Xi’s Call with Zelenskyy Demonstrates Responsibility of a Major Country

by Global Times / April 26th, 2023

Illustration: Liu Rui/Global Times

Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the phone at the invitation of the latter on Wednesday afternoon. The two sides exchanged views on China-Ukraine relations and the Ukraine crisis. Xi pointed out that China’s readiness to develop relations with Ukraine is consistent and clear-cut. Regarding the Ukraine crisis, Xi reiterated China’s consistent position and proposition, stating that China will send the Special Representative of the Chinese Government on Eurasian Affairs to Ukraine and other countries to have in-depth communication with all parties on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. Zelenskyy welcomed China to play an important role in restoring peace and resolving the Ukraine crisis through diplomatic means. He also noted on social media platform that the talk was long and meaningful, which will strongly promote the development of bilateral relations.

From this conversation, it is not hard to see that China’s position and attitude toward China-Ukraine ties and the Ukraine crisis have been consistent. First of all, “China’s willingness to develop China-Ukraine relations” and “mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries” have not changed due to the full-scale escalation of the Ukraine crisis. Second, China’s core position of urging peace and talks in the Ukraine crisis has remained unchanged. China takes a visionary and pragmatic attitude toward this issue and demonstrates strong stability and continuity, which has increasingly clear and loud echoes in the world.

This conversation is also the latest effort by China to push for a ceasefire and the restoration of peace as soon as possible. Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, China’s efforts to promote a political resolution of the Ukraine crisis have never stopped. After the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, President Xi successively proposed four points about what must be done, four things the international community must do together and three observations. On this basis, China has also issued a position paper titled “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.” At the same time, China maintains good communication with all parties, including Russia and Ukraine, as well as European powers including France, Germany, and Italy. There are even communications with the US side, and other emerging powers such as Brazil, which are committed to promoting peaceful resolution of the conflict. Among these efforts, head-of-state diplomacy has played a significant guiding and driving role.

Different from the “duel” approach advocated by some in the US and the West, China provides a different path full of Eastern wisdom. It sees the Ukraine crisis as a complex and difficult-to-untangle web, but not all of the knots are dead ones. It is possible to slowly untangle the knots one by one, and ultimately achieve a comprehensive “escape” from the crisis. Gradually decomposing complex contradictions, patiently and steadily reaching the core of the problem requires enormous political wisdom, patience, and perseverance, but it is also the best solution that people can currently see. In fact, as time goes by, many countries, including Russia and Ukraine, as well as others in Europe, have gradually recognized or partially accepted China’s proposed solution. There is also an increasing number of voices within the US that are saying, “The world should listen to China’s voice.”

China is neither the creator of the Ukraine crisis, nor a party to it. However, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a responsible major power, China’s desire to promote a political solution to the Ukraine crisis is sincere and selfless. China has always firmly stood on the side of peace, dialogue, and the right side of history. This can withstand the test of facts and history, and represents the power of people’s will. Now, both Russia and Ukraine have welcomed China’s efforts to promote peace and talks, and European powers such as France and Germany, as well as EU leaders, also expect that China will play a greater role in promoting peace and talks. After the call between the leaders of China and Ukraine, the White House also expressed its welcome to the call and said it is “good thing.” This further highlights the special value of China’s efforts in the current complex and ever-changing situation in Ukraine. China is able to communicate directly with all parties involved, seek consensus, and receive positive responses, precisely because China has always adhered to an objective and fair position and demonstrated its role and responsibility as a major power. This role and influence cannot be replaced in today’s world.

Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict over a year ago, the world has suffered a great deal of shock. As time goes by, the international community has engaged in more cool reflection on this hot conflict. Especially, the willingness to negotiate among all parties is rising, and more rational voices are emerging in various European countries. In a sense, the window of opportunity for promoting a political solution to the Ukraine crisis has emerged. Now it is important to seize the opportunity and accumulate energy to jointly open the door of peace for the international community. Compared to simply adding fuel to the fire, the Chinese side believes that there is no simple solution to complex problems, and dialogue and negotiation are the only feasible way out. Seeking long-term peace and stability for Europe through dialogue is the fundamental way out. What is even more encouraging is that this position is gaining more support, and the forces urging peace ad talks are constantly growing.

It should be noted that since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US and Western public opinion has thrown a lot of mud on China, even creating rumors in an attempt to drag China down. But a clean hand wants no washing. As time goes by, those accusations are self-defeating, and the image of China as a peaceful builder is becoming clearer and clearer. Both Russia and Ukraine can see this, so can other countries and the international community. Justice will prevail.FacebookTwitterRed

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The Global Times takes great pains to present facts and views that could help the readers better understand China. Read other articles by Global Times, or visit Global Times's website.

The US Left and the Ukraine War

by Chris Wright / April 24th, 2023

To be a leftist in the United States is a dispiriting experience, but in the last year one of the more dispiriting things has been to see the attitude of many leftists themselves on a subject of crucial importance: the war in Ukraine. The consensus of the Washington establishment remains that the U.S. must support Ukraine against Russian aggression, in the form of providing enormous amounts of military aid. Progressives in Congress largely share this consensus, having voted for military aid and even cravenly retracted their letter to Biden in October that suggested he pursue diplomacy. Outside the halls of power, too, many leftists effectively support Washington’s policies. To be sure, they add the qualification that one must also oppose American imperialism—but when they’re supporting a U.S. proxy war that is providing pretexts to increase military spending and expand NATO (an instrument of U.S. power), this is an empty qualification. The sad fact is that there is little vocal advocacy in the U.S. today for the only moral position, namely to engage in immediate negotiations to end this horrific war.

