Daily Archives: September 11, 2022

Russia, an aging tyranny, seeks to destroy Ukraine, a defiant democracy. A Ukrainian victory would confirm the principle of self-rule, allow the integration of Europe to proceed, and empower people of goodwill to return reinvigorated to other global challenges. A Russian victory, by contrast, would extend genocidal policies in Ukraine, subordinate Europeans, and render any vision of a geopolitical European Union obsolete. Should Russia continue its illegal blockade of the Black Sea, it could starve Africans and Asians, who depend on Ukrainian grain, precipitating a durable international crisis that will make it all but impossible to deal with common threats such as climate change. A Russian victory would strengthen fascists and other tyrants, as well as nihilists who see politics as nothing more than a spectacle designed by oligarchs to distract ordinary citizens from the destruction of the world. This war, in other words, is about establishing principles for the twenty-first century. It is about policies of mass death and about the meaning of life in politics. It is about the possibility of a democratic future.

Discussions of democracy often begin with the ancient city-states of Greece. According to the Athenian legend of origin, the deities Poseidon and Athena offered gifts to the citizens to win the status of patron. Poseidon, the god of the sea, struck the ground with his trident, causing the earth to tremble and saltwater to spring forth. He was offering Athenians the power of the sea and strength in war, but they blanched at the taste of brine. Then Athena planted an olive seed, which sprouted into an olive tree. It offered shade for contemplation, olives for eating, and oil for cooking. Athenas gift was deemed superior, and the city took her name and patronage.

The Greek legend suggests a vision of democracy as tranquility, a life of thoughtful deliberation and consumption. Yet Athens had to win wars to survive. The most famous defense of democracy, the funeral oration of Pericles, is about the harmony of risk and freedom. Poseidon had a point about war: sometimes the trident must be brought down. He was also making a case for interdependence. Prosperity, and sometimes survival, depends on sea trade. How, after all, could a small city-state such as Athens afford to devote its limited soil to olives? Ancient Athenians were nourished by grain brought from the north coast of the Black Sea, grown in the black earth of what is now southern Ukraine. Alongside the Jews, the Greeks are the longest known continuous inhabitants of Ukraine. Mariupol was their city, until the Russians destroyed it. The southern region of Kherson, where combat is now underway, bears a Greek name borrowed from a Greek city. In April, the Ukrainians sank the Russian flagship, the Moskva, with Neptune missilesNeptune being the Roman name for Poseidon.

As it happens, Ukraines national symbol is the trident. It can be found among relics of the state that Vikings founded at Kyiv about a thousand years ago. After receiving Christianity from Byzantium, the Greek-speaking eastern Roman Empire, Kyivs rulers established secular law. The economy shifted from slavery to agriculture as the people became subject to taxation rather than capture. In subsequent centuries, after the fall of the Kyiv state, Ukrainian peasants were enserfed by Poles and then by Russians. When Ukrainian leaders founded a republic in 1918, they revived the trident as the national symbol. Independence meant not only freedom from bondage but the liberty to use the land as they saw fit. Yet the Ukrainian National Republic was short lived. Like several other young republics established after the end of the Russian empire in 1917, it was destroyed by the Bolsheviks, and its lands were incorporated into the Soviet Union. Seeking to control Ukraines fertile soil, Joseph Stalin brought about a political famine that killed about four million inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933. Ukrainians were overrepresented in the Soviet concentration camps known as the gulag. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitlers goal was control of Ukrainian agriculture. Ukrainians were again overrepresented among the civilian victimsthis time of the German occupiers and the Red Army soldiers who defeated the Germans. After World War II, Soviet Ukraine was nevertheless subjected to a slow process of Russification in which its culture was degraded.

When the Soviet Union came to an end in 1991, Ukrainians again seized on the trident as their national symbol. In the three decades since, Ukraine has moved, haltingly but unmistakably, in the direction of functional democracy. The generation that now runs the country knows the Soviet and pre-Soviet history but understands self-rule as self-evident. At a time when democracy is in decline around the world and threatened in the United States, Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression provides a surprising (to many) affirmation of faith in democracys principles and its future. In this sense, Ukraine is a challenge to those in the West who have forgotten the ethical basis of democracy and thereby, wittingly or unwittingly, ceded the field to oligarchy and empire at home and abroad. Ukrainian resistance is a welcome challenge, and a needed one.

The history of twentieth-century democracy offers a reminder of what happens when this challenge is not met. Like the period after 1991, the period after 1918 saw the rise and fall of democracy. Today, the turning point (one way or the other) is likely Ukraine; in interwar Europe, it was Czechoslovakia. Like Ukraine in 2022, Czechoslovakia in 1938 was an imperfect multilingual republic in a tough neighborhood. In 1938 and 1939, after European powers chose to appease Nazi Germany at Munich, Hitlers regime suppressed Czechoslovak democracy through intimidation, unresisted invasion, partition, and annexation. What actually happened in Czechoslovakia was similar to what Russia seems to have planned for Ukraine. Putins rhetoric resembles Hitlers to the point of plagiarism: both claimed that a neighboring democracy was somehow tyrannical, both appealed to imaginary violations of minority rights as a reason to invade, both argued that a neighboring nation did not really exist and that its state was illegitimate.

In 1938, Czechoslovakia had decent armed forces, the best arms industry in Europe, and natural defenses improved by fortifications. Nazi Germany might not have bested Czechoslovakia in an open war and certainly would not have done so quickly and easily. Yet Czechoslovakias allies abandoned it, and its leaders fatefully chose exile over resistance. The defeat was, in a crucial sense, a moral one. And it enabled the physical transformation of a continent by war, creating some of the preconditions for the Holocaust of European Jews.

By the time Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, beginning World War II, Czechoslovakia no longer existed, and its territories and resources had been reassigned according to German preferences. Germany now had a longer border with Poland, a larger population, Czechoslovak tanks, and tens of thousands of Slovak soldiers. Hitler also now had a powerful ally in the Soviet Union, which joined in the destruction of Poland after invading from the east. During Germanys invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940 and during the Battle of Britain later that year, German vehicles were fueled by Soviet oil and German soldiers fed by Soviet grain, almost all of which was extracted from Ukraine.

This sequence of events started with the easy German absorption of Czechoslovakia. World War II, at least in the form that it took, would have been impossible had the Czechoslovaks fought back. No one can know what would have happened had the Germans been bogged down in Bohemia in 1938. But we can be confident that Hitler would not have had the sense of irresistible momentum that gained him allies and frightened his foes. It would certainly have been harder for the Soviet leadership to justify an alliance. Hitler would not have been able to use Czechoslovak arms in his assault on Poland, which would have begun later, if at all. The United Kingdom and France would have had more time to prepare for war and perhaps to help Poland. By 1938, Europe was emerging from the Great Depression, which was the main force attracting people to the political extremes. Had Hitlers nose been bloodied in his first campaign, the appeal of the far right might have declined.

Unlike Czechoslovak leaders, Ukrainian leaders chose to fight and were supported, at least in some measure, by other democracies. In resisting, Ukrainians have staved off a number of very dark scenarios and bought European and North American democracies valuable time to think and prepare. The full significance of the Ukrainian resistance of 2022, as with the appeasement of 1938, can be grasped only when one considers the futures it opens or forecloses. And to do that, one needs the past to make sense of the present.

The classical notion of tyranny and the modern concept of fascism are both helpful in understanding the Putin regime, but neither is sufficient. The basic weaknesses of tyrannies are generic and long knownrecorded, for example, by Plato in his Republic. Tyrants resist good advice, become obsessive as they age and fall ill, and wish to leave an undying legacy. All of this is certainly evident in Putins decision to invade Ukraine. Fascism, a specific form of tyranny, also helps to explain todays Russia, which is characterized by a cult of personality, a de facto single party, mass propaganda, the privileging of will over reason, and a politics of us-versus-them. Because fascism places violence over reason, it can be defeated only by force. Fascism was quite popularand not just in fascist countriesuntil the end of World War II. It was discredited only because Germany and Italy lost the war.

Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia, January 2020

Although Russia is fascist at the top, it is not fascist through and through. A specific emptiness lies at the center of Putins regime. It is the emptiness in the eyes of Russian officials in photographs as they look into a vacant middle distance, a habit they believe projects masculine imperturbability. Putins regime functions not by mobilizing society with the help of a single grand vision, as fascist Germany and Italy did, but by demobilizing individuals, assuring them that there are no certainties and no institutions that can be trusted. This habit of demobilization has been a problem for Russian leaders during the war in Ukraine because they have educated their citizens to watch television rather than take up arms. Even so, the nihilism that undergirds demobilization poses a direct threat to democracy.

The Putin regime is imperialist and oligarchic, dependent for its existence on propaganda that claims that all the world is ever such. While Russias support of fascism, white nationalism, and chaos brings it a certain kind of supporter, its bottomless nihilism is what attracts citizens of democracies who are not sure where to find ethical landmarkswho have been taught, on the right, that democracy is a natural consequence of capitalism or, on the left, that all opinions are equally valid. The gift of Russian propagandists has been to take things apart, to peel away the layers of the onion until nothing is left but the tears of others and their own cynical laughter. Russia won the propaganda war the last time it invaded Ukraine, in 2014, targeting vulnerable Europeans and Americans on social media with tales of Ukrainians as Nazis, Jews, feminists, and gays. But much has changed since then: a generation of younger Ukrainians has come to power that communicates better than the older Russians in the Kremlin.

The defense of Putins regime has been offered by people operating as literary critics, ever disassembling and dissembling. Ukrainian resistance, embodied by President Volodymyr Zelensky, has been more like literature: careful attention to art, no doubt, but for the purpose of articulating values. If all one has is literary criticism, one accepts that everything melts into air and concedes the values that make democratic politics possible. But when one has literature, one experiences a certain solidity, a sense that embodying values is more interesting and more courageous than dismissing or mocking them.

Creation comes before critique and outlasts it; action is better than ridicule. As Pericles put it, We rely not upon management or trickery, but upon our own hearts and hands. The contrast between the sly black suits of the Russian ideologues and propagandists and the earnest olive tones of Ukrainian leaders and soldiers calls to mind one of the most basic requirements of democracy: individuals must openly assert values despite the risk attendant upon doing so. The ancient philosophers understood that virtues were as important as material factors to the rise and fall of regimes. The Greeks knew that democracy could yield to oligarchy, the Romans knew that republics could become empires, and both knew that such transformations were moral as well as institutional. This knowledge is at the foundation of Western literary and philosophical traditions. As Aristotle recognized, truth was both necessary to democracy and vulnerable to propaganda. Every revival of democracy, including the American one of 1776 with its self-evident truths, has depended on ethical assertions: not that democracy was bound to exist, but that it should exist, as an expression of rebellious ethical commitment against the ubiquitous gravitational forces of oligarchy and empire.

This has been true of every revival of democracy except for the most recent one, which followed the eastern European revolutions of 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. At that point, as Russia and Ukraine emerged as independent states, a perverse faith was lodged in the end of history, the lack of alternatives to democracy, and the nature of capitalism. Many Americans had lost the natural fear of oligarchy and empire (their own or others) and forgotten the organic connection of democracy to ethical commitment and physical courage. Late twentieth-century talk of democracy conflated the correct moral claim that the people should rule with the incorrect factual claim that democracy is the natural state of affairs or the inevitable condition of a favored nation. This misunderstanding made democracies vulnerable, whether old or new.

The current Russian regime is one consequence of the mistaken belief that democracy happens naturally and that all opinions are equally valid. If this were true, then Russia would indeed be a democracy, as Putin claims. The war in Ukraine is a test of whether a tyranny that claims to be a democracy can triumph and thereby spread its logical and ethical vacuum. Those who took democracy for granted were sleepwalking toward tyranny. The Ukrainian resistance is the wake-up call.

On the Sunday before Russia began its latest invasion of Ukraine, I predicted on American television that Zelensky would remain in Kyiv if Russia invaded. I was mocked for this prediction, just as I was when I predicted the previous Russian invasion, the danger that U.S. President Donald Trump posed to American democracy, and Trumps coup attempt. Former advisers to Trump and President Barack Obama disagreed with me in a class at Yale University, where I teach. They were doing nothing more than reflecting the American consensus. Americans tend to see the war in Ukraine in the long shadow of the 9/11 attacks and the American moral and military failures that followed. In the Biden administration, officials feared that taking the side of Kyiv risked repeating the fall of Kabul. Among younger people and on the political left, a deeper unease arose from the lack of a national reckoning over the invasion of Iraq, justified at the time with the notion that destroying one regime would create a tabula rasa from which democracy would naturally emerge. The idiocy of this argument made a generation doubt the possibility that war and democracy could have something to do with each other. The unease with another military effort was perhaps understandable, but the resemblance between Iraq and Ukraine was only superficial. Ukrainians werent imposing their own vision on another country. They were protecting their right to choose their own leaders against an invasion designed to undo their democracy and eliminate their society.

The Trump administration had spread cynicism from the other direction. First Trump denied Ukraine weapons in order to blackmail Zelensky. Then he showed that a U.S. president would attempt a coup to stay in power after an electoral defeat. To watch fellow citizens die in an attempt to overthrow democracy is the opposite of risking ones life to protect it. Of course, if democracy is only about larger forces and not about ethics, then Trumps actions would make perfect sense. If one believes that capitalist selfishness automatically becomes democratic virtue, and that lying about who won an election is just expressing an opinion like any other, then Trump is a normal politician. In fact, he brazenly personifies the Russian idea that there are no values and no truth.

Americans had largely forgotten that democracy is a value for which an elected officialor a citizen, for that mattermight choose to live or die. By taking a risk, Zelensky transformed his role from that of a bit player in a Trump scandal to a hero of democracy. Americans assumed that he would want to flee because they had convinced themselves of the supremacy of impersonal forces: if they bring democracy, so much the better, but when they dont, people submit. I need ammunition, not a ride was Zelenskys response to U.S. urgings to leave Kyiv. This was perhaps not as eloquent as the funeral oration of Pericles, but it gets across the same point: there is honor in choosing the right way to die on behalf of a people seeking the right way to live.

For 30 years, too many Americans took for granted that democracy was something that someone else didor rather, that something else did: history by ending, alternatives by disappearing, capitalism by some inexplicable magic. (Russia and China are capitalist, after all.) That era ended when Zelensky emerged one night in February to film himself saying, The president is here. If a leader believes that democracy is just a result of larger factors, then he will flee when those larger factors seem to be against him. The issue of responsibility will never arise. But democracy demands earnest struggle, as the American abolitionist Frederick Douglass said. Ukrainian resistance to what appeared to be overwhelming force reminded the world that democracy is not about accepting the apparent verdict of history. It is about making history; striving toward human values despite the weight of empire, oligarchy, and propaganda; and, in so doing, revealing previously unseen possibilities.

On the surface, Zelenskys simple truth that the president is here was meant to undo Russian propaganda, which was claiming that he had fled the city. But the video, shot in the open air as Kyiv was under attack, was also a recovery of the meaning of freedom of speech, which has been forgotten. The Greek playwright Euripides understood that the purpose of freedom of speech was to speak truth to power. The free speaker clarifies a dangerous world not only with what he says but by the risk he takes when he speaks. By saying the president is here as the bombs fell and the assassins approached, Zelensky was living in truth, in the words of Vaclav Havel, or walking the talk, as one of my students in prison put it. Havels most famous essay on the topic, The Power of the Powerless, was dedicated to the memory of the philosopher Jan Patocka, who died shortly after being interrogated by the communist Czechoslovak secret police. Putin, a KGB officer from 1975 until 1991, extends the sadistic tradition of interrogators: nothing is true, nothing is worthy of sacrifice, everything is a joke, everyone is for sale. Might makes right, only fools believe otherwise, and they should pay for being fools.

After 1991, the nihilism of late communism flowed together with the complacent Western idea that democracy was merely the result of impersonal forces. If it turned out that those forces pushed in different directions, for example, toward oligarchy or empire, what was there then to say? But in the tradition of Euripides or Havel or now Zelensky, it is taken for granted that the larger forces are always against the individual, and that citizenship is realized through the responsibility one takes for words and the risks one takes with deeds. Truth is not with power, but a defense against it. That is why freedom of speech is necessary: not to make excuses, not to conform, but to assert values into the world, because so doing is a precondition of self-rule.

