Activists rally in Tacoma for Northwest salmon — next event is April 2 in Olympia

 BY NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF UPDATED MARCH 27, 2022 

 Watch protesters rally against the extinction of endangered salmon in Tacoma 

 Protesters carrying an inflatable orca march through downtown Tacoma to advocate for the removal of the Snake River dams and rally against the extinction of protected salmon in Tacoma, Wash. on Saturday, March 26, 2022. BY CHEYENNE BOONE 

Activists rallied Saturday in Tacoma on behalf of Northwest salmon runs, calling for removal of four dams on the lower Snake River, and seeking attention from state and federal elected officials. 

The “Stop Salmon Extinction — Free the Snake River” event started at the University of Washington Tacoma. Activists then marched to the local federal offices of U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer and U.S. Sens Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray.

 Featured speakers included Puyallup Tribal Council member Annette Bryan and Port of Tacoma Commissioner Kristin Ang. Following the downtown procession, rally participants shifted to Swan Creek Park on the city’s east side for a celebration and park cleanup effort, sponsored by the Puyallup Tribe and Tacoma Ocean Fest. 

Activists plan to follow Saturday’s event with an April 2 rally and “human orca mural” in Olympia. Activities start at 9 a.m. at the Olympia Ballroom, 116 Legion Way SE, Olympia.

To Defend Mistreating Uyghurs, China Turns to Fringe U.S. Source

March 23, 2022
William Echols


William Jones
Washington bureau chief, Executive Intelligence Review

“The allegation of so-called genocide in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is fabricated by some western media outlets and a total farce.”

Source: Twitter account of Deng Xijun, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to ASEAN, March 21, 2022

FALSE

On March 21, the U.S. State Department imposed visa restrictions on Chinese officials allegedly responsible for rights abuses, including the repression of “ethnic minority groups.”


In January 2021, the United States became the first country to officially describe China’s treatment of one such group – the Uyghur Muslim minority in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region – as genocide.

More than 1 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have allegedly been subjected to mass internment, forced sterilization and labor, torture, religious repression and other forms of cultural erasure.

On March 21, Deng Xijun, China’s ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian nations, shared a video clip from New China TV, the official YouTube Channel of China’s Xinhua News Agency. The clip includes excerpts of an interview with William Jones, Washington bureau chief for the news magazine Executive Intelligence Review, in which he disputes any genocide in Xinjiang.



“The allegation of so-called genocide in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is fabricated by some western media outlets and a total farce,” the New China TV video summarizes Jones as saying.

Jones repeats various bogus Beijing talking points, including:
People in Xinjiang are still speaking and being educated in their own language(s).
People in Xinjiang are still practicing their own religion.
More mosques are being built in Xinjiang than anywhere else in the world.
The population of Xinjiang is growing.

Polygraph.info and other fact checkers have previously debunked many of these claims.

Executive Intelligence Review was founded in 1974 by Lyndon LaRouche, a fringe U.S. political activist and failed presidential candidate often described as ‘cultlike,’ who died in 2019.

“‘Journalists’ associated with the LaRouche’s news outlet, the Executive Intelligence Review, are regularly invited to Chinese government press conferences in Washington and are quoted extensively in Chinese state media, where they often parrot government propaganda,” The Intelligencer, an offshoot of New York magazine, wrote in its February 2019 obituary of LaRouche.

“[T]here’s the dangerous possibility that Chinese officials and academics actually think the LaRouche movement is a serious Western group.”

Jones is also a nonresident fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, a Chinese think tank.



Many of Jones’ claims regarding Xinjiang are misleading, if not false. For example, while Uyghurs still communicate in their own language, China has tried to reduce its place in society.

READ ON

Miss La La Soared Through Europe as the Victorian Era’s Best-Known Aerialist

As a Black woman, the daring circus performer also confronted the racial politics of the times.

BY TOM WARD

The renowned Miss La La—born Olga Brown—wowed Victorian circus goers with her feats of strength and artistry. MICHELLE D'URBANO FOR ATLAS OBSCURA

For Women’s History Month, Atlas Obscura is living on the edge with Women of Extremes, our series dedicated to those who dared to defy expectations and explore the unknown.

THE DOMED ROOF IS HIGH above, its dark windows looking out onto the Parisian night. The audience, presumably, is seated far, far below, their necks craned upwards, their faces frozen in masks of awe. Suspended in between, the center of all attention, is a Black woman hanging from a rope by her teeth. Outfitted in white and gold, this iron-jawed woman, Miss La La, is the star of the Cirque Fernando. And this trick–which few others can perform–is her pièce de résistance.