Instead, most liberals, conservatives, and even leftists seem to support Antony Blinken’s rejection of any ceasefire or negotiations that “would potentially have the effect of freezing in place the conflict, allowing Russia to consolidate the gains that it’s made.” In other words, negotiations have to be postponed until Russia is in a weaker position than it is now. In fact, the official U.S. war aim is “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says. That means Russia has to be so devastatingly weakened—preferably defeated—that its capacity to wage war is destroyed. This, in turn, means that the war must go on for a very long time, perhaps “to the last Ukrainian,” as John Quigley speculates. Zelensky, who seems “heroically” willing to countenance the ongoing destruction of his country, is now even insisting that Russia give up Crimea.

All this is madness, and it ought to be seen as such by any clear-eyed opponent of the U.S. empire (which is vastly more global, hegemonic, and dangerous to the world’s population than today’s Russian “empire”). Before accepting complete defeat, Putin—whom, after all, we’re supposed to view as a bloodthirsty monster—would likely wage total war on Ukraine, possibly including use of nuclear weapons. So anyone who defends the U.S. war aim (and Ukraine’s current war aims, as stated by Zelensky) is advocating the destruction of Ukraine and, perhaps, nuclear war. Aggression should indeed be opposed, but not at the expense of human survival or the survival of millions of Ukrainians.

However strenuously it has been denied by Western supporters of this war, Russia has legitimate grievances (at least much more legitimate than those that have motivated U.S. wars since the 1960s) that must be addressed in order to end the killing. It isn’t a simple matter of evil imperialism vs. a wonderful pacifist democracy. Scores of experts, including even Cold Warriors like George Kennan, have discussed the many provocations from the U.S., NATO, and Ukraine that brought on Putin’s invasion, and we needn’t rehash the whole history here. What is at stake is, in large part, a clash of rival imperialisms—a global one (the U.S.’s) and a relatively minor regional one (Russia’s)—which means there is no morally pure outcome, as there rarely is in politics. A peace settlement will have to be a compromise, which, like most compromises, will doubtless leave all parties somewhat unhappy but at least will end the slaughter. Russia, for example, may well end up retaining Crimea (which it annexed in 1783—until 1954) and certain other small strips of territory it has gained. Leftists and left-liberals who wring their hands about how this would teach the lesson that aggression sometimes pays would do well to reflect on another fact: if, somehow, NATO and Ukraine manage to inflict a terrible defeat on Russia, this will teach America that unfettered military expansion—and incitement of war—is a great way to crush one’s enemies, and it will apply the lesson to China.

It’s worth noting, too, that it isn’t only a confrontation of great powers that is at stake, or the survival of millions of Ukrainians and their country’s physical infrastructure, or an atrocious empowerment of the U.S. military industry. The longer this war goes on, the more damage is done to the natural environment, including efforts to combat global warming. In just the first seven months of the war, the fighting released 100 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, as a report by Chatham House notes, “across the world, countries are building or reopening coal power stations and investing in oil and gas development.” Soaring energy prices have led to a “gold rush” for new fossil fuel projects. Oil companies are making record profits. Are we supposed to care more about punishing Russia than leaving a livable world to our descendants?

This is to say nothing of the large-scale food insecurity the war has fostered, the cost-of-living crises that are impoverishing millions, and the displacement of refugees. These problems cannot be solved until the war ends. And it can end only with negotiations. One expects neocon vampires like Anne Applebaum, Bill Kristol, and Robert Kagan—not to mention Biden administration officials like Blinken and Victoria Nuland—to experience throes of ecstasy over any war that projects American power, but when even progressives and leftists are vehemently defending U.S. proxy wars and effectively dismissing the idea of negotiations, it is clear that America’s moral and intellectual rot runs very deep indeed.

Liberals and leftists out to be embarrassed that the most vocal advocacy of the antiwar position today is from people such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and right-wing libertarians. It’s time that the left reclaimed its antiwar traditions




                       

The Second Cold War Is More Dangerous than the First

by Chris Wright / April 22nd, 2023

Twenty years ago, Noam Chomsky published a bestselling book called Hegemony or Survival. Since then, the stark choice he posed has only become more urgent. Depending on how humanity responds to the challenges of ecological destruction and imperialistic war, in the coming decade that terrifying question “Hegemony or survival?” may well be answered.

Modern history shows that the most dangerous periods are when two or more great powers are struggling for hegemony. The eighteenth century in Europe was a time of “multipolarity,” as Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia were almost continually at war, competing for geopolitical advantage and to divide the continent between them. The conflicts escalated in the era of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, as a mighty France, bursting with revolutionary energy, strove for absolute dominance against, in the end, Britain and Russia.

The 1815 Congress of Vienna led to a century-long balance of power presided over by an industrializing Britain, which soon became the supreme world power. Once industrialization swept the rest of Europe, however, particularly Germany, Britain’s power began to be challenged, not only in the Scramble for Africa but in Europe itself. German elites wanted their country to be the next Britain, and to a great extent it was their desire for hegemony that precipitated both world wars.

Since 1945, the United States has been virtually a global hegemon. As John Ross notes in the recently published Washington’s New Cold War, even at the height of its relative economic achievement in the mid-1970s, the Soviet Union’s GDP was only 44 percent of the U.S.’s. The Soviets had vast power in their limited sphere encompassing Eastern Europe and Central Asia, but they were not a capitalistically expansive, dynamically growing imperial power in the mode of the United States—or, more recently, of a resurgent China. China’s GDP is 74 percent of the U.S.’s, and its growth rate is higher (it has grown seven times faster than the American economy since 2007). Measured by purchasing power parities, the U.S. accounts for only 16 percent of the world economy, and China’s economy is 18 percent larger. In short, for the first time since World War II, we are entering an era of real competition between two mammoth economies, a declining hegemon and an aspiring hegemon.

