Archive for the ‘Liberals’ Category

In Russia, Liberals Are Selling Their Souls to the Kremlin – Foreign Policy

Making sense of Russia has become more urgent since the Russian leadership threw down a gauntlet to the Western powers. Vladimir Putin, coming to the presidency at the start of this millennium, at first played in harmony with the United States. But unhinged by the so-called color revolutions that rocked Georgia and Ukraine in the early 2000s, he suspected U.S. meddling and resolved to challenge Washington in global affairs.

Relations between Moscow and Washington cooled under U.S. President George W. Bush and, despite a slight thaw when Putins protege Dmitry Medvedev was Russian president, went into a deep freeze in 2012 after Putin returned to the highest Kremlin office. He despised U.S. President Barack Obama almost as much as he hated Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Moscows propaganda outlets denounced the U.S. government as the fount of geostrategic evils and called for a multipolar world in which American power would be curtailed. Meanwhile Russian foreign policy sought conciliation with U.S. rivals, notably the Peoples Republic of China, while challenging the United States and its allies at every turn.

Putins pugnacious rhetoric imprinted itself on policy. He accelerated nuclear arms modernization and annexed Crimea in 2014. Russian forces have continued to bathe eastern Ukraine in blood, Russian digital operatives and intelligence agents interfered maliciously in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and Russian money was used as a tool to undermine the European Union.

Having castigated Americas endorsement of the Arab Spring, the Kremlin leadership from 2015 deployed Russian airpower to rescue Bashar al-Assads embattled regime in the Syrian civil war. Although Putin apparently enjoys a friendly relationship with current U.S. President Donald Trump, official Russias anti-American polemics have been maintained.

Like most journalists who have lived in Russia while reporting on it, Joshua Yaffa focuses on the domestic situation in his new book, Between Two Fires. But he does not ignore foreign policy, because Russian internal affairs help to condition the options favored by the Kremlin in international relations. And it is difficult not to discern a parallel between the Kremlins belligerence abroad and its illiberal activities on the home front.

Indeed, the Putin administration savagely represses Russians who speak or act against it. The electoral system has been further enfeebled since Boris Yeltsin stepped down from the presidency at the end of 1999. Opposition politicians and investigative reporters have been persecuted, sometimes even assassinated. Parties gain the legal registration to contest national elections only if they represent no serious threat to the ruling elite. The main TV stations dutifully repeat the news as dictated by the Kremlin.

The Russian people, as Yaffa points out, have grown habituated to this contemporary reality. When Russians think about the 1990s, they spend little time pondering whether a different outcome for Russias transition from communism was a realistic possibility. Although Yeltsin pursued a foreign policy of collaboration with the United States, his management of elections and parliaments was characterized by persistent fraud, and it is misleading to picture Putins arrival in power as the first bridge on the road to illiberalism.

Yaffa, however, deliberately directs his focus away from the Kremlin. Instead, his highly original and riveting account describes how a growing number of more or less liberal-minded figures across the whole range of Russian professional life have decided to make their peace with the ruling establishment. They have come to the judgement that political liberals are unlikely to win a national election in the near future. They conclude that if they are to make an influential contribution to the life of the nation, they have pick up a long spoon and sup with the devil.

Putin for his part knows that he would lose more than he could gain by excluding them entirely from public affairs. Their services make his Russia operate more effectively and increase the impression that he rules by consent. The country is no longer a totalitarian dictatorship, and the Putin administration is flexible enough to allow breathing space for those who do not like its policies but agree to forswear open criticism of them. It is a tacit compromise that suits both sides in current circumstances.

Heda Saratova, for instance, is a human rights activist who worked for years to rescue victims of persecution and torture in Chechnya. She built her career as an official of Memorial, which is the organization that fights to tell the truth about atrocities from the Stalinist 1930s to the present day. In the course of her enquiries she witnessed the drastic narrowing of opportunities as the Chechen president and Putin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov dealt as brutally with incoming investigators as he did with his critics among fellow Chechens. Her lifes choice has been to abandon overt criticism of Kadyrov so as to gain otherwise unlikely opportunities to save the lives of those whom he was abusing. In her view, it was not a perfect solution but better than doing nothing.