Olga Brown was the subject of this 1879 painting, “Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando” by Edgar Degas. It is now in the collection of the National Gallery in London. EDGAR DEGAS, PUBLIC DOMAIN / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

So impressive was the feat that French impressionist Edgar Degas sought to capture the scene in his 1879 painting “Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando.” Art critic Roy McMullen reportedly hailed the oil painting, on display at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in Paris, as “Among the artist’s most striking and complex achievements.” But what of the woman herself? Who was the aerial artist at the center of the art?

As befits a renowned performer, Miss La La went by many names in her career. “La La was billed as La Venus Noire (Black Venus) in Paris and an African Queen in London,” writes Peta Tait, professor of theater and drama at La Trobe University, Australia, in her 2005 book Circus Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance. Her real name was Olga Brown, and she was likely born in Szczecin, Poland, in 1858. Records are sketchy about her heritage, but it is believed her father was Black and her mother white, beyond this little is known of Brown’s early days.

Brown’s introduction to the circus is thought to have occurred shortly after her ninth birthday. From then on, she literally learned the ropes, becoming adept at wire walking and the trapeze, as well as balancing acts and strong woman performances. She performed across Europe, including at the Folies Bergère in Paris, the Royal Aquarium in London, and the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester, at a time when circuses were considered, to borrow a phrase, the greatest show on earth. She was not the lone Black performer in these circuses—the circus had long been an inclusive place—but she was perhaps the best known. Among the feats she is remembered for performing: lifting a bronze cannon into the air with her teeth while hanging from a trapeze.

Brown had striking talent and undeniable stage presence, but the politics of the time—especially when it came to race—also shaped her career. Her African and European ancestry was regularly exploited to create mystique around her performance. Tait writes of a popular rumor in Victorian London that Miss La La was an African princess who lost her throne and sold into slavery when her chiefs decided to pledge their allegiance to Queen Victoria. “Admiration for La La suggests a complicated response to her identity… Perhaps La La was caught up in a European fascination of performances of an imaginary Africa,” writes Tait.

Little is remembered of Olga Brown’s life before or after her time in the circus, but as Miss La La—or one of her various other stage names—she was internationally known. PUBLIC DOMAIN / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

One 19th-century critic attempted to praise Brown for what she was—a woman performing extraordinary feats—but the reprehensible racial politics of the day are still very much evident in the words: “She does all that her muscular rivals have done and a great deal more. La La as we have hinted is a representative of a dark-skinned race but in the matter of strength she is prepared to assert her superiority of the boastful people who will have it that all virtues are associated with a light complexion.’”

For Marilyn R. Brown, professor of art and art history at the University of Colorado, Degas’ painting is all about race and the white male gaze. “In the representation of ‘race’ in Edgar Degas’s Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, the precarious positioning of the acrobat’s teeth gives extraordinary embodiment to a historical moment of white masculine anxiety,” the professor writes in the essay “‘Miss La La’s’ Teeth: Reflections on Degas and ‘Race’” published in The Art Bulletin.

Politics aside, a woman cannot hang by her teeth forever. Some sources suggest she married an American contortionist and went on to have three daughters, who later formed their own circus act, the Three Keziahs. Other sources, however, lose track of her after she traveled to America. What we do know is that Olga Brown left an indelible mark on the world of performance art and in “Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando,” despite its racial undercurrents, she remains in popular consciousness 150 years later, held by iron will, still ready to dazzle.

Telling Her Story
31 days of women who changed the world

Rediscovering Rome’s Female Merchants

As queens or captains, women deftly operated ships across the Red Sea and Mediterranean 2,000 years ago.

BY SARAH DURN

MARCH 2022

Archaeologist Carrie Atkins has found more than 20 references to female merchants scattered in millennia-old receipts, tax documents, and temple inscriptions. DEA/ICAS94/GETTY IMAGES

In Atlas Obscura’s Q&A series She Was There, we talk to female scholars who are writing long-forgotten women back into history.

AROUND THE YEAR 200, TWO Roman women, Ailia Isidora and Ailia Olympias, walked through the impressive temple gates at Medamound, a temple complex outside of Luxor, Egypt. Their arms were heavy with an offering to the goddess Leto. They had just returned from a successful voyage across the Red Sea and were coming to thank their patroness. In the recorded dedication, we hear their voices echo back to us millennia later. They described themselves as “distinguished matrons, Red Sea ship owners and merchants.”

Ailia Isidora and Ailia Olympias weren’t the only female merchants in antiquity, says Carrie Atkins, an archaeology professor at the University of Toronto who has uncovered more than 20 references to female merchants in the early centuries of the Roman Republic. While some of these women were passive shipowners, others were heavily involved in the financing, managing, and perhaps even sailing of these merchant vessels. Even though Roman law dictated that a woman needed a male guardian’s approval to own property or basically do anything beyond the home, many of these female merchants acted without a man overseeing their every action. Atlas Obscura talked with Atkins about the little-known role of female merchants in the ancient world, a woman named Sarapias, and why her story and those of others like her have so often been overlooked

.

