Daily Archives: July 4, 2022

Similarly, Trump saw through Russias gas ploy. Russian President Vladimir Putin saw such a strong strategic advantage from Nord Stream mark one gas pipeline that he undertook to build a second gas pipeline transporting the Russian fuel that countries like Germany needed to go green. Trump warned against it and, in 2019, signed a law imposing sanctions on any firm that helped build Nord Stream 2, on the basis that the pipeline posed a security risk to Europe. Again, events have proven him right and liberalisms idealists wrong.

This foresight should not be written off as the luck of the savant. Rather, it is a warning that the eternal sunshine of the liberal mind can be an inbuilt handicap. As Financial Times columnist Janan Ganesh wrote recently, It takes a cynicism about human nature, even a certain roughness, to comprehend the threat posed by the enemies of the West. Liberalism can lack this reptilian vigilance.

Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese products.Credit:AP

We will now never find out if a leader might have emerged who could have unmasked the autocrats and reset international relations while cocking his pinkie among his couth kind, but we can say that previous presidents, despite their sophisticatedly rare steaks and soaring rhetoric, did not.

Likewise, while Boris Johnson is now celebrated by liberals for the greening of Britain, it was not such a long time hence that he was the populist villain of Brexit. Brexit is still decried by the free-marketeers enamoured of the internationalist club of the European Union but, while it may not have been the most economically rational move, there is evidence that it has solved many social problems.

Who would have guessed that Brexit, which was driven by a sense that Britain had lost its sovereignty and with it control over its borders, would lead to a greater acceptance of immigration? Johnson perhaps? Because polls have found that, while immigration to Britain has increased since Brexit, people are no longer anxious about it. In fact, in most areas of life, British citizens now regard people born elsewhere who have moved to Britain as a net positive.

It seems that a spoonful of populism makes the liberal project possible. Or, in more direct terms, that liberalism is a set of academic ideas which need to be corrected by populism aka, the people.

Trump has now been democratically discarded and Johnson is trying to reinvent himself as a leading light of liberality. But as the new liberal leadership cohort extends NATO and once again congratulates itself on having solved history, or at least found the right side of it, leaders should privately ask themselves two crucial questions: what would a populist do in my position, and what will the next populism be sparked by.

The winners of democratic contests like to tell themselves that voters never get it wrong. In which case, they havent in recent history either.

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Liberalism is better with a dose of populist wisdom - Sydney Morning Herald

At the dawn of this century, the Sheila Dikshit-led Delhi government of the time took the bold decision of privatising the power distribution business in the national capital. A similar model was shaping up only in two other cities Ahmedabad and Surat. This made the Delhi model the largest and also the most politically sensitive.

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First Published: Fri, July 01 2022. 19:36 IST

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20 yrs of privatised Delhi discoms: Leap in tech but feet tied in populism - Business Standard

Moises Naim is a Venezuelan journalist. His book The end of power placed him among the top 100 influential global thought leaders by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute. He also served as editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine for 14 years.

Naim has a very interesting analysis of various so-called democratic countries which are gradually transforming into autocracies because of democratically elected populist leaders who consider themselves above the law. He is of the view that in democratic republics power is harder to acquire, very difficult to use, but easier to lose. The author points at fundamental flaws which in his opinion are responsible for this gradual erosion of democracy.

The first, in his opinion, is populism which more often than not creates wrong notions in the mind of a leader who becomes self-righteous, egoistic and disdainful of law and constitution. Such leaders discard collective wisdom, look down upon political opponents and present themselves as indispensable. Their hate speeches are full of venom, show disrespect for democratic norms and use foul language which gives birth to toxic environments. This according to the author, creates extreme polarization, damaging society.

The other factor which flouts democratic norms, disregards parliamentary values and ignores traditional parliamentary ethics is the dependence of a populist leader on blatant lies. This includes giving false hope to people, and making promises to achieve unattainable objectives. This confuses the general public which is unable to differentiate between the truth and a lie. This is how democracy starts sleepwalking towards autocracy, especially when populism of a leader transforms into a cult. The leader then starts thinking that s/he perhaps is the only politician on the domestic political landscape who can solve all issues without creating a national consensus. The author rightly concludes that populism is not at all an ideology. It only is a tactic to grab power.