In their post-1989 decadence, many citizens of North American and European democracies came to associate freedom of speech with the ability of the rich to exploit media to broadcast self-indulgent nonsense. When one recalls the purpose of freedom of speech, however, one cares less about how many social media followers an oligarch has and more about how that oligarch became wealthy in the first place. Oligarchs such as Putin and Trump do the opposite of speaking truth to power: they tell lies for power. Trump told a big lie about the election (that he won); Putin told a big lie aboutUkraine (that it doesnt exist). Putins fake history of eastern Europe, one of his justifications for the war, is so outrageous that it provides a chance to recall the sense of freedom of speech. If one of the richest men in the world, in command of a huge army, claims that a neighboring country does not exist, this is not just an example of free expression. It is genocidal hate speech, a form of action that must be resisted by other forms of action.

In an essay published in July 2021, Putin argued that events of the tenth century predetermined the unity of Ukraine and Russia. This is grotesque as history, since the only human creativity it allows in the course of a thousand years and hundreds of millions of lives is that of the tyrant to retrospectively and arbitrarily choose his own genealogy of power. Nations are not determined by official myth, but created by people who make connections between past and future. As the French historian Ernest Renan put it, the nation is a daily plebiscite. The German historian Frank Golczewski was right to say that national identity is not a reflection of ethnicity, language, and religion but rather an assertion of a certain historical and political possibility. Something similar can be said of democracy: it can be made only by people who want to make it and in the name of values they affirm by taking risks for them.

The Ukrainian nation exists. The results of the daily plebiscite are clear, and the earnest struggle is evident. No society should have to resist a Russian invasion in order to be recognized. It should not have taken the deaths of dozens of journalists for us to see the basic truths that they were trying to report before and during the invasion. That it took so much effort (and so much unnecessary bloodshed) for the West to see Ukraine at all reveals the challenge that Russian nihilism poses. It shows how close the West came to conceding the tradition of democracy.

If one forgets that the purpose of free speech is to speak truth to power, one fails to see that big lies told by powerful people weaken democracy. The Putin regime makes this clear by organizing politics around the shameless production of fiction. Russias honesty, the argument goes, consists of accepting that there is no truth. Unlike the West, Russia avoids hypocrisy by dismissing all values at the outset. Putin stays in power by way of such strategic relativism: not by making his own country better but by making other countries look worse. Sometimes, that means acting to destabilize themfor instance, in Russias failed electoral intervention in Ukraine in 2014, its successful digital support of Brexit in the United Kingdom in 2016, and its successful digital support of Trump in 2016.

This philosophical system enables Putin to act but also to protect himself. Russians can be told that Ukraine is the center of the world and then that Syria is the center of the world and then again that Ukraine is the center of the world. They can be told that when their armed forces intervene in Ukraine or Syria, the other side starts killing its own people. They can be told one day that war with Ukraine is impossible and the next that war with Ukraine is inevitable, as happened in February. They can be told that Ukrainians are really Russians who want to be invaded and also Nazi satanists who must be exterminated. Putin cannot be backed into a corner. Because Russian power is equivalent to control over a closed media system, he can simply declare victory and change the subject. If Russia loses the war with Ukraine, he will just claim that he has won, and Russians will believe him or pretend to do so.

For such a regime to survive, the notion that democracy rests on the courage to tell the truth must be eliminated with violence if it cannot be laughed out of existence. Night after night, Kremlin propagandists explain on television that there cannot be a person such as Zelensky, a nation such as Ukraine, or a system such as democracy. Self-rule must be a joke; Ukraine must be a joke; Zelensky must be a joke. If not, the Kremlins whole story that Russia is superior because it accepts that nothing is true falls to pieces. If Ukrainians really can constitute a society and really can choose their leaders, then why shouldnt Russians do the same?

Zelensky at an event commemorating fallen Ukrainian soldiers, Lviv, August 2022

Russians must be deterred from such thoughts by arguments about Ukraine that are as repulsive as they are untrue. Russian war propaganda about Ukraine is deeply, aggressively, deliberately false, and that is its purpose: to make grotesque lying seem normal and to wear down the human capacity to make distinctions and check emotions. When Russia murders Ukrainian prisoners of war en masse and blames Ukraine, it is not really making a truth claim: it is just trying to draw Western journalists into reporting all sides equally so they will ignore the discoverable facts. The point is to make the whole war seem incomprehensible and dirty, thereby discouraging Western involvement. When Russian fascists call Ukrainians fascists, they are playing this game, and too many others join in. It is ridiculous to treat Zelensky as part of both a world Jewish conspiracy and a Nazi plot, but Russian propaganda routinely makes both claims. But the absurdity is the point.

Democracy and nationhood depend on the capacity of individuals to assess the world for themselves and take unexpected risks; their destruction depends on asserting grand falsehoods that are known to be such. Zelensky made this point in one of his evening addresses this March: that falsehood demands violence, not because violence can make falsehood true, but because it can kill or humiliate people who have the courage to speak truth to power. As the Russian thinker Mikhail Bakhtin has observed, to live inside a lie is to become the tool of someone else. To kill or die inside a lie is even worse, in that it enables a regime such as Russias to reconstitute itself. Killing for lies has generational consequences for Russia, even beyond the tens of thousands of dead and mutilated young citizens. An older Russian generation is forcing a younger one through a gauntlet, leaving the political terrain so slippery with blood that the young can never advance, and the old can hold their places until death. Ukraine is already governed by a generation that is accustomed to choosing its own leaders, an experience Russians have never had. In this sense, too, the war is generational. Its violence, in all its forms, is meant to eliminate the Ukrainian future. Russian state media has made Moscows genocidal aspiration plain, over and over again. In occupied territories, Russians execute male Ukrainian citizens or force them to go and die at the front. Russians rape Ukrainian women to prevent them from wishing to have children. The millions of Ukrainians forcibly deported to Russia, many of them women with young children or of child-bearing age, have to accept what they know to be false to avoid prison and torture. Less dramatic but still significant is Russias deliberate destruction of Ukrainian archives, libraries, universities, and publishing houses. The war is fought to control territory but also wombs and mindsin other words, the future.

Russia embodies fascism while claiming to fight it; Russians commit genocide while claiming to prevent it. This propaganda is not entirely ineffective: the fact that Moscow claims to be fighting Nazis does distract many observers from the fascism of Putins regime. And before North Americans and Europeans praise themselves for winning the battle of narratives, they should look to the global South. There, Putins story of the war prevails, even as Asians and Africans pay a horrible price for the war that he has chosen.

Putins propaganda machine, like the rest of his regime, is funded by revenue from oil and gas exports. The current Russian order, in other words, depends for its existence on a world that has not made the transition to sustainable energy. Russias war on Ukraine can be understood as a kind of preview of what uncontrolled climate change will look like: petulant wars waged by mendacious hydrocarbon oligarchs, racial violence instead of the pursuit of human survival via technology, shortages and famine in much of the world, and catastrophe in parts of the global South.

In Ukrainian history, political fiction accompanies political famine. In the early 1930s, when Stalin undertook what he called an internal colonization of the Soviet Union, much was expected of Ukraines fertile soil. And when his plan for rapid collectivization of agriculture failed, Stalin blamed a long list of ready scapegoats: first Ukrainian communists, then imaginary Ukrainian nationalists whom the communists supposedly served, then imaginary Polish agents whom the nationalists supposedly served. The Politburo, meanwhile, enforced requisitions and other punitive measures that ensured that about four million Ukrainians perished. Those abroad who tried to organize relief, including the Ukrainian feminist Milena Rudnytska, who happened to be of Jewish origin, were called Nazis. This list of fantasy enemies from 1933 is startlingly similar to Russias list today.

There is a larger historical pattern here, one in which the exploitation of the fruits of Ukrainian soil is justified by fantasies about the land and the people. In ancient times, the Greeks imagined monsters and miracles in the lands that are now Ukraine. During the Renaissance, as Polish nobles enserfed Ukrainian peasants, they invented for themselves a myth of racial superiority. After the Russian empire claimed Ukrainian territory from a partitioned Poland, its scholars invented a convenient story of how the two lands were one, a canard that Putin recycled in his essay last year. Putin has copied Stalins fantasiesand Hitlers, for that matter. Ukraine was the center of a Nazi hunger plan whereby Stalins collective farms were to be seized and used to feed Germany and other European territories, causing tens of millions of Soviet citizens to starve. As they fought for control of Ukrainian foodstuffs, Nazis portrayed Ukrainians as a simple colonial people who would be happy to be ruled by their superiors. This was also Putins view.