Almost 2,000 years ago, two female merchants, Ailia Isidora and Ailia Olympias, paid a mason to carve a dedicatory inscription on the walls of the Egyptian Temple at Medamound. PUBLIC DOMAIN

Were you surprised the first time you found evidence of female merchants?

I don’t really remember my reaction to it except thinking, “Wow!” I knew from other sources that women owned property. So when I started seeing that women owned ships, it wasn’t that surprising. But when I started digging into the actual tax receipts and [temple] inscriptions [like Ailia Isidora and Ailia Olympias’s] to see how involved they were, that’s what surprised me.
How involved were women in mercantile trade? Would they have sailed their own ships?

The agency of female merchants runs the gamut from passive owners of ships to those individuals who were actively participating in trade. We have individuals like Cleopatra I, the owner of at least one ship, and Cleopatra II, who owned at least six ships. Other individuals would be the captains and would arrange for cargo and take on those various middleman roles. Other individuals, like the two women [Ailia Isidora and Ailia Olympias] that put up this dedication, were really counting themselves as the merchants, as the ones who were engaging actively here in trade.

The female merchants Ailia Isidora and Ailia Olympias perhaps wore similar clothing to this Roman statue of a woman carved in their lifetimes. GEOGRAPHY PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

Were female merchants exceptional in antiquity?

I should say that I’m working here from probably 20 to 25 references. So when you think about all the evidence we have [that is, the hundreds of references to male merchants], this does seem rather exceptional. However, with that said, female merchants fit the models of references to males. So there’s nothing in these tax receipts, in these inscriptions, that really calls attention to the fact that they’re women.

For me, the takeaway here is the fact that female merchants could exist and weren’t singled out as something that’s special or remarkable means perhaps that’s the way it was looked on in antiquity. It wasn’t necessarily common, but it wasn’t something that was taboo or extra special to the degree that people go out of the way to comment on it.

This second-century BC wine receipt is very similar to the ones archaeologist Carrie Atkins uncovered that refer to female merchants on the Red Sea. THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART/PUBLIC DOMAIN

Is there a female merchant that particularly grabbed your attention?

The one that I find really interesting is this reference to a woman by the name of Sarapias living in the second or third century. We have mention of her on a tax receipt, and it’s her first-person voice on the receipt as the one who’s arranging for this cargo of wheat aboard. Her brother was the captain or the helmsman of the ship. For many of these [references to female merchants], we don’t necessarily on the tax receipt have their voice. It’s somebody else who’s writing it. But for this, it’s her saying, “I was the one who arranged for this cargo of wheat.” Sometimes you’ll have a mention that so and so transcribed this or wrote this on behalf of the individual. Here I don’t think there’s any mention of somebody doing that. So likely she would have been the one writing this.

And so when I read that, that just completely engaged me, because this is a woman who’s speaking to us through the sources.
Why do you think female merchants in this period or more broadly in history are not well understood?

I think it is our perspective on history. Right now, we’re trying to look beyond male-dominant sources and look for individuals who are underrepresented in antiquity. I think this is one of those examples where really interrogating the sources allows us to have a different perspective that scholars may not have had in the past.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Telling Her Story
31 days of women who changed the world
SEE MORE

 

War and Feminism: a discussion with a Ukrainian sociologist and feminist about situation in Ukraine

”On the Barricades” – s04e11

14 March 2022 Maria Cernat - Boyan Stanislasvski

When we first tried to record this interview, the Kyiv-based sociologist and activist Oksana Dutchak had to quickly exit her home because of an air raid alarm. The ongoing war in her country had a dramatic effect on her life since she was forced to flee Kyiv with her family and move to the Western part of the country.

Despite these dire circumstances, Oksana Dutchak sat down with Maria Cernat and tried to explain the current situation in Ukraine, how the situation is evolving, and most importantly, how ordinary people are coping with the situation. We discussed the tragedy of a war between very close people since the Ukrainian and Russian language are very similar and a significant proportion of the country’s population live in mixed families.

Oksana Dutchak studied gender inequality in male-dominated professions in the Center for Social and Labor Research, a Kyiv-based NGO. She was a staunch anti-militarist feminist who criticized the Ukrainian government’s tendency to militarize the country. We discussed how her feminist ideals was challenged by the Russian military invasion and how life changed after this dramatic event

Iditarod punishes 3 mushers for sheltering dogs in windstorm

The Iditarod has punished three mushers for taking their dogs inside shelter cabins during fierce storms at the tail end of this year's race

ByThe Associated Press

27 March 2022,

The Associated Press

Mille Porsild is seen in Unalakleet, Alaska, during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Ma...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A fierce winter storm in the last stretch of this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog, which ultimately forced six mushers to scratch the same day, now has cost three other mushers for sheltering their dogs instead of leaving them outside in the harsh conditions.

