Noted business expert explains what America is teaching us about the willful ignorance of a failed state


Umair Haque, Dc Report @Rawstory
November 02, 2021

Alabama AG vows to revive law protecting Confederate monuments after it's struck down by judge
Confederate flag supporters rally in Alabama (screenshot/Twitter)

It's a peculiar pattern of history. Like the axis around which a cycle of ruin spins. Societies — even civilizations — don't see their own collapses coming. And not seeing them coming, they can hardly take steps to avert them. They're left like deer in the headlights. And you know what happens next. If anything, curiously, societies tend to lean into their collapses.

So why don't societies see their own collapses coming? Why do they accelerate and intensify them? It's an especially relevant question, because, well, look around. Things aren't exactly going too well for our civilization. We're threatened by everything from global warming to ecological implosion to mass extinction to the pandemics and poverty and fascisms they're already breeding.

If I think about it, four reasons jump out at me. In this little essay, I'll use the examples of everyone's favorite collapsing societies, America and Britain, to illustrate them.

The first reason's simple: entrenched elites want to preserve the status quo. Think about America. The average American's life is in freefall. Every single social indicator imaginable — from longevity to trust to happiness to income — is either flatlining or plummeting. Every single one. As a result, it's not too hard to see why Americans are turning to hatred, superstition, fanaticism and other assorted forms of stupidity. They're literally losing their minds as their lives fall apart.

And yet the really curious thing is that that's been going on for decades now — and the whole while, America's ruling classes have pretended that everything's OK. Which classes are those? Well, there are the political class, the intellectual class and the capitalist class. None of these three classes can even brook the idea that America is in serious, deep trouble, which adds up to a collapsing society.

Hence, American pundits will say, on cue, every quarter, that the "economy's roaring" and that "confidence is rising" and all the other flavors of canned doublespeak they're renowned for. Meanwhile, life keeps on falling apart.

The Soviet Union's laughing in its grave, because it's seen all this before. Why do entrenched elites want to preserve the status quo? You're right to say that it preserves their power. But in a subtler way than I think is often understood. To say that a society is collapsing would be for elites to admit they mismanaged them. They'd have to admit they were badly, badly wrong — ideologically, theoretically, paradigmatically. Who wants to do that? And that, of course, would probably cost them. Fancy sinecures and "consulting" contracts and high office and all the rest of it.

So entrenched elites go on pretending nothing's wrong — even in societies like America, where social collapse has reached breathtaking proportions. Kids shoot each other in schools, people just…die…because they can't afford insulin which is profiteered on…the average American lives and dies in debt, with little to no real freedoms or choices. And elites just whistle, shrug and walk away.

I have to give a special mention to intellectual elites. America's in a funny place. It thinks of itself as having the finest thinkers in the world — and yet practically none of these fine thinkers can see that America's collapsing, much less explain why, much less offer many ideas to stave it off. Intellectual elites, too, are complicit in the game of self-preservation, perhaps most of all so — because a collapsing society means their ideologies and theories were all badly wrong, too. Just ask the Soviets.

That brings me to the next reason that societies don't foresee their own collapses. If elites want to preserve the status quo, then why don't people…do something about those elites? Because elites in collapsing societies are entrenched. That means they're dug tight into impregnable bunkers — and nobody can force them out and regain control of a society's resources and decisions.

Corruption Run Rampant

Why can't elites be forced out? How do they end up entrenched? Well, again, take a hard look at America. It has probably the most openly corrupt set of elites since the Soviet Union. In Europe, if politicians took "donations" the way American politicians do, it'd be a scandal every hour for decades. But in America, it's just business as usual. The pervasive corruption of elites is another grand theme in collapsing societies. Who cares if Rome falls — as long as you've got your villa and your servants? That seems to be the feeling among elites when it comes to American collapse, too. Corruption saps incentives for elites to do anything but aggressively pursue self-preservation in the most antisocial and corrosive ways imaginable.

And yet it's not just corruption that entrenches elites. That's necessary, but not sufficient. A deeper force is at play: the disempowerment of the demos, as in, the democratic unit that is "the people."

Think about that mouthful this way. The average American is completely disenchanted with their elites. Nobody much likes Biden or Pelosi or McConnell or any of the rest of them. But the problem is that Americans don't have the time or energy or spirit or willpower to do anything about their failed elites. The American demos has little to no power over its elites.

Why not? Because they're too busy just trying to survive. Just trying to make it through another day in America is a wearying affair. Life is an endless game of brutal competition, right down to death. Lose that job? Whoops, there goes everything, from health care to a home. So Americans, caught in the trap of capitalism, have to work every single day, to the bone, just to make ends meet. And even then, they can't. Remember, the average American dies in debt — "credit card debt," "medical debt," "mortgage debt" and so on.

Trapped in Debt

To a good economist, societies where the average person dies in debt are also societies incapable of forcing entrenched elites out — at least short of a grand revolution. That's the trap Americans are in. Elites have made sure they're indebted…to elites…so Americans, worn out, broken, defeated, having to fight each other every day, over and over again…to pay off those debts…don't have the energy or power left to dislodge those very entrenched elites.

Why don't Americans protest? At least the way, say, the French famously do? It's not just a cultural thing, though any proper Frenchman or woman is practically born waving a placard and shouting non! It's also, more to the point, a matter of political economy: the French have time and energy left over to protest, like Europe and Canada generally do. From an American point of view, those societies hardly work at all — Americans work twice as long and receive less in return. No wonder Americans are indebted — and don't have the energy left over to remove their entrenched yet failed elites from power.


If you're working 80 hours a week at some crap job — like many Americans are — what time or energy do you really have left over for serious reflection about your society? Protesting? Giving "voice," as political scientists, call it, to your discontents? Who's going to organize and coordinate and fund all that, anyway? Maybe you see the problem. America's ended up a democracy in name only, one without a demos exerting any real power over entrenched, failed elites.

Result? The grim, disheartening choice between Biden and Trump.