When people talk about “the China threat,” this is, in effect, all they mean. In the long run, China poses a greater threat to U.S. power than the Soviet Union ever did. Mainstream commentators and politicians prate about China’s threat to democratic values and human rights—there always has to be an ideological rationalization for geopolitical strategy—but U.S. foreign and domestic policy since the Second World War tells us how much its elites care about democracy and human rights. From the Vietnam War to the catastrophic invasion of Iraq, and from U.S. support for thugs like Batista, Diem, Iran’s Shah, Suharto, Duvalier, Trujillo, Somoza, Pinochet, Marcos, Rios Montt, Mobutu, Saddam Hussein, Mubarak, Sisi, Modi, Mohammed bin Salman, and Netanyahu to CIA coups and attempted coups against countless governments, it is self-evident that policymakers care little about the moral values they pretend to espouse.

Americans have to ask themselves: is it worth risking nuclear war—and an apocalyptic nuclear winter—for no loftier purpose than to maintain their country’s violently enforced grasp of overwhelming global power?

Threats to U.S. Power

The current flashpoint, of course, is the war in Ukraine, which is helping to midwife a “partnership” between China and Russia, both of which are also deepening their ties with Iran. Decades ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote that “a coalition allying Russia with both China and Iran can develop only if the United States is shortsighted enough to antagonize China and Iran simultaneously.” He would presumably not be very happy with U.S. policies that are bringing about exactly this coalition. At the same time, U.S. missteps in the Middle East and its relative disengagement from the region since the Obama presidency are allowing China to improve its position there, as illustrated by the deal it recently brokered between Iran and Saudi Arabia to normalize relations. China’s burgeoning economic interests not only in the Middle East but across most of the world, a function of its colossal, globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative, require the country to play an ever-greater diplomatic role in fraught regions. Saudi Arabia, for its part, has shown it is happy to defy Washington, even joining much of the world in disregarding Western sanctions on Russia.

While Washington’s failure to convince most countries to economically and diplomatically isolate Russia highlights the U.S.’s declining “hegemony,” the real threats to American power run deeper than diplomatic embarrassments. In coming years, the very status of the dollar as the world’s dominant currency may be threatened. A kind of “de-dollarization” has been happening for some time now, as, for example, the share of dollar reserves held by central banks declined from 71 percent in 1999 to 59 percent in 2021. But in the last few years, and especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing effort by many countries to undermine the dollar’s dominance of the global financial system has intensified.

In part, this is because of the U.S.’s “weaponization” of the dollar: in the recent past, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Afghanistan, and Russia have all suffered from financial and trade sanctions that have included even freezing overseas assets and removal from the SWIFT messaging system that underpins the world’s financial infrastructure. Other countries, understandably worried about suffering the same fate, share Russia’s interest in developing new financial institutions and networks outside of the U.S.-led system. Apart from this motivation, they simply want to reduce their exposure to the effects of U.S. economic and monetary policy, which can devastate economies. And as China rises, it makes sense for it to promote use of the renminbi, or at least non-dollar currencies.

To that end, the BRICS countries, for instance, have been establishing new institutions and market mechanisms to bypass the dollar, and are even exploring the possibility of creating a new reserve currency based on the BRICS basket of currencies. Institutions like the New Development Bank, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, new payment infrastructures that are alternatives to SWIFT, central bank digital currencies, bilateral trade conducted in currencies other than the dollar, and a renminbi oil futures market to partially de-dollarize the global oil trade all point toward a future currency regime that is at least multilateral, if not bilateral. The economist Nouriel Roubini argues that, “in a world that will be increasingly divided into two geopolitical spheres of influence,” a bilateral currency regime is likely to emerge, perhaps in the next decade.

Given that “the dollar’s dominant position in the global financial system [is] the very foundation of [the U.S.’s] global leadership,” as two experts note, Washington can hardly be viewing all these developments with equanimity. Loss of the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency would have severe consequences for the American economy. But this outcome is exactly the end-goal of Washington’s bellicose policies toward its perceived rivals! Through economic sanctions and aggressive military actions—expanding NATO to Russia’s borders and encircling China with U.S. bases, military forces, and militarized partner states like Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and even Taiwan—the United States is driving into existence a hostile bloc of great powers and medium-sized powers that are necessarily committed to its defeat. Their policies, then, will become increasingly belligerent, which will serve to justify even more belligerent U.S. policies, in a vicious circle that amounts to an extraordinarily dangerous “hybrid war” and arms race.

History shows that imperial hubris crescendos before a fall. In this case, though, it won’t be only the empire that falls; it will, in all likelihood, be civilization itself.

Addicted to War

The Pentagon has made a record budget request this year of $842 billion, which it says is necessary to counter China. This claim should inspire skepticism, given that the U.S. has around 750 overseas military bases and China has about eight—one in Djibouti and a few on man-made islands in the South China Sea [This is contestable, the built-up islands are not overseas. They are in the South China Sea and are claimed by China — DV ed]. China’s military budget, which has been increasing since America’s Pivot to Asia is $225 billion, not a small sum but still a fraction of the Pentagon’s. It is an interesting thought-experiment, incidentally, to imagine how Washington would react if China had scores of military bases off the U.S. coast and had deputized countries in the Americas to act as its armed sentinel states. Most probably, we wouldn’t be around to talk about it, because a world war would already have wiped us out.