Elizaveta Glinka, a medical doctor, faced a similar dilemma in her work among the dead and wounded in eastern Ukraine. As the price of being able to continue her activities saving sick and injured children, she was drawn into cooperating with the state authorities in Moscow. The Kremlin showered her with honors, which enabled it to burnish its own reputation for philanthropy while continuing the war. Glinka was aware of how she was being used but saw it as the only available way that she could alleviate the appalling distress. Her last exploit would have been to perform the same services in Syria, attended by television crews. Tragically, her flight to the war zone crashed on takeoff from a Russian military airport near the southern city of Sochi.

Not all of Yaffas portraits of those cooperating with the establishment have involved individuals who needed to curb the murmurs of a liberal conscience. Konstantin Ernst is a renowned TV producer who put his creativity as the disposal of the Russian authorities. He has a chameleons ability to change color as circumstances shift. He climbed to the apex of his career when he was assigned the task of directing the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics in February 2014. The five rings of the Olympic symbol shone up to the heavens above the stadium in the form of five gigantic snowflakes (one of which didnt work, but nobody minded), and the audience was treated to a balletic tableau of Russian history from tsarism to the present day. Peace and love after much suffering was the unifying theme.

Ernsts masterpiece of soft power would have had a more lasting effect worldwide if Putin had not decided to invade Ukraine and annex Crimea later that month. There were no liberals in Putins inner circle involved in the fateful discussion, and he did not bother even to seek advice from either his prime minister, Medvedev, or his foreign affairs minister, Sergei Lavrov. The core of his thinking was that Russia should and could do whatever was necessary for recognition as a global colossus.

Indeed, nothing annoyed him more than when, in March 2014, Obama scornfully referred to the Russian Federation as a mere regional power. The Putin administration was determined to prove that Obama had seriously underestimated it and that economic sanctions against Russia would never deflect it from its desired objective.

Yaffa notes the national popularity and political supremacy that accrued to Putin as the result of the Crimean land grab, when his poll ratings rose to 89 percentan extraordinary achievement by someone who had held one or other of the two supreme offices of state for so long. And Putin has predictably earned additional plaudits at home as Russian arms and diplomacy filled the vacuum left by Obama and Trump in the wars across the Middle East.

Russias renewed assertiveness welled up from deep and wide feelings among Russians in general that the country had to stand tall again after the humiliations of the 1990s. It derived just as much from the leaderships calculation that such a stance would distract the electorate from the defects of their leaders.

This raises a question about the prospects for continued political and social stability, the same stability thatas Yaffa painstakingly describesinduced so many Russians to think it useless to engage in direct opposition to an obviously greedy, corrupt, and authoritarian administration. When in 2011 Putin announced his intention to stand for a third presidential term, there was an upsurge of rallies and demonstrations against him. In response, his campaign slogans noticeably increased the number of promises about welfare benefits. Evidently, he and his advisors sensed that there might be serious trouble for him unless he offered to relieve the material hardships endured by average Russian households.

An acute threat to the Putin administration arose in summer 2014, when the price of oil plummeted on world markets. As the finance ministry tightened its purse strings, sharp new cutbacks on welfare payments were imposed. By mid-2018, the administration was pushed into extending the obligatory working years before retirement. This time it was retirees rather than the usual political activists who protested, by occupying buses and trains and blocking highways. Putin was shocked into agreeing to restrict the scope of pension reform.

Other countries, of course, have witnessed much more tumultuous groundswells of anti-government protest. Russia in the last 30 years has seen nothing like the Arab Spring of 2011, when long-ensconced ruling cliques were overturned by the fury of street demonstrations. Nothing quite as serious as even the gilets jaunes who brought Paris and other French cities to a standstill in the winter of 2018 to 2019 has yet transpired.

The likelihood at present is that the uppermost elite in Russia has the guile and ruthlessness to see off any disturbances. But Putin cannot rule forever, and he has repeatedly shown that he is capable of making mistakes by overplaying his hand. Embracing the Chinese while annoying most Americans may soon come to be seen as a poorer strategy than playing them off against each other.

For the moment, though, he can count on many ambitious Russians concluding that their careers require them to compromise with the Kremlin. Good and not-so-good men and women are forced to make difficult choicesand Joshua Yaffas remarkable book is a guide to the pain and pleasure of their lives in the public arena.

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In Russia, Liberals Are Selling Their Souls to the Kremlin - Foreign Policy

John Ivison: With Canada facing possible recession, Liberals can’t afford to shrug off the oilsands – National Post

The federal budget is usually delivered before the start of the new fiscal year on April 1.

