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Standing at nearly 2 meters tall, with the physique of the former athlete that he is, wearing sneakers and a leather jacket, and speaking without mincing his words, Edi Rama is more like a rock star than a prime minister. His entire demeanor, in fact, says unconventional.

Kathimerini met with the Albanian leader on a Sunday earlier this month at Zappeion Hall in downtown Athens, where he and curator Katerina Koskina were setting up a massive installation of his artwork. Because apart from politics and basketball, Rama also studied and taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana, has shown his work in different parts of the world and also combined his sense of aesthetic with politics as mayor of the Albanian capital from 2000 to 2011.

The invitation to hold a show in Athens was extended by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias after they visited Rama at his office in Tirana in December and marveled at the art adorning its walls in the form of wallpaper and at the art supplies on his desk. The Zappeion show, which runs to March 31, comprises paintings on sheets of A4 paper and a series of ceramics he made at a friends workshop.

Is the Albanian prime minister at all torn between political cynicism and artistic idealism? It is certainly a battle, he says. I never thought Id become involved in public life. I thought Id become an artist. But the universe laughs at our plans and it had a very good laugh with mine, sending me on a completely different path. Politics can be a cause of catastrophic decisions, developments and turns in history, but it can also be a means of significantly improving peoples lives, a massive transformational force. We would have nothing without politics; not democracy or freedom or equal rights. Ultimately, these are the reasons why people become involved with it.

Our discussion inevitably turned to the deadly rail crash in central Greece on February 28. Your tragedy is our tragedy, the Albanian prime minister had said immediately after the incident, going on to declare March 5 as a national day of mourning in Albania, with flag flying half-mast. Sympathy is a natural reaction and the people always feel closer to each other than their leaderships do, he comments. When a tragedy befalls us, we realize how similar we are and that we are both vulnerable to nature, children of the same God. And when that tragedy strikes a neighbor, you fell their pain even more intensely. So, average citizens have a lot to teach politicians about what they are and what they want and the leadership should emulate them more.

I follow up on that thought and ask him whether he feels that politics has caused him to give up on a certain part of himself. I try to be me, but that is easier said than done sometimes. I dont always wear the politicians suit, and I am also not the product of a party, but of an age of great change for my country. As an artist, I also felt societys need for more freedom. I know what it feels like to be restricted and I dont mean in terms of your livelihood or career, but something bigger than that. The fall of communism was like having to break down a symbolic wall for us Albanians. We experienced politics in action and we made it. But even then, I did not want to be a part of the political system, says the 58-year-old.

The people always find a way to work things out. But there are politicians who are serving their own agendas

Indeed, with the end of communism and Albanias isolation, Rama moved to Paris to make a go of a career as an artist. I went after my freedom. I traveled all the time, staying with friends here and there and selling paintings to get by. It was then proposed that I should be culture minister and later mayor of Tirana. Those were very different times; and again, it was the circumstances that determined those positions. At the time, the Albanian capital was completely chaotic and disorganized, and residents had a lot to contend with. As a mayor, but also as an artist, I knew that a mandate to repaint the facades of buildings in bold, bright colors would transform the capital, change its tune. And it did; it worked.

For Rama, its always about circumstances. Would I have become mayor if I was born in Sweden? No. Tirana is not Stockholm or Zurich. There isnt much to change in Zurich. Mayors are a lot like artists: if you do a good job, the result is immediately visible, people see it. A prime minister is more like a maestro conducting a symphony. Being mayor is great, he says.

He laughs when I ask what he would change in Athens. Im obviously not going to answer that question; thats for your own authorities to say.

Ties with Greece

Greece, says Rama, feels like home in terms of the landscape, the people and its warmth, but it also had the good luck to become a member of the European Union, to have leaders like Karamalis, Papandreou and Mitsotakis who served that vision, and to have the Olympic Games.

As far as Albanias EU prospects are concerned, Rama says its a tough process.

The accession process is a lot more complicated and demanding than it was for other countries in the past. Lets just say that its a matter of political subjectivity, a difference in criteria. Everything is much stricter now and some countries would not have become members if they applied today, says Rama, who recently suggested that Greece had cheated to become a member of the bloc.