And yet there's an even starker, darker path to collapse. Often, there is someone who sees a society's in trouble, serious trouble, even beginning to collapse. The demagogue. The demagogue sees that a society's not doing well, that things are beginning to break and crumble and fall apart. But he or she then scapegoats the most powerless groups in society for those problems — instead of fixing them. The obvious result is that the problems afflicting a society only get worse, while people are incited to hate, and so the vicious cycle of collapse only accelerates, usually hard and fast. Societies like this lean into their collapse — baffling and bewildering those around them, usually, too.

Britain Turns on Europe

It's modern-day Britain that exemplifies this weird, sinister path to social collapse best. Britain was beset by problems after the financial crisis of the 2000s. But those problems came from a bungled bank bailout, which simply shifted costs to the public balance sheet, and led to a decade of austerity. In this vacuum, demagoguery arose — an entire generation of British leaders blamed Europe for Britain's woes. Europe had nothing — nothing whatsoever — to do with British austerity, which led to falling living standards. And yet this class of demagogues — expertly scapegoated Europe, to the point that you'd turn on the BBC, and see someone called an "economist" or "analyst," with no credentials whatsoever, just spouting folly, lies and hate…every day.

The catastrophic result was Brexit. And the consequences of Brexit, today, are as funny and absurd as they are shocking. Brits can't get food — they see cardboard cutouts of food at supermarkets. The country's running out of beer. Raw sewage is floating down waterways because the chemicals to treat it can't be found. All that stuff came from Europe. And now it doesn't come from anywhere.

Meanwhile, nobody in Britain, at least in a position of power, is allowed to say the word "Brexit." It's Voldemort, at idiot Hogwarts. Even the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, won't say the obvious, which is that Brits can't get food or fuel or, shortly, medicine, because it all used to come from Europe, and Britain is still busy picking fights with Europe, instead of trying to figure out how to supply itself with basic goods.

Meanwhile, Europe's baffled — and at this point, infuriated — with Britain. It has little appetite left to be scapegoated. Give Europe some credit — it took Britain's insults for five years, with grace and kindness, just out of friendship. Shortly, though, Europe's going to do things like stop supplying Britain with power and gas, because Britain keeps on provoking it, demonizing it, attacking it. And then the real chaos will begin.

In this form of social collapse — let's call it the Brexit Pattern — nobody sees collapse coming because they're too busy cheering it on. The demagogue's lies appeal to people because their lives really are hurting — and it's always easiest to blame it on a scapegoat. Hence, Britain became literally a "hostile" country to foreigners — as its own government puts it — and especially to Europeans.

But attacking and insulting and provoking Europeans didn't fix Britain's problems. It only created far, far bigger ones — ones that have led Britain squarely to the point of collapse. What else do you call a society where people are given…cardboard cutouts of food…raw sewage is floating down rivers…where the lights are likely going to go off in the winter…while the people who created this mess are riding higher in the polls than ever…because, still, idiotically, astonishingly, it's all someone else's fault? Britain's still so busy blaming Europe that it can't see it's collapsing because it began blaming Europe from the start.

It's hard to unpack and unpick the layers of stupidity and irony therein, so many abound.

Five Decades of Decline

America took about half a century to collapse. Incomes began stagnating in the '70s, social mobility began to stall in the '80s, living standards began to flatline in the '90s, by the end of the '00s, America's famed middle class was a minority and an underclass. That was the point at which debt, drugs and despair began to ravage (even white) America in earnest. That's a pretty standard form of social collapse — it took the Soviet Union about three decades of stagnation and falling living standards to come undone.

Britain, though, is something closer to Weimar Germany. It took Weimar Germany a decade, maybe 15 years, depending on how you count it, to really implode into Nazi Germany. Britain's much closer to that pattern, that form of collapse. Just 20 years ago, it was the envy of the world, with one of the world's highest living standards, finest healthcare system, most renowned public broadcaster. Today? All that's in tatters, precisely because Britain leaned into collapse even harder than America did.

In that respect, Britain and America teach us different lessons about how societies collapse. America teaches us that time, neglect, ignorance and poverty can slowly crumble the foundations of even the mightiest empires until they totter and fall. Britain teaches us an even darker lesson: Give a society a crisis, a demagogue and a scapegoat — and it takes just a decade or two of stupidity and anger to turn into hate and venom to the point of total and utter self-destruction.

America teaches us that small amounts of the social poisons of greed and indifference and inequality can add up to a very big collapse, in the end, given time. But Britain teaches us that societies can implode with lightning quickness, too; that even wise and gentle people like the British are not immune to the Big Lies of hate and nationalism and intolerance and unkindness, that anyone can be seduced by a demagogue offering a nation growing poorer a convenient scapegoat for its ills.

Does that get us a little closer to understanding why societies don't see their own collapses coming? Perhaps it does — you'll have to tell me. In the end, the answer may be as simple as this. Societies don't see their own collapses coming because they grow weak, blind, dull, defeated in the spirit, corroded in the heart, hubristic in the mind. They've been warned, time and again, that it can't happen here — and left too weary to fight it much, anyways. That's America's case. But that's the kind case. Even more revealing, some societies, like Nazi Germany, end up leaning aggressively into their own collapse, cheering it all on in a frenzy, attacking every scapegoat in sight, provoking newly made enemies, instead of fixing their own problems. A weird Orwellian freedom-is-slavery perversion of reality takes place. That's Britain's case right about now.

Which one, I wonder, will hit which nation next?

Umair Haque is a London-based consultant. He is director of Havas Media Lab, founder of Bubblegeneration and frequent tweeter and contributor to the online Harvard Business Review. Haque's initial training was in neuroscience. He studied at McGill University in Canada, went on to do an MBA at London Business School and is the author of The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business (2011).

PAKISTAN

Harassing journalists

DAWN
Editorial 

Published May 24, 2023

THE state has cast a wide dragnet to haul up all those allegedly involved in the May 9 rioting, while also using the opportunity to weaken the PTI. However, there can be no excuse for the hundreds of journalists that have been hounded by police just for carrying out their professional duties on the day of the mayhem.

