 years as TV critic for theKansas City Star.

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Gutfeld! Is The Right's Inevitable Answer to Stephen Colbert - PRIMETIMER

Indian industry did not like all aspects of the economic reforms, particularly the reduction in import duties and the sudden opening up of the economy. The Bombay Club refers to a lobby of leading industrialists who wrote to the government demanding a level playing field for Indian companies. B is also for Bank Nationalisation. In 1969, an increasingly left-leaning Prime Minister Indira Gandhi nationalised 14 big commercial banks. The Reserve Bank of Indias history of the Indian economy calls it the single most important economic decision taken by any government since 1947. Yes, even more momentous than the reforms we are celebrating.

B also stands for Broad Banding. This has nothing to do with the internet age. It was a policy that allowed companies to switch production between similar product lines such as trucks and cars. Also check out BICP (Bureau of Industrial Costs and Pricing), and BIFR (Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction), which still exist in one form or another.

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An alphabet soup of the Indian economy pre-reforms, and after - Moneycontrol.com

Two years ago, Wall Street banks were on their way out of a long-term relationship with the oil industry. Now, with oil prices over $70 for the first time in three years, big bond buyers are snapping up oil bonds once again.

Only there is a condition this time.

The Wall Street Journals Joe Wallace and Collin Eaton wrote this week that Wall Street was buying bonds from non-investment-grade U.S. energy companies, which took advantage of record low interest rates to raise some $34 billion in fresh debt in the first half of the year.

Thats twice as much as the industry raised over the same period last year. But investors dont want borrowers to use the cash to drill new wells. They want them to use it to pay off older debt and shore up balance sheets.

It makes sense, really, although it is a marked departure from how banks normally react to oil industry crises. The 2014 oil price collapse, in hindsight, may have been the last normal crisis. Oil prices fell, funding dried up, supply tightened, prices went up, banks were willing to lend again, and producers poured the money into boosting production.

Since then, however, the energy transition push has really gathered pace and banks have more than one reason to not be so willing to lend to the oil industry. With the worlds biggest asset managers setting up net-zero groups to effectively force their institutional clients to reduce their carbon footprint and with the Biden administration throwing its weight behind the push for lower emissions, banks really have little choice but to follow the current. Their own shareholders are increasingly concerned about the environment, too.

Yet business is business, and nowhere is this clearer than in banks dealings with the oil industry. Bank shareholders may be concerned about the environment, but they certainly would be more concerned about their dividendand part of that comes from income made from lending to oil. And the higher oil prices go, the more willing banks will be to lend to those that produce it.

When they were unwilling to lend to the oil industry, other lenders stepped in. Last year, alternative investment firms scooped up hundreds of millions in oil industry debt from banks that were cutting their exposure to the politically incorrect industry. Hedge funds and other so-called shadow lenders dont seem to have banks misgivings about profiting from oil and gas.

Now banks have mellowed towards oil somewhat, but it is an interesting twist that the current loans come with the condition of not boosting output. Again, it makes sense. For years, the shareholders of U.S. shale oil companies have been complaining about poor returns as the companies put everything into output growth. Now its payback time, and shareholders want their returns.

So do lenders, apparently.

Per the WSJ article, this year, bond buyers want to see companies repairing their balance sheets and delivering to creditors and shareholders rather than plowing money into new wells.

This, by the way, would strengthen the borrowers themselves, positioning them better for whenever they can afford to start boosting production again. This may happen before too long. The International Energy Agency said earlier this month it expected oil demand to hit 100.6 million bpd next year, and OPEC this week predicted that demand will top 100 million bpd in 2022. Thats a lot of additional oil, and some of it will come from those same non-investment-grade borrowers from the U.S. shale patch.

In the meantime, however, oil companies restraint is helping to keep prices where they are and add upward pressure on them. U.S. oil production as of July 9 stood at 11.4 million bpd. That was 100,000 bpd higher than in the previous week and 400,000 bpd higher than a year ago. It was, however, way lower than the 12.3 million bpd for the week to July 10, 2019.

Production restraint, then, is paying off in more than one way. On the one hand, it has kept prices highereven if some shale producers failed to benefit fully from them as they hedged their 2021 production too soon. On the other, these higher prices are making banks more willing to lend to oil companies again. On a third hand, the shareholders of these companies are finally being made happy with the new prioritization of returns and debt repayment.

The U.S. shale oil industry after the worst of the pandemic appears to have become leaner, again, but also healthier in terms of balance sheet strength. This is particularly true for those who are preparing themselves for a world where demand for oil would be much lower and prices would also be lower, according to industry insiders cited by the WSJ reporters. Investor interest in oil, then, is still alive and kicking, despite the ESG investment rush and all that. It is a simple example of the basic principle of how markets work: if there is money to be made from something, money will be made from that something, regardless of its reputational standing in the public eye.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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The Oil Industry Is Borrowing Again, But This Time It's Different - Markets Insider

It is nearly sixty years since the embalmed body of Joseph Stalin was secretly removed from its display case in the mausoleum on Red Square and buried under the Kremlin walls. Yet the Soviet dictator, who was responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviet people, refuses to stay dead and buried.