Naim writes: They propagate lies that become articles of faith among their followers. They sell themselves as noble and pure champions of the people, fighting against corrupt and greedy elite .They defy any constraint on their power and launch frontal attacks on the institutions that sustain constitutional democracy, stacking the judiciary and the legislature and declaring war on the press.

We in Pakistan are facing such a situation in which credibility of democratic institutions is fast eroding, parliament has lost its significance and political issues are being negotiated. Political battles are being regarded as a jihad. It is true that many countries like the UK, Israel, Spain, Russia and even the US are in the grip of internal political polarization but in Pakistan, it has really shaken the fabric of our civil society and is putting the democratic dispensation in real danger. If you mislead people with attractive slogans, gate crash into the corridors of power, miserably fail to deliver, try to use state power target your political opponents, resultantly lose the majority and are finally ousted from government through a constitutional procedure, no one else except the leader is to be blamed.

Bloody fights in elections and refusal to accept results will in no way help the country. Blatant lies, fake news and poisonous propaganda on social media has further compounded the situation. As a result, unfortunately democracy is losing the fight.

There are of course many lessons for our political leadership both in and out of power. History is replete with examples when democratically elected leaders turned autocratic like Hitler.

Today we need to make our institutions more potent and strong based on the trichotomy of power principle to strengthen parliamentary democracy. Parties which take the law into their own hands, destroy property, block roads and fight the police instead of sitting in parliament do no service to the country and the democracy.

The writer is former chairman Senate Standing Committee on Defence Production.

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Erosion of democracy - The News International

Meghan McCain has revealed that she's considering running for office "in a few years," as she voiced concerns about former President Donald Trump's continued power within the Republican party.

McCain, the daughter of late Arizona Senator John McCain, is known for being an outspoken conservative, most notably through her four-year stint as a panelist on The View. While she proudly aligns herself with the right, she has drawn the line at supporting Trump and the wave of populism that has engulfed the party since his 2016 presidential run under the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" (MAGA).

During an appearance on British TV network GB News earlier this week, McCain was asked if she would ever consider following in the footsteps of her father by running for a political post.

"Maybe in a few years. It's the first time in my entire life I've ever considered it. But this fever of MAGA has to breakone way or the other," said McCain, who departed The View last summer.

"President Trump has to get re-electedGod forbidagain, or he has to just leave the national stage. Because as we have seen in the last election and in the primaries right now, he can't make candidates but he can break them," she said. "And right now there's still just a lot of people who are winning that are following in his footsteps and I would really love more ideological diversity in the party."

However, McCain added that one stumbling block she could potentially face in her pursuit of public office is the fact that she's the daughter of a politician.

"There's a big disdain for political families in the country right now," she said. "It's very populist. President [George W.] Bush's nephew [George P. Bush], I believe, just ran for office and lost in Texas in his home state. There's a real palette for it where people really don't like it."

In an interview with Newsweek in April, McCain said that she did not vote for Trump on either of his presidential runs in 2016 and 2020. She also said that her refusal to go "full MAGA, red meat, alt-right conservative" or renounce the Republican party in light of the aforementioned group's domination has meant that she is among the lesser-heard voices on conservative airwaves.

"I don't want to say it's completely in the minority, but it's certainly not as loud," she explained of her stance. "There's this feeling where if you're not a full populist and believe in the MAGA movement that you're not welcome."

McCain also told Newsweek that the current culture of the Republican party has made her reluctant to go back in front of the camera in the near future.

"I don't want to have to defend things that are indefensible," she said. "The sins of the Republican Party and the sins of President Trump are not the sins of Meghan. I'm still conservative. You know, obviously, that's never going to change.

"What happens in the future going forward is anyone's guess. Just simply because obviously if President Trump is the nominee [in 2024] I will not be voting for him or supporting him. And you know, I think that to go on TV, people want me to defend everything GOP...I just got really worn out about it."

McCain, whose father faced a number of verbal attacks from Trump, further told Newsweek that there "has to be consequences" for the real-estate mogul in relation to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

Hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an apparent attempt to disrupt the formal certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory in a joint session of Congress. The supporters' attack came directly after Trump told them at a nearby Washington, D.C. rally to walk to the Capitol and "fight like hell" to save their country, following his stream of misinformation about the 2020 election results.