Sadly, the methods are straight out of the colonial playbook; the state has used these tactics for decades to teach all those who have come in its way a lesson. According to the Lahore Press Club president, around 250 journalists and other media workers have complained of police harassment post-May 9.

It is likely that the media personnel were identified through geo-fencing when they were in the field covering the protests in key areas of Lahore after Imran Khan’s arrest. Particularly disturbing is the fact that family members of some media workers have also been picked up. The Lahore High Court has been petitioned to stop this flagrant abuse of authority, while the caretaker Punjab administration has also formed a committee to look into the matter.

While the wholesale crackdown on all PTI sympathisers cannot be condoned, the targeting of journalists who were simply doing their jobs has no justification whatsoever. The federal energy minister has described the ongoing actions as the “process of filtering the criminals from the onlookers”.

This cannot be used as an excuse to harass journalists and media workers. As it is, the media fraternity faces a difficult working environment in Pakistan, and journalists often put their lives on the line in the course of discharging their duties.

Using the anti-PTI crackdown as a cover to threaten journalists is not to be tolerated, and the Punjab government must stop this campaign of fear. The administration must also reveal the whereabouts of anchorperson Imran Riaz Khan, who has been missing for the last two weeks.

RSF, Amnesty ask Pakistan to find pro-Khan anchor Imran Riaz

The prominent journalist and supporter of ex-PM Imran Khan was detained by the Pakistani police, but the authorities then failed to present him in court.

Haroon Janjua in Islamabad | Darko Janjevic
DW

May 23, 2023

Imran Riaz, a well-known TV anchor and YouTuber, was among thousands of Imran Khan supporters who were detained following the former premier's arrest and violent protests in Pakistan earlier this month. The journalist was reportedly taken into custody from the airport at the eastern city of Sialkot on May 11 on suspicion of inciting violence. He was due to appear before court in Lahore this Monday.

But then, the story took an an usual turn — authorities failed to present Riaz during the hearing, and Punjab police chief Usman Anwar told the court he was "clueless" about his whereabouts.

The chief justice of the Lahore High Court warned the authorities that "no one will be spared if anything happened" to the 47-year-old reporter.

Riaz's wife Arbab Imran told DW she is worried for her husband's safety.

"The arrest of my husband is deeply troubling. He raised voices for the vulnerable people and for the truth. My four children are concerned about him and we don't know the whereabouts of him. He was taken off air many times and I demand from authorities for his immediate release," she said.

Imran Khan granted bail and protection in Pakistan  02:01

 

RSF points to Pakistan's military intelligence

Pakistan is going through a deep political crisis marked by a power struggle between Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and the current government led by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, with the military and the judiciary also being affected. Khan has recently stepped up his attacks on the military, accusing it of working against him. Riaz is a wellknown media figure among Khan's supporters.

On Tuesday, Reporters Without Border (RSF) representative Daniel Bastard said it was "clearly Pakistan's military intelligence agencies that abducted Imran Riaz," after the Punjabi inspector spoke of unspecified "agencies" during the court hearing.

"According to confidential diplomatic sources consulted by RSF, the government's silence about the TV anchor's fate suggests that he may have fared badly since his abduction and may even have died in detention," the watchdog organization said.

Separately, Amnesty International called for Riaz's immediate recovery.

"On 22 May, the police told the Lahore High Court that there is no trace of him in any police department in the province."

The organization said the events amount to "an enforced disappearance" under international law.

"Punishing dissenting voices using enforced disappearance has been a worrying trend in Pakistan for many years and must be ended," Amnesty said.
Riaz missing, Sharif killed in exile

Riaz's lawyer Azhar Siddique says that the arrest is a "blatant violation of freedom of expression."

Riaz has decried Imran Khan's ouster from power in April last year, linking it to "regime change" and amplifying Khan's claims that the military was involved in ending his government. The anchor was already arrested twice, in July 2022 and in February 2023. The latter saw Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency suspect him of hate speech and criticism of the military.

Exclusive: Imran Khan speaks to DW from his besieged home

07:46

The disappearance of Riaz prompted some in Pakistan to draw parallels with the killing of veteran reporter Arshad Sharif last October. Sharif was well-known for criticizing the Pakistani military and was forced to flee Pakistan in August 2022 to avoid arrest. He was killed in Kenya in what a team of Pakistani investigators described to be a "targeted assassination." The background of the murder remains unclear.
Bad optics for freedom of speech?

With the country on edge, a disappearance of a prominent journalist is sure to chill other reporters in the country. Journalist Javeria Siddique, the widow of late Sharif, told DW that Riaz's arrest was "really alarming and a bad optic for freedom of speech in Pakistan."

"The government is arresting journalists over their stories and being vocal," she said, pointing to her husband's killing in Kenya. "Then we have seen the same pattern for Imran Riaz," she added.

"I am requesting from the authorities that they should immediately and unconditionally release the journalist Imran Riaz Khan. Criticizing the ruling elite of Pakistan is not something which falls in hate speech," Siddique added.

Legal expert Osama Malik notes that the freedom of information and the freedom of expression are guaranteed by the Pakistani constitution.

"Imran Riaz's brand of journalism may not be palatable to everyone, but that is certainly not a reason for the state to spirit him away," he told DW. "It is highly condemnable that despite the province's highest court asking about his whereabouts, the law enforcement agencies are unable or unwilling to present Imran Riaz in court or divulge his location."

Edited by: Shamil Shams

‘Orwellian doublespeak’: Journalists, rights activists call out Marriyum Aurangzeb for remarks on Imran Riaz’s disappearance

Following backlash, the minister claims she did not justify enforced disappearances and had categorically condemned the issue of missing persons.

Dawn.com 

Published May 23, 2023 

Journalists and human rights activists have strongly criticised Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb’s comments regarding the case of anchorperson Imran Riaz Khan, who has been missing for more than a week after his arrest.