It appears that Putin has his own hunger plan. Ukraine is one of the most important exporters of agricultural goods in the world. But the Russian navy has blockaded Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, Russian soldiers have set fire to Ukrainian fields, and Russian artillery has targeted grain silos and the rail infrastructure needed to get grain to the ports. Like Stalin in 1933, Putin has taken deliberate steps to risk the starvation of millions. Lebanon relies heavily on Ukrainian grain, as do Ethiopia, Yemen, and the fragile nations of the Sahel. Yet the spread of hunger is not simply a matter of Ukrainian food not reaching its normal markets. The anticipation of shortages drives up food prices everywhere. The Chinese can be expected to hoard food, driving prices higher still. The weakest and the poorest will suffer first. And that is the point. When those who have no voice die, those who rule by lethal spectacle choose the meaning of their deaths. And that is what Putin may do.

Whereas Stalin covered up the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s with propaganda, Putin is using hunger itself as propaganda. For months now, Russian propagandists have blamed a looming famine on Ukraine. The horror of telling such a lie to vulnerable African and Asian populations is easier to understand in light of the Putin regimes racist, colonial mindset. This is, after all, a regime that allowed an image of Obama fellating a banana to be projected onto the wall of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, and whose media declared the last year of the Obama administration the year of the monkey. Putin, like other white nationalists, is obsessed with demography and fears that his race will be outnumbered.

The war itself has followed a racial arithmetic. Some of the first Russian soldiers to be killed in battle were ethnic Asians from eastern Russia, and many of those who have died since were forcibly conscripted Ukrainians from the Donbas. Ukrainian women and children have been deported to Russia because they are seen as assimilable, people who can bolster the ranks of white Russians. To starve Africans and Asians, as Putin sees it, is a way to transfer the demographic stress to Europe by way of a wave of refugees fleeing hunger. The Russian bombing of Syrian civilians followed a similar logic.

Nothing in the hunger plan is hidden. At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2022, Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of the state-run network RT, said that all of our hope lies in famine. As the skilled propagandist understands, the point of starving Africans and Asians is to create a backdrop for propaganda. As they begin to die, Ukrainians will be scapegoated. This might or might not work. All past fantasies about Ukraine and its foodstuffs were at one time believed by influential people. Russian propaganda today has an edge in the global South. In much of Africa, Russia is a known quantity, whereas Ukraine is not. Few African leaders have publicly opposed Putins war, and some might be persuaded to parrot his talking points. Across the global South, it is not widely known that Ukraine is a leading exporter of foodnor that it is a poor country with a GDP per capita comparable to that of the countries it feeds, such as Egypt and Algeria.

There is some reason for hope. Ukrainians have been trying to communicate the reality of their position to people in the global South, so that they can speak the truth about Moscows hunger plan and thereby make it impossible. And as Ukraine has gained better weapons from the United States and Europe, Russias hold on the Black Sea has weakened. In July, Ukraine and Russia signed agreements with Turkey that should, in principle, allow some Ukrainian grain to leave the Black Sea and feed Africans and Asians. Yet the day after it signed the agreement, Russia fired missiles at the port of Odessa, from which Ukraine ships much of its grain. A few days after that, Russia killed Ukraines leading agribusinessman in a missile strike. The only sure way to feed the world is for Ukrainian soldiers to fight their way through the province of Kherson to the Black Sea and to victory.

Ukraine is fighting a war against a tyranny that is also a colonial power. Self-rule means not just defending the democratic principle of choosing ones own rulers but also respecting the equality of states. Russian leaders have been clear that they believe that only some states are sovereign, and that Ukraine is nothing more than a colony. A Ukrainian victory would defend Ukrainian sovereignty in particular and the principle of sovereignty in general. It would also improve the prospects of other post-colonial states. As the economist Amartya Sen has argued, imperial famines result from political choices about distribution, not shortages of food. If Ukraine wins, it will resume exporting foodstuffs to the global South. By removing a great risk of suffering and instability in the global South, a victorious Ukraine would preserve the possibility of global cooperation on shared problems such as climate change.

For Europe, it is also essential that Ukraine win and Russia lose. The European Union is a collection of post-imperial states: some of them former imperial metropoles, some of them post-imperial peripheries. Ukrainians understand that joining the European Union is the way to secure statehood from a vulnerable peripheral position. Victory for Ukraine will have to involve a prospect of EU membership. As many Russians understand, Russia must lose, and for similar reasons. The European states that today pride themselves on their traditions of law and tolerance only truly became democracies after losing their last imperial war. A Russia that is fighting an imperial war in Ukraine can never embrace the rule of law, and a Russia that controls Ukrainian territory will never allow free elections. A Russia that loses such a war, one in which Putinism is a negative legacy, has a chance. Despite what Russian propaganda claims, Moscow loses wars with some frequency, and every period of reform in modern Russian history has followed a military defeat.

Most urgently, a Ukrainian victory is needed to prevent further death and atrocity in Ukraine. But the outcome of the war matters throughout the world, not just in the physical realm of pain and hunger but also in the realm of values, where possible futures are enabled. Ukrainian resistance reminds us that democracy is about human risk and human principles, and a Ukrainian victory would give democracy a fresh wind. The Ukrainian trident, which adorns the uniforms of Ukrainians now at war, extends back through the countrys traditions into ancient history, providing references that can be used to rethink and revive democracy.

Athena and Poseidon can be brought together. Athena, after all, was the goddess not only of justice but of just war. Poseidon had in mind not only violence but commerce. Athenians chose Athena as their patron but then built a fountain for Poseidon in the Acropolison the very spot, legend has it, where his trident struck. A victory for Ukraine would vindicate and recombine these values: Athenas of deliberation and prosperity, Poseidons of decisiveness and trade. If Ukraine can win back its south, the sea-lanes that fed the ancient Greeks will be reopened, and the world will be enlightened by the Ukrainian example of risk-taking for self-rule. In the end, the olive tree will need the trident. Peace will only follow victory. The world might get an olive branch, but only if the Ukrainians can fight their way back to the sea.

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Ukraine Holds the Future: The War Between Democracy and Nihilism - Foreign Affairs Magazine

Storytelling and nightmares take centerstage at Hedgerow Theatre Company this fall. Following a sold out run of Twelfth Night, Hedgerow invites audiences on a darkly comedic journey into a crime story written by one of modern theatre and film's legendary writers.

Leaning into the Halloween season, Hedgerow announces Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman running October 5-31. This thrilling work of theatre is co-directed by Megan Bellwoar and Hedgerow Executive Artistic Director Marcie Bramucci. Opening night is Friday October 7 at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $20-$35 and are available online http://www.hedgerowtheatre.org. All shows are performed at Hedgerow Theatre located at 64 Rose Valley Rd in Media, PA.

"The Pillowman has been described as 'a complex tale about life and art, about fact and illusion,' and all of this is true - but the thing I love most is that it's a DYNAMITE story," shares co-director Megan Bellwoar. "McDonagh's ability to horrify us in one moment and have us laughing despite ourselves in the next is that of a master storyteller, and I'm so looking forward to diving into the darkness and tenderness and hilarity of this particular play."

The Pillowman centers on a writer in a totalitarian state who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories, which have striking similarities to a series of recent child murders. The result is an unflinching and urgent work of theatricality - a taut examination of the very nature and purpose of art.

"This play grips and does not let go," notes co-director Marcie Bramucci, Hedgerow's Executive Artistic Director. "You don't want to blink as McDonagh throws twists and turns to keep us off-balance every step of the way." This Laurence Olivier award-winning play is a "thoroughly startling and genuinely intimidating" (The Chicago Tribune) theatrical tour-de-force.

The Pillowman is perfect for macabre storytelling enthusiasts who enjoy tales from The Brothers Grimm to True Crime podcasts, with a dash of Quentin Tarantino for good measure. In a New York Times interview McDonagh said of his work, "There's much more hope and a lot less nihilism in my stuff than sometimes the critics give credit...A black comedy is still a comedy, and a comedy is there to entertain and make people laugh. Black is just one way to go about it."

