Western capitals are still coordinating with Israel and the US on their ‘criticisms’ of the genocide – just as they earlier coordinated on their support for the slaughter

After 19 months of being presented with dissembling accounts of Gaza from their governments, western publics are now being served up a different – but equally deceitful – narrative.

With the finishing line in sight for Israel’s programme of genocidal ethnic cleansing, the West’s Gaza script is being hastily rewritten. But make no mistake: it is the same web of self-serving lies.

As if under the direction of a hidden conductor, Britain, France and Canada – key US allies – erupted this week into a chorus of condemnation of Israel.

They called Israel’s plans to level the last fragments of Gaza still standing “disproportionate”, while Israel’s intensification of its months-long starvation of more than two million Palestinian civilians was “intolerable”.

The change of tone was preceded, as I noted in these pages last week, by new, harsher language against Israel from the western press corps.

The establishment media’s narrative had to shift first, so that the sudden outpouring of moral and political concern at Gaza’s suffering from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney – after more than a year and a half of indifference – did not appear too abrupt, or too strange.

They are acting as if some corner has been turned in Israel’s genocide. But genocides don’t have corners. They just progress relentlessly until stopped.

The media and politicians are carefully managing any cognitive dissonance for their publics.

But the deeper reality is that western capitals are still coordinating with Israel and the US on their “criticisms” of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – just as they earlier coordinated their support for it.

As much was conceded by a senior Israeli official to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. Referring to the sudden change of tone, he said: “The past 24 hours were all part of a planned ambush we knew about. This was a coordinated sequence of moves ahead of the EU meeting in Brussels, and thanks to joint efforts by our ambassadors and the foreign minister, we managed to moderate the outcome.”

The handwringing is just another bit of stagecraft, little different from the earlier mix of silence and talk about Israel’s “right to defend itself”. And it is to the same purpose: to buy Israel time to “finish the job” – that is, to complete its genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The West is still promoting phoney “debates”, entirely confected by Israel, about whether Hamas is stealing aid, what constitutes sufficient aid, and how that aid should be delivered.

It is all meant as noise, to distract us from the only pertinent issue: that Israel is committing genocide by slaughtering and starving Gaza’s population, as the West has aided and abetted that genocide.

PR exercise

With stocks of food completely exhausted by Israel’s blockade, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC on Tuesday that some 14,000 babies could die in Gaza within 48 hours without immediate aid reaching them.

The longer-term prognosis is bleaker still.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to let in a trickle of aid, releasing five trucks, some containing baby formula, from the thousands of vehicles Israel has held up at entry points for nearly three months. That was less than one percent of the number of trucks experts say must enter daily just to keep deadly starvation at bay.

On Tuesday, as the clamour grew, the number of aid trucks allowed to enter Gaza reportedly climbed to nearly 100 – or less than a fifth of the bare minimum. None of the aid was reported to have reached the enclave’s population by the time of writing.

Netanyahu was clear to the Israeli public – most of whom appear enthusiastic for the engineered starvation to continue – that he was not doing this out of any humanitarian impulse.

This was purely a public relations exercise to hold western capitals in check, he said. The goal was to ease the demands on these leaders from their own publics to penalise Israel and stop the continuing slaughter of Gaza’s population.

Or as Netanyahu put it: “Our best friends worldwide, the most pro-Israel senators [in the US] … they tell us they’re providing all the aid, weapons, support and protection in the UN Security Council, but they can’t support images of mass hunger.”

Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, was even clearer: “On our way to destroying Hamas, we are destroying everything that’s left of the [Gaza] Strip.” He also spoke of “cleansing” the enclave.

‘Back to the Stone Age’

Western publics have been watching this destruction unfold for the past 19 months – or at least they’ve seen partial snapshots, when the West’s establishment media has bothered to report on the slaughter.

Israel has systematically eradicated everything necessary for the survival of Gaza’s people: their homes, hospitals, schools, universities, bakeries, water systems and community kitchens.

Israel has finally implemented what it had been threatening for 20 years to do to the Palestinian people if they refused to be ethnically cleansed from their homeland. It has sent them “back to the Stone Age”.

A survey of the world’s leading genocide scholars published last week by the Dutch newspaper NRC found that all conclusively agreed Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Most think the genocide has reached its final stages.

This week, Yair Golan, leader of Israel’s main centrist party and a former deputy head of the Israeli military, expressed the same sentiments in more graphic form. He accused the government of “killing babies as a hobby”. Predictably, Netanyahu accused Golan of “antisemitism”.

The joint statement from Starmer, Macron and Carney was far tamer, of course – and was greeted by Netanyahu with a relatively muted response that the three leaders were giving Hamas a “huge prize”.

Their statement noted: “The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable.” Presumably, until now, they have viewed the hellscape endured by Gaza’s Palestinians for a year and a half as “tolerable”.

David Lammy, Britain’s foreign secretary who in the midst of the genocide was happy to be photographed shaking hands with Netanyahu, opined in parliament this week that Gaza was facing a “dark new phase”.

That’s a convenient interpretation for him. In truth, it’s been midnight in Gaza for a very long time.

A senior European diplomatic source involved in the discussions between the three leaders told the BBC that their new tone reflected a “real sense of growing political anger at the humanitarian situation, of a line being crossed, and of this Israeli government appearing to act with impunity”.

This should serve as a reminder that until now, western capitals were fine with all the other lines crossed by Israel, including its destruction of most of Gaza’s homes; its eradication of Gaza’s hospitals and other essential humanitarian infrastructure; its herding of Palestinian civilians into “safe” zones, only to bomb them there; its slaughter and maiming of many tens of thousands of children; and its active starvation of a population of more than two million.

Played for fools

The three western leaders are now threatening to take “further concrete actions” against Israel, including what they term “targeted sanctions”.

If that sounds positive, think again. The European Union and Britain have dithered for decades about whether and how to label goods imported from Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The existence of these ever-expanding settlements, built on stolen Palestinian territory and blocking the creation of a Palestinian state, is a war crime; no country should be aiding them.

In 2019, the European Court of Justice ruled that it must be made clear to European consumers which products come from Israel and which from the settlements.

In all that time, European officials never considered a ban on products from the settlements, let alone “targeted sanctions” on Israel, even though the illegality of the settlements is unambiguous. In fact, officials have readily smeared those calling for boycotts and sanctions against Israel as “Jew haters” and “antisemites”.

The truth is that western leaders and establishment media are playing us for fools once again, just as they have been for the past 19 months.

“Further concrete actions” suggest that there are already concrete actions imposed on Israel. That’s the same Israel that recently finished second in the Eurovision Song Contest. Protesters who call for Israel to be excluded from the competition – as Russia has been for invading Ukraine – are smeared and denounced.

When western leaders can’t even impose a meaningful symbolic penalty on Israel, why should we believe they are capable of taking substantive action against it?

No will for action

On Tuesday, it became clearer what the UK meant by “concrete actions”. The Israeli ambassador was called in for what we were told was a dressing down. She must be quaking.

And Britain suspended – that is, delayed – negotiations on a new free trade agreement, a proposed expansion of Britain’s already extensive trading ties with Israel. Those talks can doubtless wait a few months.

Meanwhile, 17 European Union members out of 27 voted to review the legal basis of the EU–Israel Association Agreement – providing Israel with special trading status – though a very unlikely consensus would be needed to actually revoke it.

Such a review to see if Israel is showing “respect for human rights and democratic principles” is simple time-wasting. Investigations last year showed it was committing widespread atrocities and crimes against humanity.

Speaking to the British parliament, Lammy said: “The Netanyahu government’s actions have made this necessary.”

There are plenty of far more serious “concrete actions” that Britain and other western capitals could take, and could have taken many months ago.

A flavour was provided by Britain and the EU on Tuesday when they announced sweeping additional sanctions on Russia – not for committing a genocide, but for hesitating over a ceasefire with Ukraine.

Ultimately, the West wants to punish Moscow for refusing to return the territories in Ukraine that it occupies – something western powers have never meaningfully required of Israel, even though Israel has been occupying the Palestinian territories for decades.

The new sanctions on Russia target entities supporting its military efforts and energy exports – on top of existing severe economic sanctions and an oil embargo. Nothing even vaguely comparable is being proposed for Israel.

The UK and Europe could have stopped providing Israel with the weapons to butcher Palestinian children in Gaza. Back in September, Starmer promised to cut arms sales to Israel by around eight percent – but his government actually sent more weapons to arm Israel’s genocide in the three months that followed than the Tories did in the entire period between 2020 and 2023.

Britain could also stop transporting other countries’ weapons and carrying out surveillance flights over Gaza on Israel’s behalf. Flight tracking information showed that on one night this week, the UK sent a military transport plane, which can carry weapons and soldiers, from a Royal Air Force base on Cyprus to Tel Aviv, and then dispatched a spy plane over Gaza to collect intelligence to assist Israel in its slaughter.

Britain could, of course, take the “concrete action” of recognising the state of Palestine, as Ireland and Spain have already done – and it could do so at a moment’s notice.

The UK could impose sanctions on Israeli government ministers. It could declare its readiness to enforce Netanyahu’s arrest for war crimes, in line with the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant, if he visits Britain. And it could deny Israel access to sporting events, turning it into a pariah state, as was done to Russia.

It could announce that any Britons returning from military service in Gaza risk arrest and prosecution for war crimes.

And of course, the UK could impose sweeping economic sanctions on Israel, again as was done to Russia.

All of these “concrete actions”, and more, could be easily implemented. The truth is there is no political will to do it. There is simply a desire for better public relations, for putting a better gloss on Britain’s complicity in a genocide that can no longer be hidden.

Wolf exposed

The problem for the West is that Israel now stands stripped of the lamb’s clothing in which it has been adorned by western capitals for decades.

Israel is all too evidently a predatory wolf. Its brutal, colonial behaviours towards the Palestinian people are fully on show. There is no hiding place.

This is why Netanyahu and western leaders are now engaged in an increasingly difficult tango. The colonial, apartheid, genocidal project of Israel – the West’s militarised client-bully in the oil-rich Middle East – needs to be protected.

Until now, that had involved western leaders like Starmer deflecting criticism of Israel’s crimes, as well as British complicity. It involved endlessly and mindlessly reciting Israel’s “right to defend itself”, and the need to “eliminate Hamas”.

But the endgame of Israel’s genocide involves starving two million people to death – or forcing them out of Gaza, whichever comes first. Neither is compatible with the goals western politicians have been selling us.

So the new narrative must accentuate Netanyahu’s personal responsibility for the carnage – as though the genocide is not the logical endpoint of everything Israel has been doing to the Palestinian people for many decades.

Most Israelis are on board, too, with the genocide. The only meaningful voices of dissent are from the families of the Israeli hostages – and then chiefly because of the danger posed to their loved ones by Israel’s assault.

The aim of Starmer, Macron and Carney is to craft a new narrative, in which they claim to have only belatedly realised that Netanyahu has “gone too far” and that he needs to be reined in. They can then gradually up the noise against the Israeli prime minister, lobby Israel to change tack, and, when it resists or demurs, be seen to press Washington for “concrete action”.

The new narrative, unlike the worn-thin old one, can be spun out for yet more weeks or months – which may be just long enough to get the genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza either over the finish line, or near enough as to make no difference.

That is the hope – yes, hope – in western capitals.

Blood on their hands

Starmer, Macron and Carney’s new make-believe narrative has several advantages. It washes Gaza’s blood from their hands. They were deceived. They were too charitable. Vital domestic struggles against antisemitism distracted them.

It lays the blame squarely at the feet of one man: Netanyahu.

Without him, a violent, highly militarised, apartheid state of Israel can continue as before, as though the genocide was an unfortunate misstep in Israel’s otherwise unblemished record.

New supposed “terror” threats – from Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran – can be hyped to draw us back into cheerleading narratives about a plucky western outpost of civilisation defending us from barbarians in the East.

The new narrative does not even require that Netanyahu face justice.

As news emerges of the true extent of the atrocities and death toll, a faux-remorseful Netanyahu can placate the West with revived talk of a two-state solution – a solution whose realisation has been avoided for decades and can continue to be avoided for decades more.

We will be subjected to yet more years of the Israel-Palestine “conflict” finally being about to turn a corner.

Even were a chastened Netanyahu forced to step down, he would pass the baton to one of the other Jewish supremacist, genocidal monsters waiting in the wings.

After Gaza’s destruction, the crushing of Palestinian life in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem will simply have to return to an earlier, slower pace – one that has allowed it to be kept off the western public’s radar for 58 years.

Will it really work out like this? Only in the imaginations of western elites. In truth, burying nearly two years of a genocide all too visible to large swaths of western publics will be a far trickier task.

Too many people in Europe and the US have had their eyes opened over the past 19 months. They cannot unsee what has been live-streamed to them, or ignore what it says about their own political and media classes.

Starmer and co will continue vigorously distancing themselves from the genocide in Gaza, but there will be no escape. Whatever they say or do, the trail of blood leads straight back to their door.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

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If you ask a National Park Service ranger how the Trump administration’s cost cutting will affect your next park visit, you might get talking points instead of a straight answer.

A series of emails sent late last month to front-line staff at parks across the country provided rangers with instructions on how to describe the highly publicized staff cuts. Park leaders further instructed staff to avoid the word “fired” and not blame closures on staffing levels.

On Feb. 14, at least 1,000 park service employees were terminated as part of broad reductions to the federal workforce by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. As a result, visitor centers have reduced hours, tours of popular attractions have been canceled, lines have spiraled, bathrooms may go uncleaned, habitat restoration has ceased and water has gone unchecked for toxic algae.

Meanwhile, rangers have been ordered to describe these cuts — or “attrition” and “workforce management actions,” according to the talking points — as “prioritizing fiscal responsibility” and “staffing to meet the evolving needs of our visitors.” They also should tell visitors the parks will continue to ensure “memorable and meaningful experiences for all.”

If asked about limited offerings, one park’s rangers were instructed to say “we are not able to address park or program-level impacts at this time.”

The guidance mirrors other measures instituted by the Trump administration to dictate how federal employees communicate with the public. This month, employees at the National Cancer Institute were told they needed approval for any communication dealing with 23 “controversial, high profile, or sensitive” issues, including peanut allergies and autism. Agencies across the federal government have begun compiling lists of words to avoid because they could conflict with Trump’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, The New York Times has reported.

The guidance handed down to park employees puts rangers in a particularly difficult position, said Emily Douce, deputy vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy organization for the parks. Rangers pride themselves on knowledge of their parks and their responsibility to accurately educate the public about the habitats, wildlife and geology of those special places.