Mille Porsild of Denmark, Michelle Phillips of Canada and Riley Dyche of Fairbanks were penalized for taking dogs inside shelter cabins to ride out the storm with winds so strong, they whipped up white-out conditions, the Anchorage Daily News reported Friday.

The decision to punish the mushers was made by race marshal Mark Nordman, who said the indoor rest for the dogs amounted to a competitive advantage over teams that trailed them into Nome.

“No doubt that Michelle and Mille did the right thing for their dogs,” Nordman said. “But it also affected the competition for racers going forward.”

Porsild was dropped from 14th to 17th position, while Phillips dropped one notch to 18th. Dyche wasn’t demoted in the standings, but he was fined $1,000 after officials determined there were no other mushers close to him that would have been affected by the dogs resting inside.

The drop in finishing position equated to $3,450 less for Porsild and $1,000 less for Phillips.

The nearly 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) race across Alaska was won March 15 by Brent Sass, who was also affected by the storm just as he was nearing the finish line in Nome. He said he fell off the sled and couldn’t see anything, and thought he was going to have to hunker down with his dogs and ride out the storm.

The demotion of the three mushers, which was not widely publicized by the Iditarod, immediately drew a harsh retort from the race’s biggest critic, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

“Nothing makes it clearer that this death race must end than the fact that the Iditarod slapped mushers with a fine as punishment for acting to prevent dogs’ deaths,” PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said in a statement Friday.

She called for cruelty charges to be filed against mushers who did leave their dogs outside while they went inside shelter cabins, “Cruelty is baked into this deadly race, and it’s time for it to stop.”

Porsild defended her decision bring the dogs inside.

“Stopping and having the dogs in the shelter cabin gave Michelle and I no competition edge; on the contrary we both lost the edge we had — especially me and my team,” she wrote to the Daily News from Denmark.

Iditarod rules say dogs cannot be taken inside shelters except for race veterinarians’ medical examination or treatment. However, the entry immediately after that one in the Iditarod rule book says: “There will be no cruel or inhumane treatment of dogs. Cruel or inhumane treatment involves any action or inaction, which causes preventable pain or suffering to a dog.”

Four mushers — Matt Hall, three-time champion Mitch Seavey, Lev Shvarts and former champion Joar Leifseth Ulsom — filed complaints against Porsild and Phillips. Hall and Seavey were each moved up a spot when Porsild and Phillips were demoted, and Shvarts moved up two spots.

“There was no doubt to me that my dogs sitting unprotected in these conditions could lead to death or deaths of dog(s),” Porsild wrote in an email to Nordman after the race, explaining why she did it.

“With no natural wind breaks or materials available to shelter them I made what I felt was the best choice for my dog’s welfare in that extreme situation,” Phillips wrote on Facebook.

Separately, Dyche also took his team inside a different shelter cabin to avoid the storm and was fined for not informing race officials he did so.

Dyche told the newspaper that he knew it was a violation to bring the dogs inside, but he had no choice after failing to improvise a windbreak for them. He said as he sat in the cabin with the dogs for the next 24 hours and heard the winds hammer the cabin, he knew he made the right decision.

Porsild, who returned to Denmark after the race, was not informed by race officials of the demotion. She found out only when Phillips told her days later.

Phillips announced on Facebook that this was her last Iditarod.

———

ABORTION IS HEALTHCARE

Washington state prohibits Texas-style abortion lawsuits

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has signed a measure that prohibits legal action against people seeking an abortion and those who aid them

By RACHEL LA CORTE Associated Press

The Associated Press

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is seen before signing a measure that prohibits legal action a...

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- A Washington state measure that prohibits legal action against people seeking an abortion and those who aid them was signed into law Thursday by the governor, in a move designed to rebut recent actions by conservative states.

“We know this bill is necessary because this is a perilous time for the ability of people to have the freedom of choice that they have enjoyed for decades,” said Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat.

The bill signing comes just days after the Legislature in neighboring Idaho approved a bill that allows lawsuits by potential family members to enforce a ban on abortions performed after six weeks of pregnancy.

Conservative legislatures in several states have either passed or proposed new abortion restrictions in anticipation of possible changes to the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Washington's measure, which takes effect in June, prohibits the state from taking any action against an individual seeking to end their pregnancy or for assisting someone who is pregnant in obtaining an abortion.

The language is in response to a Texas law, which took effect last September, and which bans abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy and makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. The enforcement of the law is left up to private citizens, who can collect $10,000 or more if they bring a successful lawsuit against a provider or anyone who helps a patient obtain an abortion.

On Tuesday, Idaho’s Legislature sent a bill to Republican Brad Little that is modeled off the Texas law. The measure bans abortion after six week of pregnancy and allows the father, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles of a “preborn child” to each sue an abortion provider for a minimum of $20,000 in damages within four years of the abortion.