Philadelphia actor James Kern makes his Hedgerow debut as Katurian the writer whose stories may or may not be connected to a series of murders. He is interrogated by Pete Pryor as Detective Tupolski and Stephen Patrick Smith as Detective Ariel, reunited from Hedgerow's The Weir. Daniel Romano plays Katurian's brother, Michal, following his dynamic turn as Malvolio in Hedgerow's outdoor Twelfth Night this summer.

Hedgerow welcomes back Shannon Zura (lighting/sound design for The Weir) as Scenic Designer, Robin Shane (In the Next Room...) as Costume Designer, and Eilis Skamarakas as Assistant Stage Manager. Joining Hedgerow for the first time are Lily Fossner as Lighting Designer, Garrett Adams as Sound Designer, Terri J. McIntyre as Fight Director and Hedgerow Fellow Gauri Mangala as Stage Manager.

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Hedgerow Theatre Company Dives Into The Darkness With Martin McDonagh's THE PILLOWMAN, October 5-31 - Broadway World

I cant lie to you people because I love you too much, but if there is one genre of music that has always chafed my taint since it first reared its baggy shorts and oversized Ts, its skate punk. Just when I thought I have run these pesky punks out of my yard for good, they come back like a bad case of hives. In the late 90s, these randy chain-wallet kids just completely voided punk of its nihilism and blood-letting and replaced it with bad fart jokes and predictable cookie cutter arrangements while providing the nursery-rhyme soundtracks to sell cell phones and shoes. Basically, skate rock is the piano keyboard tie of punk. I know, I know Im old and jaded AF, but I am beside myself with rage over the fact that these guys are still jumping around in 2022. Also, almost all of them are guilty of ripping off the mighty pop punk beats of the forever rad Descendents! So get out of my yard!!!

For whatever reason, though, there are a ton of mall punk bands that are ending their hiatus from the Warped Tour from decades ago and are now packing into cramped vans to squeeze the last drop out of the kids. There are a couple of Fat Wreck show mentions this week, but the fattest of em all (and arguably the crappiest) will be calling it a day next week so keep yer eye peeled here so I can hip you to a band I greatly dislike just like the curmudgeony old punk record-collector type I am.

Friday: Although Against Me! were sprung from the vibrant Florida punk scene, they often got lumped in with the Warped Tour crew due to bad timing. Its really sad, as chief songwriter Laura Jane Grace was able to distill the best moments of Jawbreaker and Hot Water Music and deliver them in a unique signature style something the Pennywise imitators couldnt come close to. Grace has aged with, uh, grace and can still attack the heartstrings with precision and intent. Grace will reduce the size of le National to an intimate room with opener Lande Hekt Mobina. This is what punk should actually sound like. 1220 Ste-Catherine E., 6:30 p.m., $31.74

As I mentioned last week, there has been a great trend to counter the rising cost of ticket prices, with the odd free show dotting concert calendars, and tonight lets the cheap times roll with another free gigger. At Lopez, you can catch Twenty 2, who launch their new jammer Dismissed with the high-octane rock of the Lookout. Lookout singer Martha Rockhard has promised high kicks, so dont get too close to the stage. 6725 St-Hubert, 7 p.m., free

Saturday: Its an oddly quiet week for the metal scene but there are two gigs that youll want to strap on yer blinding white Reebok trainers for. The first gig for you riff-loving beasts would be Revocation with the solidly heavy support of Krisium and Alluvial at the place where metal sounds and smells best, Foufs. If you are just skimming this column for the riffs then go ahead and skip right down to Tuesdays announcement. I wont hold it against you. 87 Ste-Catherine E., 6 p.m., $34.99

My big pick of the week goes to the locals this week, specifically Montreal superdupergroup Pypy (Red Mass, Duchess Says), coming out of moth balls to turn the dancefloor of lEsco upside down. If you want the old school party vibes of Montreal shows of yore, try and squeeze into this one. Opening is the awesomely titled rock music project Night Lunch. 4461 St-Denis, 8 p.m., $20

A perfect event that will go amazing with way too many Laurentides is happening at the very oo-la-la room of Brasserie Beaubien. For some real-deal rockabilly and rock n roll, head down to the Taj Mahal of bathrooms to catch the Howlin Hound Dogs with Israel Proulx with DJ Pat White keeping things spinnin all night. 73 Beaubien E., 9:30 p.m., $15

I always thought the Replacements were maybe the best damn bar band ever, whether they were playing huge venues or tiny holes in the wall. Using the same measuring stick, I can safely say that Barfly faves Punching Weasel are probably the best damn bar band in our fair burg. If you ever saw Punching Weasels previous stint as the Mighty Ffud, you know I am not blowing smoke here, or, as you young people say, being a jive turkey. The Weasels will be laying it down at Turbo Has with Death Drive. No one under the age of 40 will be admitted.2040 St-Denis, 9 p.m., $10

Monday: If you were hoping to see true post-punk and paisley psych legends Echo and the Bunnymen at Thtre Corona and didnt grab tix yet, yer fucked without a kiss, Jack cause its sold da fuk out. You are probably wondering why, if the show is sold out, am I mentioning it here? Well, the day you come up with a song as well crafted and downright haunting as The Killing Moon, let me know and I will write about yer shiddy band every time you water your plants.

Tuesday: Heshers who were squealing with glee over the mention of the Revocation show will also want to dust off the air guitar for Swedish melodic death metal dudes In Flames with Fit for an Autopsy, Orbit Culture and Vended. This supreme metal fest will all be going down at Thtre Corona, nestled in the heart of lil ol Saint-Henri.2490 Notre-Dame W., 6:30 p.m., $101.15

I really love the fug outta the fine people at Pouzza Fest and know for a fact they are completely doing what they do for the right reasons and work hard AF. Having said that, I am also convinced they are deaf as all of the Fat Wreck bands they seem to love are bands that I hate with all of my blackened-old punker-ouch-my-back-hurts heart. If youre still sporting a chain wallet and cupping farts, youll want to check out Fat Wrecks Get Dead with the oddly not taken name of support band Lost Love. This is all happening at Da Turb, so instead of starting a pit with your built-up angst, act it out through interpretive dance and street magic. 2040 St-Denis, 8:30 p.m., $25

Wednesday: In more news about bands I cant stand, that old 90s mall sensation Lagwagon will return to town to play MTelus with Big Wig (what???) and Grumpster. Will hip hop skate bros Shades of Culture make a surprise appearance? Who knows? Keep your eyes peeled here next week for even more Fat Wreck news in our Lords year of 2022 ya jive turkeys! 59 Ste-Catherine E., 8 p.m., $50

Current Obsession: Sex Pistols, 76-77 CD box set

For more Montreal music coverage, please visit theMusicsection.

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The skate punk brats of the '90s are back to ruin our lives again - Cult MTL

Kurt Russell's best film is The Thing, but the movie was a box office diasaster when it was released.

By James Brizuela| Published 2 days ago

Sometimes certain movies come out that are way ahead of their time. Even though they arent appreciated when first released, they often achieve cult status and become far more popular. That is the case for the best Kurt Russell film. That film is the 1982 horror classic, The Thing. The Thing would go on to become Russells best film and helped to solidify John Carpenter as the king of suspense. However, though its a film that inspired many others, it was a complete box office disaster. The film had a budget of $15 million, it would only go on to secure $19.6 million at the North American box office. Even though $19 million is a lot of money in 1982, the movie flopped completely.

The Thing was released in 1982 right around the same time as E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Blade Runner. Many analysts wondered why the film wasnt accepted for how groundbreaking it was, but it could have been because of the time that it was released. The country was going through a recession, and the themes of mistrust, paranoia, and nihilism just didnt sit well with most audiences. However, years after its release, many filmmakers spoke about its influence on their own filmmaking. Big names directors like Edgar Wright, Guillermo Del Toro, and Quentin Tarantino all how important the movie was. In fact, Tarantino used The Thing as his inspiration for making The Hateful Eight, which also saw a group of strangers trapped with one another while dealing with deep fits of paranoia and mistrust. Coincidentally, Kurt Russell also had a starring role in The Hateful Eight.