“They shouldn’t be muzzled to not talk about the impacts of what these cuts mean,” Douce said. “If they are asked, they should be truthful on how federal dollars are being used or taken away.”

An NPS spokesperson said in an emailed statement that any assertion that park staff are being “silenced is flat-out wrong” and that talking points are a “basic tool” to “ensure consistent communication with the public.”

“The National Park Service is fully committed to responsible stewardship of our public lands and enhancing visitor experiences — we will not be distracted by sensationalized attacks designed to undermine that mission,” the statement said.

The spokesperson also criticized park staff who spoke with a ProPublica reporter. “Millions of hardworking Americans deal with workplace challenges every day without resorting to politically motivated leaks,” the spokesperson said.

One park ranger, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the talking points prevent rangers from telling the public the truth. Some employees have delivered the statements in an exaggerated “monotone” to convey to visitors they are toeing the company line but there’s more to the story, the ranger said.

“We have a duty to tell the public what’s going on,” the ranger said. “If that’s saying, ‘We just don’t have the staff to stay open and that’s what these firings are doing,’ I think the people have a right to know. Every person we lose hurts.”

In the immediate aftermath of the firings, parks quickly closed visitor centers, ended tours and altered other services. Some parks were clear on social media that the staffing cuts had resulted in the closures. But recently parks have been more vague in discussing the impact and not offered explanations for particular closures.

The administration has reinstated about 50 NPS employees and announced it will proceed with the hiring of seasonal employees, a workforce that is essential to park operations during the busy summer season. The hiring process, however, has been delayed, which may lead to operation disruptions. And more cuts are likely coming. The Hill recently reported that the administration is considering a 30% payroll reduction for the NPS.

The cuts come as the parks are seeing increases in visitation, which hit a record in 2024 for the first time since 2016. Although the new data was released on the park service’s website last week, the administration didn’t publicize that milestone with a news release as it has in the past. The terminations also come amid staffing shortages across the service.

Aviva O’Neil, executive director of the Great Basin National Park Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports a small park in a remote corner of Nevada, bristled at the idea put forth in the talking points that parks can continue to provide the same level of “memorable experiences” with the cuts. When the park lost five of its 26 permanent employees in February, it was forced to close tours of a signature attraction, Lehman Caves. To help restore services, the foundation raised the money to temporarily hire the terminated workers.

“How do they do their day-to-day operations when they don’t have the staff?” she said.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Anjeanette Damon.

The number of mass killings in Myanmar has risen for the fourth year in a row, with at least 435 people killed in massacres in the first nine months of the year, an independent research group said Friday.

Amid widespread opposition to junta rule, Myanmar’s military has embarked on a scorched earth offensive throughout the country’s remote border regions following its Feb. 1, 2021, coup d‘etat.

RFA Burmese regularly receives reports of junta troops arresting, torturing and summarily executing civilians they accuse of supporting rebel groups. And amid battlefield losses to ethnic armies and armed opposition groups, the military has increasingly used heavy artillery and airstrikes to target villages, often resulting in mass casualty events.

On Friday, the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, said it had documented the mass killing -- defined as the killing of 10 or more people at once -- of at least 435 people between Jan. 1 and the first week of October.

As of Friday, that number increased to at least 466 - including 25 civilians killed by the junta in Sagaing region‘s Budalin township from Oct. 9-20 and six others killed in an a junta airstrike in Sagaing’s Myaung township on Wednesday, according to data compiled by RFA.

(Amanda Weisbrod/RFA, ISP)

The number of civilians killed in mass casualty events so far in 2024 marks the latest in a yearly increase since the coup, up from 379 in 2023, 245 in 2022 and 113 in 2021, according to ISP-Myanmar.

The research group said that the number of casualties has grown as the junta increasingly uses artillery and airstrikes that target houses, schools and religious buildings, in addition to massacres and arson attacks by troops on the ground.

Civilians treated ‘like animals’

In one of the more recent events, around 100 junta soldiers from No.33 Battalion raided Budalin township’s Si Par village on Oct. 19, arresting and executing 22 civilians, including two elderly men, a resident told RFA.

“The junta forces treat people like animals, not human beings,” said the resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “They killed people of various ages, including in their 60s and 70s ... It was so cruel that I can’t talk about it in detail.”

Another incident occurred on Sept. 5 in northern Shan state’s Namhkan township, which is under the control of the rebel Ta’ang National Liberation Army. A junta airstrike that night killed 13 civilians, residents said.

A day earlier, a junta airstrike on a camp for those displaced by conflict in southern Shan state’s Pekon township killed nine people, including seven children.

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At least 176 civilians were massacred in May alone, including 32 in one artillery strike on a village in Mandalay region’s Myingyan township on May 9.

The ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, announced on June 4 that the junta killed more than 70 civilians in a raid on a village in Rakhine state’s Sittwe township on May 19.

Junta troops shot and killed the victims in Byaing Phyu village and burned others alive in an arson attack after accusing them of supporting the AA, residents said.

A woman whose husband and younger brother were killed in the incident told RFA that she wants justice for their deaths.

“I could not see their bodies. I was told by others that my husband and younger brother were set on fire, and all I had left of them was my husband’s shirt and sarong,” said the woman. “I felt such anguish and pray that no one else is made to suffer like this.”

(Citizen photo)

A lawyer, who also declined to be named, condemned the military’s killing of civilians, calling the acts “war crimes under international law.”

‘Strategy of intimidation’

Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesperson Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun for his response to the reports of massacres went unanswered Friday, but the military has said that it does not target civilians.

Kyaw Zaw, a spokesperson for the President‘s Office of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, said that the more territory the military loses, the more war crimes its soldiers commit.

“In addition to aerial bombardment, the junta’s ground forces have brutally killed civilians during their offensives,” he said.

Kyaw Win, director of the Burma Human Rights Network, said that the junta is using fear as a weapon in its bid to erode public support for the armed opposition.

“This is a strategy of the junta to threaten the people ... to prevent them from associating with the [rebels],” he said. “It’s a strategy of intimidation.”

On Oct. 16, Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations, called on the U.N. Security Council to bring a case against the junta in the International Criminal Court, saying it is impossible to hold the military regime accountable for its war crimes in courts within the country given the conflict.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

In his place, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will represent the U.S. at the two meetings to “further strengthen our critical partnerships in Southeast Asia,” according to the State Department.

"ASEAN is at the heart of our U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy," spokesperson Matthew Miller told a news briefing in Washington. "We are committed to ASEAN's centrality and our partnership is critical to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region."

This is the second consecutive year that Biden has missed the summits, considered the most important meetings of decision-makers in Southeast Asia.

This year’s meetings will see top leaders from the 10-member ASEAN group, including the new prime ministers of Thailand and Singapore, attending along with heads of state from dialogue partners such as Japan, South Korea and India.

China is represented by Premier Li Qiang, who chaired a China-ASEAN summit on Thursday.

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“The absence of the U.S. president in the meetings with ASEAN leaders doesn’t reflect well on the U.S. commitment to Asia, despite the fact that American leaders often stress how important the ASEAN region is to them,” said Thai political analyst and former government adviser Panitan Wattanayagorn.

“Given the upcoming presidential election in the U.S. in early November, most Asian leaders will understand the circumstances [of Biden’s absence],” Panitan told Radio Free Asia, “However, many people will continue to question the U.S. role in Asia, particularly in light of the increasingly confrontational relations with China.”

Snubbing ASEAN?

Eight years ago, when Laos as the rotational chair of ASEAN hosted an East Asia Summit, Barack Obama was present as the first U.S. president to visit Vientiane.

President Biden “cannot use the election as the excuse” to skip this year’s summit, said Piti Srisangnam, a scholar at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University.

“That means you don’t prioritize the Indo-Pacific strategy, especially when you put ASEAN in its driver’s seat.”

The level of the U.S. representation has also been downgraded from Vice President Kamala Harris in 2023 to the secretary of state this year.

Another analyst noted that this “perceived diplomatic snub raised serious questions about Washington’s long-term commitment to ASEAN and the broader Indo-Pacific region.”

Joanne Lin from the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore wrote that it "reflects a broader, more concerning trend" that ASEAN continues to take a back seat in broader U.S. geopolitical calculations.

Lin argued that Beijing “has been proactive and consistent in its diplomatic efforts” in the region while Washington risked losing ground in Southeast Asia.

A survey by ISEAS on the views and perceptions of Southeast Asians on geopolitical developments in the region showed there has been a significant decline in confidence in the U.S. as a strategic partner and provider of regional security.

Meanwhile China was seen by more respondents in Southeast Asia as ASEAN’s most strategically significant partner.

Yet that perception varies from country to country within ASEAN, said a Vietnamese foreign affairs expert. Hanoi and Washington elevated their relationship to the highest level of comprehensive strategic partnership last year.

“I haven’t seen any change in the U.S. policy towards East Asia. All the main policies in relation to Taiwan, China, the South China Sea and the Philippines stay more or less the same,” said Nguyen Ngoc Truong, a diplomat-turned-analyst.

“No U.S. president can be expected to attend every East Asia summit!”

ASEAN’s centrality

Greg Poling from the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, in Washington pointed out that the U.S. president is expected to attend more summits and other important meetings than other world leaders so he must prioritize.

"ASEAN is still a vital grouping for regional economic integration and diplomatic discussion (albeit not solutions), but it is hard to argue that it should take priority over APEC or the Quad when it comes to the president's schedule," wrote Poling on the CSIS website, referring to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and the Quadrilateral Dialogue grouping of the U.S., Japan, Australia and India.

Poling said that in the last decade or so, the greatest value of attending the ASEAN Summit for the U.S. and most other dialogue partners has been the ability to hold sideline meetings in bilateral or “minilateral” formats.

“But even there, ASEAN is not the only or even necessarily the best option,” he argued, suggesting that in general Washington “should set vice presidential representation as the baseline at the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia Summits.”

This suggestion may not be received well in Vientiane, where, according to regional observers, ASEAN is “back in driving mode” on several issues including the Myanmar conflict and human rights after years of friction and confrontation among key ASEAN members.

“ASEAN is slowly moving back to the center of activity in the region,” said Thailand’s Panitan. “Its actions are steady but slow as they are still based on building consensus.”

“But without real commitments from ASEAN’s key partners such as the U.S., China, Japan, India, and others, it’s difficult to see the real solutions of many important and pressing issues in the region,” he added.

RFA Staff in Taipei contributed to this story.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.

In his place, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will represent the U.S. at the two meetings to “further strengthen our critical partnerships in Southeast Asia,” according to the State Department.

“ASEAN is at the heart of our U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy,” spokesperson Matthew Miller told a news briefing in Washington. “We are committed to ASEAN’s centrality and our partnership is critical to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

This is the second consecutive year that Biden has missed the summits, considered the most important meetings of decision-makers in Southeast Asia. 

This year’s meetings will see top leaders from the 10-member ASEAN group, including the new prime ministers of Thailand and Singapore, attending along with heads of state from dialogue partners such as Japan, South Korea and India.

China is represented by Premier Li Qiang, who chaired a China-ASEAN summit on Thursday.

RELATED STORIES

ASEAN faces tests in tackling Myanmar war, South China Sea tensions

Malaysia’s Anwar calls for a united ASEAN amid rising global tensions

China hits back at Biden’s ‘hot mic’ comment on aggression

“The absence of the U.S. president in the meetings with ASEAN leaders doesn’t reflect well on the U.S. commitment to Asia, despite the fact that American leaders often stress how important the ASEAN region is to them,” said Thai political analyst and former government adviser Panitan Wattanayagorn.

“Given the upcoming presidential election in the U.S. in early November, most Asian leaders will understand the circumstances [of Biden’s absence],” Panitan told Radio Free Asia, “However, many people will continue to question the U.S. role in Asia, particularly in light of the increasingly confrontational relations with China.”

Snubbing ASEAN?

Eight years ago, when Laos as the rotational chair of ASEAN hosted an East Asia Summit, Barack Obama was present as the first U.S. president to visit Vientiane.  

President Biden “cannot use the election as the excuse” to skip this year’s summit, said Piti Srisangnam, a scholar at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University. 

“That means you don’t prioritize the Indo-Pacific strategy, especially when you put ASEAN in its driver’s seat.” 

The level of the U.S. representation has also been downgraded from Vice President Kamala Harris in 2023 to the secretary of state this year.

Another analyst noted that this “perceived diplomatic snub raised serious questions about Washington’s long-term commitment to ASEAN and the broader Indo-Pacific region.”

Joanne Lin from the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore wrote that it “reflects a broader, more concerning trend” that ASEAN continues to take a back seat in broader U.S. geopolitical calculations.

Lin argued that Beijing “has been proactive and consistent in its diplomatic efforts” in the region while Washington risked losing ground in Southeast Asia.

A survey by ISEAS on the views and perceptions of Southeast Asians on geopolitical developments in the region showed there has been a significant decline in confidence in the U.S. as a strategic partner and provider of regional security. 

Meanwhile China was seen by more respondents in Southeast Asia as ASEAN’s most strategically significant partner.

Yet that perception varies from country to country within ASEAN, said a Vietnamese foreign affairs expert. Hanoi and Washington elevated their relationship to the highest level of comprehensive strategic partnership last year.

“I haven’t seen any change in the U.S. policy towards East Asia. All the main policies in relation to Taiwan, China, the South China Sea and the Philippines stay more or less the same,” said Nguyen Ngoc Truong, a diplomat-turned-analyst.

“No U.S. president can be expected to attend every East Asia summit!” 

ASEAN’s centrality

Greg Poling from the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, in Washington pointed out that the U.S. president is expected to attend more summits and other important meetings than other world leaders so he must prioritize.

“ASEAN is still a vital grouping for regional economic integration and diplomatic discussion (albeit not solutions), but it is hard to argue that it should take priority over APEC or the Quad when it comes to the president’s schedule,” wrote Poling on the CSIS website, referring to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and the Quadrilateral Dialogue grouping of the U.S., Japan, Australia and India.

Poling said that in the last decade or so, the greatest value of attending the ASEAN Summit for the U.S. and most other dialogue partners has been the ability to hold sideline meetings in bilateral or “minilateral” formats. 

“But even there, ASEAN is not the only or even necessarily the best option,” he argued, suggesting that in general Washington “should set vice presidential representation as the baseline at the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia Summits.”

This suggestion may not be received well in Vientiane, where, according to regional observers, ASEAN is “back in driving mode” on several issues including the Myanmar conflict and human rights after years of friction and confrontation among key ASEAN members.

“ASEAN is slowly moving back to the center of activity in the region,” said Thailand’s Panitan. “Its actions are steady but slow as they are still based on building consensus.”