While the former president has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection to the riot, the House select committee is investigating the events of January 6 and the related effort to prevent the certification of Biden's win.

"I would like to see real legal ramifications for what happened on January 6, and who's responsible," McCain said. "I understand why it's not the number one issue for American voters, because they're worried about the economy and Russia and security and safety in major cities. I understand all of that.

"But there still has to be consequences for this behavior and this kind of violence. My fear and my sort of anxiety in this space is just that, I feel like I have been told so many times that this is going to be the moment this is going to be the thing that finally, you know, gets him. This is the lawsuit, this is the whatever this is."

She added of Trump: "His legacy will be one of division and conflict and January 6. But my family, and I feel like I can speak for all of my six siblings and my mother, in the sense like, we do not give a f**k what a Trump thinks of my family. I never will."

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Meghan McCain Mulling Run for Office'This Fever of MAGA Has to Break' - Newsweek

For decades, it has been obvious that the UN system needs to be reformed to account for the realities of the twenty-first century. Yet recommendations to restructure global governance have been ignored by those with the power to carry them out, leaving us with a world of multiplying crises for which there are few solutions.

BAKU Just as the world was beginning to recover from one of the biggest crises in recent decades, another one has erupted in Europe. Just as the COVID-19 pandemic underscored our common humanity, Russias war on Ukraine has reminded us of how fragile, interconnected, and interdependent our world is. As the Chinese say, All is one under heaven.

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Intensifying great-power confrontations and deglobalization are jeopardizing world peace and security. New crises seem to be lurking around every corner, but appropriate solutions are nowhere to be seen not in the Far East, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, or Latin America. The popular mood has darkened, reinvigorating populism, nationalism, Islamophobia, and other atavistic trends that threaten the progressive achievements humanity has made since World War II.

The Ukraine crisis itself is a symptom of deeper structural problems in the international order. That order, led by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), has failed to live up to the principles of good governance enshrined in the UN Charter.

New global orders tend to emerge from major wars. In the case of WWII, the victors created structures designed to preserve international peace and security. But while our increasingly integrated world has changed dramatically since the UNs founding, our organizing principles still reflect the mentality of the post-war and Cold War era. Within the current framework, a failure to respond to global challenges is a failure of the entire international community.

Can the system be reformed? Calls since the early 1990s to restructure the UN system the avatar for the broader international order have consistently fallen on deaf ears. Worse, Russia and China are now using their seats at the helm of the international order to push for a more multipolar system. Rather than working to reform the current framework, they are challenging its validity.

Humanitys collective achievements over the past seven decades are a testament to why we must work together to make the UN system more fair, inclusive, and attentive to peoples needs and aspirations. Indeed, that was the mission of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annans High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change in 2003.

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Consisting of 16 eminent figures from different parts of the world, and chaired by former Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, the panel analyzed contemporary threats to international peace and security; evaluated how well existing policies and institutions had done in addressing those threats; and offered recommendations aimed at strengthening the UN and enabling it to provide collective security for the twenty-first century.

The panels final report made clear that all of the UNs principal organs needed reform, including the Security Council, which the panel argued should be expanded. Unfortunately, the Security Councils veto-wielding permanent members simply ignored the panels recommendations, setting the stage for todays paralysis and dysfunction.

The Middle East is especially in need of a well-functioning, genuinely representative UN system. No region has suffered more from the unfair bipolar and unipolar dynamics of the past. We have been the altar on which the principles of the international order are routinely sacrificed. The same principles that led to the creation of the State of Israel also led to the Palestinians being deprived of their homeland and denied their basic rights to self-determination and statehood.

As the Middle East has gone from one war to another, from one catastrophe to another, and from one UN resolution to another, justice has continuously eluded it. Every time an Arab, Muslim, or Middle Eastern issue comes up, the hypocrisy of the great powers that lead the international order becomes crystal clear.