Riaz was among those apprehended in the wake of the protests that erupted following the arrest of PTI Chairman Imran Khan. Later, his lawyer had told Dawn.com that a writ petition was filed on May 12 over the anchorperson’s arrest and the Lahore High Court had directed the attorney general to present the anchor before the court the same day. But, after its orders were not followed, Sialkot police were given a 48-hour deadline to recover Riaz.

A day ago, Punjab Inspector General Dr Usman Anwar revealed there was no trace of the journalist at any police department across the country.

Separately, journalist Secunder Kermani, a Channel4 News foreign correspondent, had shared a video of an exchange with the information minister about the missing anchorperson.




He questioned Aurangzeb about journalists going missing and being detained, adding that these were the same issues that the PML-N had raised as matters of concern when in opposition during the previous PTI government.

In response, Aurangzeb asked Kermani to name even a single journalist who was missing. When Kermani mentioned Riaz, the minister responded, “Imran Riaz is a political party spokesperson now. You really have to draw [a] distinction.”

She further said, “You have to differentiate between journalists and the journalists who have joined political parties. Once they have joined political parties, they are inciting violence, they are spokespersons of that political parties.”

In a brief back and forth between the two, Aurangzeb mentioned former prime minister Imran being termed a “media predator” during his tenure and asserted that press freedom in Pakistan had improved by “seven points” during the past year.

When asked again about the issue of a person being missing despite his political leanings, she said she condemned anyone being missing, whether it was herself or Riaz.

Aurangzeb’s response elicited severe criticism from several journalists and rights activists, who reminded the minister that a person’s disappearance was an issue of basic human rights irrespective of what political party they favoured.

Lawyer and social activist Jibran Nasir said that Aurangzeb believed Riaz “should be seen as a supporter of PTI and hence considered a sub-human who deserves the treatment being meted out to them.

“Now just imagine the plight of ordinary citizens suffering military trials,” he added.







Pakistan Initiative at Atlantic Council’s South Asia Centre Director Uzair Younus said Riaz’s status as a journalist or not should not matter.

He said that Riaz had fundamental constitutional rights granted to him on account of his Pakistani citizenship.

“Stop violating his rights and those of countless others. These disappearances are heinous!” he tweeted.







Senior anchorperson Maria Memon pointed out the lack of an “honest answer”.







Journalist Roohan Ahmed tweeted: “It doesn’t matter if Imran Riaz Khan is a journalist or a ‘propagandist’, as Information Minister Aurangzeb calls him. What matters is that a Pakistani citizen is missing and being denied the right to defend himself in the court of law.”







Journalist Mehreen Zahra Malik called the information minister’s response “Orwellian doublespeak”, adding that it was “unacceptable” and that the government must answer for the missing anchor’s whereabouts.







Senior journalist Raza Ahmad Rumi commented that Riaz’s status as a journalist or party activist did not matter and that his being denied due process was a violation of the law.







Researcher Abdul Basit analysed much the same, saying that “under no circumstances you can arrest a person extrajudicially and refuse to produce him before a court of law. This is an affront against democracy and the rule of law.”







Journalist Murtaza Solangi, while expressing his differences with Riaz, also said: “A human being, a Pakistani citizen is missing and that is and should be a cause of concern. Regardless of the circumstances of his disappearance, it is the job of the state to find him and tell the people about the circumstances of his disappearance. Period.”





Meanwhile, journalist Matiullah Jan — who was himself abducted in Islamabad in July 2020 — said it was a “disappointing response” from a politician and spokesperson of the government, adding that it was “shameful to justify a possible enforced disappearance on the basis of someone not being a journalist.”

His harsh rebuke prompted a reply from the information minister who said she had not justified enforced disappearances and had condemned them.

“I have categorically stated that if a person is missing, any person, whether that person is me or Imran Riaz, I condemn that,” she said.

Live Updates: Live Pakistan - DAWN.COM

APEC Is Not Kyoto

Todays Headlines.

Made In Canada APEC Climate Accord.

More Hot Air in Sydney Declaration.

And, Harper gets his wish.

So if Kyoto is a failure for Australia, Canada, and the United States they get to scuttle the whole deal with their Sydney Declaration on Climate Change

Which Harper can further use as evidence that Kyoto doesn't work. Abroad or at home. Canada will then set its own targets regardless of Kyoto. Which was his agenda all along. That and killing bill C-3o.

Note that the mutually agreed upon target date is the Tories target date of 2050.

Orwellian speak abounds in and around the APEC Anti-Kyoto statement. And that is all it is. An attempt to justify Canada's target date versus that of the rest of the G8 which has set more rapid targets.

"No one meeting, no one agreement is going to fix this issue," Howard said of human-caused climate change. "Kyoto didn't fix it. The Canadian prime minister made the comment about Kyoto that it was really an agreement that produced two groups of countries, those countries that didn't have any targets to meet, and those countries that have failed to meet the targets that were set."

But Harper said Howard was taking his comments out of context, and even messed up the punch line of his joke.

"The quip I think I said in a (previous international) leaders' meeting was that Kyoto divided the world into two groups: those that would have no targets and those that would reach no targets. It's, as I say, just a quip, but I think there's a fair amount of truth to it."

The Sidney Declaration is a self fulfilling prophecy for Harper and Howard.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says it premature to be demanding climate-change goals of other countries, but he hopes that the participants at this weekend's APEC conference can at least agree those goals must be set.

"We haven't reached the point where we can dictate targets to the rest of the world," the Prime Minister told a late afternoon press conference on Friday.

Mr. Harper pointed out that the reduction targets set out in the Kyoto Accord — targets that his government rejects as being too costly to the environment — were never approved by countries that produce two third's of the world's emissions. And he said he believes that a G8 meeting held last June in Berlin produced the most reasonable approach to cutting the production of the gases that have been linked to global warming.