A handful of states have put forward similar legislation copying the Texas law, but Idaho’s version appears to have advanced the furthest.

“To the citizens of Idaho, if Idaho will not stand up for your constitutional rights, we will,” Inslee said before signing the bill.

If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade entirely, the decision on whether to keep abortion legal would fall to the states.

New Jersey recently became the 15th state to protect the right to abortion in state law, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights think tank. A measure in Colorado has passed the House there and awaits action in the Senate.

Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst with the group, said that California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York all have legislation pending related to preventing people from suing providers and supporters, similar to the new Washington law.

California’s Democratic leaders have pledged to make the state an abortion “sanctuary” for women living in states that might outlaw or severely restrict access to the procedure. Lawmakers have introduced a number of bills to prepare for the potential influx of new patients. One bill would let letting nurse practitioners perform abortions without the supervision of a doctor. Another would set up a fund to help pay for things like travel, lodging and childcare for patients seeking abortions – both within California and from other states.

Abortion has been legal in Washington state since a 1970 referendum. A 1991 ballot measure, also approved by voters, declared a woman’s right to choose physician-performed abortion prior to fetal viability and further expanded and protected access to abortion in the state if Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said that regardless of what the Supreme Court ultimately decides, the recent laws in more conservative states show that lawmakers are prepared to continue to push for abortion restrictions.

“We have more pro-life people in elected positions that are trying to make a difference,” she said.

The measure approved by the Washington Legislature this month also updates state statutes with non-gendered references to a “pregnant individual” and grants specific statutory authorization for physician assistants, advanced registered nurse practitioners and other providers acting within their scope of practice to perform abortions.

Jennifer Allen, CEO of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said there was already an inadequate number of abortion providers in areas, and that with an expected influx from states like Idaho, the new measure will help meet that demand.

———

AP writer Adam Beam contributed from Sacramento, California.

Fog of War Has Oil Agencies Split on Impact of Russian Invasion

Julian Lee, Bloomberg News

What impact will war have? , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Looking at the latest forecasts from the three leading oil agencies, you’d be forgiven for thinking they lived in different worlds. 

Monthly outlooks from OPEC, the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Energy Information Administration paint starkly different pictures of the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Reading OPEC’s report, you’d be hard-pressed to know it happened. The word “invasion” doesn’t appear at all in the 90-page document, “war” just once. Their favored description is “Ukraine crisis.”

The group’s unwillingness to address the scale of the disruption that could result from Russia’s aggression may stem from the years of work that OPEC put in to cultivate relations with Moscow, persuading Russia to take part in production cuts within the wider OPEC+ group. But it leaves its oil market forecast looking off the pace.While OPEC’s analysts recognized that the effects of the war, if sustained, would have a negative impact on economic activity in 2022, they actually made a small upward revision to their global oil demand forecast for the year compared with February’s forecast. 

The EIA did not significantly cut its global oil demand forecast either, though it notes in its report that the consumption estimates are based on economic forecasts that were completed before the invasion took place and that the outlook will “depend on how economic activity and travel respond to recent and any potential future events and sanctions.”

The IEA, in stark contrast, sees a large and almost immediate impact on global oil demand from a combination of sanctions and high oil prices and their effect on broader inflation. It slashed its forecast of demand in 2022 by 950,000 barrels a day, with the biggest influence being felt in the second and third quarters of the year. The Paris-based agency sees higher prices cutting demand by 400,000 barrels a day, with the remainder coming from reduced economic activity.

It cut its forecast of Russian oil demand this year by 435,000 barrels a day, due to a sharp drop in GDP combined with disruptions to aviation, which have seen most international flights from the country cancelled. Outlooks for several other major oil consumers were cut by about 1%.

There are stark differences in the outlooks on the supply side, too.

Once again, OPEC incorporated no impact from the invasion into its forecast. That’s in stark contrast to the IEA, which cut its global oil supply outlook for the rest of 2022 by 2.8 million barrels a day. It sees Russian production falling by as much as 3 million barrels a day from April, “as a fall in domestic demand combines with a widening customer-driven voluntary embargo while sanctions drive away still more buyers.”

With the exception of one or two Russian refineries cutting back on crude deliveries, there is little immediate sign of the big decline in production forecast by the IEA, despite widespread self-sanctioning of Russia’s oil exports by major oil companies and refiners. Cargoes continue to be loaded at Russia’s export terminals, at least for now.

The war that Russia is waging in Ukraine may not disrupt oil supply; steep discounts and a tight market may be enough to keep Russian barrels flowing, even if they have to be shipped further to find willing buyers. And the uncertainties are, as all three agencies note, huge. But crude prices above $100 a barrel, soaring inflation and curtailed economic activity in Russia surely will have an impact on demand, something that all the agencies will have to reflect in later assessments.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Opinions
Reaching Russians: None So Deaf as Those Who Won’t Hear

By Kseniya Kirillova, for CEPA

Attempts to counter Putin’s disinformation machine will need to be carefully calibrated for Russians fed on a diet of lies.