The Thing follows a group of researchers at a station in Antarctica. They are frazzled when a strange man is following a dog while attempting to shoot it. The man is yelling at the dog in Norwegian while trying to kill it. The strange man is then shot dead by the research facility station manager, Gary. The station takes the dog in and places it with their sled dogs. The pilot for the research station, R.J. MacReady, takes Dr. Cooper and heads for the station where the Norwegian man came from. They discover the station is empty but find the remains of a deformed humanoid. They take this humanoid back to their station, and an autopsy is done, leaving the discovery that this humanoid has normal human organs. The dog that the man was attempting to shoot then comes alive and consumes the other sled dogs in the cage it is with. It is then determined that the being that consumed the dogs can also consume any animal or human being and assimilate itself as that animal or human. Blair then runs a test that determines that the being would assimilate all of Earth in a matter of years. Without ruining the rest of the film, everyone should go watch it at least once in their life.

The Thing became a culturally impactful movie simply based on the paranoia that is created by John Carpenters vision. The idea that everyone could be the monster without knowing it just added that suspense that made Carpenter a household name in the horror genre. The cast for the film was nothing to scoff at as well. Leading the way is Kurt Russell. He is joined by A. Wilford Brimley, T.K. Carter, Keith David, David Clennon, Richard Dysart, and many more.

The fallout when The Thing was initially released was massive. The movie had been called boring and critics were all in on speaking about how awful the gory special effects were. The poor performance at the box office led to John Carpenter being replaced to direct Firestarter. He had also a multi-movie deal with Universal, but they chose to buy him out instead. Sadly, those critics and Universal had to be kicking themselves, considering how successful The Thing became and Carpenter. Even Kurt Russell achieved superstardom after the film was released.

The Thing may have been a conundrum when it was first released, but the movie is now regarded as one of the best horror, sci-fi, and thriller movies ever made. Many have called the movie inspiration and there are plenty of people who turn out to theaters when it gets re-released. It may not have been the most profitable Kurt Russell film, but it is certainly his best. The Thing is streaming right now on Peacock.

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Kurt Russell's Best Movie Was A Critical And Box Office Disaster - Giant Freakin Robot

Twiggy enlists cult cartoon Rick and Morty to sell green hydrogen Join us on socialNewslettersGet Access Code.

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We would absolutely love to know how much Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Future Industries paid for What The Green Energy, a new website spruiking green hydrogen featuring Rick and Morty.

In a combination of words that has no right to make any sense, mining billionaire Andrew Twiggy Forrest has enlisted the help of Rick and Morty to educate the public about green hydrogen. For those whove forgotten, Rick and Morty is a cult cartoon that the most irritating people imaginable made their entire personality for a few months in 2017. Fortescue Future Industries, the green energy wing of Twiggys Fortescue, has put together a website called What The Green Hydrogen, using the main characters to put forward the idea of renewables. Its, well, about as strange as it sounds, filtering the surreal, nihilistic aesthetic of the show through PR speak for example:

Before we join forces to save the planet, theres something you should know about us.

Were owned by a mining company. A really big one. Called Fortescue.

News done fearlessly. Join us today and save 50%.

It is one of the largest iron ore extractors in the world, and it is also a heavy carbon emitter.

But the planet isnt going to be saved by a bamboo toothbrush company. Its a little late for that. Our only hope is change on an industrial scale.

Predictably, the website tones down the horrific gore and relentless nihilism of the show although there is a fight scene involving a giant worm, with a great snapping head of interlocking cavernous maws, which gets decapitated (if 12-second marketing videos made by mining companies require spoiler alerts then spoiler alert, I guess). The sequence sums up the weirdness of the whole enterprise. Rick is just there, fighting a big worm in a mechanised suit, which someone has clearly had a lot of fun putting together. But aside from depicting a battle to save the planet, were not sure were making the connection to the rest of the campaign.

We would give anything to know how much the company paid for all this though we note that while theyve sprung for the image, they havent secured the voice talents of Justin Roiland (as far as we can tell), who voices both characters. We guess even Twiggy money has its limits.

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Charlie Lewis

Tips and Murmurs Editor @theshufflediary

Charlie pens Crikey's daily Tips and Murmurs column and also writes on industrial relations, politics and culture. He previously worked across government and unions and was a researcher on RN's Daily Planet. He currently co-hosts Spin Cycle on Triple R radio.

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'A bamboo toothbrush won't save the planet': Twiggy enlists cult cartoon Rick and Morty to sell green hydrogen - Crikey

Pennsylvania is once again the stage for a political battle that will have lasting impacts on the partisan makeup of the Senate, and the power of each political party, for years to come.

Republican Sen. Pat Toomey announced in October of 2020 that he would not be seeking reelection. This made his seat available to a multitude of state politicians with dreams of taking on a larger role.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov John Fetterman is one such politician.

Fetterman is a lifelong Pennsylvania resident and the former Mayor of Braddock. He tried his hand running for Senate back in 2016, but was unable to advance past the primaries with his scant reputation among top Democrats.

This time, backed by his Lt. Gov. position and six more years of experience, Fetterman won the support of the states Democratic base and will represent the party in the general election.

His opponent is a different story.

Dr. Mehmet Oz (yes, that Dr. Oz) has quickly risen through the ranks of Republican leadership in Pennsylvania, thanks to a highly-coveted endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

Despite this endorsement, state Republicans have voiced concerns over Ozs lack of conservative principles and complete absence of political experience. Still, with enough money to run campaign ads, it seems as though there is no experiential barrier to entry in todays political realm.

Oz just barely managed to defeat former hedge fund CEO David McCormick in a tightly contested primary. This set the stage for what may be the most important race in this entire election cycle.

Lets take a step back to understand why this election is critical for both political parties.

The Senate is currently divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harriss tie-breaking vote giving Democrats the edge.

Despite this slim majority, it has long been assumed that Democrats would lose multiple seats in the 2022 midterm elections. Bidens approval rating had been hovering in the high 30s for most of the summer, and the Presidents party historically loses seats during this time.

However, with the Supreme Courts overturning of Roe v. Wade and the recent passage of both the Inflation Reduction Act and Bidens student loan forgiveness package, its possible that the Democratic party just might hold on to its slight edge.

Following Toomeys retirement, Democrats pounced on the opportunity to gain a Senate seat they otherwise would have had no chance of winning. Conversely, Republicans see this race as a must-win in order to prevent a Democratic majority from carrying over into the next session of Congress.

This brings us back to Fetterman and Oz.

Both candidates have not been shy about slinging insults across the party line. Fetterman accused Oz of being a carpetbagger (Oz has lived in New Jersey for most of his life and is still a registered voter there).

Oz accused Fetterman of ducking debates and being unfit for office due a stroke Fetterman suffered this past May.

I have strong opinions of my own about the election, but my goal is to encourage the Lehigh community to educate and involve themselves in one of the most important elections we will see until 2024.

Im well aware of the political nihilism that seems almost universal among young Americans about the efficacy of our voices. But this time, your vote actually matters.

Even if you arent a registered voter in Pennsylvania Im registered in Massachusetts there is still much you can do to have an impact on the election.

Both candidates have sections on their websites dedicated to getting involved in the campaign process, whether it be by knocking on doors, making phone calls, organizing fundraisers or donating directly to a candidate you feel especially strongly about.

I urge everyone who has read this far to get informed and get involved. While we may only live in the Lehigh Valley for a short amount of time, we have the opportunity to make a tangible impact on our futures today.

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Column: This time your vote actually matters - The Brown and White

BYDaniel S. Mariaschin

On Sept. 13, 1993, I was among those invited to the signing of the Oslo Accords on the South Lawn of the White House. It was a bright, sunny day, so very appropriate for what many in the audience saw as the impossible: President Bill Clinton presiding over a historic breakthrough in relations between Israelis and Palestinians. I cant say I was sceptical about the signing, but I did harbour doubts. I began my career monitoring Middle East affairs in 1973 as a young professional just out of graduate school. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964, was in full throttle as an international terrorist organization. Its principal enemy was Israel, but Jordan, led by King Hussein, was not far behind.