"Canada, Japan and others have articulated a specific goal that we would like to see which is a reduction of emissions by half by the year 2050. Not everybody even in the G8 yet subscribes to that," said Mr. Harper.

The 1997 Kyoto treaty – aimed at halting the speed of global warming – treats developing countries differently. It puts the burden of mandatory emissions cuts squarely on the shoulders of wealthy countries.

Harper, Howard and U.S. President George W. Bush are critical of that deal, with Harper suggesting yesterday it offered developing countries an escape hatch.

"Let's remember . . . if we can get an international protocol, this is a big, big step. It will be the first time the world has done this. In the Kyoto protocol, nations representing two-thirds of emissions essentially opted out. So we have to do a better job next time."

But Graham Saul, of Climate Action Network Canada, said in a telephone interview from Ottawa that Harper's statement is "outrageous" and "a total misrepresentation" of Kyoto's premise of "common but differentiated responsibilities."

"Kyoto is based on the principle that the rich countries are disproportionately responsible for the problem and so bear disproportionately the responsibility for solving it, and poor countries like India, where 500 million people don't even have light bulbs in their homes, shouldn't be forced to accept binding targets."

Until a global deal is reached, Harper also told reporters Canada would do well to join a group like the Asia Pacific Partnership, or AP-6, a six-member group co-founded by the U.S. and Australia that opposes binding targets on governments. Rather, it endorses a voluntary approach to greenhouse gas cuts, leaving governments to establish their own best methods of reaching goals.

Environmentalists have dismissed the climate-change declaration signed Saturday by the leaders of 21 Pacific Rim countries, including Canada.

The deal, announced in Sydney by Australian Prime Minister John Howard, includes the intention to set aspirational — voluntary — emissions reductions targets, and other green initiatives.

"We agree to work to achieve a common understanding on a long-term aspirational global emissions reduction goal," said the Sydney Declaration, issued after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meeting.

Canada was given credit Saturday for helping the leaders set the targets. "We appreciate the efforts of Japan and Canada in proposing a long-term global goal," the declaration said.

Howard said that it "does transcend a number of international divisions. In particular I note that it is the first such gathering that has included both the United States and China in coming together regarding the aspirational goal."

Even a member of Howard’s cabinet had harsh words about aspirational targets in April. In a lecture at Monash University, Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said aspirational targets are “code for ‘a political stunt.’ An aspirational target is not a real target at all.”

This appears to be part of the increasingly popular attempt by resistant governments to SAY they are taking climate change seriously while doing nothing serious about it. Australia's "principles" on climate change were clear enough when it helped to create the anti-Kyoto Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate: it seemed largely a matter of making the world safe for unrestrained coal exports.

Now, we have the prospect of the more formal and influential APEC organization joining this campaign to set a "long-term aspirationial goal."

It's instructive in these circumstances to listen closely to what people are actually saying. A goal, traditionally, is something that you want to achieve. A "long-term aspirational goal," on the other hand, sounds very like something that you would like to put off, or perhaps merely enshrine in a declaration while continuing to undermine the single international agreement (Kyoto) that has real and measurable climate change "goals."

There has been real movement in the last year on this issue. U.S. President George Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Australia's Prime Minister Howard no longer try to deny the science of climate change.

But their new tactic - nodding enthusiastically to a worried electorate while continuing to block international action - is still just so much spin. Until the world's largest energy producers (including coal countries like the U.S. and Australia) stop talking "aspirations" and start committing to measurable targets, there is no reason to take their declarations as anything more than public relations in its most poverty stricken form.

And again we have Alberta/Canada writ into the Sidney declaration, with reference to intensity targets.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, host of the APEC summit, nevertheless says the leaders have agreed on three "important and very specific things."Firstly, the need for a long-term aspirational global emissions reduction goal. And that is enshrined in the Sydney Declaration," he said. "Secondly, the need for all nations, no matter what their stage of development, to contribute accordingly to their own capacities and their own circumstances to reducing greenhouse gases. Thirdly, we have agreed on specific APEC goals on energy intensity and forestry, and we've also agreed on the important role of clean coal technologies." "Energy intensity" is a measure of energy efficiency. The declaration said members should aim for a 25 percent reduction in energy intensity by the year 2030.

Ironically it is the Chinese who are demanding these three countries meet their Kyoto obligations as the basis for China coming into the second round of the Kyoto accord. Something that won't happen as long as Harper says we can't.

THE Prime Minister, John Howard, compromised on his Sydney climate change declaration to accommodate the tough stance of the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, supporting the United Nations and the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol includes binding targets for developed countries to cut emissions.

At the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum leaders' meeting on Saturday, shortly before the release of the declaration, Mr Hu bluntly told Mr Howard that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change "and its Kyoto Protocol" was the legal basis for any international co-operation on climate change.

He also told Mr Howard the framework and the Kyoto Protocol were "the most authoritative, universal and comprehensive international framework" for tackling climate change.

"Developed countries should face their historical responsibility and their high per-capita emissions," Mr Hu insisted, saying the countries should "strictly abide by their emission reduction targets set forth in the Kyoto Protocol". His remarks were circulated by Chinese officials after the APEC leaders' meeting and before the final Sydney declaration was released.

So it goes back to the old cyclical argument; China is not in, the United States and Australia haven't signed on yet, and Canada can't meet its targets, so Kyoto is a failure. But that is just an excuse, and one that won't last through the next election.

But the program adopted by the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit set precedents that the United States, Japan and Australia say are important as the world grapples with climate change. Chiefly, China, which if not already the biggest polluter will be soon, agreed to a goal that also applies to rich countries.

"This is the first occasion ever that China ... has agreed to any notion of targets at all for developing countries as well as developed countries," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told local television on Sunday. "That is, by the way, an enormous diplomatic breakthrough."

Although Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed to the climate-change pact, he argued that developing nations like China have a lesser role to play. In remarks to fellow leaders Saturday, Hu said rich countries have polluted for longer and thus must take the lead in cutting emissions and providing money and technology to help developing countries clean up.