The leaders of those powers need to come to their senses. Reforming the existing order requires new thinking by all UN member states, including the Security Councils five permanent members. The international order can preserve peace and security only to the extent that it is equitable and capable of meeting the challenges that humanity faces. Short of that, geopolitical upheavals will continue to threaten world peace and security.

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Rethinking the Global Order by Turki bin Faisal al-Saud - Project Syndicate

Cosmogonicis a6DoF, seated/standing 8-minute experience. It is the first VR experience inspired by the famous Polish science-fiction writer, Stanisaw Lem a futurist who is well acquainted with how fictional worlds can often encroach upon reality.

In Cosmogonic, we travel into the memories of the title character, a once-great robot engineer, to visit the planet of Actinuria. Here, the Pallatinids, a society of giant robots, live under the cruel King Archithor. Fearing a conspiracy, he forces the citizens to wear suits of uranium armor, which cause an explosion if too many of them gather. But one of them, a bold, young inventor named Pyron, decides to use science and technology to inspire a revolution. This adaptation of a 1964 novel by Lem speaks perfectly to today's world, where populism and disinformation threaten democracy. It is a testament to the importance of knowledge and community in the universal drive to freedom.

In a statement, director Pawe Szarzyski said:

We were pleased to share this project with the world at the NewImages Festival, showcasing our culture and inspiration based on the works of Polish science-fiction writer, Stanisaw Lem. The intersections of technology, history, culture, and science are elements that we hold near and dear to our hearts. We believe that the NewImages Festival was the perfect destination to reveal the world's first VR experience, inspired by Stanisaw Lem.

Cosmogonicwas a part of Cannes XR at the March du Film at the Festival de Cannes.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT COSMOGONIC, PLEASE VISIT:

https://newimagesfestival.com/en/immersive-artworks-2022/

ABOUT KINHOUSE STUDIO:

Kinhouse Studio is a Warsaw-based independent production company founded by two siblings, producer Marta Szarzyska and animator/director Pawe Szarzyski. Based on their experiences in the commercial and arthouse industries, both Marta and Pawe believe that power lies in collaboration. Kinhouse is committed to creating distinctive work and building connections across cultures. Most recently, the studio has produced the feature film SONGS ABOUT LOVE (2021) and the animated VR experience COSMOGONIC (2022).

SOURCE Statement Strategies Ltd.

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COSMOGONIC MADE ITS WORLD PREMIERE IN PARIS, FRANCE, AT THE 5TH NEWIMAGES FESTIVAL - PR Newswire

It used to be said of British politics that a persons allegiance could be determined by asking on which side they would have fought in the Battle of Naseby: King or Parliament, Cavalier or Roundhead, Charles or Cromwell, Tory or Labour, Conservative or Socialist, were projected onto the battle of lines at Naseby. Recent times have, however, rendered that question a much less accurate indicator of contemporary political identity. Roundheads and Cromwellians now appear with disconcerting regularity on the Right of British politics. As Critic contributor Marcus Walker recently commented:

We are pretty rapidly heading towards the point where we are going to need a new name for those trading under the label conservative but for whom the Crown, the Established Church, and all the other pillars of the nation are entirely expendable in their culture war.

If Naseby no longer works as an indicator of political allegiance for British conservatism, we might consider another historic conflict between constitutional order and revolutionary zeal. The new divide on the British Right is between those who would have worn redcoats and those who would have been found in blue in North America during the Revolutionary War of 1775-1783; between Loyalists and Tories, on one side, and Whigs and Rebels, on the other; between those who would have been loyal to George III (the monarch whose reputation Andrew Roberts recent book brilliantly restores and vindicates) and those who would have signed the Declaration of Independence.

Tories historically valued the unelected parts of the British constitution

For those who remained loyal to the Crown in 1776 around one third of the colonists the voices now raised on the Right against the monarchy, the settled Constitution and the Church of England would sound disturbingly familiar. It was the rebels who rejected the monarchy, spoke of a republic and assailed the established Church. By contrast, Daniel Leonard, a Massachusetts Loyalist, referring to Crown and Parliament, stated, An American Tory is a supporter of our excellent constitution. Similarly, Samuel Seabury, a Loyalist Church of England parson in New York, declared that the aim of a Loyalist and Tory was to transmit our present free and happy constitution untainted and uncorrupted to his posterity.