The PLO sought to topple the king in 1970 during what was called Black September. Had that challenge succeeded, who knows what havoc a radicalized Jordan under terrorist control might have inflicted on the Middle East heartland. Over these past 29 years, hopes surrounding the Oslo Accords have risen and then crashed time and again, as the Palestinian leadership has pursued a zero-sum policy regarding a two-state solution. By some counts, there have been four or five major international efforts to start serious negotiations with a view toward achieving a sustainable agreement. During that time, the terror organization Hamas, rejectionist from its inception, has taken control of Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), for its part, refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, insists on a right of return for millions of Palestinians, of whom only some 30,000 are original refugees, and offers stipends and payments to the families of those who have carried out acts of terror against Israeli citizens. As if that were not enough, the PA has led efforts at the United Nations to castigate Israel through dozens of biased resolutions, special rapporteurs and commissions. In sum, PA nihilism is not a policy. It suggests that its leaders would rather live as permanent victims than enjoy statehood. Which is why waiting for a two-state solution is not only frustrating. It begs the question: does the current Palestinian leadership really want peace with Israel? Fast forward to Sept. 15, 2020, at the signing of the Abraham Accords.

Once again, I was in attendance on the same South Lawn at the White House, with the same beautiful weather in the US capital, but with an entirely different vibe in the air. Instead of the 1993 doubts gnawing at some of us, there was a pervasive optimism that nearly 30 years after the Oslo Accords signing, diplomatic creativity had produced a full-fledged path for normal relations between Israel and its neighbours in the region.

Over the years of Middle East diplomacy, we have used terms like confidence-building measures, and roadmap for peace, which, though sounding constructive, wound up being merely hollow diplomatic talk. There can be no peace, no normalization without the will to bring them about.

That means people-to-people experiences, two-way trade and investment, tourism in both directions and academic exchange. In each of these and in other areas of mutual cooperation, the Abraham Accords have produced dozens of agreements. And the sense is, this is only the beginning.

Having normal ties means making serious efforts at understanding one another, on a personal basis. Over the past two years, the Abraham Accords have opened the way to pursuing that goal in earnest, promoting closer Muslim-Jewish relations, and open discussions about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.

Memo to the Palestinian leadership: take note. In the realm of the strategic, the Abraham Accords are already making a major contribution to the goal of achieving stability in the region through a collective worldview that places a high value on progress and mutual respect with ones neighbours. As a result, those destructive forces that have sown chaos, engage in malign behaviour and arm the terrorist organizations that lurk and act in the broader neighbourhood, are now even more exposed than ever before.

The Negev Summit (now called the Negev Forum), which brought together like-minded countries which share the same view of threat assessments in the region, is another early benefit brought forth by the Abraham Accords. In March, I led a group of leaders from our organization to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. We held a number of important, enlightening discussions about the region, and the role that the Abraham Accords can play in expanding both its ranks and its promise to bring better, more peaceful and productive lives to all peoples of the region.

We believe that the United States must play a pivotal role in this process, and together, create a dynamic that can transform this vital expanse of geography into a role model for genuine regional cooperation. Over the years, another diplomatic term has become part of our lexicon: present at the creation. As I watched the four principals sign the Abraham Accords that sunlit day in Washington, D.C. two years ago, I clearly realized that the term was no cliche. As we enter year three, let us hope that this auspicious beginning will continue to bear the fruits its architects so wisely considered.

Daniel S. Mariaschin is CEO of Bnai Brith International, a Washington, D.C.- based Jewish organization founded in New York in 1843 . The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Daily Tribune.

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Why the Abraham Accords Matter | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN - News of Bahrain- DT News

Rare color photo of the first nuclear explosion at Trinity Site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Ever since, we have been living in the Atomic Age. (Credit: National Nuclear Security Administration / Public domain)

We tend to remember only the good things. That is why most 1980s nostalgia is rose-tinted. Rarely mentioned about that decade was the constant sense of dread, the ever-present knot in your stomach. Why? Because you knew that everything and everyone you knew could be over in a flash. So what, exactly, was the point of anything?

The nihilism of that age was nuclear-inspired. At the tail end of the Cold War, East and West pointed vast arsenals of atomic missiles at each other, powerful enough to destroy global civilization several times over.

Hanging over the world like an atomic Sword of Damocles was the military doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction MAD for short, and mad in essence. Its rather shaky foundation was that only a lunatic would start a nuclear war.

MAD had a few obvious flaws. What if one side made the rational calculation that the other side would not be fast enough to strike back? What if there was a system malfunction resulting in an accidental launch? Or a radar glitch falsely showing an attack? And what if a lunatic actually did seize power?

But then Boris Yeltsin climbed on a tank and the Soviet Union collapsed. With it, the nuclear nightmare vanished into thin air. Except that it didnt, really. Many happily confused the conclusion of the Cold War with the end of the Atomic Age. But that was wishful thinking. On July 16, 1945, when the first A-bomb went off in the New Mexico desert, humanity went nuclear, and we cant unring that bell.

We may not like to think about it, but the nuclear threat is here to stay. That became obvious after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Although as yet a conventional conflict, it has at least three atomic angles.

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First, there are Putins not-so-subtle hints that Russia may use nukes if the West gets too directly involved and/or the tide of war starts to turn against Moscow. Those threats may not be entirely credible, but nobody is in a hurry to find out. In other words, they have proved effective at limiting the shape and size of third-party responses to the war.

Second, there are the nuclear power stations on the front line being used as tactical chips in a high-stakes game of atomic poker. First Chernobyl, now Zaporizhzhia Europes largest such installation, reportedly used by Russians to store material and launch attacks, and which is regularly under fire (for which both sides hold the other responsible). A few days ago, according to Ukraines president Volodymyr Zelensky, a radiation accident was only narrowly avoided.

Finally, theres the sobering thought that this war might not have happened at all, had Ukraine not given up the nuclear stockpile it inherited from the Soviet Union. It did so in 1994, in return for security guarantees by the U.S., the UK, and Russia. Clearly, other countries now see what such guarantees are worth and may be considering going nuclear themselves as a precaution.

The worst solution to a seemingly intractable problem is to ignore it. A long, hard look is better at least the issue wont be trivialized, and perhaps there is hope behind the horror.

In that spirit, welcome to NUKEMAP. Using declassified info on the impact of various types of nuclear weapons, this web tool allows users to model a nuclear attack on a target of their choice. NUKEMAP was created in 2012 by Alex Wellerstein, a professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Professor Wellersteins particular field is the study of the history of nuclear weapons.

Talking to Newsweek, Professor Wellerstein said that NUKEMAP was meant to help people, himself included, understand the true impact of nuclear explosions: Some people think [nuclear bombs] destroy everything in the world all at once, some people think they are not very different from conventional bombs. The reality is somewhere in between.

He has described NUKEMAP as stomach-churning, but also as the most fun Ive had with Google Maps ever. Sounds a bit like your favorite rollercoaster ride, minus the long wait. Ready?

Go to NUKEMAP, pick a target location (the default is Lafayette Street in Manhattans Soho district), and then select your weapon of choice, with a variety of yields. The smallest is an unnamed North Korean weapon tested in 2006 (with a blast yield of a mere six tons that is, equivalent to six tons of TNT). You can also test the one that started it all, Little Boy (15 kilotons), which was dropped on Hiroshima, as well as the largest one, the Russian Tsar Bomba (100 megaton, but never used).

You can also pick whether youd like the bomb to explode in the air or on the ground and whether youd like to see the number of casualties and the fallout area (yes and yes, obviously). There are a bunch of more sophisticated settings, but by now your finger is itching to press DETONATE.

The effects are stomach-churning indeed: Large zones around ground zero are effectively vaporized. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions killed. Many more wounded.

Professor Wellersteins NUKEMAP has been around for more than a decade and has racked up more than 275 million detonations over that period. Unsurprisingly, there has been an uptick in visitor numbers since the start of the Ukraine War, with some days numbering more than 300,000 visitors.

But those visitors dont even see the worst effects of a potential nuclear war. Yes, they get a sense of the destruction and the casualties, but worse will come and were not even talking about radiation.

A recent study examining the climatic effects of nuclear war found that even a limited nuclear exchange say, an atomic war between India and Pakistan could send up enough soot into the atmosphere to reduce global calorie production by 50% and threaten more than two billion people with starvation. A worst-case scenario all out nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia would result in a 90% drop for up to four years, which could result in global famine killing more than five billion.

That feeling youve got now: thats what I call proper 1980s nostalgia.

Strange Maps #1167

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Nuke your city with this interactive map - Big Think

OPINION:

Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne of the British monarchy in 1953, and at 25 years of age, she assumed the authority of Queen Head of the Commonwealth and Defender of the Faith at a time when the world was spinning out of control.