There are also unresolved issues between the two neighbors, mainly the matter of maritime zones and the Greek minority in Albania. With regard to the former, Rama says that the two sides have agreed to disagree and the matter will be settled by the International Court at The Hague. We have a fantastic relationship with Greece and personally with Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who knows how to speak and how to listen.

In terms of the former, Rama says that the people always find a way to work things out.

We have always been close. We were temporarily separated by communism and there was a wave of immigration from our country to yours after it fell that caused some concern, but over time this became mutually beneficial, for your country as much as for mine. The people, as I said earlier, always find a way to work things out. But there are politicians who are serving their own agendas and so bilateral ties are not defined by the human relationships but by the leaderships, and especially when were talking about countries that are neighbors.

Regional developments

Our conversation turns to the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the regional chessboard of geostrategic relations and the possibility of new outbreaks of tension in the Balkans.

People say that we produce more history in the Balkans than were able to consume. I am optimistic about the Balkans, though, especially if we find a way to work together and even more so to get under the EU umbrella. We have our issues, of course, our disagreements and our tricks, but thats who we are otherwise, wed be the Benelux. Sometimes I even think were just playacting. My grandmother had a good saying: The happier your neighbor, the happier your home. Sure, well fight and argue, but when disaster strikes, its your neighbor who will come to help first. Sympathy always comes first and the people know this.

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We are both children of the same God - Kathimerini English Edition

Bank crises and the bailouts that often ensue are nothing new. Apropos one such bailout, where the authorities had shored up bank solvency by buying up distressed assets, a certain financial journalist wrote, In other words, the fortune of the whole community, which the Government represents, ought to make good the losses of private capitalists. This sort of communism, where the mutuality is all on one side, seems rather attractive to the European capitalists.

The occasion was a bank crisis in Hamburg; the date was November 1857; and the journalist, reporting to readers of the New York Daily Tribune, was Karl Marx.

Since 1857 bank crises and bailouts have come and gone, each one adding layers of literature to the question why bank crises happen and how to prevent them happening again. And with each crisis, public esteem for authorities that oversee financial markets has risen. In 2022, for his analysis of financial markets dysfunction and for steering them out of the 2008 crisis, Professor Ben Bernanke of Princeton University and the Federal Reserve was awarded Nobel laurels. The complacency of 2022 now seems the swan song of a different era. At the very moment when public esteem for financial market regulators could not have been made more conspicuous, troubles have set in.

In October 2022 pension funds in London required emergency intervention. In March 2023 distress calls have gone out from distant ends of the globe, from swashbuckling venture capitalists in California and sedate wealth managers in Switzerland. Regulators are discovering that their hold on financial markets is as firm as a grip on a wet bar of soap in a bathtub.

How did we get here?

Central banks and regulators have nursed back global financial markets from a near-death experience in 2008. Central banks did this by injecting generous doses of near-zero cost funding in the shape of quantitative easing (QE), and regulators by arranging regular health checks in the shape of stress tests.

Central banks in the post-2008 era administered QE as a temporary application. It was supposed to be withdrawn after restoring the patient to health. But given that the nemesis in all three recent cases seems to have been the rise in interest rates, for swathes of the financial sector QE appears to have become a form of artificial life support.

Regulators had expanded their remit to supervise banking practices and oversee stress-testing, undertaken annually with a no-expense-spared allocation of resources. But the pernicious impact of interest rates, increased several times in quick succession, seems to have been missing from their list of checks.

Although it is a commonplace that there is no such thing as a free lunch, it has been thought for some time that there is such a thing as a free bank rescue. Distortions caused by bank rescues are showing up as the money pouring out from central banks has flooded markets for real assets housing, art and luxury goods. Latterly, inflation has spilled over into consumer goods. Once interest rates began to rise, this has begun to pinch those with mortgages as well as other borrowers. Bank bailouts have tried to be all things to all men but have failed. Financial authorities have now reached the end of the road with the palliative measures applied since 2008.

Authorities can rescue banks. Or they can tamp down inflation. But they cannot do both. It would be unconscionable if the authorities were not able to counter Karl Marxs adage: that bank bailouts are a form of communism where the mutuality is all on one side.

We are the only publication thats committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one thats needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times. So please, make a donation.

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Bank bailouts, or: communism for the capitalists - TheArticle

Remember in the 70s and 80s when grandstanding politicians attacked Soviet businesses bent on meeting the needs of American customers in order to spy on them? Neither can I. With good reason.