“But without real commitments from ASEAN’s key partners such as the U.S., China, Japan, India, and others, it’s difficult to see the real solutions of many important and pressing issues in the region,” he added.

RFA Staff in Taipei contributed to this story.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.

Stunja, who works as an airline dispatcher, rode out the storm with a friend on the second floor and watched in horror as the storm surge inundated the streets around her. A wall of water several feet deep destroyed almost everything she owns; outside, it pushed cars and boats around like toys. Stunja thought she could save her own vehicle by parking it on higher ground a few miles inland, but the storm surge flooded it as well.

Crews had only just begun the arduous task of clearing shattered homes, ruined cars, and unfathomable amounts of debris from the neighborhoods around Stunja’s condo when she started to hear about another major storm: Milton, a tropical storm which formed in the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend and grew with stunning ferocity into a Category 5 hurricane over the course of less than a day on Monday. Stunja was already headed toward a friend’s home in Sarasota, an hour south of Tampa, when she learned that the storm was headed right for her. She turned around and tried to fly to her hometown in Texas. When that failed, she got into a car loaned by her insurance company on Monday afternoon and made for her son’s house in Jacksonville, spending hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic headed north and east.

“I can’t think straight,” she said. “I’m very confused. I haven’t even filed a claim yet on my house.”

Stunja is among hundreds of thousands of Floridians staring down a direct hit from a second major hurricane — even before they’ve come anywhere close to reckoning with the damage from Hurricane Helene. The quick turnaround has given Florida residents little time to find, let alone regain, their footing. The unfinished cleanup of the mess Helene created could compound the devastation to come from Hurricane Milton, and the one-two punch could have a devastating impact on the state’s ability to recover. 

After Milton exploded in intensity, becoming a worst-case Category 5 hurricane within 24 hours, its wind speed surged to nearly 180 mph. Meteorologists attribute the rapid intensification to record-hot sea surface temperatures made 400 to 800 times more likely due to climate change. Forecasters say Hurricane Milton could lash the Florida panhandle with storm surges reaching 12 feet high and bring as much as 15 inches of rain, potentially creating flash floods. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis had declared a state of emergency for more than 50 counties as of Monday, and several were under evacuation orders — including many told just 14 days ago to evacuate ahead of Helene.

“A lot of the damage that occurred with Helene is going to get worse,” said Carlos Martin, director of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. 

Wreckage from Helene could be whipped into the air by Hurricane Milton. In the Tampa Bay area, more than 300 vehicles carted broken furniture and other trash to a landfill on Sunday, while lifeguards removed chairs and other items from beaches. Sarasota County, just south of Tampa, said it was focusing “all efforts on removing Hurricane Helene debris” in the most vulnerable places, and the county lifted landfill fees for people living in unincorporated areas.

Progress has been exceedingly slow, however; the mayor of Clearwater, a city just north of St. Petersburg, said on Sunday that only 5 percent of the debris on Clearwater Beach had been cleared. Some residents don’t think the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are doing enough to clear away the wreckage ahead of the impending storm.

“This is going to all be weapons,” Clearwater resident Monika Spaldo said, referring to the waterlogged furniture and trash surrounding her. “The debris from all of this is going to hit windows, roofs, cars, people. … It’s going to fly and destroy everything.”

Spaldo is a property manager at Coconut Grove, a beachside condominium complex that was damaged by storm surge from Hurricane Helene. In the days following the storm, she felt so sick from exposure to dirty floodwaters and refuse that she almost went to the hospital. With Hurricane Milton rapidly approaching, she is terrified by all the debris lining the streets — and what the storm to come will mean for the town’s future.

“I don’t know how we’re ever going to recover,” she said. “Everything on the island is going to be destroyed.”

Meanwhile, experts are concerned that the two disasters striking in quick succession will complicate the essential process of filing insurance claims in order to make victims whole for the financial damage they’ve suffered. Those who experienced losses during Helene are supposed to document them before evacuating ahead of Milton, so that claims adjusters can differentiate the damage caused by the two events. Lisa Miller, a former deputy insurance commissioner for Florida, called the situation “unparalleled.”

“All bets are off,” she added.

For many victims, filing insurance claims so quickly could well be impossible, given the rapid sequence of events and the urgency of current evacuation orders. In Sarasota County on Monday, residents were urged to leave immediately. “If you wait, you will get stuck in traffic,” a government website warned. 

Some people may, like Stunja, head to relatives’ homes in safer areas. But because Helene reached up to 500 miles inland in some parts of Florida, they may have to travel much farther than that to find suitable accommodations. Others may need to take shelter in schools or athletic facilities, which are listed in a county-by-county directory compiled by the Florida Division of Emergency Management. 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency often steps in to run shelters during major emergencies, but its capacity may be limited by a major staffing shortage as it continues to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene — along with fires, flooding, landslides, and tornadoes in several other states.

In the longer term, the storms may exacerbate Florida’s insurance crisis. “People’s premiums are going to go through the roof,” said Martin of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. The state is already the most expensive in the country for home insurance, according to a 2024 report by Insurify, a digital insurance agent. Helene and Milton could increase the cost of housing in other ways as well. Buildings that were damaged during Helene could become unrecoverable after Milton, making it harder for people to return.

Sara McTarnaghan, a principal research associate at the nonprofit policy research organization the Urban Institute, said Florida hasn’t even yet recovered from vulnerabilities in its housing stock which were created by  storms that struck years ago, including Idalia, Ian, and Michael. 

“Many parts of Florida have experienced multiple events over the past five to 10 years, which is the timeline for recovery and making repairs to existing housing,” she said. “Depending on the trajectory of Hurricane Milton it could be hitting a vulnerable housing stock and we could be seeing more loss of units, more costly repairs.”

As Stunja prepares to ride out Hurricane Milton in Jacksonville, she still doesn’t know what she’s going to do after the storm passes. She’s just begun to work through her flood insurance claim with FEMA, but the surge from Milton could flood both floors of her condo building. If that happens, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to stay.

“If the second floor gets water on this one, the building’s probably a tear-down,” she said. “If that happens, I’ll go off-island. I love Florida, but I don’t need to be on the beach.”

Jake Bittle and Ayurella Horn-Muller contributed reporting to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘I can’t think straight’: Still buried beneath Helene’s debris, Floridians brace for Milton on Oct 8, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

The BBC’s banner headline reporting the UK’s 4 July general election result was clear:

‘Chris Mason: “Starmer tsunami” and civility after brutality’

This alliterated nicely but gave the misleading impression that there had been a massive display of public support for Starmer. Mason’s own analysis pointed elsewhere:

‘The story of this election is one of an electorate showing a ruthless determination to eject the Conservatives.’

Indeed, the results show a mere 1.6 per cent Labour increase on Corbyn’s supposedly disastrous 2019 vote share following the most intense propaganda blitz in UK domestic political history. Moreover, the 1.6 per cent increase hides the fact that, because less people voted, Starmer actually received less votes than Corbyn did in both 2017 and 2019:

‘2017 (Jeremy Corbyn) — 12,877,918

‘2019 (Jeremy Corbyn) — 10,269,051

‘2024 (Keir Starmer) — 9,686,329’

So, while journalists are claiming a ‘sensational’ result for Labour, the reality is that the party’s total vote has fallen by 6 per cent since 2019.

The real ‘tsunami’ saw a 19.9 per cent decrease in the Tory vote and a 12.3 per cent increase in the Reform UK vote – the wave swept from right to far-right, not towards Starmer’s ‘extreme centrism’.

Peter Oborne commented:

‘Labour is set to poll about 34 percent, not even two percentage points more than Jeremy Corbyn scored in 2019 and significantly less than the 40 percent that Corbyn scored in 2017.

‘To put it another way, thanks to the second lowest turnout since 1885, scarcely 20 percent of eligible British voters support Keir Starmer’s Labour. Yet, he will end up with approximately two-thirds of all parliamentary seats.’

Remarkably for an incoming Prime Minister, Starmer’s personal vote tally declined dramatically:

‘Starmer has held the seat since 2015, but his vote share dropped by 17% after a surge in support for independent, pro-Gaza candidate Andrew Feinstein.’

Tom Mills of Aston University noted wryly:

‘If you’ve just joined us, Labour has achieved a landslide with less votes than it won in 2019.

‘Which you’ll recall was so bad that the then leader unfortunately had to be expelled from the parliamentary party.’

Real Issues ‘Virtually Non-Existent’

One of the great myths of our ‘managed democracy’ is that ‘mainstream’ journalism provides the public with the balanced information it needs to make an informed decision at election time. In reality, the ‘free press’ does a spectacular job of not talking about issues that would facilitate informed public participation.

Amazingly, one might think, in the first three weeks of campaigning for the 2001 general election, the communications research centre at Loughborough University found that there had been ‘little sign of real issues’ in media election coverage, where ‘few issues make the news’ (Peter Golding, ‘When what is unsaid is the news,’ The Guardian, May 28, 2001). Topics like the environment, foreign policy, poverty and defence were ‘all but invisible’ following the pattern of the 1997 and 1992 elections. (Peter Golding, email to David Edwards, 10 June 2001)

Or consider that, just two years into the seething bloodbath of the full-scale, unprovoked and illegal US-UK invasion and occupation of Iraq, Iraq comprised just 8 per cent of media reporting during the 2005 election campaign, as compared to 44 per cent for ‘electoral process’. (See David Deacon et al, ‘Reporting the 2005 U.K. General Election,’ Communication Research Centre, Loughborough University, August 2005) Everyone knew Bush and Blair had fabricated a case for war, huge numbers of Iraqis were dying, and yet the war was still not deemed an issue by corporate media in deciding if Blair was fit to remain Prime Minister.

No-one should therefore be surprised by this comment from Des Freedman, Professor of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, on the latest election:

‘In terms of content, the media are overwhelmingly preoccupied with the “horse race” aspect of the election – reporting on opinion polls, PR strategies and TV debates – rather than holding parties to account in relation to a broad set of policies. The Loughborough researchers found that coverage of the “electoral process” has taken up 35% of all coverage on TV and in newspapers since the start of the campaign. Adding in stories on corruption, scandals and sleaze (such as the recent betting scandal that has plagued the Tories) and you find that 42% of all coverage is related to “process” more than substantive policy debate.

‘The only policy issue that even gets into double figures is that of taxation, at 11% of total coverage.’

Yet again, media focus has been on ‘electoral process’ with ‘little sign of real issues’.

Thus, closely echoing the blanking of Iraq in 2005, Freedman notes that coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza has been ‘virtually non-existent’. According to Loughborough University, the categories ‘defence/military/security/terrorism’ account for just 3 per cent of total coverage, most of it focused on whether Labour and Tories are more pro-Nato.

And yet, a few days after Hamas launched its attack on 7 October 2023, Keir Starmer was questioned by Nick Ferrari of LBC on Israel’s response:

‘A siege is appropriate? Cutting off power, cutting off water?’

Starmer replied:

‘I think that Israel does have that right. It is an ongoing situation.’

In 2019, ‘mainstream’ media were far more concerned about Jeremy Corbyn having questioned the removal of an allegedly anti-semitic mural than they are now about Starmer’s stance on Israel’s authentic, ongoing genocide in Gaza. A 5 July report in The Lancet medical journal commented:

‘… it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip’.

The Guardian’s leading article in response to the election result noted merely:

‘In areas with a high proportion of Muslim voters, anger around Labour’s apparent ambivalence over Gaza saw the party lose ground…’ (Our emphasis)

Complicity in Israel’s atrocities is not ‘ambivalence’. But even if Starmer had shown ‘ambivalence’ over genocide, that would be appalling enough, would it not? And worth more than a bland comment in passing?

Another Guardian report commented:

‘Starmer has been criticised by party members for a Middle East stance that could be seen as more pro-Israel than that of the Tories. The former barrister was accused of dithering for months while Israeli bombs killed more and more people. Labour’s manifesto mentions Gaza once, on page 124.’ (Our emphasis)

This is simply false: Starmer did not ‘dither’; he expressly confirmed Israel’s ‘right’ to inflict collective punishment by cutting off power and water from 2 million civilians.

Other subjects of deep concern to the British public have been similarly blanked: health provision and the NHS accounted for only 5 per cent of coverage, while environmental issues including climate change made up a pitiful 2 per cent of total media coverage.

Comparing Treatment Of Corbyn and Starmer

In July 2015, state-corporate politics and media launched an unprecedented smear campaign to derail Corbyn’s project, peaking just prior to the 12 December 2019 election. That month, Loughborough University found that pre-election coverage of Labour in the press had been consistently ‘very negative’, while coverage of the Conservatives had been consistently ‘positive’.

Our own ProQuest database search of UK newspapers for articles mentioning ‘Corbyn’ and ‘anti-semitism’ showed how the smears massively intensified as the election grew closer:

September = 337 hits

October = 222 hits

November = 1,620 hits

On 25 November, The Times published an article by Britain’s chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, titled, ‘What will become of Jews in Britain if Labour forms the next government?’ Mirvis insisted that Corbyn should be ‘considered unfit for office’, adding:

‘I ask every person to vote with their conscience. Be in no doubt, the very soul of our nation is at stake.’

In response, high-profile journalists cast aside all semblance of impartiality. ITV’s political editor Robert Peston tweeted:

‘The Chief Rabbi’s intervention in the general election is without precedent. I find it heartbreaking, as a Jew, that the rabbi who by convention is seen as the figurehead of the Jewish community, feels compelled to write this about Labour and its leader. I am not… making any kind of political statement here.’

The BBC’s then political editor Laura Kuenssberg tweeted on the chief rabbi’s smears an astonishing 23 times in 24 hours. Kuenssberg even retweeted the following comment from chat show host Piers Morgan in response to then Labour shadow international development secretary Barry Gardiner’s refusal to field further questions on anti-semitism:

‘Wow. The breathtaking arrogance of this chump telling journalists what questions to ask. They should all ignore him & pummel Corbyn about anti-Semitism.’

Kuenssberg apparently later deleted this retweet.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald was typically forthright in responding to Mirvis’s attack:

‘This is utter bullshit.

‘The British Conservative Party is rife with anti-semitism, while there’s no evidence Corbyn is.

‘If you want the Tories to win, just say so. It’s incredibly dangerous to keep exploiting anti-semitism for naked political and ideological ends like this.’

This is just a tiny sample of the media hostility faced by Corbyn (See here and here for many more examples).