In May 2021, 56 percent of Russians polled by the independent Levada Center agreed that Stalin was a great leader double the figure in 2016, when the Stalinization of mass consciousness had already been a clear trend for several years.

The trouble is that the pantheon of Soviet gods has been obsolete since before the days of perestroika, but it has not been replaced by any new heroes. Theres always President Vladimir Putin, of course, but even he has lost half of his appeal as a great historical figure in recent years: back in 2017, 32 percent of Russians polled considered the president the most outstanding figure in Russian history, up there with the poet Alexander Pushkin, and outranked only by Stalin. Now, with 15 percent of the vote, he only just makes the top five, behind Peter the Great and just ahead of Yury Gagarin, the first man in space.

Attitudes to Stalin in Russia are intrinsically tied to the Soviet Unions victory in World War II, over which Stalin presided, and which has become the sacred cornerstone of modern Russian identity. Now the Russian elites are privatizing that victory to shore up the position of the ruling regime. The Russian parliament has passed a new law making it illegal to equate the wartime actions of the Soviets with Nazi Germany. In July 2021, Vladimir Putin signed the document, which also prohibits denying the decisive role of the Soviet people in the victory over fascism.

To people outside of Russia, it might seem deeply shocking and incomprehensible that Stalins popularity is growing at such a pace. Yet it is an entirely natural consequence of the policy advanced and sponsored by the Russian state of historical amnesia and the literal rewriting of history. Even events that were never the subject of ideological or factual debate are suddenly starting to be contested. And as historical knowledge fails to be passed down among the general public, a new mythology is rapidly taking shape.

Just a few years ago, the idea of a state-owned news agency questioning well-known facts about the Katyn massacre in which thousands of Polish officers were shot dead by the Soviets would have been impossible: it seemed that the days of blaming the Germans were long over. Yet that is precisely what happened last year. Today, the limits of what is acceptable both ethically and in terms of the treatment of facts are expanding, and red lines are being trampled with impudence and abandon.

In a different article, the same state-owned news agency described time spent in the notorious Gulag prison camps as a ticket to a better life. Even in Soviet times, when historical discourse was very limited and being in possession of or distributing Alexander Solzhenitsyns book The Gulag Archipelago could land people in prison, no one in the official media would have dared to make that kind of judgment about the Stalinist meat grinder: there were universal ethical boundaries, invisible though they might have been.

The results of introducing this simplified version of history into the mass consciousness can best be seen in how Russians perceive the most important event for them in history: World War II.

The legitimization of the current political regime and the unity of the majority of the nation hang largely on the memory of the war. Putin himself has effectively rehabilitated the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in which the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany agreed to carve up Eastern Europe between them, so that in the official version, it was nothing less than a diplomatic triumph for the Soviet Union. An episode that was a source of shame for Soviet ideologists and historians, that Soviet leaders including Mikhail Gorbachev denied and attempted to conceal to the last, has now become a matter of pride for the leadership.

In addition, a widespread idea has taken hold that the Red Army was blindsided by the suddenness of the invasion by Nazi Germany, and that the Soviet Union had not prepared for war in order to avoid provoking Germany. In fact, the German attack came as no surprise at all, and the fear of provoking the Nazis was Stalins own paranoia though it did not stop him from preparing for war in his own particular way.

Indeed, Stalins preparations would prove to be disastrous for the Soviet Union. Back in 2005, 40 percent of a Levada Center poll respondents agreed that the leadership of the Red Army had been decimated by Stalins purges: the mass arrests within the military shortly before war broke out had remained common knowledge since perestroika. In 2021, just 17 percent of respondents agreed with the same statement. Twenty-three percentage points in sixteen years is a staggering degradation in Russians knowledge of their history.

The memory of repression has failed to become the glue of the nation that memory of the war has. For many Russians, its not just a nonessential part of their countrys history, its an ideologically controversial period. After all, those who work hardest to preserve the memory of the repression the NGO Memorialhave been labeled foreign agents by the state.

When asked their opinion about Memorials Last Address project, in which commemorative plaques are put up on the buildings where victims of repression lived, just 17% of Russians polled expressed a negative attitude, but their motivations were symptomatic. The most common reasons given were they were repressed for a reason, along with the buildings will look like cemeteries, I dont see the point, and we dont need that kind of memory.

As a result, the correct memory of the war is being pitted against the incorrect, supposedly politically motivated memory of the repression, and the increasingly frequent acts of vandalism against the Last Address plaques stand testament to that. In the city of Yekaterinburg in June, unidentified people covered the plaques with stickers depicting symbols of Victory Day, the state-backed, increasingly bombastic public holiday celebrating the wartime victory. This is a literal illustration of the opposition between the two discourses dividing the nation when they should unite it.