Imagine a country that denies it has any ambition to conquer a neighbor; imagine it maintains this even as its armies mass on the border; at the same time, imagine that state-backed pundits discuss how to execute the invasion that you believe won’t happen. Imagine believing both contradictory ideas at the same time.

No need to imagine — this is Vladimir Putin’s Russia and it underlines just how difficult it will be to reach ordinary Russians who are fed such propaganda, who have no access to alternative fact-based reporting, and persuade them that the men in the Kremlin are lying and cynically misusing them. It is precisely George Orwell’s 1984, where citizens are asked to practice doublethink, the acceptance of untruth and contradiction.

To the rest of the world, three weeks after Putin launched his bloody but woefully incompetent invasion of Ukraine, it is apparent that Russia’s aggression is enjoying limited success. Having incompetently tried to mirror the West’s military at its best — moving swiftly and audaciously to capture key points — the Russian army is now incompetently trying to encircle Kyiv, while blasting other cities into submission. None of Ukraine’s 20 biggest cities have so far surrendered.

It is now extremely difficult to communicate with Russian people and yet it has never been more important during Putin’s 22-year reign. The main problem, as noted by American experts, is the information blockade consisting of the total blocking of sources of objective information, including independent media and social networks.

There are two other problems on the surface. On the one hand, this is a massive machine of repression, including a law providing for imprisonment for up to 15 years for “making and distributing fake news” about the actions of the Russian armed forces. On the other hand, this unprecedented propaganda intended to convince the populace of the “necessity” and inevitability of the war. The government’s mouthpieces actively resort to fake news, alleging for example that Ukraine is creating nuclear and biological weapons.

But there are other, deeper reasons for the fact that the majority of Russians are so easily manipulated by such propaganda and even, in the estimation of independent sociologists, either actively or passively supporting the war. For at least the last eight years Russians have been living in an illusory world created by propaganda, and it encompasses far more than stories about “Ukrainian fascists” and the “genocide of Russian-speakers.”

This is a world in which all the West hates Russia for the very fact of its existence, dreams of destroying it, and will pursue its goal regardless of Kremlin behavior. The activities of Russian oligarchs and corrupt officials, (who are shamelessly plundering the country) are portrayed as a form of “Western yoke”, and the inability of the Russian authorities to create effective production or develop science as a consequence of “enemy intrigues.”

All acts by Ukraine or the West, which are a natural consequence of its aggression toward Russia itself, are taken out of context and are presented as an illustration of the “global clash of civilizations” — a war that must be waged until the enemy is completely destroyed. This does not mean that all Russians adhere to a radical “Eurasian” ideology and dream of a global restructuring of the world. Quite the opposite; such views are held only by a radicalized, passionate minority but the constant informational background of hatred does affect the subconscious of people and has its consequences.

First, a majority of Russians are starting to accept quite wild ideas as the norm and cease to reflect on their abnormality. For example in January, along with the mantras of Russian officials that “Russia is not going to invade Ukraine,” Kremlin TV channels openly discussed the details of a possible takeover of Ukraine, and fugitive Ukrainian politicians, sitting in Moscow, did not hesitate to refer openly to these scenarios. The First Deputy of the Gosduma Committee on Defense, Aleksey Zhuravlev, on the air of the central TV channel talked about how Russia would “completely destroy both Europe and America,” constantly interspersing his speech with obscene language and insults. This was more than a month before Russia provoked its escalation in the Donbas on February 18-20.

There are very few countries where senior politicians and journalists openly discuss the erasure of a neighboring country, or even the likelihood of a nuclear exchange in furtherance of an aggressive policy. However, for the Russian layman, such things have become practically the norm. Russians have become so accustomed to them that they fail to see the logical contradiction in such propaganda between declarations about “peace-loving Russia” and the “necessity” of war. This is not about a lack of information, but about its inadequate perception. Accordingly, Russians, accustomed to living in this aggressive militaristic world, are certain that the West thinks the same, and simply cannot imagine anything different.

Second, being in such an illusory world creates corresponding expectations. This author has already noted that the growth in popularity of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in Russia reflects a societal desire for fairness, sovereignty, a strong leader, and military defense against “enemy encirclement.” Until the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was less and less consistent with this desire, but after it, he again donned the image of a “defender” and “warrior for sovereignty.”

The former head of the Yukos oil company and former political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovskiy, today one of the members of the recently created Anti-war Committee of Russia, described the consequences of such conditions as “Stockholm Syndrome.”

“Information that the Ukrainian people were not going to fight with Russia, but that we are at war with the Ukrainian people, is available. It is obvious that Ukraine is so weak compared to Russia that it never intended to attack it, and NATO today does not dare to intervene, fearing a nuclear war. But the Russians are not yet able to hear logical arguments,” he told this author in an interview.