So how did our impartial, neutral corporate media’s pre-election treatment of Starmer compare? Des Freedman commented last week:

‘What we have really had during the course of the campaign is a plethora of puff pieces on Labour. Many journalists, aware that they will be dealing with a Labour prime minister from 5 July, appear all too happy to cosy up to senior Labour figures.’

That, actually, is not the reason establishment journalists are so favourable to establishment-friendly Starmer. Freedman continued:

‘So we have had a very upbeat profile of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves in the Guardian arguing that, despite her free-market commitment, she ‘carries little ideological baggage’. There is a rather sickening Guardian interview with Starmer in which we learn very little about his politics, but do find out that he doesn’t have phobias and doesn’t dream at night. And there is an utterly unrevelatory feature in the Financial Times on Starmer which characterises him as a ‘rational, diligent, ruthless’ lawyer but somehow fails even to mention his dealings with Julian Assange when he was the head of the Crown Prosecution Service.’

Despite Starmer famously scrapping every one of his 10 ‘socialist’ pledges, Polly Toynbee wrote in the Guardian of how the Conservatives failed to punish wrongdoing in the party because they didn’t take it that seriously:

‘Straight-as-a-die chief prosecutor Starmer will allow no such equivocation.’

After all, a salient characteristic of the Prime Minister who used fake smears to purge much of the Labour left is his ‘solid decency’. In June, billionaire Conservative donor John Caudwell supplied some detail:

‘What Keir has done, as far as I can see, has taken all the left out of the Labour Party. And he’s come out with a brilliant set of values and principles and ways of growing Britain in complete alignment with my views as a commercial capitalist.’

Caudwell’s sage observations, of course, help explain the green-lighting of Starmer at the other end of the supposed media ‘spectrum’ from the Guardian. Daniel Finkelstein, otherwise known as Baron Finkelstein of Pinner in the London Borough of Harrow, commented on Starmer in Rupert Murdoch’s The Times:

‘He has pushed Corbyn out of the party, taken a robust stance on defence and supported a nuclear deterrent, abandoned almost every left-wing policy pledge he made during the leadership election and endorsed a tough policy on public spending, where once he attacked austerity.’

Finkelstein’s conclusion:

‘Starmer is bright and extremely diligent and often finds that evidence and reality push him away from his ideological starting point.’

Seeing what he wanted to see, Finkelstein noted that Starmer had run as a unity candidate for Labour but ‘came to see that this position was impossible and that the policy of the Corbynites was irresponsible’.

The verdict:

‘But as long as we don’t mind too much that he takes his time and sometimes gives a muddled first response, he will often get there in the end.’

Get where? Where the establishment needs him to be. This was captured beautifully in a compilation of two short video clips comparing two comments from Starmer: one, several years ago, saying that he would certainly not be giving interviews to The Sun newspaper; and the second, this recent declaration:

‘I am delighted to have the support and the backing of The Sun. I think that shows just how much this is a changed Labour Party, back in the service of working people.’

The standfirst of another deeply empathetic Times piece asked:

‘Friends say he’s warm, kind and funny. So why can’t he show that side to the public? Josh Glancy joined the campaign trail in search of the real Keir Starmer’

Glancy was keen to emphasise that Starmer ‘is, in many ways, a pretty normal bloke’.

Journalist Neil Clark commented on X:

‘Impossible not to notice how friendly BBC, ITV & C4 have been to Labour in this election, & the stark contrast between now and 2017 & ‘19. No real scrutiny of the party’s policies, no hostile questioning, no “Gotchas”, Starmer given a very easy ride, so different to before.’

There were no ‘Gotchas’, because the propaganda arm of state-corporate power was not trying to get Starmer. The Guardian, for example, has long featured a sub-section of its archive, titled: ‘Starmer’s Path To Power’.

The Loughborough University research notes that ‘First name only’ references to the Labour leader have increased from 4 percent in 2019 to 29 percent in 2024. Establishment-friendly Starmer is often ‘Sir Keir’, while the openly targeted Official Enemy was strictly ‘Corbyn’.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Media Lens.

On 4 March, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini presented his startling report on the situation in Gaza (Palestine) to the UN General Assembly. In just 150 days, Lazzarini said, Israeli forces have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, nearly half of them children. Those who survive continue to face Israel’s attacks and are afflicted with the traumas of war. The four horsemen of the apocalypse described in the Bible’s Book of Revelation – Conquest, War, Famine, and Death – are now galloping from one end of Gaza to the other.

‘Hunger is everywhere’, Lazzarini said. ‘A man-made famine is looming’. A few days after Lazzarini made his blunt assessment, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that child malnutrition levels in the northern part of the strip are ‘particularly extreme’. The UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Palestine Jamie McGoldrick said that ‘hunger has reached catastrophic levels’ and ‘children are dying from hunger’. By the end of the first week of March, at least twenty children had died due to starvation. Among them was ten-year-old Yazan al-Kafarna of Beit Hanoun (northern Gaza), who died in Rafah (southern Gaza) on the same day that Lazzarini spoke at the UN. The image of Yazan’s emaciated body tore into the already battered conscience of our world. Story upon ugly story pile up alongside the rubble produced by Israeli bombing. Dr Mohammed Salha of Al-Awda hospital, where Yazan died, says that many pregnant women suffering from malnutrition have birthed stillborn foetuses or have required caesarean operations to remove them – without anaesthetics.

Mohammed Sami Qariqa (1999–2023), from the exhibition ‘Gaza International Airport’, 2022.

A ceasefire is nowhere on the horizon. Nor is any real commitment to get aid into Gaza, particularly in the north where hunger has taken the greatest toll (on 28 February, UN World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told the Security Council that there is a ‘real prospect of famine [in northern Gaza] by May, with over 500,000 people at risk if the threat is allowed to materialise’). A round 155 trucks of aid are entering Gaza per day – well below the 500-truck daily capacity at the crossing – with only a few of them going to northern Gaza. Israeli soldiers have been ruthless. On 29 February, when aid trucks arrived at the Al-Nabulsi roundabout (on the southwestern edge of Gaza City, in northern Gaza) and desperate people rushed to them, Israeli troops opened fire and killed at least 118 unarmed civilians. This is now known as the Flour Massacre. Airdrops of food are not only inadequate in volume, but they have resulted in their own heartbreaks, with some parcels landing in the Mediterranean Sea and others crushing at least five people to death.

As if from nowhere, US President Joe Biden announced in his State of the Union address on 7 March that his country would build a ‘temporary pier’ in southern Gaza to facilitate the entry of aid through the sea. The context for this decision, which Biden omitted, is clear: Israel is not permitting the bare minimum of humanitarian aid to pass through land crossings, Israel destroyed the Gaza harbour on 10 October, and Israel pulverised the Gaza airport at Dahaniya in 2006. This decision is certainly not from nowhere. It also comes in the midst of the campaign for democrats in the US to vote ‘uncommitted’ in the ongoing primaries to make it clear that the US’s complicity in the genocide will negatively impact Biden’s re-election effort. Although one loaf of bread is better than none, these loaves of bread will come to Gaza stained in blood.

There is a hollowness to Biden’s pronouncement. Once aid arrives at this ‘temporary pier’, how will it be distributed? The main institutions in Gaza capable of any mass-scale distribution are UNRWA – now defunded by most Western countries – and the Hamas-led Palestinian government – which Western countries have set out to destroy. Since neither will be able to distribute humanitarian aid on the ground (and, as Biden said, ‘no US boots will be on the ground’), what will become of the aid?

Fathi Ghaben (1947–2024), Ray of Glory, n.d.

UNRWA has been at work since shortly after UN resolution 302 (IV) was passed in 1949, since which time it has been the main organisation to provide relief to Palestinian refugees (of which there were 750,000 when UNRWA began its operations and of which there are 5.9 million today). UNRWA’s mandate is precise: it must ensure the well-being of Palestinians but cannot operate to permanently settle them outside their homes. That is because UN resolution 194 affords Palestinians the ‘right to return’ to their homes from which they were ejected by the Israeli state. Although UNRWA’s main work has been in the field of education (two thirds of its 30,000 staff work for UNRWA schools), it is also the organisation most equipped to handle aid distribution.

The West allowed for the creation of UNRWA not because of any particular concern for Palestinians, but because – as the US Department of State noted in 1949 – the ‘conditions of unrest and despair would provide a most fertile hotbed for the implantation of Communism’. That is why the West provided funds for UNRWA (although, since 1966, this has come with severe restrictions). In early 2024, most Western countries cut their funding to UNRWA based on an unsubstantiated accusation tying UNRWA employees to the 7 October attack. Though it has recently come to light that the Israeli army tortured UNRWA employees, such as through waterboarding and beatings, and forced them to make these confessions, most of the countries that cut their funding based on these grounds have failed to reinstate it (with the exception of Canada and Sweden, which have recently resumed their funding). Meanwhile, several Global South countries – led by Brazil – have increased their contributions.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees who ran UNRWA from 2010 to 2014, recently said that if ‘UNRWA is not permitted to work, or is defunded, I can hardly see who can substitute [it]’. No humanitarian relief programme for Palestinians in Gaza is possible in the short run without UNRWA’s full partnership. Anything else is a public relations sham.

Majd Arandas (1994–2023), My Grandmother, 2022.

Reading about the famine in Gaza, I remembered a poem written by Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) about the Szebnie concentration camp in Jasło (southern Poland), which held Polish Jews, Romani people, and Soviet prisoners of war from 1941 until the camp was liberated by the Red Army in September 1944. Brutal, horrible violence was inflicted by the Nazis at Szebnie, particularly against the thousands of Jews who were killed there in mass executions. Szymborska’s poem, ‘Starvation Camp Near Jasło’ (1962), does not flinch from the wretchedness surrounding her, nor from the possibility of humanity for which she yearned.

Write it down. Write it. With ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they weren’t given food,
they all died of hunger. All. How many?
It’s a large meadow. How much grass
per head? Write down: I don’t know.
History rounds off skeletons to zero.
A thousand and one is still only a thousand.
That one seems never to have existed:
a fictitious foetus, an empty cradle,
a primer opened for no one,
air that laughs, cries, and grows,
stairs for a void bounding out to the garden,
no one’s spot in the ranks.

It became flesh right here, on this meadow.
But the meadow’s silent, like a witness who’s been bought.
Sunny. Green. A forest close at hand,
with wood to chew on, drops beneath the bark to drink –
a view served round the clock,
until you go blind. Above, a bird
whose shadow flicked its nourishing wings
across their lips. Jaws dropped,
teeth clattered.

At night a sickle glistened in the sky
and reaped the dark for dreamed-of loaves.
Hands came flying from blackened icons,
each holding an empty chalice.
A man swayed
on a grill of barbed wire.
Some sang, with dirt in their mouths. That lovely song
about war hitting you straight in the heart.
Write how quiet it is.
Yes.

The paintings and photograph in this newsletter were created by Palestinian artists killed in Gaza during Israel’s genocide. They have died, but we must live to tell their stories.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

Iranian state media says hard-liners are ahead in the capital, Tehran, as vote counting progresses in Iran's March 1 elections, which were marred by what appears to be a record-low turnout prompted by voter apathy and calls for a boycott by reformists.

The elections for a new parliament, or Majlis, and a new Assembly of Experts, which elects Iran's supreme leader, were the first since the deadly nationwide protests that erupted following the September 2022 death while in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained for an alleged Islamic dress-code violation.

Iran's state-run IRNA news agency said 1,960 from 5,000 ballots in Tehran have been counted so far, with hard-liners ahead as expected.

An alliance led by hard-liner Hamid Rasaee won 17 out of 30 seats in Tehran, state radio reported, while the incumbent parliamentary speaker, conservative Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf also obtained a new seat.

The turnout appears to be at a record low, according to unofficial accounts, despite the officials' repeated appeals to Iranians to show up en masse at the polls as Iran's theocracy scrambles to restore its legitimacy in the wake of a wave of repression in 2022 and amid deteriorating economic conditions.

The Mehr news agency, citing unofficial results, reported that voter turnout in Tehran was only 24 percent.

Iran's rulers needed a high turnout to repair their legitimacy following the unrest, but many Iranians said they would not vote in “meaningless” elections in which more than 15,000 candidates were running for the 290-seat parliament.

State media reported that the turnout was "good." Official surveys before the election, however, suggested that only some 41 percent of eligible Iranians would come out to vote.

The Hamshahri newspaper said on March 2 that more than 25 million people, or 41 percent of eligible voters, had turned out, thus confirming the official survey.

If the figure is confirmed, it will be the lowest election turnout in Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 that brought the current theocracy to power, despite officials twice extending voting hours to allow late-comers to cast ballots.

The pro-reform newspaper Ham Mihan published an opinion piece titled The Silent Majority, reporting a turnout of some 40 percent.

Shortly afterwards, however, the title of the piece was changed to Roll Call without any explanation, which commenters on social media networks blamed on pressure exerted on the newspaper by authorities.

So far, the lowest turnout, 42.5 percent, was registered in the February 2020 parliamentary elections, while in 2016, the turnout was some 62 percent.

As the voting concluded, the United States made clear that the international community was aware that the results of the poll would not reflect the will of the Iranian people.

"As some Iranians vote today in their first parliamentary election since the regime's latest violent crackdown, the world knows the Iranian people do not have a true say at the ballot box," U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Iran Abram Paley wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Ahead of the vote, prominent figures, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, said they would boycott the elections, labeling them as superficial and predetermined.

Mohammad Khatami, Iran's first reformist president, was among the critics who did not vote on March 1.

Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister, has also voiced his refusal to vote, criticizing the supreme leader's indifference to the country's crises.

Voter apathy, along with general dissatisfaction over living standards and a clampdown on basic human rights in Iran, has been growing for years.

Even before Amini's death, which sparked massive protests and the Women, Life, Freedom movement, unrest had rattled Iran for months in response to declining living standards, wage arrears, and a lack of insurance support.

In a last-ditch effort to encourage a high turnout, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said after casting his ballot in Tehran that voting would “make friends happy and ill-wishers unhappy.”

While domestically attention is mostly focused on the parliamentary elections, it is perhaps the Assembly of Experts polls that are more significant.

The 88-seat assembly, whose members are elected for eight-year terms, is tasked with appointing the next supreme leader. Given that Khamenei is 84, the next assembly may end up having to name his successor.

Analysts and activists said the elections were “engineered” because only candidates vetted and approved by the Guardian Council were allowed to run. The council is made up of six clerics and six jurists who are all appointed directly and indirectly by Khamenei.

In dozens of audio and written messages sent to RFE/RL’s Radio Farda from inside Iran, many said they were opting against voting because the elections were “meaningless” and likely to consolidate the hard-liners’ grip on power.