In fact, contemporary China is probably the most pacific great power in world history, as Craig Murray observes. As the U.S. has rampaged all over the Middle East and expanded its direct or indirect military presence to virtually every region of the globe, what wars has China started? What territories has it annexed? What countries has it invaded? The usual response is that sometime in the future it might invade Taiwan—but given the harm such an invasion would likely inflict on the Chinese economy (because of Taiwan’s cutting-edge semiconductor industry, whose physical facilities could well be damaged or destroyed in an invasion), we should be skeptical of this claim too. Even hawkish Chinese generals seem to think war with Taiwan would be “too costly.” In any event, are annual military budgets of almost a trillion dollars necessary to defend Taiwan?

The conclusion is inescapable that the U.S. is simply trying to intimidate an economic rival, a country that, like Putin’s Russia (only more so), challenges its unfettered dominance of the entire world economy. The record of Washington’s foreign policy since 1945 is to seek and enforce compliance in any way it can, whether through carrots or sticks—blandishments and economic or military aid in some cases, coups, invasions, sanctions, paramilitary operations, and militaristic bullying in others. Defiant regimes cannot be tolerated. Accordingly, policymakers want a compliant (or weakened) Russia and a compliant or weakened China. The calculus is evidently that military buildup, whatever crises it leads to and however unpredictable its long-term effects, is the surest means of achieving these ends. It also has the virtue of projecting overwhelming power, which is something powerful states value for its own sake.

Even if the United States doesn’t succeed in provoking military conflicts with China (as it did with Russia), the new Cold War of which Washington is the primary instigator is profoundly damaging to the interests of humanity. As the Washington Post reports, this new Cold War “may see the world divided into opposing camps for decades, stymieing cooperation on climate change, choking global action on human rights abuses, paralyzing international institutions and increasing tensions in contested regions.” If only for the sake of cooperating to tackle global warming, nothing is more imperative than for great powers, first among them the U.S., to adopt conciliatory policies.

But that means Americans have to pressure their government to this end. And that, in turn, means building an anti-imperialist left. From Bernie Sanders to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (not to mention right-wing legislators), there isn’t a single principled anti-imperialist in Congress. In a time of staggering dangers from war and ecological destruction, this is a shocking and shameful fact.

Fr now, it seems that humanity is choosing the path of battling for hegemony rather than surviving.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Chris Wright, Ph.D. in U.S. history (University of Illinois at Chicago), is the author of Worker Cooperatives and Revolution and Popular Radicalism and the Unemployed in Chicago during the Great Depression. Read other articles by Chris, or visit Chris's website.

The War on Free Speech Is Really a War on the Right to Criticize the Government

by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / April 25th, 2023

Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.

— Justice William O. Douglas

Absolutely, there is a war on free speech.

To be more accurate, however, the war on free speech is really a war on the right to criticize the government.

Although the right to speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom, every day in this country, those who dare to speak their truth to the powers-that-be find themselves censored, silenced or fired.

Indeed, those who run the government don’t take kindly to individuals who speak truth to power.

In fact, the government has become increasingly intolerant of speech that challenges its power, reveals its corruption, exposes its lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.

This is nothing new, nor is it unique to any particular presidential administration.

For instance, as part of its campaign to eradicate so-called “disinformation,” the Biden Administration likened those who share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information” to terrorists. This government salvo against consumers and spreaders of “mis- dis- and mal-information” widens the net to potentially include anyone who is exposed to ideas that run counter to the official government narrative.

In his first few years in office, President Trump declared the media to be “the enemy of the people,” suggested that protesting should be illegal, and that NFL players who kneel in protest during the national anthem “shouldn’t be in the country.”

Then again, Trump was not alone in his presidential disregard for the rights of the citizenry, especially as it pertains to the right of the people to criticize those in power.

President Obama signed into law anti-protest legislation that makes it easier for the government to criminalize protest activities (10 years in prison for protesting anywhere in the vicinity of a Secret Service agent). The Obama Administration also waged a war on whistleblowers, which The Washington Post described as “the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration,” and “spied on reporters by monitoring their phone records.”

Part of the Patriot Act signed into law by President George W. Bush made it a crime for an American citizen to engage in peaceful, lawful activity on behalf of any group designated by the government as a terrorist organization. Under this provision, even filing an amicus brief on behalf of an organization the government has labeled as terrorist would constitute breaking the law.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the FBI to censor all news and control communications in and out of the country in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt also signed into law the Smith Act, which made it a crime to advocate by way of speech for the overthrow of the U.S. government by force or violence.

President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which made it illegal to criticize the government’s war efforts.

President Abraham Lincoln seized telegraph lines, censored mail and newspaper dispatches, and shut down members of the press who criticized his administration.

In 1798, during the presidency of John Adams, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to “write, print, utter or publish … any false, scandalous, and malicious” statements against the government, Congress or president of the United States.

Clearly, the government has been undermining our free speech rights for quite a while now.

Good, bad or ugly, it’s all free speech unless as defined by the government it falls into one of the following categories: obscenity, fighting words, defamation (including libel and slander), child pornography, perjury, blackmail, incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats, and solicitations to commit crimes.

This idea of “dangerous” speech, on the other hand, is peculiarly authoritarian in nature. What it amounts to is speech that the government fears could challenge its chokehold on power.

The kinds of speech the government considers dangerous enough to red flag and subject to censorship, surveillance, investigation, prosecution and outright elimination include: hate speech, bullying speech, intolerant speech, conspiratorial speech, treasonous speech, threatening speech, incendiary speech, inflammatory speech, radical speech, anti-government speech, right-wing speech, left-wing speech, extremist speech, politically incorrect speech, etc.