This year might be an exception. No date has been announced and the uncertainty created by the coronavirus means it might be a good idea if Bill Morneau saves his breath to cool his porridge.

Former finance minister John Manley said on CTV Power Play that he would be inclined to delay the budget until we have a better sense of how severe the impact of the virus is going to be.

When it comes, it may bear little resemblance to the spending plan Morneau thought he was going to deliver. The first emergency rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve since the financial crisis is a stark reminder of the risks the virus poses to economic activity.

But unless Morneau needs to act to avert a meltdown, the expectation is that the budget will be more transitional than transformative.

The finance minister does not have much fiscal room, given the deficit is already forecast to come in at $26.6 billion this year.

Veteran Liberal MP Wayne Easter said that the budget recommendations made by members of the finance committee he chairs were conscious of Morneaus spending constraints. Everybody well, most tried to avoid big ticket items, he said.

The finance committees pre-budget report, tabled last week, is generally a good barometer of government thinking, even in a minority parliament.

It was telling that the first piece of advice the committee gave to the finance minister was that he adopt the recommendations of the expert panel on sustainable finance, which delivered a report that landed on cats paws last summer and has scarcely been mentioned since.

However, it sounds as if the report has been lifted off the dusty shelves in the Department of Finance and will form the narrative backbone for a budget that talks about the co-operation between government and financial institutions to fight climate change.

The Liberals asked former senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, Royal Bank director, Andy Chisholm, Caisse de dpot et placement du Qubec executive vice-president, Kim Thomassin, and Ontario Teachers Pension Plan chief risk and strategy officer, Barbara Zvan, to make suggestions on policies that might encourage the financing of innovation, clean electricity, building retro-fits and climate-resistant infrastructure.

Many recommendations were perfect for Morneau green initiatives that sound modern and transitional but dont have major spending implications

It will be a major surprise if Morneau does not follow up on a number of their suggestions.

The thrust of the report is that the climate change debate should be presented as an opportunity, rather than a burden.

The government should provide more clarity about the capital investments that are needed to meet Canadas 2030 emissions targets and the role it sees for the private sector, the authors said. The report cited the U.K.s offshore wind market as an example of a government articulating a long-term policy framework and working with industry to achieve its goals. The British government identified a market and targeted barriers to offshore development, established institutions to foster the technology and designed a capacity auction for the power generated. The result is that the U.K. now hosts 40 per cent of globally installed capacity.

Another report recommendation urged government to create financial incentives to encourage Canadians to invest in climate conscious financial products through registered savings plans and defined contribution pension plans.

There were a suite of technical recommendations, such as the call to clarify the scope of fiduciary duty in terms of climate change governments and corporations have been sued for having taken insufficient action to mitigate or adapt to climate incidents.

Many of the recommendations were perfect for Morneau green initiatives that sound modern and transitional but dont have major spending implications.

But the report was less inspiring when it came to suggestions to transform the oil and gas sector into a low-emissions industry.

Its footprint puts high-intensity segments at heightened risk of market displacement in sustainability-conscious markets, the authors said.

That has become apparent, as the drive towards sustainable finance that the reports authors are cheerleading has seen some of the worlds largest financial institutions pull out of oil production in Alberta.

As the panel pointed out, the trend toward capital flight has been exacerbated by perceptions of regulatory uncertainty, high compliance costs and long lead times, with the result capital spending in the oilsands in 2018 was only one third the investment level of 2014.

The report might perhaps have made some recommendations to address the political factors at play but instead it focused on variations of clean technology solutions that are already being attempted such as the Clean Resources Innovation Network, a group of resource industry professionals and academics trying to accelerate commercialization of low-carbon technology.

It all sounds like so much lip-service.

Not that Morneau will be worried unduly. This government wants to be seen to be supporting the oil and natural gas sector but were market-displacement to take place, then no great mischief.

For the government of a country that may be on the brink of recession to shrug its shoulders at the demise of its largest export industry more than twice the value of auto shipments and three times that of base metals does not suggest stellar leadership, particularly when the integrity of the country itself may be at stake.