"In tackling climate change, helping others is helping oneself," Hu said.

China, Indonesia and other poorer APEC members like Kyoto because it holds richer countries to this higher standard and exempts developing countries from emissions targets. Even though Kyoto supporters Canada, New Zealand and Japan have failed to meet their targets, experts say the agreement has had a positive effect.

"It's not simply whether any one particular country actually achieved its target or not, it's the overall impact of the protocol which has had an effect of bringing down emissions from what they would have been," said Graeme Pearson, who was the climate director of Australia's main scientific research body from 1992-2002.

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The US just quietly challenged China on something Beijing promised to go to war over
Alex Lockie


Jon Woo/Reuters

The US military recently called Taiwan a country, something that China routinely threatens to go to war over.

China thinks of Taiwan as a renegade province with a democratic government that's an existential threat to the Communist party.

No US president for decades has been so supportive of Taiwan, and the US and China now find themselves in uncharted territory.

President Donald Trump has engaged China in a trade war that has global markets holding their breath, but his administration recently challenged Beijing on an issue Chinese officials have promised to go to war over.

The US military's recent Indo-Pacific Strategy paper, published on June 1, goes further than perhaps any US document ever issued in potentially provoking China's rage over what it sees as the most sensitive issue.

Buried in the paper, which charts China's efforts to build up a military fortress in the South China Sea and use its growing naval might to coerce its neighbors, is a reference to Taiwan as a "country."

"As democracies in the Indo-Pacific, Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand, and Mongolia are reliable, capable, and natural partners of the United States. All four countries contribute to US missions around the world and are actively taking steps to uphold a free and open international order," the strategy reads.

China views Taiwan as a breakaway island province that has its own, democratic government. Beijing sees this as an existential threat and the factor most likely to upset the Communist Party's absolute hold on power in the mainland.

In July 2018, China threatened to blacklist airlines that referred to Taiwan as a country. US airlines fell in line, but the White House protested the strong-arm tactic as " Orwellian nonsense."

But now the US itself has clearly said it: Taiwan is a country, and the US will treat it as such.
"The Chinese military has no choice but to fight at all costs"

US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with senior military leaders at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 9, 2018.

 NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

In another unprecedented step, a high-ranking Taiwanese minister was allowed to meet with Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, in May. This move predictably enraged China.

At the Shangri La Dialogue, the top defense summit in Asia, Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe made clear the stakes of China's Taiwan problem.

"Any interference in the Taiwan question is doomed to failure. If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese military has no choice but to fight at all costs," Wei said, according to Channel Asia News.

Taiwan is "the hot-button issue" in US-China relations, John Hemmings, the director of the Asia Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society, told Business Insider.

China has always maintained that it would prefer to reunify with Taiwan peacefully but will do so by force if needed. Additionally, China's navy has increasingly patrolled the waters around the island and flown nuclear-capable bombers nearby.

But the US has also sailed warships through the narrow strait separating China and Taiwan and has gotten allies to pitch in.

The arms are already movingA US Marine Corps M1A1 Abrams tank from 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, during Arrow 2019 at the Pohjankangas Training Area near Niinisalo, Finland, May 12, 2019. US Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Scott Jenkins

The US's rhetorical escalation follows the Trump administration normalizing arms sales to Taiwan and the news that it will sell $2 billion in tanks, anti-tank weapons, and air defenses to the island.

According to Hemmings, these weapons have a clear purpose: To fight back against a Chinese invasion of the island.

Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Business Insider that the US had now entered "uncharted territory" by acknowledging Taiwan.

The US under Trump has been the most pro-Taiwan administration in decades, Hemmings said. Trump demonstrated this when he had a call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen before Trump even took office.

Women soldiers from an artillery unit during the live-fire Han Kuang military exercise, which simulates China's People's Liberation Army invading the island, in Pingtung, Taiwan, May 30, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

For years, China has slowly stepped up pressure on the US in areas like forcing companies to transfer technology, building up military sites on artificial islands in the South China Sea, and naval challenges.

Hemmings referenced a popular anecdote in China, where a frog is cooked by putting it in a pot of cold water and then slowly turning up the heat. The frog doesn't realize it's getting cooked until it's too late. China's gradual pressure campaign against the US has been compared to this practice.

With the US now quietly acknowledging Taiwan in a strategy document, it may have found its own small way to turn up the heat on Beijing.

Limbaugh’s Legacy: Normalizing Hate for Profit

BY ANTHONY DIMAGGIO

 FEBRUARY 19, 2021
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Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

Rush Limbaugh’s death represents a moment for reflection on the state of American politics. Limbaugh amassed a fortune of more than $600 million over 32 years in the talk radio business, in the process building up more than 15 million regular listeners. It was no exaggeration when CNN referred to him as a “pioneer of AM talk-radio.” He made possible the rise of propagandistic partisan media, demonstrating that this format could be incredibly profitable for news channels looking for low-budget programming filled by pundits who tell audiences what they want to hear, while strengthening their prior beliefs and values.

Reflecting on Limbaugh’s legacy, The New York Times described the “rightwing” “megastar” by his “slashing, divisive style of mockery and grievance,” which “reshaped American conservatism.” CNN remembered him as a “conservative media icon who for decades used his perch as the king of talk-radio to shape the politics of both the Republican Party and nation.” MSNBC reported that Limbaugh was a “powerful and controversial voice in American politics” who was known for pushing a “conservative slant.”

One might have plausibly characterized Limbaugh as a conservative in the 1990s and 2000s, despite his conspiratorial paranoia against the Bill Clinton administration, and his long history of sexist and racist rants. But for those following his career over the last decade, it should be clear that Limbaugh had crossed over from conservative to neofascist in his politics. The racist and conspiratorial “birther” nonsense Limbaugh trafficked in during the late 2000s and early 2010s, his reference to liberal activist Sandra Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute,” his labeling of feminists as “Feminazis,” and his incessant race-baiting by trafficking in anti-black stereotypes and rhetoric, all reinforced his profile as a rightwing ideologue who had long straddled the line between conservative and far-right reactionary. But during the Trump years and in the run-up to them, Limbaugh’s politics became noticeably more extreme, as the Republican Party itself moved further and further toward embracing neofascistic politics.