Conduct your own experiment into the government’s tolerance of speech that challenges its authority, and see for yourself.

Stand on a street corner—or in a courtroom, at a city council meeting or on a university campus—and recite some of the rhetoric used by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Adams and Thomas Paine without referencing them as the authors.

For that matter, just try reciting the Declaration of Independence, which rejects tyranny, establishes Americans as sovereign beings, recognizes God (not the government) as the Supreme power, portrays the government as evil, and provides a detailed laundry list of abuses that are as relevant today as they were 240-plus years ago.

My guess is that you won’t last long before you get thrown out, shut up, threatened with arrest or at the very least accused of being a radical, a troublemaker, a sovereign citizen, a conspiratorialist or an extremist.

Try suggesting, as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin did, that Americans should not only take up arms but be prepared to shed blood in order to protect their liberties, and you might find yourself placed on a terrorist watch list and vulnerable to being rounded up by government agents.

“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms,” declared Jefferson. He also concluded that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Observed Franklin: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!”

Better yet, try suggesting as Thomas Paine, Marquis De Lafayette, John Adams and Patrick Henry did that Americans should, if necessary, defend themselves against the government if it violates their rights, and you will be labeled a domestic extremist.

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government,” insisted Paine. “When the government violates the people’s rights,” Lafayette warned, “insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensable of duties.” Adams cautioned, “A settled plan to deprive the people of all the benefits, blessings and ends of the contract, to subvert the fundamentals of the constitution, to deprive them of all share in making and executing laws, will justify a revolution.” And who could forget Patrick Henry with his ultimatum: “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Then again, perhaps you don’t need to test the limits of free speech for yourself.

One such test is playing out before our very eyes on the national stage led by those who seem to believe that only individuals who agree with the government are entitled to the protections of the First Amendment.

To the contrary, James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was very clear about the fact that the First Amendment was established to protect the minority against the majority.

I’ll take that one step further: the First Amendment was intended to protect the citizenry from the government’s tendency to censor, silence and control what people say and think.

Having lost our tolerance for free speech in its most provocative, irritating and offensive forms, the American people have become easy prey for a police state where only government speech is allowed.

You see, the powers-that-be understand that if the government can control speech, it controls thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.

This is how freedom rises or falls.

Americans of all stripes would do well to remember that those who question the motives of government provide a necessary counterpoint to those who would blindly follow where politicians choose to lead.

We don’t have to agree with every criticism of the government, but we must defend the rights of all individuals to speak freely without fear of punishment or threat of banishment.

Never forget: what the architects of the police state want are submissive, compliant, cooperative, obedient, meek citizens who don’t talk back, don’t challenge government authority, don’t speak out against government misconduct, and don’t step out of line.

What the First Amendment protects—and a healthy constitutional republic requires—are citizens who routinely exercise their right to speak truth to power.

Tolerance for dissent is vital if we are to survive as a free nation.

While there are all kinds of labels being put on so-called “unacceptable” speech today, the real message being conveyed by those in power is that Americans don’t have a right to express themselves if what they are saying is unpopular, controversial or at odds with what the government determines to be acceptable.

By suppressing free speech, the government is contributing to a growing underclass of Americans who are being told that they can’t take part in American public life unless they “fit in.”

Mind you, it won’t be long before anyone who believes in holding the government accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the rule of law is labeled an “extremist,” is relegated to an underclass that doesn’t fit in, must be watched all the time, and is rounded up when the government deems it necessary.

It doesn’t matter how much money you make, what politics you subscribe to, or what God you worship: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are all potential suspects, terrorists and lawbreakers in the eyes of the government.FacebookTwitteRedditEmail

John W. Whitehead, constitutional attorney and author, is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He wrote the book Battlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015). He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Read other articles by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

The Lifeblood of Democracy

Journalists are on the front lines of battles to defend the right to freedom of expression

by Andy Lee Roth / April 25th, 2023

Two cornerstones of democracy—freedom of expression and freedom of information—are under concerted attack, in the United States and around the world.

In the US, for example, reactionary elected officials seek to ban books in schools, often in the name of protecting children; and government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, seek to curb online speech that they deem dangerous.

Here and globally, tech companies and social media platforms engage in algorithmic gatekeeping, throttling online traffic to progressive news outlets and vital LGBTQ+ content, while embattled leaders in nations such as Benin and Malaysia use “fake news” laws—enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic, ostensibly to restrict misinformation about it—to harass, jail, or silence journalists whose reporting challenges those regimes. Anonymous individuals serve the fossil fuel industry by filing bogus copyright complaints to stifle investigative journalists and news outlets whose work is critical of the industry.

Threats to freedom of expression and freedom of information, such as these, undermine the possibility of a well-informed public, which, in turn, erode the effectiveness of democratic institutions. Freedom of expression and access to information are foundational rights, meaning they are essential to the protection and exercise of other basic rights: They insure, for example, that each person, community, and society can express their fundamental needs—for clean water, healthy food, adequate shelter, and fresh air, not to mention healthcare, education, and fair wages. One international human rights organization, Article 19, describes freedom of expression as the “lifeblood of democracy.”

This is one fundamental reason that numerous organizations—including Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Press Institute, and Article 19—promote press freedom and defend the rights of journalists. Journalists serving the public interest protect fundamental human rights. They are “on the front line,” defending and promoting all people’s rights to freedom of expression and information.