With reporting by Reuters

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

In one of the last cases in the Supreme Court’s current session, the justices ruled in favor of a wedding website designer who wants to be allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples. Lorie Smith of Colorado filed the lawsuit with help from the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom as part of the group’s ongoing attempt to roll back the rights of LGBTQ people. But as reporter Melissa Gira Grant discovered, part of the case may be built on a lie. Smith has never actually built a wedding website; the lone request Smith claims to have received from a gay couple supposedly originated with a straight man in another state who told Grant he had never asked for a website and that he has been married to a woman for many years. “He had no idea that his information was in this case,” says Grant, who wrote about the case for The New Republic.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The post The Gang That Couldn’t Snoop Straight appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John Kendall Hawkins.

Progressive economists on Wednesday welcomed newly released U.S. inflation data as further evidence that price increases can be brought under control without crushing the labor market and throwing millions out of work.

But they also warned that the still-strong job market could falter, with devastating consequences for workers, if the Federal Reserve keeps raising interest rates in the coming months.

"The verdict is in: We don't have to choose between low prices and low unemployment. We can have both," said the Groundwork Collaborative's Lindsay Owens after the Labor Department released new data showing that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 4.9% in April compared with the previous year—a cooler figure than analysts expected.

"Today's inflation numbers show 10 straight months of falling inflation on the heels of a 53-year record low unemployment rate," Owens said, referring to last week's better-than-anticipated jobs report. "The only thing left to do now is to ensure that [Fed Chair Jerome] Powell doesn't screw it up with needless rate hikes that would accelerate instability in financial markets and jeopardize our strong labor market."

Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, called the new CPI data "good news for working people," noting that "inflation is nearly back to pre-recession rates, while the unemployment rate is at 50-year lows."

The new CPI figures came a week after the Federal Reserve imposed its 10th consecutive interest rate increase since March 2022, ignoring repeated warnings from outside experts, lawmakers, and even the Fed's own economists that the aggressive attempt to slow the economy and tamp down inflation risks a disastrous recession and mass job loss.

During a press conference last week, Powell left the door open to a pause of interest rate hikes at the Fed's June meeting but did not make a firm commitment, pledging only to "be driven by incoming data meeting by meeting."

Progressives advocates and experts, including Owens, have consistently argued for more than a year that interest rate increases—which target economic demand by raising borrowing costs—are the wrong response to inflation driven by many factors beyond the Fed's direct control, from pandemic-induced supply chain snags to corporate profiteering.

While prominent pundits have dismissed the notion that corporate profit-seeking during the pandemic helps explain persistently high inflation in the U.S. and across the globe, mainstream publications such as The Wall Street Journal have determined that progressive economists were right to emphasize big business pricing power as a significant culprit.

"There are signs that companies are doing more than covering their costs," the Journalreported last week. "According to economists at the [European Central Bank], businesses have been padding their profits. That, they said, was a bigger factor in fueling inflation during the second half of last year than rising wages were."

Major companies have used the windfalls from their price hikes to reward investors. The watchdog group Accountable.US noted in a report released Wednesday that Mondelez, which owns Belvita and Chips Ahoy!, "saw a shocking 142% increase in quarterly earnings after announcing price hikes, which empowered it to spend $928 million in dividends and stock buybacks for their wealthiest shareholders."

"It shouldn't come as a shock that Chair Powell’s actions have eroded public trust in the central bank."

A Gallup poll released Tuesday showed that just 36% of U.S. adults have either a "great deal" or a "fair amount" of confidence in Powell, a former private equity executive first nominated to the Fed chairmanship by former President Donald Trump.

President Joe Biden renominated Powell to the critical post in late 2021 despite outspoken opposition from some Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

"The 36% rating for Powell is the lowest Gallup has measured for him during his six years as Fed chair. It is also the lowest reading Gallup has had for any prior Fed chair," the polling organization noted in a summary of its findings.

Owens said in response to the survey that "it shouldn't come as a shock that Chair Powell's actions have eroded public trust in the central bank."

"Instead of fighting for a strong labor market and securing our banking system, Chair Powell has enacted 10 consecutive rate hikes and put us at risk of a recession," said Owens. "Americans want a Fed that is on their side, not the side of big banks."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

The post Not Shooting Straight: Corporate Media Gives Mass Shootings Blanket Coverage, While Missing Community-Level Gun Violence appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Project Censored.

The post Black Robes: White Straight Christian Male Justice appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Stanley L. Cohen.

Peace advocates on Thursday said that the near-unanimous vote by United Nations member states to demand an end to the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba underscores the imperative for the Biden administration to lift the crippling 60-year blockade.

"What would Cuba be like today, if the blockade didn't hinder its development?"

For the 30th straight year, U.N. General Assembly members voted in favor of a Cuban resolution condemning the embargo, first enacted during the administration of then-President John F. Kennedy, who according to close confidant and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., wanted to unleash "the terrors of the Earth" on Cuba following Fidel Castro's successful overthrow of a brutal U.S.-backed dictatorship.

Thursday's vote was 185-2, with only the United States and Israel dissenting, and Ukraine and Brazil abstaining.

"The Biden administration talks about the need for a rules-based international order. Today's U.N. vote clearly shows that the global community is calling on the U.S. to lift its brutal embargo on Cuba," CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin said in a statement.

Benjamin added that U.S. President Joe Biden "should respect global opinion" and return to former President Barack Obama's "policy of normalizing relations with Cuba."

Manolo De Los Santos, co-executive chair of the People's Forum, wondered, "What would Cuba be like today, if the blockade didn't hinder its development?"

"It is impossible to quantify the pain generated by power cuts, long queues to purchase food, the obstacles to the life projects of families, particularly young people," he added. "Cuba has a right to live!"

Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly Thursday, Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla noted that "more than 80% of the current Cuban population was born under the blockade," which he called a "deliberate act of economic war" akin to "a permanent pandemic, a constant hurricane."

Rodríguez said that since then-President Donald Trump rolled back most of the reforms set in motion by Obama, the United States "has escalated the siege around our country, taking it to an even crueler and more inhuman dimension, with the purpose of deliberately inflicting the biggest possible damage on Cuban families."

Taking aim at  Biden, Rodríguez added that "the current U.S. administration does not have a policy of its own toward Cuba. It acts out of inertia and continues the inhuman policy of maximum pressure instituted during the presidency of Donald Trump."

Rodríguez said the embargo has cost Cuba more than $6.3 billion during the first 14 months of the Biden administration, or more than $15 million per day.  In 2018 a United Nations commission estimated the total cost to the Cuban economy of the 60-year blockade was at least $130 billion.

Members of CodePink plan to rally against the embargo Thursday afternoon in San Francisco. This follows CodePink protests to #LetCubaLive in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. over the past several days.

CodePink is set to cap a week of action Saturday by joining with the Cuban-American group Puentes de Amor to send a plane loaded with 8.5 tons of food and medicines to the besieged island.

“Unfortunately," said CodePink Latin American coordinator Samantha Wherry, the shipment "represents a tiny gesture compared to the billions of dollars of harm caused by the U.S. blockade."

The peace activists have three demands: An end to the U.S. blockade, lifting of all travel and economic restrictions on Cuba, and removal of Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Successive U.S. administrations backed a decadeslong campaign of exile terrorism against Cuba, attempted subversion, failed assassination attempts, economic warfare, and covert operations large and small in a fruitless policy of regime change.

Meanwhile, a dozen U.S. administrations have come and gone since the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

One of New Zealand’s most celebrated athletes is opening up her on life journey on the big screen.

Double Olympic shot put champion Dame Valerie Adams’ feature documentary, More Than Gold, is centred around the Tongan/Kiwi’s preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

However, the film touches on Adams struggles with balancing her role as a mum as well as memories involving hardship, loss and relationships.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC: Susana Suisuiki talks to Dame Valerie Adams
• Trailer for the documentary

From penning an autobiography, to championing many causes, Adams said that the timing felt right to do a documentary, especially with how her sporting career had been in the media for years.

“It’s a way to tell your whole story,” she said.

“What the media tells or how they write your story is from their perspective or what you’ve told them but it’s not exactly what truly goes on behind closed doors or what’s happening in one’s life.”

“My documentary really brings people into that journey and takes people throughout that journey from the very start.”

Being a role model
Dame Valerie’s impressive sporting resume includes competing at five Olympic Games earning two golds, one silver and one bronze medal in the shot put.

She has won 17 New Zealand shot put titles and was awarded the Halberg Sportswoman of the Year for seven consecutive years from 2006.

The video trailer of the documentary.                               Video: Transmission Films

Of Tongan and English heritage, Dame Valerie was born in Rotorua but spent some of her childhood in her mother’s home country Tonga. Eventually, Adams and her family returned to New Zealand where she remained in South Auckland for the rest of her adolescent years.

When asked if she ever felt pressured to be a role model once she started succeeding as an athlete, she said it’s an automatic responsibility.

“Where I come from, my upbringing — all the stigma behind South Auckland — I think it was just a natural progression into that role, and I do take some type of responsibility to make sure I do set a good example and that I am a role model to the young women and also young men that have the same upbringing as I do.”

“At the end of the day it’s up to them to grasp whatever talent or passion they have and be prepared to work for it because the world is bigger than South Auckland — but you never forget where you come from.”

Be comfortable with the uncomfortable
It was important to Adams to be authentic in her film as she wanted audiences to understand the sacrifices she undertook to pursue her sporting dreams.

She said the film will resonate with all people whether they are athletes as there are many relatable themes, especially towards the youth.

“There’s a lot of challenges that people face in life and there’s a lot of challenges that youth face in life as well,” Adams said.

“Society is hard, society is mean sometimes and quite difficult, but I want them to know that they are loved but also to inspire them to set some goals and look for something bigger and better.”

“I really just want to share my life so that people can see the nitty-gritty parts of it, the raw parts of it, the trauma but also seeing you work through all of that.”

“Someone gave me some really good advice a few years ago and it was ‘you gotta be comfortable with being uncomfortable’ — and in life you’re going to be put in uncomfortable situations so you’ve gotta train your mind to say you’re cool being here even though you’re not, and work through those awkward situations because it’s going to you make you a more confident and stronger person.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Global internet freedom declined again in 2022 for the 12th year in a row, with China remaining as the most restricted country for the 8th consecutive year, a new study has found.

In its latest study, ‘Freedom on the Net 2022’, U.S.-based advocacy organization Freedom House said Russia, Myanmar, Sudan and Libya received the largest downgrades in terms of internet freedom.

The invasion of Ukraine saw Russia's rating drop seven points to an all-time low as “the Kremlin blocked websites as well as major social media platforms to eliminate other accounts of its ‘special military operation’,” the report said.

China remains “the worst environment for internet freedom.” Beijing continued to tighten its control over the country’s technology sector and set up new rules that require platforms to use their algorithmic systems to promote the Communist Party’s ideology.

In at least 53 countries, internet users “faced legal repercussions for expressing themselves online, often leading to draconian prison terms,” Freedom House said.

Yet in some 26 countries internet freedom improved, especially thanks to the efforts of civil societies. 

‘Most repressive online environment’

‘Freedom on the Net’ is an annual study of internet freedom conducted by Freedom House. This year it covered 70 countries with 89 percent of the world’s internet users.

China stayed at the bottom of the list, with content related to the 2022 Beijing Olympics and the COVID-19 pandemic being heavily censored during the coverage period.

Censorship of content related to women’s rights against sexual assault and harassment was also tightened.

One of the examples was the case of Peng Shuai, the tennis star who accused former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual abuse on social media platform Weibo. 

Not only did her posts about Zhang disappear from Weibo but also posts by other users which referred to Peng were removed.

“Journalists, human rights activists, members of religious and ethnic minority groups, and ordinary users were detained for sharing online content, with some facing harsh prison sentences,” the study said, naming China “the world’s most repressive online environment.”

Beijing created new policies and rules to strengthen the government’s control over Chinese tech firms. Companies that defy the government’s authority, such as by enabling internet users to bypass the state firewall, face heavy fines or even stronger penalties.

And it is not only in China that has a repressive internet, authorities in 47 countries, or two-thirds of the 70 countries surveyed in the report, “have used their legal and regulatory powers to limit access to foreign information sources, leaving residents in a domestic information space that is effectively shaped by the state.”

The result is an internet that “is more fragmented than ever, preventing billions of people from exercising their human rights online,” said the authors of the study.

Blocking internet access 

One of the worst offenders when it comes to internet restriction is Myanmar where the ruling junta has created a domestic intranet to silence opposition and consolidate power following the Feb. 2021 coup. 

The internet has often been shut down or restricted at the same time as military campaigns against pro-democracy groups and ethnic militias.

The study found that the Myanmar public can currently only access an estimated 1,200 websites and platforms through mobile connections. Popular platforms Facebook and Twitter remain inaccessible for most people.

One of the most economically developed countries in Southeast Asia, Singapore, has also experienced a decline in internet freedom, the study alleged.

“Laws passed in recent years, such as the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act, 2021 (FICA) and the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, 2019 (POFMA), empower authorities to restrict online activity with broad latitude,” the report said.

“The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and the family of current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong has dominated Singapore’s parliamentary system since 1959,” it said, noting that the Singaporean legal framework “allows for some political pluralism but constrains the growth of credible opposition parties and limits freedoms of expression, assembly, and association.”

Singapore is rated as “partly free.”

Internet freedom in Russia

A main section of the ‘Freedom on the Net’ study was dedicated to Russia where the largest national decline in freedom was reported.

Within weeks of the invasion of Ukraine, “the Kremlin blocked Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, depriving Russians of access to reliable information about the war and limiting their ability to connect with users in other countries,” the report said.

More than 5,000 websites were blocked and a law was introduced to prescribe up to 15 years in prison for those who spread “false information” about the Ukrainian war.  

By the end of February 2022, the Russian government had blocked a number of news sites including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a sister broadcaster of RFA, the Voice of America (VOA) and the BBC.

Moscow also blocked civil society websites, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Authoritarian leaders have sought to contain online dissent by preventing residents from reaching information sources based in countries with a greater level of media freedom, the study said.

“Greater focus should be placed on developing political and societal resilience… Democratic leaders should recommit to preserving the benefits of a free and open internet,” it recommended.

“True resilience requires new regulations that enshrine protections for human rights in the digital age, stronger multilateral coordination on cybercrime and corporate accountability, and deeper investment in civil society,” Freedom House said.

Founded in 1941, Freedom House is a non-profit, non-partisan organization mostly funded by the U.S. government. It “works as an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom and democracy around the world,” according to the Freedom House website.