Communism is an ideology of force rooted in the Marxian notion of from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Translated, there are no globally-beloved businesses in communist countries.

Conservatives seemed to understand this best when the Soviet Union still existed. Figure that Ronald Reagan ran for president on the correct notion that government was arrogating to itself way too much of the fruits of American production, and the latter proved a deterrent to production. Reagans analysis of what kept the U.S. down in a relative sense was what kept the U.S.S.R. down in a near total sense, and by extension, its what had Reagan confident that the U.S.S.R.s days were numbered.

Which is why the evolution of modern conservatism is at times so disappointing. Conservatives of old knew that communism was the biggest reason the Soviets werent starting businesses that had even a faint hope of meeting the needs of the American people.

The communism that rendered the Soviet Union economically irrelevant is what should have the American political class confident today that China is many things, but communist isnt one of them. The happy fact that Chinese companies like TikTok so expertly meet the needs of the global population is all the evidence we need that China is no longer communist. If it were, there would be no active House committees focused on alerting Americans to the perils of a rising China.

Communist countries are defined by relentless drudgery, period. Yet the people of China presently represent the biggest non-U.S. market for American plenty in the world. That they do signals an impressive level of production there born of rising economic freedom. As Americans we know this intuitively based on when communism so cruelly infected so much of the world. When it did, Americans had billions fewer customers to meet the needs of.

Worse, Americans had billions fewer individuals around the world meeting their needs. Since communism penalizes production almost in total, theres logically very little production to export. And we Americans suffered this sad truth. Again, basic economics. The division of labor is the path to staggering leaps in terms of productivity as individual hands get to migrate to the specialized work that most elevates their unique genius.

Put another way, the perils of a rising China are anything but. If the Chinese were really our enemies, they would do as the Soviets did and produce nothing. The latter was the certain path to a weaker United States, as was Chinas lack of production when it was actually communist. When the Chinese werent producing, Americans were poorer and they were simply because something on the order of a billion Chinese people were not working alongside them. When were unable to divide up work with others, were not realizing our talents.

Please keep this in mind with TikTok top of mind. Its success is a sign of Chinas rapid move away from communism in concert with the rise of China as a market set to grow by leaps and bounds for American companies. And the more productive the Chinese become thanks to growing amounts of economic freedom, the more that Americans will realize their staggering economic potential.

All of which raises the question of why? Why in consideration of Chinas evident move away from communism are U.S. politicians attacking the obvious fruits of this move? That TikTok is capable of competing on the world stage means that the outlook for American companies can only improve. Competion is fuel. Yet TikTok is under attack by protectionist U.S. politicians in ways that can only hurt U.S. corporations. It's simple economics. Protectionism logically weakens those protected.

Which brings us to an arguably more troubling scenario: that the U.S. political class actually believes TikTok et al a threat to our national security. In the words of Rep. Michael McCaul, "The younger generation loves TikTok, but I don't think they appreciate the dangers. I call it the spy baloon in your phone." Yes, the victim play. An app might get us, it might cause Americans to embrace Chinas ways, including its alleged communist ways. If so, how insulting...to America.

Really, what a statement from alleged patriots about the U.S. that what we have is so weak and unworthy of regard that a bunch of Chinese intelligence flunkies can turn us. That Americans are so clueless and malleable. Were better than this. Harassing foreign competition is beneath us on its face, after which how shameful it is that U.S. politicians would insult us with their pretense that the Chinese can bring down the U.S. with an app.

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The Political Class's Attacks On TikTok Ultimately Insult the American People - RealClearMarkets

An expert who tackles Christian persecution sounded the alarm this week on parallelshe sees between western nations tactics and crackdowns perpetuated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, a group that monitors persecution, said similarities in the playbooks used by U.S. and China are striking, particularly when exploring how the West handled COVID-19 restrictions.

Listen to the latest episode of CBNs Quick Start podcast:

The similarities are very, very striking between the Chinese Communist way of persecution and the American leftist way of restriction and even discrimination, Futold Fox News. It is very shocking and horrible to see American societys transformation evolving from its constitutional basis.