Those rights were formally articulated in Paris, seventy-five years ago, when the General Assembly of the United Nations affirmed freedom of information and expression as inalienable human rights. Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) declared that “everyone” has the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Of course, just because an organization such as the United Nations asserts that freedom of expression and information are universal and inalienable does not mean this is automatically true for everyone everywhere. Far from it. The broad and widening gap between the ideals expressed in Article 19 and the reality of the world in which we live inspires my work with Project Censored, a news watch organization that champions independent journalism and critical media literacy education.

Since 1976, Project Censored has vetted and highlighted independent news reporting on important social issues that corporate news outlets have failed to cover. Often those failures are due to the corporate media’s narrow definitions of who and what count as “newsworthy.”

By privileging official, elite perspectives and interests, corporate news subtly but significantly undermines the ideals of free expression declared in Article 19. This systemic bias in corporate media treats most of the world’s population as passive bystanders, whose rights to expression are irrelevant or undesirable. As Arundhati Roy wrote in An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire (2006), “There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”

Critical media literacy, the second component of Project Censored’s mission, provides people with practical tools to engage media proactively. Critical media literacy education raises questions about power, focusing especially on connections between concentrated ownership of media and the production, distribution, and interpretation of media messages. The ability to determine the trustworthiness of specific news reports, for example, hinges on understanding how news “frames” our view of the world—including how that framing often reflects (and reinforces) deep-rooted power dynamics and enduring social inequalities.

Many people in the US might scoff at the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights as either an anachronism from a bygone era in international politics or, in US context, a redundancy, given this nation’s Bill of Rights. But not even journalists working in the United States—ostensibly protected under the First Amendment—can take for granted the right to freedom of expression articulated in Article 19 of the UDHR.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker carefully documents press freedom violations in the United States, including arrests, equipment seizures, assaults, and interrogations, which occur on a shockingly regular basis. In the most extreme cases, journalists face grave threats for doing their jobs. In February 2023, Dylan Lyons, a reporter for Spectrum News 13 was killed while working at the scene of a homicide in Pine Hills, Florida; his colleague, photojournalist Jesse Walden, was critically wounded. And, in September 2022, Jeff German, an investigative reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, was stabbed to death outside his home. The suspect charged with premeditated murder is a former county official who was the subject of past and pending reporting by German.

Seventy-five years since ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the chasm between these grim realities and Article 19’s lofty ideals might be interpreted as cause for pessimism. But we cannot fall into despair; the stakes are too high. Instead, I interpret the UDHR’s bold affirmation of freedom of expression as a compass arrow that can reliably orient us, especially when our target destination is not directly visible.

If Article 19 points us in the desired direction, then critical media literacy education and independent journalism provide guidance along the way. They signal where pitfalls threaten to ensnare us, and they alert us to how the power of media can be harnessed to remake our world in closer alignment with the values articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Originally published at Project Censored.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Andy Lee Roth is the associate director of Project Censored. He coordinates the Project’s Campus Affiliates Program, a news media research network of several hundred students and faculty at two dozen colleges and universities across North America. Read other articles by Andy.

DAME EDNA EVERIDGE

Barry Humphries: Misunderstood Anarchist of Culture

by Binoy Kampmark / April 24th, 2023

He was always a step ahead, his mind geared not only for the next move, but the next sequence. He also smelt it, anticipated the audience reaction, shaped the prejudice in context for consumption. He created an antipodean version of dada art. He confused, baffled and enraged audiences with his polymathic, panoramic reach.

The genius of the late Barry Humphries first took root in Britain, along with a flowing of other Australian expatriates who had made Blighty their home. It became evident in Britain’s most famous, remorseless panner of reputation and issue, the satirical magazine Private Eye, that weedkiller of inflated reputations. There, another genius of comedy, Peter Cook, understood a kindred spirit. At Cook’s suggestion, Humphries ran a comic strip that made him famous and eventually found celluloid expression: The Adventures of Barry McKenzie.

The reception of the comic strip in Australia, with its slang-fluent, rough protagonist stomping through the Mother Country, was a foretaste of things to come. Compiled in three book collections, the first two were banned by the Customs Department under the Customs Prohibited Import Regulations. The silly justification was section 4A, which prohibited the importation of works and articles deemed blasphemous, indecent, or obscene, or unduly emphasising matters of sex, horror, violence or crime, or are likely to encourage depravity.

The harebrained nature of this measure, one that could only have been appreciated by Humphries, was that selections from Private Eye, including “Barry McKenzie’s Naughty Night”, were already available in the country in the 1965 publication Penguin Private Eye.

Her Dame Edna Everage (Mrs Norm Everage to some) act, hewn from the dull, insular terrain of Moonee Ponds in Victoria, was always going to be an uneven sell for home audiences. In the sex-suppressed Anglosphere, with its hypocrisies of gender, control and concealment, it was brilliant, a poking, full frontal display of the bigoted housewife giving bigotry a lengthy outing.

The bricks of the mythmakers are now being assembled, an effort to build a mausoleum of deception. Always be suspicious of the “he was much loved by all” tag; they usually have a fair share of aggrieved, envious enemies.

There are, however, clues in the coverage. Humphries was a “comedy export” – read, not palatable in straitlaced, monochrome Australia, a bit too salty, or gamey, for local consumption. He tested his various alter-egos – the barely tolerable Edna, the monstrous, dribbling Sir Les Patterson and so forth – on foreign soil. (Rarely mentioned in tributes is his more complex, rounded character, Sandy Stone.) Contrary to the hagiographically saccharine accounts now clogging news outlets and tributes, Australians did not like what they saw of themselves. The BH treatment was harsh, unsparing, and relentlessly Juvenalian.

With ever increasing notoriety, he would become the target of stock standard accusations. He was unfair to women. He toyed with race. He was insensitive and lacked empathy. None of these viewpoints appreciated Kurt Tucholsky’s observation made in 1919 that satire, in its essence, is unfair: “the just,” goes the Biblical expression, “suffer with the unjust.”