This piece is not devoted to the “greatest hits” of Rush Limbaugh cliches that have gotten so much attention among critics. Rather, I review the most extreme of Limbaugh’s comments in recent years that have consistently been swept under the rug in mainstream academic, journalistic, and Democratic discourse. The simple reason for why you probably haven’t heard most of these statements is because they reveal Limbaugh’s politics to be neofascistic, and referring to a powerful pundit like Limbaugh in those terms simply will not do in polite society. In a country that has long convinced itself, in Sinclair Lewis’s famous words, that “It Can’t Happen Here,” American political culture simply won’t allow for the possibility that the U.S. has become neofascistic in its politics.

To be clear, when I talk about “neofascism,” I’m referring to a school of thought established by social scientists and journalists recognizing that, while the exact features of classical Italian and German fascism are not going to repeat themselves in future settings, we may observe enough of an overlap between the features of classical fascist regimes and current political contexts to speak of an updated, contemporary version of (neo)fascistic politics. More specifically, I am referring to a constellation of traits that relate to neofascistic politics, including the embrace of white supremacy, the rampant trafficking in conspiratorialism fueled by the cult of personality of a demagogic leader, support for paramilitarism and the romanticization of eliminationist rhetoric and violence against alleged enemies of The Leader, efforts to idealize and impose one-party rule, and Orwellian efforts to gaslight political critics by inverting reality and trafficking in blatant propaganda. I explore each of these traits, related to Limbaugh, below.

White Supremacy

Limbaugh’s bigotry never fit the conventional mold of white supremacists donning Klan robes or goosestepping Nazis shouting “Sieg Heil” to The Fuhrer. Modern white supremacy is much more subtle than that; its advocates have spent years – decades really – mainstreaming their hate rhetoric to a popular audience, while denying that they are trafficking in neofascistic themes. Limbaugh pioneered this form of white supremacist hate, although the primary target wasn’t black Americans, but Muslims and undocumented immigrants.

Limbaugh’s Islamophobia was unrelenting. He referred to Muslims in blanket negative terms, including:

1) The position that Muslims are unintelligent and incapable of serious intellectual accomplishments, reflected in Limbaugh’s comparison between “the number of Muslims who have been Nobel prize winners to the number of Jews who have been Nobel prize winners,” which he declared no “contest.” Limbaugh was clear that he believed “Muslim contributions to science and math are myths.”

2) The belief that Muslims are contemptuous of democracy, via Limbaugh’s claim that “there is not a Muslim nation democratic in the way we are anywhere in the world,” and by his dismissal of the 2011 democratic Egyptian uprising as a phony revolution pursued under the “guise” of democracy.

3) The contention that Muslims represent a fifth column in their alleged efforts to take over American politics, evidenced by his wild conspiratorial fearmongering – which was rejected as “dangerous” by Congressional Republican leadership – about the Muslim Brotherhood taking over the State Department through the “presence of Huma Abedin,” one of “Hillary Clinton’s top-level aides,” who Limbaugh described as “so close to the powers that be.” Abedin’s position concerned Limbaugh because, as he explained, “Human’s mother is best friends with the wife of the new Muslim Brotherhood President of Egypt.”

4) The myth that the public was in “panic” that “Obama is a Muslim,” with Limbaugh’s Islamophobia buttressed by references to the President as “Imam Hussein Obama,” and his claim that the President was a “defender of Islam,” and dead-set on “constantly denigrating Christians.” Limbaugh characterized Muslims as a foreign, exotic other, via his denigration of Obama for claiming Muslims are “a part of the fabric of America,” to which Limbaugh responded that he “didn’t know that.”

5) The position that Muslims represent a terrorist threat to the nation, via Limbaugh’s objection to distinguishing between “Islamic extremism” and “all of Muslims,” and his contention that “in a more sensible time,” “we did not say ‘German Nazis’ – we said ‘Germans’ or ‘Nazis’ and put the burden on non-Nazi Germans, rather than on ourselves, to separate themselves from the aggressors.”

Limbaugh’s white supremacy extended to his attacks on undocumented immigrants. Drawing on classic fascist themes out of Hitler’s Third Reich, Limbaugh referred to Latin American immigrants as an “invasive species,” comparing them to “mollusks,” while depicting them as an “invasion force” that “contributes to the overall deterioration of the culture of this society.” Limbaugh lamented that “we have now imported the third world,” and “they have not assimilated.” He warned that, due to undocumented immigrants, “we are at the forefront of a dissolution of a nation” – facing the “breakdown of organized society.” Perhaps not-so-subtly drawing parallels to Nazi-era propaganda and the purity of the nation and its racial and ethnic identity, Limbaugh warned about unauthorized immigration that “the objective is to dilute and eventually eliminate or erase what is known as the distinct or unique American culture…this is why people call this an invasion.” And Limbaugh recycled Nazi propaganda depicting Jews as an infection when he wonderedaloud about the “dangers of catching diseases when you sleep with illegal aliens.” When taken together, these comments reveal that Limbaugh was a shrewd operator. He was a bigot, consistently smuggling white supremacist themes into his programs, while being careful to avoid recognizing what he was doing, and counting on his listeners’ ignorance to obscure his recycling of Nazi-style white supremacist propaganda.