For now, instead, Russians are united by Stalin, whom 56% consider a great leader, and for whom respect is ever growing: from 21% of respondents in 2012 to 45% in 2021, after the controversial raising of the retirement age and the pandemic, which have dented Putins popularity. As disappointment in Putin grows, people return to the familiar figure of the wartime leader.

Stalin stands in for the lack of modern heroes, and overshadows all the most important historical events of the twentieth century, symbolically compensating for the failures, defeats, and setbacks of more recent years. In Russia, there can be no modernization without de-Stalinization.

This article was first published by the Carnegie Moscow Center.

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Why Is Stalin's Popularity On the Rise? - The Moscow Times

Yan Xuetong and Wang Jisi, considered to be two of the high priests of the Chinese foreign policy community, have written recent pieces in the Foreign Affairs. It is no coincidence these were timed to dovetail with Xi Jinpings speech for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC), on July 1, 2021. Their task is to interpret for the outside world what Xi Jinping means when he says that the Chinese people have stood up and the era of suffering bullying has gone, never to return. Given the elevated status of these two gentlemen, it is well worth reading their pieces in full.

Wang and Yan start by acknowledging that recent changes in US policy mean that relations are unlikely to grow any less tense or competitive. Wang holds America responsible for this adversarial environment. According to him, the US-China relationship has always revolved around two ideas: The idea that the US will respect and not de-stabilise Chinas internal order and the idea that the Chinese will not intentionally weaken the US-led international order. This implicit understanding, Wang holds, is now unravelling and the Americans are to blame. Wang wants us to believe that this situation has come to pass because the US is seeking a regime change. China, according to both, is not to blame in any way, and is simply responding to American provocation. Wangs advice to Washington is to return to the earlier implicit consensus.

Both scholars wish to persuade readers (and nations) that if this is not the case, then unbridled competition can only end one way badly for America. America is plagued by political dysfunction, socio-economic inequality, ethnic and racial divisions and economic stagnation. Wang, in particular, stretches the argument by describing gun violence and urban unrest in America as a degree of chaos and violence without parallel in China and by drawing comparisons between the political chaos of the 2020 presidential election especially compared with the order and predictability of the Chinese system. He says that Washington must accept that CPC enjoys immense popularity among the Chinese people; its grip on power is unshakeable. The strained effort almost looks like a justification to the Chinese people about the benefits and resilience of the Communist dictatorship.

Yan uses US ill-intention towards China to justify the paradigm shift to a more assertive foreign policy. For over a decade, China has been attacking American unipolarity and the Cold-War type alliance. The new challenge for Beijing is how to be seen to be championing the cause of multipolarity while actually striving for a duopoly with the US or, as Yan cleverly phrases it, a multipolar order with US-Chinese relations at its core. To build a justification for these contradictory objectives, Yan advances several arguments. He refers to Chinas dual identity, claiming that there is no contradiction between China seeking global co-hegemony and, at the same time, continuing to be a developing country, as a demonstration of its geo-political alignment. Yan also talks up inclusive multilateralism, which is apparently what Beijings frenzied efforts at building plurilateral platforms, including in South Asia, are all about. Is this not the alliance-building that China accuses America of? Apparently not, because America is engaged in exclusive multilateralism. The rather specious argument that Yan makes to differentiate between the two is that Chinas coalitions are open and non-threatening but the American ones are issue-based coalitions in opposition to China.

In case the rest of the world is still confused about what China might be doing differently from America, Yan helpfully adds that America exports its value system (democracy) as part of its foreign policy, while China does not. According to Yan, that is because China is a developing country with Chinese characteristics, which, somehow, implies that its political system and governance model cannot merely be exported to other countries. The argument is unconvincing when President Xi has, on more than one occasion, referred to the Chinese model as an alternative for developing countries who wish to be independent.

Their main message to the Americans is to give up on pressuring China to change its political system as this will be futile, and to return to accommodating the Chinese Communist Party as a legitimate global player. The Chinese message to the rest is to bend to Chinas inevitable hegemony. At the conclusion of both essays, readers might be left wondering why China wants to return to the old consensus when Chinas rise and American decline are both assured. Is it because they still need a few years more of co-habitation before they have the power to topple America from its global perch? Or, is it the deep sense of vulnerability that the party feels despite the claim that time and momentum are on Chinas side? How does one explain the stepped-up campaigns for political education among cadres and the restrictions on politically incorrect information its citizens can access if, according to Wang, the leadership is immensely popular?

From Indias perspective, three points might deserve attention. First, the statement that there is a paradigm shift in post-Covid Chinese foreign policy. Second, Yans forthright statement that Beijing views Americas so-called issue-based coalitions (he presumably includes the Quad) as the most serious external threat to its political security and the biggest obstacle to national rejuvenation. Finally, that China is still offering accommodation if Washington just respects Beijings internal order and acknowledges Chinas regional dominance.

This column first appeared in the print edition on July 19, 2021 under the title Beijings world view. The writer is a former foreign secretary and author of The Long Game: How Chinese Negotiate with India

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What Beijing wants to tell the rest of the world - The Indian Express