Email: jivison@postmedia.com | Twitter:

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John Ivison: With Canada facing possible recession, Liberals can't afford to shrug off the oilsands - National Post

Conservatives Skewer the Socialist Policies of Today’s Liberals – Daily Signal

Todays liberals offer the security of socialism to young Americans, but there isnt enough money on the planet to deliver what they promise, the chairman of theAmerican Conservative Union said Thursday before a huge gathering of conservative activists.

Maybe it was fuzzy math, but the intention was that well hold onto these resources to give you something when you need it, Matt Schlapp said at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, referring to Democrats New Deal programs instituted in the 1930s.

What theyre talking about today is Nobody pays anything, except the rich, Schlapp said. By the way, the rich are all of you. Anyone with a job is rich. The rich will take care of providing freebies for everyone.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, joined Schlapp for a discussion covering socialism, the modern Democratic Party, and the state of Donald Trumps presidency to open CPAC, which Schlapps organization puts together each year.

Brian Kilmeade, co-host of Fox News Channels Fox & Friends, acted as moderator for the segment called E Pluribus Out of Many, What?

Nowhere in the Constitution, Lee said, is the federal government empowered to give everything to the nations citizens, much less illegal immigrants.

The problem with that is a government that promises to provide everything for you can take everything away from you, Lee said.

Lee said he was skeptical at first that Trump is a true conservative, noting that he was one of the latest on the Trump train.

His doubt went away as soon as Trump took office in January 2017, Lee said, as the presidents economic, social, and foreign policies demonstrated his commitment to conservatism.

Lee said Trumps greatest achievements include moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; fighting to repeal Obamacare; cutting taxes and delivering meaningful tax relief to middle-class workers; slashing government regulations to revive business; restoring the separation of powers; and seating almost 200 new federal judges, including Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

This conservative approach is vastly different than the large-scale changes that todays liberals and socialists aim to make, Schlapp said.

What Bernie Sanders and the rest of these people including Barack Obama, lets not let Barack Obama off the listsay is they want to transform America, Schlapp said. They didnt say they want to improve America. They didnt say they wanted to clean America up a little bit. They said they want to fundamentally change America.

Besides existing entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, he said, liberals advocate free government programs such as preschool and tax credits for the energy industry, as if the money didnt come from taxpayers.

The Democratic Party increasingly has unmasked itself as socialist, Lee said. Democrats used to avoid the moniker like the plague, he said, but many now embrace what they really are.

I think that brings heat to the moment, he said.

CPAC, the largest annual national gathering of conservative activists, runs Thursday through Saturday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington.

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Conservatives Skewer the Socialist Policies of Today's Liberals - Daily Signal

Two words that strike terror into a liberals heart: Jewish democracy – Mondoweiss

Israel held its third election in a year yesterday and once again the right wing is on top. Netanyahu won a large plurality though he is indicted and about to go on trial on corruption charges. The new left bloc of three parties including Labor and Meretz got all of seven seats.

There is now just one address for liberal and leftwing politics in Israel: the Joint List of Palestinian parties, the third largest vote getter with a whopping 15 seats, up from 10 last April. It is said that the Palestinian parties drew Jewish voters. That is something the Joint List wanted: Joint List for a Joint future!

There is no real resistance to policies of annexation and apartheid except from the Joint List. Netanyahus chief rival, Benny Gantz, hurt himself among Jewish voters by suggesting and then withdrawing the possibility that he could form a government with the help of the Palestinian parties (Oren Kessler said on i24 News just now). While Trumps peace plan, which cements apartheid, was supported by Gantzs party and Netanyahus: so an overwhelming percentage of Jewish parliamentarians over 90 by my count back the destruction of plans to divide the land and measures to annex portions of Judea and Samaria.

Lets be clear about what we see in Israel. This is a Jewish democracy, the advancement Israels supporters in the U.S. are constantly crowing about. It is a country where the worst fears of Arabs are stoked by politicians, even as the government ethnically cleanses Palestinians. It is a country where any Jewish politician who says he is going to work with Palestinians is quickly marginalized.

Likud ad shows Benny Gantz sitting with Palestinian politicians Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi. March 2020. From Netanyahus twitter feed. That image was followed by the one below.

Likud ad shows an Israeli voter reacting to the possibility of Benny Gantz making a political coalition with Palestinian politicians Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi. March 2020. From Netanyahus twitter feed.