In his view, demonstrating the weakness of the source of this syndrome – Putin and his army – can affect people more than rational arguments.

“We see that the Russian army is weak, and even the Ukrainian army, which is not the strongest in Europe, successfully resists it. In addition, people can perceive objective materials about specific horrors and tragedies that the war brought to Ukrainians. Western journalists and directors show human disaster rather well. Human suffering is international and looks the same anywhere in the world,” he said.

Independent sociologists have reached similar conclusions, based on analysis of the Russian segment of social networks. According to their data, more than half of users support the war, but more than 30% of Russians express sympathy for the Ukrainians. At the same time, those who believe the state propaganda are firmly convinced that Russian forces are committing no war crimes and are behaving appropriately.

American experts quite correctly suggest using opinion leaders and messages from Internet users who are in direct contact with Russians. But it’s also important to determine what kind of messages they will be able to hear. As already mentioned, these can be reports of the weakness of their illusory “protector”, evidence of human grief, as well as attempts to look from the outside at their own propaganda and the undisguised aggression originated by Russia.

Perhaps then the inhabitants of Russia will be able to understand that people unleashing wars for chauvinistic and imperial motives will not stop at drowning other countries in blood. In the end, the horror and death that the Kremlin brings to Ukraine will inevitably be mirrored within the Russian Federation.

By Kseniya Kirillova, for CEPA

Kseniya Kirillova is an analyst focused on Russian society, mentality, propaganda, and foreign policy. The author of numerous articles for the Jamestown Foundation, she has also written for the Atlantic Council, Stratfor, and others.

Photo: “Not to war” carved into the ice on the Moyka River in St. Petersburg. Rusian City Workers are shown trying to paint over the words in the ice. Credit: Eilish Hart via Twitter.

Europe’s Edge is an online journal covering crucial topics in the transatlantic policy debate. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Amy Schumer Opens Oscars by Brutally Roasting Leonardo DiCaprio (thedailybeast.com)

Amy  Schumer, staked her claim early as the night’s “edgiest” host, joking, “This year, the Academy hired three women to host, because it’s cheaper than hiring one man.”

The Guardian view on forgotten wars: we must not neglect conflict’s other victims

Editorial

In Ethiopia, Myanmar, Yemen and Syria, civilians are suffering. The parallels with Ukraine do not end there

Children at a refugee camp on the outskirts of the north-eastern city of Marib, Yemen. 

Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers. Escalating strikes claiming the lives of civilians, including children. A growing humanitarian crisis, with vast numbers forced to flee their homes. A flagrant disregard for human life.

These terrible scenes are witnessed not only in Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion has transfixed the world, but in other wars across the globe that have largely slipped from the public’s attention – in Myanmar, where the military tries to crush resistance to its seizure of power just over a year ago; in Ethiopia, where the prime minister believed he could win a swift victory against the Tigray region’s leaders, but fighting continues 16 months on; in Yemen, riven by conflict since 2014; in Syria, where the war entered its 12th year this week.

Ukraine’s war was once in the shadows too: the long-running conflict in the Donbas had been largely forgotten until Russian troops began massing at the country’s borders late last year. In each of these cases, the parallels or connections to what is happening there now go beyond suffering, death and mass displacement. For Syrians in the rebel enclave of Idlib, who saw Russia save Bashar al-Assad, its tactics in Ukraine are painfully recognisable: “Fortify your hospitals with cement blocks; the enemy Putin does not distinguish between civilians, wounded people and fighters,” one medic said. Syrian troops are being recruited to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

In Ethiopia, too, health workers have been attacked and grotesque violations of the laws of war have become the norm: this week a horrifying video emerged on showing armed men burning a Tigrayan man to death in western Ethiopia. As many as half a million people have died from the violence and hunger caused by the war, researchers said this week.

In Yemen, more than 4 million people have been displaced, and escalating violence made January the deadliest month for civilians since 2018. The World Food Programme warned it was already forced to take food from the hungry to feed the starving, and might soon be unable to feed even the starving. Yet Wednesday’s UN funding conference raised less than a third of the $4.2bn desperately needed.

In Myanmar, military and security forces have committed systematic and widespread abuses, bombarding populated areas with airstrikes and heavy weapons and deliberately targeting civilians. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, on Monday urged the international community to take “concerted, immediate measures” to halt the spiral of violence. Some supporters of the deposed civilian government hope that the unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia will help to make the case for further action against Myanmar’s junta. While the EU recently expanded sanctions to a state-owned oil and gas company, the US has been slow to act.

Yet others fear that the conflict in Ukraine will drag away the political attention and resources needed to put the generals under pressure. Meanwhile, aid agencies find the multiple conflicts, the disastrous conditions in Afghanistan and what is described as the worst-ever hunger crisis in South Sudan have left them torn between grim choices.