This story has been updated to correct the final photo caption.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

Insurance giants are exploiting Medicare Advantage—a corporate-managed program that threatens to result in the complete privatization of traditional Medicare—to capture billions of dollars in extra profits, Saturday reporting by The New York Times confirmed.

"Medicare Advantage shouldn't exist."

The newspaper's analysis of dozens of lawsuits, inspector general reports, and watchdog investigations found that overbilling by Medicare Advantage (MA) providers is so pervasive it exceeds the budgets of entire federal agencies, prompting journalist Ryan Cooper to call the program "a straight up fraud scheme."

Nearly half of Medicare's 60 million beneficiaries are now enrolled in MA plans managed by for-profit insurance companies, and it is expected that most of the nation's seniors will be ensnared in the private-sector alternative to traditional Medicare by next year. Six weeks ago, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) launched an inquiry into "potentially deceptive" marketing tactics used by MA providers to "take advantage" of vulnerable individuals.

As the table below shows, almost every major player in the industry has been accused of fraud by a whistleblower or the U.S. government. In addition, the vast majority are engaged in rampant upcoding, or exaggerating patients' illnesses in order to reap more money from taxpayers—something they do while refusing to provide necessary care for tens of thousands each year.

Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), which has has no connection with Kaiser Permanente, wrote on social media that "the move to privatize Medicare" has "been very profitable, in part because insurers are good at making their patients seem sicker."

Journalist Natalie Shure concurred, tweeting: "Privatized Medicare plans cherry pick healthier enrollees, fudge medical records to make them look as sick as possible, coax doctors into tacking on extra sham diagnoses to bill for, and pay themselves a profit on top of it. Medicare Advantage shouldn't exist."

"For all its faults, Medicare is a (nearly) universal program for 65+, with overhead hovering around 2%—far lower than its private counterparts," Shure added. "What inefficiencies did anyone think MA would be solving exactly[?]" she asked.

According to the Times, MA was created by congressional Republicans "two decades ago to encourage health insurers to find innovative ways to provide better care at lower cost."

Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, a left-wing think tank, argued that the notion that private insurers would "provide more benefit for less money" than traditional Medicare "while taking a profit" is insane on its face.

"They innovate on other margins, namely by bending and breaking rules that determine how much money Medicare gives them, as such things are hard to detect," said Bruenig, "and we are now stuck in an endless cat and mouse enforcement game with them."

As the Times reported:

The government pays Medicare Advantage insurers a set amount for each person who enrolls, with higher rates for sicker patients. And the insurers, among the largest and most prosperous American companies, have developed elaborate systems to make their patients appear as sick as possible, often without providing additional treatment, according to the lawsuits.

As a result, a program devised to help lower health care spending has instead become substantially more costly than the traditional government program it was meant to improve.

[...]

The government now spends nearly as much on Medicare Advantage's 29 million beneficiaries as on the Army and Navy combined. It's enough money that even a small increase in the average patient's bill adds up: The additional diagnoses led to $12 billion in overpayments in 2020, according to an estimate from the group that advises Medicare on payment policies—enough to cover hearing and vision care for every American over 65.

Another estimate, from a former top government health official, suggested the overpayments in 2020 were double that, more than $25 billion.

Citing a KFF study which found that companies typically rake in twice as much gross profit from MA plans as from other types of insurance, the Times pointed out that the growing privatization of Medicare is "strikingly lucrative."

MA plans "can limit patients' choice of doctors, and sometimes require jumping through more hoops before getting certain types of expensive care," the newspaper noted. "But they often have lower premiums or perks like dental benefits—extras that draw beneficiaries to the programs. The more the plans are overpaid by Medicare, the more generous to customers they can afford to be."

"By exploiting and overbilling Medicare, these companies profit off the public. Think of how this money could have been better spent."

The MA program has grown in popularity, including in Democratic strongholds, over the course of four presidential administrations. Meanwhile, regulatory and legislative efforts to rein in abuses have failed to gain traction.

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), some of whom move between the agency and industry, have not been aggressive "even as the overpayments have been described in inspector general investigations, academic research, Government Accountability Office studies, MedPAC reports, and numerous news articles," the Times reported. "Congress gave the agency the power to reduce the insurers' rates in response to evidence of systematic overbilling, but CMS has never chosen to do so."

Ted Doolittle, who served as a senior official for CMS' Center for Program Integrity from 2011 to 2014, said that "it was clear that there was some resistance coming from inside" the agency. "There was foot dragging."

Almost 80% percent of U.S. House members, many of whom are bankrolled by the insurance industry, signed a letter earlier this year indicating their readiness "to protect the program from policies that would undermine" its stability.

David Moore, co-founder of Sludge, an independent news outlet focused on the corrupting influence of corporate cash on politics, observed on social media that "members of the health subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee could publicly on whether they think oversight of the insurance industry has been adequate."

However, Moore pointed out, committee Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) "has received $3.1 million from the insurance industry, the most in the House."

As the Times noted, "Some critics say the lack of oversight has encouraged the industry to compete over who can most effectively game the system rather than who can provide the best care."

"Medicare Advantage overpayments are a political third rail," Richard Gilfillan, a former hospital and insurance executive and a former top regulator at Medicare, told the newspaper. "The big healthcare plans know it's wrong, and they know how to fix it, but they're making too much money to stop."

"There's a risk" that the increased scrutiny of MA providers "blows over because the program's beneficiaries continue to have access to doctors and hospitals," Joseph Ross, a primary care physician and health policy researcher at the Yale School of Medicine, wrote on Twitter. "But by exploiting and overbilling Medicare, these companies profit off the public."

"Think of how this money could have been better spent," said Ross. "The overbilling alone could have provided hearing and vision care to ALL Medicare beneficiaries, or been used to fund any of these agency's budgets."

"The overbilling alone could have provided hearing and vision care to ALL Medicare beneficiaries."

Despite mounting evidence of widespread fraud in MA plans, the Biden administration announced in April that MA insurers will receive one of the largest payment increases in the program's history in 2023, eliciting pushback from several congressional Democrats led by Rep. Katie Porter of California.

Progressives argue that MA is part of a broader effort to privatize Medicare and must be resisted.

Another major culprit is ACO REACH, a pilot program that critics have described as "Medicare Advantage on steroids."

The pilot—an updated version of Direct Contracting launched by the Trump administration and continued by the Biden administration—invites MA insurers and Wall Street firms to "manage" care for Medicare beneficiaries and allows the profit-maximizing middlemen to pocket as much as 40% of what they don't spend on patients, all but ensuring deadly cost-cutting.

Physicians and healthcare advocates have warned that failing to stop ACO REACH could result in the total privatization of traditional Medicare in a matter of years.

"Even though Medicare is relied on by millions of seniors across the country, and precisely because it is so necessary and cost-effective, it is under threat today from the constant efforts of private insurance companies and for-profit investors who want to privatize it and turn it into yet another shameful opportunity to make money off of peoples' health problems," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in May.

Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has called on the Biden administration to "fully end" ACO REACH and other privatization schemes and urged lawmakers to enact the Medicare for All Act, of which she is lead sponsor in the House.

Numerous studies have found that implementing a single-payer health insurance program would guarantee the provision of lifesaving care for every person in the country while reducing overall spending by as much as $650 billion per year.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

The post Four Straight Years of Nonstop Street Protest in Haiti appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

Photograph Source: Voice of America – Public Domain

A cycle of protests began in Haiti in July 2018, and—despite the pandemic—has carried on since then. The core reason for the protest in 2018 was that in March of that year the government of Venezuela—due to the illegal sanctions imposed by the United States—could no longer ship discounted oil to Haiti through the PetroCaribe scheme. Fuel prices soared by up to 50 percent.

On August 14, 2018, filmmaker Gilbert Mirambeau Jr. tweeted a photograph of himself blindfolded and holding a sign that read, “Kot Kòb Petwo Karibe a???” (Where did the PetroCaribe money go?). He reflected the popular sentiment in the country that the money from the scheme had been looted by the Haitian elite, whose grip on the country had been secured by two coups d’état against the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (once in 1991 and again in 2004). Rising oil prices made life unlivable for the vast majority of the people, whose protests created a crisis of political legitimacy for the Haitian elite.

In recent weeks, the streets of Haiti have once again been occupied by large marches and roadblocks, with the mood on edge. Banks and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—including Catholic charities—faced the wrath of the protesters, who painted “Down with [the] USA” on buildings that they ransacked and burned. The Creole word dechoukaj or uprooting—that was first used in the democracy movements in 1986—has come to define these protests. The government has blamed the violence on gangs such as G9 led by the former Haitian police officer Jimmy “Babekyou” (Barbecue) Chérizier. These gangs are indeed part of the protest movement, but they do not define it.

The government of Haiti—led by acting President Ariel Henry—decided to raise fuel prices during this crisis, which provoked a protest from the transport unions. Jacques Anderson Desroches, president of the Fós Sendikal pou Sove Ayiti, told the Haitian Times, “If the state does not resolve to put an end to the liberalization of the oil market in favor of the oil companies and take control of it,” nothing good will come of it. “[O]therwise,” he said, “all the measures taken by Ariel Henry will be cosmetic measures.” On September 26, trade union associations called for a strike, which paralyzed the country, including the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince.

The United Nations (UN) evacuated its nonessential staff from the country. UN Special Representative Helen La Lime told the UN Security Council that Haiti was paralyzed by “[a]n economic crisis, a gang crisis, and a political crisis” that have “converged into a humanitarian catastrophe.” Legitimacy for the United Nations in Haiti is limited, given the sexual abuse scandals that have wracked the UN peacekeeping missions in Haiti, and the political mandate of the United Nations that Haitian people see as oriented to protecting the corrupt elite that does the bidding of the West.

The current President Ariel Henry was installed to his post by the “Core Group” (made up of six countries, this group is led by the United States, the European Union, the UN, and the Organization of American States). Henry became the president after the still-unsolved murder of the unpopular President Jovenel Moïse (thus far, the only clarity is that Moïse was killed by Colombian mercenaries and Haitian Americans). The UN’s La Lime told the Security Council in February that the “national investigation into his [Moïse’s] murder has stalled, a situation that fuels rumors and exacerbates both suspicion and mistrust within the country.”

Haiti’s Crises

An understanding of the current cycle of protests is not possible without looking clearly at four developments in Haiti’s recent past. First, the destabilization of the country after the second coup against Aristide in 2004, which took place right after the catastrophic earthquake of 2010, led to the dismantling of the Haitian state. The Core Group of countries took advantage of these serious problems in Haiti to import onto the island a wide range of Western NGOs, which seemed to substitute for the Haitian state. The NGOs soon provided 80 percent of the public services. They “frittered” considerable amounts of the relief and aid money that had come into the country after the earthquake. Weakened state institutions have meant that the government has few tools to deal with this unresolved crisis.

Second, the illegal U.S. sanctions imposed on Venezuela crushed the PetroCaribe scheme, which had provided Haiti with concessionary oil sales and $2 billion in profits between 2008 and 2016 that was meant for the Haitian state but vanished into the bank accounts of the elite.

Third, in 2009, the Haitian parliament tried to increase minimum wages on the island to $5 per day, but the U.S. government intervened on behalf of major textile and apparel companies to block the bill. David Lindwall, former U.S. deputy chief of mission in Port-au-Prince, said that the Haitian attempt to raise the minimum wage “did not take economic reality into account” but was merely an attempt to appease “the unemployed and underpaid masses.” The bill was defeated due to U.S. government pressure. These “unemployed and underpaid masses” are now on the streets being characterized as “gangs” by the Core Group.

Fourth, the acting President Ariel Henry likes to say that he is a neurosurgeon and not a career politician. However, in the summer of 2000, Henry was part of the group that created the Convergence Démocratique (CD), set up to call for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Aristide. The CD was set up in Haiti by the International Republican Institute, a political arm of the U.S. Republican Party, and by the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy. Henry’s call for calm on September 19, 2022, resulted in the setting up of more barricades and in the intensification of the protest movement. His ear is bent more to Washington than to Petit-Goâve, a town on the northern coast that is the epicenter of the rebellion.

Waves of Invasions

At the UN, Haiti’s Foreign Minister Jean Victor Geneus said, “[T]his dilemma can only be solved with the effective support of our partners.” To many close observers of the situation unfolding in Haiti, the phrase “effective support” sounds like another military intervention by the Western powers. Indeed, the Washington Post editorial called for “muscular action by outside actors.” Ever since the Haitian Revolution, which ended in 1804, Haiti has faced waves of invasions (including a long U.S. occupation from 1915 to 1930 and a U.S.-backed dictatorship from 1957 to 1986). These invasions have prevented the island nation from securing its sovereignty and have prevented its people from building dignified lives. Another invasion, whether by U.S. troops or the United Nations peacekeeping forces, will only deepen the crisis.

At the United Nations General Assembly session on September 21, U.S. President Joe Biden said that his government continues “to stand with our neighbor in Haiti.” What this means is best understood in a new Amnesty International report that documents the racist abuse faced by Haitian asylum seekers in the United States. The United States and the Core Group might stand with people like Ariel Henry, but they do not seem to stand with the Haitian people, including those who have fled to the United States.

Options for the Haitian people will come from the entry of trade unions into the protest wave. Whether the unions and the community organizations—including student groups that have reemerged as key actors in the country—will be able to drive a dynamic change out of the anger being witnessed on the streets remains to be seen.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

Photograph Source: Voice of America – Public Domain

A cycle of protests began in Haiti in July 2018, and—despite the pandemic—has carried on since then. The core reason for the protest in 2018 was that in March of that year the government of Venezuela—due to the illegal sanctions imposed by the United States—could no longer ship discounted oil to Haiti through the PetroCaribe scheme. Fuel prices soared by up to 50 percent.

On August 14, 2018, filmmaker Gilbert Mirambeau Jr. tweeted a photograph of himself blindfolded and holding a sign that read, “Kot Kòb Petwo Karibe a???” (Where did the PetroCaribe money go?). He reflected the popular sentiment in the country that the money from the scheme had been looted by the Haitian elite, whose grip on the country had been secured by two coups d’état against the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (once in 1991 and again in 2004). Rising oil prices made life unlivable for the vast majority of the people, whose protests created a crisis of political legitimacy for the Haitian elite.

In recent weeks, the streets of Haiti have once again been occupied by large marches and roadblocks, with the mood on edge. Banks and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—including Catholic charities—faced the wrath of the protesters, who painted “Down with [the] USA” on buildings that they ransacked and burned. The Creole word dechoukaj or uprooting—that was first used in the democracy movements in 1986—has come to define these protests. The government has blamed the violence on gangs such as G9 led by the former Haitian police officer Jimmy “Babekyou” (Barbecue) Chérizier. These gangs are indeed part of the protest movement, but they do not define it.