Born in 1926, Elizabeth grew up with the threats of what British author, Os Guinness, calls the horror of the radical evil of the twentieth century its utter desecration The death camps, the killing fields, the simultaneous extermination of human beings, and the extermination of what it [meant] to even be human. This was the stuff of young Elizabeths daily news.

As a teen, she watched as her father and Winston Churchill fought to fend off the brutal, horrifying, and senseless carnage of warfare. She witnessed what Guinness describes as the end of both the European Enlightenment and Europe as the capital of world civilization. By the time Elizabeth became Queen, the Commonwealth over which she now ruled was already halfway through a century-long maelstrom of clashing views. This clash threatened not just the definition of the Faith but also many of the ideals and beliefs previously held in common by the people and culture she was pledged to defend.

The carnage of two world wars: Two hundred and thirty-one million men, women, and children [killed]; shot over open pits, murdered in secret police cellars, asphyxiated in Nazi gas ovens, worked to death in Arctic mines or timber camps, the victims of deliberately contrived famines or lunatic industrial experiments. (David Berlinski) The rise of political religions such as communism, national socialism, and fascism. The threats of totalitarianism. The Cold war. The arms race, the specter of nuclear Armageddon, the moral nihilism of the burgeoning counter-cultural movement. This was the world of the Queen in the mid-twentieth century.

Then came the twenty-first: The acceleration of science and technology. Artificial intelligence. Gene editing. Talk of trans-humanism and the possible redefinition of what it even means to be human. All seemed to validate the warnings of Huxley and Orwell. Or, in the words of C.S. Lewis: Mans conquest of Nature [was turning] out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Natures conquest of Man.

And all the while, as the Queen sat on her throne, the architects of this grand rebellion doubled down in their determination to rebuild their Tower of Babel. Guinness quotes one archetype of this nightmare, Stefan Zweig, who called for our old ancestor, [the] spirit which remains the same in all forms, all legends, that nameless builder of Babel, [that] genius of mankind, to rise again and strive against his Creator! Hubris, not humility, was the prescription for all that ailed us.

Now one might rightly ask, what was Elizabeths response to this arrogance?

At first, she seemed to sympathize, if not embrace it. Let us set out to build a truer knowledge of ourselves and our fellowmenand to use the tremendous forces of science and learning for the betterment of mans lot upon this earth, she said in 1953. And then, twenty years later, she echoed the same. Britain and these other European countries see in the Community a new opportunity for the future. [We] believethat if [we] work together the whole world will benefit. We are trying to create a wider family of nationsBut around the turn of the century, Queen Elizabeths focus shifted, and she seemed to be looking in the opposite direction. Rather than trusting more in man, she began trusting in her Maker. Rather than talking about a family of nations, she began to speak quite openly about the family of God.

For me, she said during Christmas of 2000, the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. And then, in 2014, she added, The life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace is an inspiration and an anchor A role model of reconciliation and forgiveness Christs example has taught me to seek to respect and value all people Billions of people now follow Christs teaching and find in him the guiding light for their lives. I am one of them. And finally, in 2021, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, she concluded: The last few years have been particularly hard For many, it has been a time of anxiety, grief, and weariness. Yet the Gospel has brought hope, as it has done throughout the ages Christs teachings have been the bedrock of my faith.

The 70-year legacy of the Defender of the Faith is this: As she shifted her gaze from herself to her Savior, she found hope in the Gospel. Today the world may tell you that the Queen is dead, but dont believe it. Elizabeth II now reigns with her Sovereign in His Kingdom.

Long live the Queen!

Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host.

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Long live the Queen! - Washington Times

Reuters:

Most Americans see Trump's MAGA as threat to democracy: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Days after Democratic President Joe Biden gave a fiery speech attacking former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies as an extremist threat, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday found a majority of Americans believe Trump's movement is undermining democracy.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents in the two-day poll - including one in four Republicans - said Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement is threatening America's democratic foundations.

58%? That counts as most.

Tom Nichols/Atlantic:

The Nihilism of MAGA World

The president said something frightening and true.

Joe Bidens address to the American people last week was,as I wrote at the time, necessary and right. The staging was bizarre, and the speech had some of the hallmarks of a group product that hadnt been subjected to a final spackle-and-smooth by a chief writer. But Biden got one big thing right, and that one thing explains why Donald Trump and the MAGA World apologists are reacting withsuch fury. The president outed them as anti-American nihilists:

They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.

This, as Biden pointed out, is what makes the MAGA movement so dangerous. It has no functional compass and no set of actual preferences beyond a generalized resentment, a basket of gripes and grudges against others who the Trumpists think are looking down upon them or living better lives than they are. It is a movement composed of people who areeconomically comfortable and middle-class, who enjoy a relatively high standard of living, and yet who seethe with a sense that they have been done dirt, screwed over, betrayedand they are determined to get revenge.

Biden broke with tradition by saying what presidents are never supposed to say: He admitted that he was finally giving up on trying to accommodate a group of Americans, because he understands that they do not want to be accommodated. I know that some of my friends and colleagues believe that Biden, as president, must continue to reach out to MAGA voters because they are our neighbors and our fellow citizens. (The former GOP operative and my fellow Never Trumper Tim Miller made this point justthis morning.) My instinct is to agree with them. But how do we reach those voters? These citizens do not want a discussion or a compromise. They dont even want to win, in any traditional political sense of that word. They want to vent anger over their livestheir personal problems, their haunted sense of inferiority, and their fears aboutsocial statuson other Americans, as vehemently as possible, even to the point of violence.

Detroit News:

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's lead grows as fall campaign begins, new poll finds

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's lead over Republican Tudor Dixon has expanded to 13 percentage points with two months remaining before Election Day, according to anew poll from The Detroit Newsand WDIV-TV (Channel 4)...

In a similar July 5-8 poll commissioned by The News and WDIV before Dixonbecame the Republican nomineein the Aug. 2 primary election Whitmer was leading Dixon by 11 percentage points.

Detroit News:

Abortion drives Michigan governor's race as women turn against GOP, poll finds

When it came to which issue would motivate Michiganians to vote in November, 34% said abortion and women's rights the most popular answer ranking above inflation and the cost of living (26%), education (10%) and the economy and jobs (8%).

"This should be about (Democratic President Joe) Biden. And it's not. It's about abortion," Glengariff founder and pollster Richard Czuba said of the governor's race.

The current poll numbers for Whitmer were similar to the survey results from the same period before the 2018 election, when Democrats won all three of Michigan's top offices.

In early September 2018,Whitmer was up 14 percentage points over Republican Bill Schuette, who was then the state's attorney general. Whitmer ended up beating Schuette by 9 points.

"This looks exactly like the 2018 numbers right now," Czuba said. "The motivation to vote is as high."

The 2018 results have been tied to a so-called "pink wave" of female voters pushing back against the beginning of then-President Donald Trump's administration.

Czuba said he's now seeing signs of a "magenta wave" of female voters and independent voters beginning to form for November because of the abortion debate.

"Until someone can stop that conversation or override that conversation, that wave is going to keep building," the pollster said.

Ruy Teixeira/Substack:

The Democrats Shifting Coalition

Unlike Trump, They Love the Highly Educated

No doubt about it. The Democrats are doing better. They have enjoyed a stretch where the economy has done a bit better and, most importantly, other issues have come to the fore to take the focus off of the many ways voters are still quite unhappy with the Biden administration and the state of country (NBC poll: 68 percent say were now in recession; 74 percent say the country is off on the wrong track).

The key issue here is clearly the Dobbs decision on abortion rights. That decision put the Democrats on thepopular side of public opinionand they have taken full advantage of that (aided by Republicans inability to keep a leash on the most militant anti-abortion forces within their party).

19th News:

Why women are setting the new midterms conversation

Analysis | Two GOP women pollsters talk about abortion, democracy and the changing dynamics of this years elections.

My takeaway from what they shared: The 2022 midterms look different than they did six months or a year ago. Cost of living is still front of mind for many women, but issues of choice on abortion, on the freedom to vote have risen in relevance. The moment feels existential for many women, including independents and swing voters, and its all on their minds when they describe the country as headed in the wrong direction to pollsters.

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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Abortion issue is changing everything for November - Daily Kos