More humanitarian funding is needed, alongside political will and diplomatic energy. The victims of these other wars deserve the same level of support and solidarity rightly seen for the people of Ukraine. Those already too often overlooked must not be pushed further into the shadows.

 

Todd Gitlin, RIP

He was always fiercely independent and intelligent.

ROBERT C. COTTRELL : PERSONAL REMEMBRANCE | 

Posted on March 24, 2022 by Thorne Dreyer

Todd Gitlin, September 2007. Photo by David Shankbone / Creative Commons.

By Robert C. Cottrell | The Rag Blog | March 24, 2022

• Listen to Thorne Dreyer’s two classic Rag Radio interviews with Todd Gitlin from July 19, 2013, and August 16, 2013. Listen anytime here and here.
• Read Katharine Q. Seelye’s Todd Gitlin obituary in The New York Times, here.

There are undoubtedly those in The Rag Blog community who knew Todd Gitlin far more intimately than I. My direct dealings with him were limited to a small number of occasions. The first involved his response to a query of mine regarding the radical journalist I.F. Stone, about whom I was working on a dissertation. To my delight, Gitlin was one of several luminaries who quickly fired off a lengthy letter to me, then a grad student, in that seemingly long-ago time before emails. He indicated that Izzy, whom he knew, had agreed to deliver a talk on Vietnam to the SDS National Council convening in December 1964. Stone’s address, as Gitlin remembered, proved “eloquent and stirring.” It “therefore, probably played a part in helping generate the enthusiasm for” a scheduled antiwar gathering in Washington, D.C., the next spring, which proved catalytic for the Movement.

Gitlin also recalled being one of several in the early SDS leadership who “devotedly read” I.F. Stone’s Weekly. To Gitlin, Izzy “was always an exemplar of intellectual and political integrity, one of the few of his generation we felt had not been fatally compromised by either Stalinism or inflexible anti-Communism.” Gitlin pointed as well to the great peace advocate A.J. Muste and the pacifist David Dellinger as “the only others of [Izzy’s] generation who played similar parts — respectful, admirable, and critical at the same time.” Others often mention the venerable Norman Thomas, the longtime leader of the Socialist Party of America, as an admirable veteran of the Old Left; Gitlin likely would have too had Thomas come to mind.

Gitlin eloquently spoke before a sizable, enthusiastic crowd about
his days in the Movement.

A few years later, Gitlin, after an exchange of correspondence and phone calls, accepted my invitation to come to the campus where I was teaching, California State University, Chico, in Northern California, to serve as a Distinguished Visiting Professor for a brief stint. Following my too abbreviated introduction, Gitlin eloquently spoke before a sizable, enthusiastic crowd about his days in the Movement, including his tenure as SDS president and fostering of the New Left organization’s ERAP (Economic Research and Action Project) venture. He talked about the state of the American left as of the end of 1980s, following the Reagan presidency.

While in Chico, Gitlin visited my house, which was then considerably smaller, prior to a pair of remodels, and, in the hallway, came across a bookshelf overloaded with volumes about the 1960s. He looked surprised, even perplexed at the numbers of works I had that were devoted to that era; his reaction, in turn, surprised and perplexed me. When I reminded him of my earlier request for information about I.F. Stone, he acted relieved that he had followed through in thoughtfully responding to me as he had.

I admired Gitlin’s activist history and tracked his return to academia, which led, in my estimation, to his two finest works: The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage and The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left. Like the man from the Old Left he so admired, Izzy Stone, Gitlin could be at different points kindly or irascible. He was always fiercely independent and intelligent, sometimes wise as when he wryly commented in 1995, “While the Right has been taking the White House, the Left has been marching on the English department.” He remained devoted to the left, to a democratic left determined to avoid sectarianism, dogmatism, and infantile pursuits. He is already missed, as a number of his friends have movingly acknowledged. He is also missed by those of us who barely knew him, did so only through his writings, or had encountered him all too briefly.

---

[Robert C. Cottrell, professor of history and American studies at Cal State Chico, is the author of All-American Rebels: The American Left from the Wobblies to Today and Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Rise of America’s 1960s counterculture.]

RAG RADIO PODCAST

Listen to our two

classic Rag Radio interviews

with the late Todd Gitlin here and here.

Todd Gitlin (left), American writer, sociologist, and activist -- the third president of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) yet also a continuing critic of the New Left and its leading organization -- died on February 5 of this year at the age of 79. In an obituary, The Washington Post said Gitlin “shaped and chronicled the New Left.”

Thorne Dreyer interviewed Gitlin twice. These classic Rag Radio programs were originally broadcast on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, on July 19, 2013, and August 16, 2013. The two shows were rebroadcast on Rag Radio the last two weeks, on March 11 and 18, 2022. Both shows can be heard as podcasts anytime, here and here.