In November 1978, the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal criticised Humphries for his “put down of middle-aged women” (Canberra Times, Nov 3, 1978). One irony-free Tina Namow of the Women’s Studies Collective at Flinders University was a case in point, spending time combing through commercials with alleged sexist import. She was delighted to stumble across Dame Edna’s portrayal of women in the Whirlpool advertisements, duly charging the effort as “incompetent”. “To add to the insult, he then makes racist statements such as ‘grubby little foreigner’ during the commercial.”

In 1994, he was criticised by Canberra academic Bill Mandle for being at it again. Dame Edna had become an international figure, no longer a suburban dweller of Moonee Ponds. No distinction is drawn between the artist performer from the individual off the stage and out of the persona. The representation is the artist. “Humphries is relentlessly consistent in his hatreds: women free is a caricature, is a threat. Women must be domesticated and sexually submissive.” This careless misreading is done from the wrong end of the comic impression; it is precisely that received image of woman Dame Edna is mocking, that they, in that macho Australian world, could not be truly free.

In the United States, a country known for small pockets of irony rather than lashings of it, Humphries also found himself in hot water, though it hardly seemed to scald him. The February 2003 issue of Vanity Fair caused much rage. It featured Dame Edna’s views in a satirical column about a reader’s concern about the pressures of learning Spanish. “Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk? The help? Your leaf blower?” Again, we see rigid hypocrisy exposed in the outrage. To satirise society’s divides, the exploitation, and the manipulation, is to invite trouble.

The whole episode certainly puzzled, and depressed, the Pulitzer Prize winner Liz Balmaseda, writing in Hispanic (Mar 2003). “Let’s get this straight (trying to be funny Liz?): It takes one loopy character in ill-fitting garb to rally us into militancy?” Well, yes. She goes on to write in blessed tones about the constructive role played by the Australian performer. “In a way, I’d say God bless Dame Edna. In one swoop, she exposed the worst of the ‘mainstream’ media AND the misguided militancy of its targets.”

For all his exploits, Humphries was also considered too much for the organisers of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2019. (As a measure of cravenness, the organisers have refused to officially mark the passing of a figure that singularly did so much to establish and sustain the event.) The festival’s most prestigious offering, since 2000 named the Barry Award, was scrubbed of the illustrious name. It became, instead, the far more anodyne Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award.

The reason? Remarks made about the transgender movement. “How many different kinds of lavatory can you have?” Humphries rhetorically asked The Spectator in a 2018 interview. “And it’s pretty evil when it’s preached to children by crazy teachers.”

Having stated that transgenderism was “a fashion”, his detractors proceeded to accuse him of not going along with it. That Australian comedian of sorts, Hannah Gadsby, who won the Barry Award in 2017, suggested he loved “those who hold power, hates vulnerable minorities and has completely lost the ability to read the room. That’s not a comedian, that’s an irrelevant, inhumane dick biscuit of the highest order.”

Thankfully, the persistently courageous Miriam Margolyes took issue with the Festival organisers’ decision to cancel the protean dick biscuit, accurately pointing out that he was not “properly appreciated by Australia”, let alone the crony-cringing set at the MICF. “He’d had more talent in his little finger than they did in their whole bodies, all of them.”

The weak response from festival director, Susan Provan, was a model answer from managerial followers of the cancel-culture credo. “Some years ago, the award for most outstanding show was re-named to reinforce the equality and diversity that our Festival community has always championed.” The prerogative of the inclusive is always to exclude.

Ironically enough, the various characters of Humphries are meant to read the room in precisely the way that Gadsby misunderstands. It was a reading that came with an acid bath, the just having to suffer with the unjust. It should never be forgotten that Humphries, in departing, left the landscape a glorious, often misunderstood anarchist of culture.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

Time Mustn’t Be Allowed to Run out on Julian Assange

Review of Guilty of Journalism by Kevin Gosztola

by Kim Petersen / April 22nd, 2023

Despite whatever charges Julian Assange may be accused of, it is well known that the WikiLeaks publisher was targeted for exposing the war crimes of the US government. In an upside-down Bizarro World, the screws are being ever so gradually tightened on Assange by the war criminals and their criminal accomplices. It is, in fact, a slow-motion assassination being played out before the open and closed eyes of the world.

— “The Slow-motion Assassination of Julian Assange“

The above was written in 2020. Little has changed. In the foreword to Guilty of Journalism by Kevin Gosztola, American journalist Abby Martin writes, “Assange was only publishing the leaks. He never committed any crime. He only published evidence of the crimes.” (p xiii)

Assange’s “crime” is exposing the crimes of the US; especially revelatory was the Collateral Murder video where US troops in an Apache helicopter gleefully gunned dead 12 civilians on a street in New Baghdad. The murderers remain scot-free. For exposing war crimes, Assange and Chelsea Manning have been punished.

Kevin Gosztola who has followed much of the judicial proceedings against Manning and Assange presents his knowledge of the cases, in particular that of Assange, in Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case against Julian Assange (Seven Stories Press, 2023).

What is readily apparent is that the releases by WikiLeaks triggered a tsunamic vendetta. This has resulted in a brazen miscarriage of justice manipulated by a red-faced United States with the connivance of allied nation states such as Australia; Sweden; Britain; after a change of presidents, Ecuador; and the bystander nations of the world.

The US seeks to try Assange under the Espionage Act, a relic from WWI designed to control the release of information (see chapter 4). Yet, such a prosecution of Assange is hampered by the US Constitution, as the First Amendment protects the freedom of the press. Prosecuting a publisher/journalist would entail grave implications for journalism and publishing in the US.