The Jewish democracy demonstrates just what liberals and lefties always warned you about nationalism. It is intolerant and racist and paranoid and blindered and fascistic, it builds a security state armed to the teeth against multiple enemies. And three elections inside a year in Israel offer indelible proof that This is what Jewish nationalists want. A society governed by an authoritarian leader, no matter how corrupt. Just so long as there are no Arabs anywhere near power.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian leader, said the election was a victory for annexation and apartheid, and Yossi Alpher at Americans for Peace Now says thats the sad math of the Israeli electorate:

Gantz stumbled. He knew a large majority of Israeli Jews were enthusiastic about Trump and his policies. A dove at heart, Gantz tried to persuade voters that he, like Netanyahu, would annex territories, but only after consultation with the international community. Too many potential Gantz supporters got the message: when the smoke clears, he wont really annex because the international community and the Arab world have made it clear that they vigorously oppose annexation.

By the same token, Netanyahu repeatedly hammered away with the argument that without the Joint Arab List, Gantz would have no coalition and that the Arab MKs are a traitorous fifth column. Gantz denied unconvincingly that he would need the support of Arab MKs. Yet he could never point to alternative support Anti-Arab voters did the math.

This political trendline has been in place for 50 years now, since the 1967 war at least: The secular social democrats who founded the state (Labor Zionists) have lost out to the right wing of Revisionist Zionists. Even Meretz cast its Palestinian Knesset member overboard to run this time, in that three-way left coalition that included a rightleaning leader.

The definition of insanity is said to be ignoring the same result when it happens again and again, and we must ask all liberal Zionists: What is your vision of a Jewish democracy? How will it come about?

For years now liberal Zionist organizations have been working against Netanyahu, to their credit; and what do they have to show for it? As a panel at AIPACs policy conference said yesterday, Israeli voters dont care what American Jews have to say about their elections. No, because in the end those American Jews have been completely docile, supporting the Jewish democracy no matter how xenophobic, murderous, and discriminatory. Even liberal Zionist organizations have embraced extravagant aid to Israel and bipartisan political support for Israel and condemned the nonviolent boycott movement as antisemitic. With that sort of acceptance, why would Israelis ever care about some mild demurrals?

Last nights election is yet another wakeup call to American progressives There is only one way forward for a true left/liberal democrat. To recognize that the only hopeful signs in Israeli society come from the Palestinian politicians. They are the leaders who envision a pluralistic society and who hate Jim Crow. They head the third largest party and who knows what they could become if only non-Jews were allowed to vote in territories where Israel is sovereign?

There is a small price to pay for such a political alliance. To stick the idea of Jewish democracy in the dustbin of history.

H/t Scott Roth and James North.

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Two words that strike terror into a liberals heart: Jewish democracy - Mondoweiss

RO Socialists narrow the gap on the Liberals after bringing down the Govt. – Romania-Insider.com

RO Socialists narrow the gap on the Liberals after bringing down the Govt.

Romanias National Liberal Party (PNL), which still operates the acting Government and will seek confirmation from lawmakers for another cabinet, has lost ground in the latest electoral poll conducted by polling agency IMAS at the request of Europa FM radio station.

PNL had a score of 40.7% in February, down from 47.4% in January, according to the Europa FM Barometer compiled by IMAS.

After having constantly strengthened its voters support over the past year, the party that came to rule in November to be overthrown three months later is now experiencing a decline that takes it to exactly the level it was before settling in Victoria Palace in November, Europa FM comments.

In contrast, the former ruling party - the Social Democratic Party (PSD) saw its score increase from 20.6% to 25.8%.

The developments are likely related to the dismissal of the Liberal cabinet led by Ludovic Orban following a no-confidence motion filed by PSD, at the beginning of February.

Save Romania Union (USR), the third-largest party in terms of voters' preferences, plunged to only 10% from 12.4% in January and a maximum of over 21% in July 2019.

If parliamentary elections were to take place next Sunday, none of the other parties would pass the electoral threshold of 5%.

Pro Romania, the party of former PM Victor Ponta is at 4.6%, UDMR has a score of 4.4%, ALDE - 4.3%, Plus (USRs alliance partner) - 3.5%.

One in five voters remains undecided while 4.4% of those surveyed said they would not go to vote.

The survey was conducted by IMAS between February 11 and 28, on a sample of 1,010 people and has a margin for error of 3.1%.

(Photo: Pixabay)

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RO Socialists narrow the gap on the Liberals after bringing down the Govt. - Romania-Insider.com