The idea that the British Constitution with its historic ability over centuries to evolve, provide stability, underpin security and prosperity, and secure liberty against both tyrant and mob should be overturned in a fit of pique because of bishops criticising an immigration policy or the heir to the throne voicing (entirely sensible) environmental concerns would strike the Loyalists of 1776 as an absurd embrace of the rebel cause.

Charles Inglis, another Loyalist cleric, rejoiced that the distinguishing glory of the British constitution was that it is a happy mixture of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, and thus so tempered and balanced, that each is kept within its proper bounds, and the good of the whole thereby promoted. In 1776, the Loyalists were particularly aware that liberties were better protected by the checks and balances of a mixed constitution than by invoking the abstraction that is the People. It is precisely the unelected parts of the British constitution monarchy, bishops in the House of Lords, judiciary that Tories have historically valued as wise and necessary means of checking a popular fervour which can all too easily threaten rights and liberties. Or, as Inglis put it, no real friend of British liberty would destroy the balance of our ancient constitution.

The Loyalists and Tories of 1776 were also aware of the significance of the Church of Englands role in promoting communal peace and protecting the gift of constitutional order. The quiet conformity of Anglicanism, promoting an ethic of love and charity with your neighbours, contrasted with what one Loyalist writer described as the black regiment, the Dissenting clergy (identified by their black preaching gowns, hence the term) who took so active a part in the Rebellion. The failure of Anglican parsons to promote the political agenda of the rebels, particularly in refusing to abandon the Prayer Books prayers for the monarch, often resulted in mobs driving them from church and home. The Prayer Books petition to be quietly governed was not what the rebels desired. Their preference was for clergy who, as another Loyalist stated, acted like votaries of Mars, the god of war.

The rebels encouraged an apocalyptic vision of purifying conflict

As the Loyalists defended the settled constitutional order and the communal peace it secured, the rebels were urging Liberty or Death! and Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God. While the rebels encouraged an apocalyptic vision of purifying conflict between the forces of liberty and imagined tyranny, Loyalists such as Seabury were warning against the horrid carnage of a civil war. Leonard likewise lamented that whenever the sword of civil war is unsheathed, devastation will pass through our land like a whirlwind. For the Loyalists and Tories of 1776, constitutional order and communal peace were precious goods to be protected, too easily sacrificed in the pursuit of ideological abstractions.

It is clear that for some on the Right of British politics, Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has a much greater attraction than peace, order and good government under the Crown, defended by the Loyalists and Tories in the Revolutionary War (and, indeed, by their descendants in the War of 1812). However, the brittle mixture of populism and libertarianism which shaped the American Republic represents a very different understanding than that to which a traditional Toryism should be committed.

The Tory vision of ordered liberty, under the Crown, governed by Parliament, underpinned by shared communal duties and obligations stands in stark contrast to Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is less prone to ugly populism, more humane and civilised in its moderation of libertarian demands. Closely related to this, because it has encouraged a much more modest and cautious conservative politics, it is a polity less vulnerable to what American historian Richard Hofstadter famously called the paranoid style which has routinely inflamed emotions and banished reason from American politics.

Heeding the wisdom of the Loyalists of 1776 would be a means of encouraging both a traditional Tory vision of the British constitution and a renewal of the moderation and caution which has traditionally defined British conservatism. It would be a rejection of US-style culture wars, with their apocalyptic tones zealously promoted by enthusiasts on both Left or Right, and a grateful reaffirmation of the strengths of the British constitutional order. It would, in other words, recognise that the Loyalists were right: that the peace, order, and good government secured under the Crown, through Parliament, and underpinned by our shared duties and communal obligations, offers an ordered liberty more meaningful than the claims of 1776.

Samuel Seabury, one of the Loyalists quoted here, has achieved some fame through his appearance in the popular musical Hamilton. The words sung by the character of Seabury in the musical serve as a good reminder of why British conservatives should, rather than following the rebels of 1776, listen to the Loyalists: Heed not the rabble who scream revolution, They have not your interests at heartChaos and bloodshed are not a solution, Dont let them lead you astray.

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The good sense of King George | Laudable Practice - The Critic