The government of Haiti—led by acting President Ariel Henry—decided to raise fuel prices during this crisis, which provoked a protest from the transport unions. Jacques Anderson Desroches, president of the Fós Sendikal pou Sove Ayiti, told the Haitian Times, “If the state does not resolve to put an end to the liberalization of the oil market in favor of the oil companies and take control of it,” nothing good will come of it. “[O]therwise,” he said, “all the measures taken by Ariel Henry will be cosmetic measures.” On September 26, trade union associations called for a strike, which paralyzed the country, including the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince.

The United Nations (UN) evacuated its nonessential staff from the country. UN Special Representative Helen La Lime told the UN Security Council that Haiti was paralyzed by “[a]n economic crisis, a gang crisis, and a political crisis” that have “converged into a humanitarian catastrophe.” Legitimacy for the United Nations in Haiti is limited, given the sexual abuse scandals that have wracked the UN peacekeeping missions in Haiti, and the political mandate of the United Nations that Haitian people see as oriented to protecting the corrupt elite that does the bidding of the West.

The current President Ariel Henry was installed to his post by the “Core Group” (made up of six countries, this group is led by the United States, the European Union, the UN, and the Organization of American States). Henry became the president after the still-unsolved murder of the unpopular President Jovenel Moïse (thus far, the only clarity is that Moïse was killed by Colombian mercenaries and Haitian Americans). The UN’s La Lime told the Security Council in February that the “national investigation into his [Moïse’s] murder has stalled, a situation that fuels rumors and exacerbates both suspicion and mistrust within the country.”

Haiti’s Crises

An understanding of the current cycle of protests is not possible without looking clearly at four developments in Haiti’s recent past. First, the destabilization of the country after the second coup against Aristide in 2004, which took place right after the catastrophic earthquake of 2010, led to the dismantling of the Haitian state. The Core Group of countries took advantage of these serious problems in Haiti to import onto the island a wide range of Western NGOs, which seemed to substitute for the Haitian state. The NGOs soon provided 80 percent of the public services. They “frittered” considerable amounts of the relief and aid money that had come into the country after the earthquake. Weakened state institutions have meant that the government has few tools to deal with this unresolved crisis.

Second, the illegal U.S. sanctions imposed on Venezuela crushed the PetroCaribe scheme, which had provided Haiti with concessionary oil sales and $2 billion in profits between 2008 and 2016 that was meant for the Haitian state but vanished into the bank accounts of the elite.

Third, in 2009, the Haitian parliament tried to increase minimum wages on the island to $5 per day, but the U.S. government intervened on behalf of major textile and apparel companies to block the bill. David Lindwall, former U.S. deputy chief of mission in Port-au-Prince, said that the Haitian attempt to raise the minimum wage “did not take economic reality into account” but was merely an attempt to appease “the unemployed and underpaid masses.” The bill was defeated due to U.S. government pressure. These “unemployed and underpaid masses” are now on the streets being characterized as “gangs” by the Core Group.

Fourth, the acting President Ariel Henry likes to say that he is a neurosurgeon and not a career politician. However, in the summer of 2000, Henry was part of the group that created the Convergence Démocratique (CD), set up to call for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Aristide. The CD was set up in Haiti by the International Republican Institute, a political arm of the U.S. Republican Party, and by the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy. Henry’s call for calm on September 19, 2022, resulted in the setting up of more barricades and in the intensification of the protest movement. His ear is bent more to Washington than to Petit-Goâve, a town on the northern coast that is the epicenter of the rebellion.

Waves of Invasions

At the UN, Haiti’s Foreign Minister Jean Victor Geneus said, “[T]his dilemma can only be solved with the effective support of our partners.” To many close observers of the situation unfolding in Haiti, the phrase “effective support” sounds like another military intervention by the Western powers. Indeed, the Washington Post editorial called for “muscular action by outside actors.” Ever since the Haitian Revolution, which ended in 1804, Haiti has faced waves of invasions (including a long U.S. occupation from 1915 to 1930 and a U.S.-backed dictatorship from 1957 to 1986). These invasions have prevented the island nation from securing its sovereignty and have prevented its people from building dignified lives. Another invasion, whether by U.S. troops or the United Nations peacekeeping forces, will only deepen the crisis.

At the United Nations General Assembly session on September 21, U.S. President Joe Biden said that his government continues “to stand with our neighbor in Haiti.” What this means is best understood in a new Amnesty International report that documents the racist abuse faced by Haitian asylum seekers in the United States. The United States and the Core Group might stand with people like Ariel Henry, but they do not seem to stand with the Haitian people, including those who have fled to the United States.

Options for the Haitian people will come from the entry of trade unions into the protest wave. Whether the unions and the community organizations—including student groups that have reemerged as key actors in the country—will be able to drive a dynamic change out of the anger being witnessed on the streets remains to be seen.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

The nationwide wave of labor organizing by Starbucks workers continued to bear fruit Tuesday as employees at five of the coffee chain's Richmond, Virginia stores overwhelmingly voted to unionize.

"Within 48 hours we had 70% of the store signed up for union cards."

According to More Perfect Union, the votes at the five Richmond Starbucks were 17-1, 22-3, 11-2, 13-8, and 19-0. The stores are the company's first in Virginia to unionize; workers at a Springfield location narrowly rejected forming a union last week.

"The movement of workers demanding dignity on the job wins again," tweeted U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "Congratulations to Starbucks workers in Richmond on your vote to unionize! I will see you Sunday!"

Sanders is scheduled to appear Sunday at Unity Fest, a free event "to support and celebrate the organizing efforts of Starbucks workers locally and across the country."

Starbucks Workers United, the group coordinating the nationwide organizing effort, now boasts a record of 21 unionizations in 23 attempts.

Inspired by the historic unionization of Starbucks workers in Buffalo, New York late last year, the global coffee chain's Richmond employees began their own organizing journey in February.

"It really came together fast for our store," said Tyler Hofmann, a barista at the North Boulevard Starbucks. "My store manager went on vacation, and I was like, this is the time, we have an opportunity to organize."

"My store was super supportive," he added, "and within 48 hours we had 70% of the store signed up for union cards."

Starbucks workers have defied what they say is a concerted union-busting campaign by the Seattle-based company. Last week, a group of 24 of the coffee giant's employees urged the U.S. House of Representatives' labor committee to compel billionaire Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to testify about what they called an incessant and unlawful effort to thwart the nationwide unionization drive.

Last week, Bloomberg reported prosecutors at the National Labor Relations Board plan to formally accuse Starbucks of illegally firing a group of activists seeking to unionize their Memphis, Tennessee store.

Richmond Starbucks workers said the company utilized union-busting tactics as they sought to organize, including slashing employee hours.

"It's reached to a point where a lot of us have been, you know, discussing finding other jobs and stuff to be able to make ends meet," barista Iman Djehiche told More Perfect Union. "That's been something we've been experiencing since we got our ballot date."

Barista Cory Johnson said the union drive has boosted solidarity among his co-workers.

"In an industry that a lot of people, I think, write off and say can't be organized, Starbucks baristas have shown that you can organize these places and you can win," he said. "It just takes one victory to kind of spark a movement. And even someone like Howard Schultz isn't too big to organize against."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

“My 11-year-old was extremely frightened yesterday and asked whether there was going to be war soon,” said one parent online.

TikTok’s “For You Page” (FYP) is highly individualized. Each user’s FYP is tailored to their interests based on an algorithm, providing a never-ending stream of content from creators the user may not even follow. This means engaging with content on TikTok’s FYP by liking or commenting on a video quickly results in dozens of similar clips from related creators.

According to a January 2022 report by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, BRIS—a Swedish-based children’s advocacy organization—received countless phone calls via its hotline from frightened young people across the country. Callers shared how the stress of watching the videos negatively impacted their mental health. BRIS social worker Marie Angsell urged parents to explain the harmful ways in which TikTok operates, as well as how quickly inaccurate information can spread on the app, to help alleviate concern.

Establishment media outlets such as the Washington Post and NBC News have recently covered the rapid dissemination of unverified information on social media about the Russia-Ukraine war. In March 2022, the New York Times even reported about how American teens have relied on TikTok as their sole source of news during the conflict. However, the corporate media has yet to cover the psychological effect of these videos on young minds.

Source: Elisabeth Braw, “‘War Is Coming’: Mysterious TikTok Videos are Scaring Sweden’s Children,” Defense One, January 16, 2022.

Student Researchers: Viviana Sebastiano, Brendan Lally, Alison Chmielewski, and Taimur Malik (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Faculty Evaluator: Allison Butler (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

The post Scared Straight: TikTok Teens and Children Battling War Anxiety appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

“My 11-year-old was extremely frightened yesterday and asked whether there was going to be war soon,” said one parent online.

TikTok’s “For You Page” (FYP) is highly individualized. Each user’s FYP is tailored to their interests based on an algorithm, providing a never-ending stream of content from creators the user may not even follow. This means engaging with content on TikTok’s FYP by liking or commenting on a video quickly results in dozens of similar clips from related creators.

According to a January 2022 report by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, BRIS—a Swedish-based children’s advocacy organization—received countless phone calls via its hotline from frightened young people across the country. Callers shared how the stress of watching the videos negatively impacted their mental health. BRIS social worker Marie Angsell urged parents to explain the harmful ways in which TikTok operates, as well as how quickly inaccurate information can spread on the app, to help alleviate concern.

Establishment media outlets such as the Washington Post and NBC News have recently covered the rapid dissemination of unverified information on social media about the Russia-Ukraine war. In March 2022, the New York Times even reported about how American teens have relied on TikTok as their sole source of news during the conflict. However, the corporate media has yet to cover the psychological effect of these videos on young minds.

Source: Elisabeth Braw, “‘War Is Coming’: Mysterious TikTok Videos are Scaring Sweden’s Children,” Defense One, January 16, 2022.

Student Researchers: Viviana Sebastiano, Brendan Lally, Alison Chmielewski, and Taimur Malik (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Faculty Evaluator: Allison Butler (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

The post Scared Straight: TikTok Teens and Children Battling War Anxiety appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

In this essay, we will look at a string of philosophers from the Enlightenment who redrew what it means to be human. While many have deemed humans vicious creatures, we will consider some thinkers who felt this was not the case. They focused on our internal sense of humanity and the abundant goodness that can be found in people.

Every thinker we will look at—Shaftesbury, Butler, Hume, Smith, and Rousseau—had Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) in his sights. They felt Hobbes characterized human nature in a narrow, reductive way. Hobbes’s name has become a label denoting just such a judgment of humanity. “Hobbesian” now means the opinion that people are terrible and prone to violence. But while his viewpoint was indeed materialistic and mechanical, and he did feel that people needed the protection of a sovereign power, Hobbes does not say people are terrible. If you encountered Hobbes in high school or college, chances are the quotes you were taught came from Chapter XIII (around three pages in total) of his masterpiece Leviathan. Excerpts from chapter XIII are in all the textbooks and it is there where all the familiar quotes come from. In this section, I simply wish to do some corrective work on the subject. The goal is not to include Hobbes with the other thinkers we will discuss—he certainly stands apart from them, but he’s not the Grim Reaper either.

It is common for political philosophers to begin with a consideration of human nature. In order to properly investigate how humans should arrange and organize themselves in the best possible way, it stands to reason that we should decide on what is the essence of human nature; in a sense, that is what I am doing in this essay. We have to know just whom—or what—we are organizing. If people are naturally aggressive and vicious, this must be taken into account when designing systems of governance for them. Likewise, if humans tend to be kind and cooperative, we will need a much different system. The method many philosophers utilized was to consider humankind in a “state of nature.” That is, what are we left with when we subtract those systems of governance? What kind of creatures are humans when we consider them on their own, in the wild, with no overarching political or economic structure of any kind? This is not to suggest that this state of nature at one time existed; think of it more as a thought experiment.

Hobbes’s conception of humankind in a state of nature starts with the idea that everyone is more or less equal and free. The playing field starts level, for even body and mind; even the weakest person can conceivably kill the strongest. So I could potentially kill you and steal your apples, but you might kill me in the process. However, the threat of someone, or a confederacy of someones, killing me and stealing my apples does exist. No one is stopping them. Also, there is the risk of there being no apples. So, now we are in competition. The threat of scarcity also looms for Hobbes. And scarcity can lead to things getting ugly. But all in all, the Hobbesian state of nature is a set of circumstances where people are more prone to mind their own business. Someone could try and do me in to get my apples, but they probably will not. So if I see you out on the savanna, I’ll probably just ignore you, and you me. Leading Hobbes scholar Richard Tuck maintains,

The common idea that Hobbes was in some sense “pessimistic” about human nature is wide of the mark, for his natural men [people in a state of nature] were in principle stand-offish towards one another rather than inherently belligerent.¹

For Hobbes, there are three principal causes of what he calls “quarrel”: competition, diffidence, and glory. The first could be the case where things are scarce and I might do you violence because I need your apples. The second pertains to the insecurity of the state of nature, where you might kill me and take my apples, so if I perceive you as a threat, I might club you over the head. And the third sees violence occur where I might want people to be impressed with me, so I club you over the head just to burnish my image. But what Hobbes does not say is that we are destined to do one another violence. He does not paint the state of nature as a place of bloodshed and wanton slaughter. The threat of that exists, but that’s it. Hobbes says,

[W]hen taking a journey, he armes himselfe, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his dores; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knowes there bee Lawes, and publike Officers, armed to revenge all injuries shall bee done him…. (Leviathan, XIII)

So, when I go to sleep, I lock my door (not dore, it’s 2022). Does this reveal anything about my philosophy of human nature? You lock yours, too. We all do. Are we all Hobbesian in the common, negative sense? No. He then says, “Does he [the guy locking his door] not there as much accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse man’s nature in it.” (Leviathan, XIII) There, he just said it out loud. He is not accusing human nature. You lock your doors at night because someone might come in and kill you (and maybe take your apples). But that probably will not happen. You will sleep soundly and you and your apples will be just fine. So, Hobbes is making the case that there needs to be a power—a leviathan—something that proclaims officially, “No one is to kill anybody and take anyone’s apples, and if you do, you will be punished. We’ve got guns.” People need a “a common Power to keep them all in awe, and to direct their actions to the Common Benefit.” (XVII) And the power will “tye them by feare of punishment to the performance of their Covenants, and observation of these Lawes of Nature….” (XVII) Nevertheless, Hobbes highlights in the state of nature this mutual fear of one another, this possible threat, life being potentially “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” (XIII) without the necessary security arrangements.² So, while Hobbes does not say what so many attribute to him, his emphasis is not on cooperation and sympathy, as some Enlightenment thinkers chose to do, as we will now see.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, better known as Shaftesbury, introduced what would become “moral sense theory,” suggesting that we possess a native capacity to experience and judge moral circumstances. As mentioned, in a challenge to Hobbes, Shaftesbury took issue with Hobbes’s reductive picture of human nature. In the “Inquiry,” Shaftesbury says that we experience “moral objects” much like we experience physical objects:

So, we experience moral judgments just as we experience a painting and approve or disapprove of it aesthetically: “There is a common and natural sense of what is sublime and beautiful in things; and someone who denies this won’t be taken seriously by anyone who has attended properly to the facts.”