The nonprofit leader, who became a Christian in the Chinese underground church and even went to prison for leading house churches before escaping in 1996, saidhe believesthe American left is increasingly turning to dictatorial tactics, refusing to allow diverse voices.

Fu reflected on Californias handling of the pandemic to illustrate one such example.

I saw the governor of California basically proscribe and order the church to shut down and say not only when they can worship, but how, hetold Fox News. The ways that he threatened to punish those churches and pastors sometimes were word-for-word exactly the same as what the CCP is using against the Chinese churches.

Read more of what Fu had to sayhere.

Fu isnt the first person to note purportedly similarities between the U.S. and repressive regimes.

North Korean defector-turned-U.S. citizen Yeonmi Park, who is out with a new book titled While Time Remains: A North Korean Defectors Search for Freedom in America, recently told CBNs Faithwire about patterns she sees developing in America dynamics that could threaten the freedoms held dear.

The mother of a young American son, Park said shes afraid for the nation she now calls home.

I was realizing that freedoms that I thought Americans had, it was like slipping away from all of us, she said, noting she worries America is in the beginning phase of becoming more like North Korea, particularly when it comes to tactics to divide as well as free speech restrictions.

America uses race to divide people, Park said. In North Korea, they use what our ancestors did to divide people. Even though youre the same people, same language, same skin colors, same genetics.

She added, Based on what my great-great-grandfather did, they determined if I have oppressor blood or oppressed blood.

Thus, based on familial ties, ones standing is decided, with Park likening this to some of what she sees happening in America today on the race front.

There is forever no redemption in that system, she said. So, collective guilt, collective punishment.

***As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up forFaithwires daily newsletterand download theCBN News app, to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***

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'Word for Word': Persecution Watchdog Warns of Striking Parallels with Communism, 'American Leftist' Restrictions - CBN.com

Monthly Review | The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis: McCarthyism, Communism, and the Myth of Academic FreedomNavigationReturn to Content

$26.00 $89.00

The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis tells the true tale of a mathematician who found himselfat the height of the McCarthy era taking an involuntary break from chalking equations to sit opposite a row of self-righteous anti-Communist congressmen. Counted among a brave group of people who confronted a system rapidly descending into fascism as they asserted the First Amendment before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Davis was one of a small number of left wingers who served time for contempt of Congress.

In this fascinating and disturbing narrative, author Steve Batterson takes a deep dive into extant archival records generated by the FBI, HUAC, the University of Michigan, and repositories holding the papers of former Supreme Court justices. Focusing on the seemingly conflicting Supreme Court decisions on labor leader John Watkins and Vassar College Psychology instructor Lloyd Barenblatt, he examines the plights of six faculty and graduate students at the University of Michiganincluding three future members of the National Academy of Scienceswhose lifes work was impacted by the anticommunist actions of a wide range of personnel at the University of Michigan. In particular, he examines the role played in the trial by Felix Frankfurter, a longtime Associate Justice on the Supreme Court, close advisor of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and co-founder of the ACLU. In the process, Batterson exposes the ways that McCarthys righteous emissaries relied on all kinds of institutions in 1950s Americafrom Hollywood studios to universitiesto sabotage the careers of anyone with a trace of Red.

Carefully doneand good reading as well.Stephen Smale, UC-Berkeley mathematician, Fields Medalist (Nobel Prize for Mathematics)

At a moment when conservative forces are once more taking a sledgehammer to academic freedom, Steve Batterson tells the story of the intrepid and far-sighted H. Chandler Davis as it needs to be told.Calmly unpicking the tenacious fallacies used to rationalize the anticommunist purge of the 1950s, he provides a deeply researched and compulsively readable biography that is note-perfect for our time and full of surprising historical details.Alan Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, and author ofAmerican Night:The Literary Left in the Era of the Cold War

Steve Batterson is professor emeritus of mathematics and computer science at Emory University. He received his PhD in mathematics from Northwestern University in 1976, and soon embarked upon mathematical research at Emory, the Institute for Advanced Study, Boston University, and the University of California at Berkeley. In the 1990s he wrote a biography of the Fields Medal winner Stephen Smale, followed by two books and several articles on the history of mathematics.

Publication Date: 02/01/2024

Number of Pages: 200

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-68590-035-9

Cloth ISBN: 978-1-68590-036-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-68590-037-3

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The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis: McCarthyism ... - Monthly Review