Conspiracy Theories and the Cult of Personality

Limbaugh made sure his political fortunes were inseparably linked to Donald Trump’s. This was abundantly clear in his conspiratorial rhetoric. He took as articles of faith the former President’s baseless “election fraud” propaganda, coupled with other wild conjecture about Democratic plots to take down Trump. Limbaugh speculated that the Democratic Party was attempting to infect Trump with Covid-19, that “radical leftists” and “the Democratic Party” had engaged in a “fraud” to “beat Trump” via “ballot harvesting” and other election scams in battleground states; that the Covid-19 lockdown represented an effort “to take down the U.S. economy” by imposing “globalism and world government”; that the official Covid-19 death counts were inflated due to “fake causes” listed “on death certificates” and the “staged overrunning of hospitals”; and that newly reported Covid-19 cases were “being reported in states that Trump needs to win,” implying that these cases were part of a coordinated Democratic effort to undermine the former President’s candidacy. None of these assertions were accurate. But fascists aren’t exactly known for embracing leaders who rationally engage in empirical evidence.

Conspiratorial Eliminationism

Closely overlapping with Limbaugh’s white supremacy was his conspiratorial eliminationism, which focused on black Americans and the Democratic Party. During the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, Limbaugh demonized people of color, stoking fear via his talk about “saving America from a race war that the Democrats are out there actively trying to promote…they want chaos, they want this constant us-versus-them aspect of daily life.” In contrast, Limbaugh claimed, Trump was “making it clear that he’s interested in people who are constructive, productive, generally happy. He’s not interested in parasites, the generally miserable.” The “parasites” reference was another example of Trump’s eliminationist rhetoric, echoing Nazi propaganda, but directed against the Republican Party’s political enemies. Limbaugh was equally vicious in his targeting of Black Lives Matter, which he classified as “Marxist” and a “full-fledged anti-American organization.” Limbaugh’s eliminationism also extended to LGBTQ activists, which he condemned for working with the “deep state” to impose a “30 years” long “cultural rot” in America. “What a cesspool the Democrat Party has turned the country into, what a cesspool American morality has become, what a cesspool the American left is turning our culture into,” Limbaugh lamented, as the country “descend[s]” into “a filthy gutter” politics dominated by “transgenders” and “gay people” fighting for, and winning equal rights. Such incendiary rhetoric was clearly intended to reinforce the belief in listeners’ minds that the U.S. was divided between two peoples – the hard working and the virtuous on the one hand, and the morally depraved and the rotten on the other. This language mirrored Nazi propaganda, which pitted notions of an impure minority against the lost purity and greatness of the nation’s past.

Eliminationism and Paramilitarism in Pursuit of One-Party Rule

Limbaugh was pining for civil war well before the events of January 6^th at the U.S. Capitol building. He spoke romantically about rightwing paramilitary-style activists, referencing Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter by name in mid-2020, wondering: “Well, where are all the people with guns to ‘push back’ against the left? They’re [the left] threatening to beat you upside the head and do whatever other kind of physical damage to you they can.” Limbaugh called on “armed right-wingers” to “push back against the Democrats, against the left, against the media…who’s got all the guns in this country? We’ve got all the guns,” but the right was “not pushing back. If there’s no pushback and if the pushback isn’t seen, then people are going to get dispirited and think nobody cares about this assault on the country.”

Limbaugh eventually got what he wanted, as neofascist Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6^thseeking to overturn certification of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. At the time, Limbaugh announced that “I actually think that we’re trending toward secession…there cannot be a peaceful coexistence” with “two completely different theories of life, theories of government” which he claimed divided American politics between left and right, and between Democrats and Republicans. Reinforcing this position, Limbaugh romanticized the Capitol insurrectionists, which he likened to Revolutionary War era rebels and patriots: “We’re supposed to be horrified by the protesters…There’s a lot of people out there calling for the end of violence…lot of conservatives, social media, who say that any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable regardless of the circumstances. I am glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, the actual tea party guys, the men at Lexington and Concord, didn’t feel that way.” Such statements made clear Limbaugh’s support for paramilitary efforts to impose one-party rule by overturning the 2020 election.

Gaslighting the Public on Neofascism

With such an egregious record of trafficking in, and embracing neofascistic political rhetoric, the rational observer should be asking a simple question: how did Limbaugh get away with it without being run out of the “conservative” media? One answer is that rightwing pundits have become expert gas lighters, smuggling in white supremacist and neofascistic rhetoric into their programs, while consistently stopping short of admitting this is what they’re doing. They rely on the staggering historical ignorance of their audiences, whom they correctly believe know little about classical fascism, and will not notice that they’re smuggling into programs extremist discourse, even as their followers come to embrace neofascistic political ideology.

A second way they get away with it is because the right projects their own neofascistic politics onto critics in Orwellian ways that seek to erase or invert reality. Limbaugh was only one of many pundits, including Mark Levin, Glenn Greenwald, and Tucker Carlson, who claim that white supremacy and paramilitarism on the right do not exist, or that they are being promoted instead by the Democrats and their supporters. Limbaugh echoed this position, maintainingthat “white supremacy or white privilege is a construct of today’s Democratic Party,” and that they “are such a small number – you could put them in a phone booth.” Such a position, of course, is absurd considering that the former President and rightwing media spent years normalizing white supremacist and neofascistic political ideology, to the point where one in ten Americans and a third of Republicans say it is acceptable to hold neo-Nazi views, a third of the country engages in some form of Holocaust-denial, and a third agree that the U.S. should “protect and preserve its White European heritage.”

The United States has entered a crisis moment, fueled by the ascendance of rightwing extremism. The realities of neofascistic politics are being swept under the rug because it simply “won’t do” to admit that large numbers of Americans have embraced the ideology of hate. There is little hope of moving forward and beating back this extremism until Americans are honest about how pervasive the problem has become. “Conservative” media venues have been empowering and enriching the merchants of hate for years. We should remember this toxic history when we reflect on the legacy of Rush Limbaugh and his impact on American values and discourse.

Anthony DiMaggio is Associate Professor of Political Science at Lehigh University. He earned his PhD from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and is the author of 9 books, including most recently: Political Power in America (SUNY Press, 2019), Rebellion in America (Routledge, 2020), and Unequal America (Routledge, 2021). He can be reached at: anthonydimaggio612@gmail.com. A digital copy of Rebellion in America can be read for free here.