Shaftesbury maintains this sense of right and wrong is natural and a “first principle in our make-up”:

Because a sense of right and wrong is as natural to us as natural affection itself, and is a first principle in our make-up, there is no theory, opinion, persuasion or belief that can immediately or directly exclude or destroy it.

Joseph Butler in his sermons influenced a long list of philosophers by also focusing on the moral conscience, that “principle of reflection” bestowed upon us by God (Butler was devout and became a bishop) to judge and regulate our conduct.

Butler maintains that it is too obvious to require the making of the case that we have something in us that leads humans toward the good. Yes, humans can fall prey to “ungoverned passions” and do one another harm, just as humans will do themselves harm. So, we are not divine, but we do have a nature. Just as leopards and flies have a nature, we too possess one. Our nature is acting in accordance with this principle of reflection or conscience. This faculty has an authority and, as he says, a supremacy and goes so far as to say (in the second sermon): “Had it strength, as it has right; had it power, as it has manifest authority; it would absolutely rule the world.”³ Butler observes that we are oriented toward one another. We find “satisfaction and amusement” in our various interactions. As he observes:

There is such a natural principle of attraction in man toward man, that having trod the same tract of land, having breathed in the same climate, barely having been born in the same artificial district or division, becomes the occasion of contracting and familiarities many years after: for any thing may serve the purpose. (Sermon 1)⁴

So, we bump into a fellow citizen during our foreign travels and form a bond. It seems silly that we do this. Why should I care, if I’m in Jordan, if I cross paths with an American? It is probably silly; actually it is quite silly. The point is that we all do this. It’s a reflex. And Butler says there’s a good reason for it. It lies at the center of what we are.

Shaftesbury and Butler influenced a generation of thinkers. Among the most preeminent were David Hume (1711–1776) and Adam Smith (1723–1790). Both members of the Scottish Enlightenment, Hume and Smith were not only intellectually simpatico, they were close, lifelong friends. Their friendship coincided with a renaissance that took place in Scotland, which up to that point had been a breeding ground of poverty and disease. In the early eighteenth century, Scotland then became the center of some of the most path-breaking and influential intellectual work in Europe—the capital, Edinburgh, itself got labeled a “hot-bed of genius.”⁵ Hume and Smith played major roles in this story.

Hume was twelve years Smith’s senior, and by the time Smith wrote his two major opuses—The Theory of Moral Sentiments (first edition 1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1776—the year Hume died) Hume’s literary output was winding down. Hume’s thought therefore had quite an impact on Smith. In many respects, Smith can be viewed as a revision or an expansion of what Hume was attempting to achieve. The two thinkers did see eye to eye philosophically, but this should not be taken to mean that Smith merely offered a retread of Hume’s work. Smith’s moral philosophy is far more developed than Hume’s, and in many ways superior.

To start with Hume, he challenged the history of philosophy’s assumption that moral judgments are the product of reason. Philosophers, for centuries, took the position that if I saw someone steal an old lady’s purse, my moral judgement of it was an intellectual event. I drew conclusions, using my reason, that the theft was wrong. Hume disagrees. My moral judgment of the theft is akin to getting nervous before I give a speech or getting jealous when I see what I perceive to be flirtation on the part of my date with another person at a party. (Maybe I’m wrong, but the initial feeling of jealousy I certainly did not choose; it was merely a response.) For Hume, I cannot access moral matters intellectually, because intellectual matters deal with two kinds of knowledge: statements like “All bachelors are unmarried men” or “x=x.” Or knowledge that requires empirical verification: “All bachelors are tall” or “water boils at 100C.” The former set produces no new information and the latter does, but you have to verify it. The statement “All bachelors are tall” is absurd, but it’s a type of knowledge or statement. Tall is not part of the concept bachelor—unmarried man is. So, Hume says that our moral judgments must be taking place elsewhere. For him, it is more of a “neck-down” proposition than a “neck-up” one. In his major philosophical work A Treatise of Human Nature, he famously concludes “Morality is more properly felt than judg’d of….” (Treatise, 3.1.2)

In other words, as I examine a murder scene, the only things available to my senses and my reason (my intellect) are the facts of the crime scene. I can do detective work, I can do forensic analysis, I can come up with hypotheses, question the perpetrator, do lab work, get statements from witnesses, etc. This is all that is available. The right and the wrong of the situation are not on display. I cannot examine the scene for immorality. I cannot take it to the lab. The immorality of the scene I brought with me to the scene. It is only when I turn my reflection inward that the sentiment—my moral judgment of the scene—reveals itself. It is in me, in the form of a feeling. I internally judge the murder as immoral; there is no immorality at the murder scene.

If Hume is right, this has broad implications for the species. For one, we don’t get our morality from religion or our parents, it is an internal sense that we have. (Hume was keen to remove God from the picture; his irreligious perspective—which he made no attempt to hide—was something that rankled among some of his contemporaries and prevented him from securing a teaching position.) Moreover, Hume is saying that our core sense of morality is biological. We possess an internal sense of right and wrong and it registers at the level of sense. If we see a heinously immoral act, like a child being abused, we will feel it. It is a response. This is not to suggest that we will always agree. Hume accounts for distance and “disposition of our mind.” If I am present at the scene when the murder took place, it is going to probably affect my day. If I see it on the news, it probably will not. If I read about it in a history book, it definitely won’t. I can also have bad facts and misjudge a situation, like the perceived flirtation at the party. But, I cannot have a wrong feeling. I’m not wrong for feeling jealousy, if that is what I perceived. Maybe I was wrong about the facts—my date was simply getting directions to a restaurant she thought I would like—but the jealousy was not wrong.

In a later work entitled An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (known as the Second Inquiry), Hume discusses the concept of virtue. He states that “It is the nature, and, indeed, the definition of virtue, that it is a quality of the mind agreeable to or approved of by every one, who considers or contemplates it.” (§VIII) In other words, we find the virtuous agreeable; we are hardwired to find such things of use as pleasing. Were we terrible creatures this certainly would not be the case. Hume continues with a bit of a literary flourish, “[It] cannot be disputed, that there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and serpent.” (§IX) On a personal note, I really find this passage both beautiful and accurate. Some particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame. Sure, we can proceed like the wolf and the serpent, but we are not the wolf or the serpent. We just have those moments. But the particle of the dove is in there. It is part of what we are.

On to Hume’s very good friend Adam Smith. This is the very first paragraph in Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments ((There are many editions of Smith’s Moral Sentiments, but I recommend the scholarly Cambridge edition: Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. Knud Haakonssen (Cambridge, 2002).)):

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.

“How selfish soever man may be supposed”—this is basically a shot at Hobbes. This view of humanity was alive and well in the eighteenth century. If anything it was worse. “[P]rinciples in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” We know this to be true if only we consult our own experiences. “[T]he emotion which we feel for the misery of others …” Again, we know this to be true. Your friend’s pet dies, you feel something. Your friend loses her job, you feel something. Even characters in a film—whom you do not know and do not exist—you cry, you feel sadness. “That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it….” “The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.” We are quick to write off people in prison as being lost causes, but Smith’s point is a sound one.

Smith’s moral philosophy is also based on sentiment and sympathy, which Smith uses in an all-encompassing way to “denote our fellow-feeling with any passions whatever.” (1.1.1.5) But at times, Smith significantly departs from Hume’s approach. In a sense, it is more active we might say. Where Hume’s is a more passive transmission of sentiment, Smith employs what he calls imagination.

Put another way, it’s not a mere transmission of sentiment; I, through imagination, connect with the person’s circumstances. Rather than run through the technical aspects and specifics of Smith’s moral philosophy, I wish to center on his view of human nature, which permeates Moral Sentiments. In Part 3 of the text, Smith makes the following observation:

Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He naturally dreads, not only to be hated, but to be hateful; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of hatred. He desires, not only praise, but praise-worthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of praise. He dreads, not only blame, but blame-worthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be blamed by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of blame. (3.2.1)

This is a powerful thought. “Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely.”

Smith highlights the existence and role of our conscience:

Nature, when she formed man for society, endowed him with an original desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren. She taught him to feel pleasure in their favourable, and pain in their unfavourable regard. She rendered their approbation [approval] most flattering and most agreeable to him for its own sake; and their disapprobation most mortifying and most offensive. (3.2.5–6)

At the center of what we are, Smith is saying, there is a native preference for approval. We seek praise and praise-worthiness. And it is through this native sense that we judge our actions and the actions of others:

He [the Author of Nature] has made man, if I may say so, the immediate judge of mankind; and has, in this respect, as in many others, created him after his own image, and appointed him his vicegerent [ruler] upon earth, to superintend the behaviour of his brethren. (3.2.31)

He likens the conscience to a tribunal, to “that of the man within the breast, the great judge and arbiter of their [humankind’s] conduct.” (3.2.32)

I will close the Adam Smith discussion with what is probably my favorite Smith quote. Russian writer Anton Chekhov has a similar quote⁶ which gets more attention, but I like Smith’s better: “If we saw ourselves in the light in which others see us, or in which they would see us if they knew all, a reformation would generally be unavoidable.” This applies to individuals and whole societies. Humans are not very good at seeing themselves.

Another Enlightenment thinker we would be remiss to not include is the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1788). Rousseau was an influential thinker who in part inspired Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. Rousseau and Hume knew one another, were friends for a time, and then had a falling out. Rousseau is probably the only person to have had interpersonal difficulties with the illustrious Scot, as he was basically adored by everyone who knew him. But at that point Rousseau’s mental health was declining, so we can cut him some slack.

Rousseau in his essay Discourse on Inequality (known as the Second Discourse), reconsiders the state of nature we discussed with Hobbes, and how other thinkers have employed it. Rousseau maintains that the major political philosophers who used the state of nature as a point of departure—for example, Hobbes and English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704)—started with civilized man and not man in a state of nature. He argues that aspects of socialized life have been imputed to their descriptions of the state of nature. It is Rousseau’s position that humans do not need an overarching structure to provide them protection (Hobbes) or to ensure property rights (Locke). That we were (hypothetically) better off in the state of nature and that it was civilization and the overarching political and economic structures that have created our worst ills. “Man is born free,” Rousseau famously stated in The Social Contract, “and everywhere he is in chains.” It was modernization that put those chains on us. That we were healthier, stronger, more dextrous, and altogether happier in the state of nature. Interestingly, this is the general sentiment in the current literature. Roughly 12,000 years ago, humans transitioned from being foragers and hunter-gatherers to growing crops, attaching themselves to a given parcel of land.

But alas, we cannot return to the state of nature, so we have to make the best of it. It is in his descriptions of humankind in the state of nature that Rousseau, like all the thinkers we have discussed so far, cast humanity in a much nicer light.

At the center of his characterization of humans in the state of nature, Rousseau notes the role of pity in human life. For Rousseau, this “natural sentiment” of pity places a check on our behavior. As he states, “[M]en would never have been anything but monsters, if nature had not given them pity to aid their reason.”⁷ He goes on to say:

Instead of the sublime maxim of reasoned justice [the Golden Rule], Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, pity inspires all men with another maxim of natural goodness, much less perfect but perhaps more useful than the preceding one: Do what is good for you with as little harm as possible to others.⁸

He expounds on the concept:

Pity is what, in the state of nature, takes the place of laws, mores, and virtue, with the advantage that no one is tempted to disobey its sweet voice. Pity is what will prevent every robust savage from robbing a weak child or an infirm old man of his hard-earned subsistence, if he himself expects to be able to find his own someplace else.⁸

And this is a thought worth meditating on. If we were naturally greedy and heartless, imagine what kind of world we would live in. Rousseau already said it above: we would be little more than monsters without this sense of pity. The world would be a nightmare. We might be tempted to point to the news as proof that the world is largely chaos and violence. This is false. If we were at the core unpleasant, the world would be a complete nightmare. And it isn’t. People want their children safe, for them to have good schools to attend, to get along with their neighbors, to have a job—one that pays something—and they tend to be touchy about foreign tanks on their streets. In the Middle East, in East Asia, in South America, in Europe, and all over the United States, I have encountered the same thing. This cannot be a coincidence.

So, very similar to Smith, Rousseau asserts we possess an innate sense and an inclination to not do harm. Likewise, similar to Hume, he calls into question philosophy’s age-old emphasis on reason being the sole source of our “repugnance at doing evil”⁸: “[T]he human race would long ago have ceased to exist,” he states, “if its preservation had depended solely on the reasoning of its members.”⁸

In fact, what are generosity, mercy and humanity, if not pity applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the human species in general? Benevolence and even friendship are, properly understood, the products of a constant pity fixed on a particular object; for is desiring that someone not suffer anything but desiring that he be happy.

Rousseau selects a choice quote from the Roman poet Juvenal: “Nature, in giving men tears, bears witness that it gave the human race the softest hearts.”⁹

We are seeing confirmation of this Enlightenment redrawing of human nature across the sciences, in primatology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and psychology. Hume and Smith are now the talk of the town.

1. Richard Tuck, Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 65.
2. I guess I had to include this quote, even though it was with hesitancy. It gets quoted everywhere by everyone. It’s in all the textbooks. But it gets trotted out to suggest that Hobbes is saying that is what life in the state of nature is like. And he is not saying that. When you see a quote get used to death, something is usually amiss. Like Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” concept or his “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange” quote. One gets tired of seeing these quotes. They are overused, misused, and distort what the thinker was saying. The text—all of it—must be tended to.
3. Butler, Fifteen Sermons, 31.
4. Butler, Fifteen Sermons, 21.
5. Dennis C. Rasmussen, The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship that Shaped Modern Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 55.
6. “Man will become better when you show him what he is like.”
7. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Basic Political Writings, ed. Donald A. Cress, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2011), 63.
8. Rousseau, Basic, 64.
9. Rousseau, Basic, 63.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Gregory Harms.