The book’s title, Guilty of Journalism, is apt. It speaks to the legal perturbations to eliminate a perceived threat to the US’s full-spectrum hegemony. For a hegemon to operate unhindered, it must control the medium and its messages. Thus, the US asserts that Assange is not a journalist, this despite Assange being recognized as a journalist by the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists, being a member of the International Federation of Journalists, being published in several media around the world, and having been awarded several prizes for his journalism. It is akin to blithely stating someone is not a lawyer despite having a law degree from a recognized law school, having passed the bar exam, having worked as a lawyer for several years, and having been celebrated for her accomplishments as a lawyer. It is patently a non sequitur to reject evidence purely on someone’s say-so.

The US government prefers to keep its sordid business in some dark corner under wraps. Assange and WikiLeaks, however, cast a light on the inner workings of governments. Many people hold a principle that states the people have a right to know what their governments are doing in their name.

The US persists in its claim that Assange is not a journalist. He is depicted variously as an anarchist or a hacker posing as a journalist. Ponder this: if a teacher hacks computer systems at home in the evening, is she no longer a teacher? Nonetheless, WikiLeaks publishes journalism and the monopoly media (Gosztola uses the term “prestige media” in his book) has even indulged in publication of the WikiLeaks‘s releases.

The US also holds that Assange is guilty of “aiding the enemy” and asserts that the information published by WikiLeaks would be used by enemies such as Al Qaeda.

Gosztola quotes Assange’s civilian defense attorney David Coombs: “No case has ever been prosecuted under this type of theory, that an individual by nature of giving information to a journalistic organization would then be subject to [aiding the enemy].” (p 51)

There seems to be a causal link missing in the chain of the US legal strategy: if the US personnel had not been committing undeniable war crimes, then there would have been no story to be published about it in the media. No war crimes, no story, then no need to fear alleged succor being provided to an enemy. A question then: who is primarily culpable in this chain of events?

Harvard professor Yochai Benkler found that there was no evidence “that any enemy had, in fact, used WikiLeaks.” (p 57) Nonetheless, Gosztola noted that judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly had eased the burden of proof for prosecutors with her ruling that they need not show that information could potentially damage the US. (p 66)

Gosztola writes, “It does not matter who received the information. It does not matter if damage occurred as a result of the disclosure or publication of the information. It is all the same to DOJ prosecutors.” (p 79)

WikiLeaks was branded a “non-state hostile intelligence service” by then director of the Central Intelligence Agency Mike Pompeo. (p 87) One ought to consider the nature of the organization previously headed by Pompeo vis-à-vis WikiLeaks. Douglas Valentine wrote a book that lays out what the CIA is: The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World. Sounds an awful lot like the pot calling the kettle black; except WikiLeaks is no kettle. “WikiLeaks has a perfect in document authentication and resistance to all censorship attempts.”

Besides, some might consider any claims by a character such as Pompeo to be rich given that he once chuckled: “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole.”

A question: “Who to Believe: The CIA and Corporate Media or WikiLeaks?”

The criminality of the US government is such that its intelligence services considered assassinating Assange; spied on him while in asylum; relied on the testimony of a sociopath — Sigudur Ingi Thordarson, known for engaging in sex with underage boys — to fraudulently smear Assange; subpoenaed witnesses to appear before the fishing expeditions of a grand jury (for which Chelsea Manning was again imprisoned and fined daily for refusing to testify). They even deprived Assange of his razor so that when he was hauled out of the Ecuadorian embassy he appeared with an unkempt beard. (p 107)

If only stolen razors were the extent of the criminality of the US authorities, but Gosztola brings to light additional crimes in chapter 9: “Retaliation for Exposing Torture, Rendition, and War Crimes.” Guilty of Journalism seamlessly segues into the next chapter detailing what happens to those brave souls who expose the rampant criminality of the state. The US prison system, to be generous, is sorely lacking in decency for the humanity, health, and sanity of those housed within its walls.

Gosztola examines the behavior of the moneyed media and its lies of omission and commission. Assange and WikiLeaks were heavily criticized for putting lives at risk, but: “Notably, WikiLeaks never called attention to any names in the war logs, but prestige media did so, as they helped the US government stir panic, which distracted from the contents of the historical records.” (p 206)

Media allegations lacked evidence, and later the entire fiasco would morph into the prestige media’s discredited Russiagate conspiracy. (chapter 13)

Currently, Assange finds himself still incarcerated in the maximum security Belmarsh Prison in southeast London awaiting the outcome of an appeal against extradition to the US, where the deck will be stacked against him should he be sent there. In the US, Assange will be charged under the Espionage Act which, in actuality, is a contrived criminal indictment for exposing criminal acts.

Assange is one man, one man who has had the might of the American government and the supporting machinery of several nation states, who feel aggrieved and antagonized by the media exposures in WikiLeaks, arrayed against him. Assange is not alone. He is beloved by family and friends; he is backed by colleagues in WikiLeaks; he is vital to the readers of WikiLeaks missives; and he is supported by many independent media, attested to by Guilty of Journalism.

The irony and perversity of the vicious web in which Assange is entangled is laid bare in Guilty of Journalism. People who care about access to information, who want their governments to honor their constitutions and operate transparently, and who care about justice ought to read Guilty of Journalism, become further informed, and add their voices to justice for Julian Assange and to all the others who have sacrificed themselves to bring to light the corruption and crimes of governmental nexuses and the complicit prestige media.FacebookTwitterReddiEmail

Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Read other articles by Kim.