When Everyone Disbelieves Everything

Sixteen years ago, David Irving -- who called himself an historian and who denied that the Holocaust  actually happened -- accused Deborah Lipstadt of libel. She had attacked his version of World War II. He lost the case and was found by the judge to be a "pro-Nazi polemicist." At the time, Jonathan Freedland wrote:

“If we start to doubt corroborated facts, how can we prevent ourselves being swallowed up in doubt, unable to trust anything we see? It might all be a conspiracy, a legend, a hoax. This is the bizarre, never-never world inhabited by David Irving. Now the court has to decide: is this our world too?”

Today, after the election of Donald Trump, Freedland asks the same question:

As Aleppo endured its final agonies, the simple act of circulating any account – a video, a photograph, a news report – would trigger an unnerving response. Someone, somewhere would reply that the photograph was doctored, the source was a stooge, the rescued child was not really a child or not really rescued.

Of course, we’re used to people taking different sides on conflicts far away, arguing bitterly over who is to blame. At its most extreme, it results in a newspaper like the Morning Star sinking so low that it hails the human devastation of Aleppo – where every hospital was bombed and where the slaughter of civilians became routine – not as a crime, but as a “liberation”.

But this is about more than assigning blame for this death or that bombing. This is about refusing to accept that the death or bombing occurred at all. This is about defenders of Bashar al-Assad, and his Russian and Iranian enablers, coming on television to say that what is happening on the ground is not happening, that it is all an illusion. The late US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say: “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.” But that distinction seems to have broken down. Now people regard facts as very much like opinions: you can discard the ones you don’t like.

When everyone disbelieves everything, we have entered a brave new world.

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It's Gone Viral

 
They used to call economics the "dismal science." Actually, it's never been a science -- despite recent attempts to make it so. However, in the last fifty years, the dismal discipline has been elevated to the status of a religion, its practitioners having taken on the role of oracles. Murray Dobbins writes that the discipline went off the rails when its oracles bought into the dogma of neo-liberalism:

If it were a science the facts would long ago have prevailed and they would have denounced the ideology from the rooftops.

But, no, instead we get articles on a weekly basis about Canadians' staggering debt load and the only attempt at explanation is so-called "human nature" -- i.e. "Gee, people just don't seem to be worrying -- they're ignoring the warnings." Then there's the ingenious concept of "recency bias" developed by someone in the field of  "behavioural finance" (who knew?). Recency bias means, according to the Globe's Rob Carrick, "People are looking at recent events and projecting them into the future indefinitely." 

How are people doing when it comes to living a middle class lifestyle?

Carrick's article detailed just how serious the problem is -- repeating numbers that have been quoted numerous times: over 700,000 people would be financially stressed if interest rates rose by even a quarter of one per cent. One million would face that circumstance if they rose by one per cent. The Canadian Payroll Association regularly tracks people's financial stress and its recent survey revealed 48 per cent of people said "[i]t would be tough to meet their financial obligations if their paycheque was delayed even by a week. Almost one-quarter doubted they could come up with $2,000 for an emergency expense in the next month."

I'm sorry, but that's insane in a country that creates as much wealth as Canada does. But don't expect "the profession" to shed any light on this situation. Why? Because economists suffer from SIB -- Self-Interest Bias, a condition rooted in their elitist role in society. Actually it's not unlike "recency bias" -- they've been doing fine for the past 25 years rationalizing this madness, so they will just project that success "into the future indefinitely."

That's what neo-liberalism is all about: rationalizing madness:

The economic policies [neo-liberals] keep endorsing are a disaster for all but the few. The middle class can only sustain its standard of living through ever-increasing debt; the vast majority of the new wealth created every year (such as it is) goes to the top 5 per cent; the working class has been largely relegated to service jobs (we have lost 540,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000) with no security, lousy pay, no benefits and -- increasingly -- part-time work. There is not a single minimum wage in the country that comes anywhere near a living wage. The gap between rich and poor is now the same as it was in 1928. Young people's university degrees are both outrageously expensive and often worthless.

And small and medium businesses are virtually all struggling because the government's obsession with foreign trade leaves them (over 90 per cent of whom export nothing) on their own to cope with the stagnant incomes of their customers. And what do economists say about all this? Not much. They observe and then move on, waiting for the next batch of statistics proving, once again, that the brave new world of unfettered markets and unregulated corporate power cannot and will not deliver the goods. Of course, if they were honest they would acknowledge it was never intended to: these outcomes were predicted from the start by the handful of heretical economists who choose not to join the courtiers of masters of mankind.

Rationalizing madness. It's gone viral.

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Light In The Tunnel

No one should be writing obituaries for the NDP. Michael Harris writes that, even though Justin Trudeau's personal popularity remains high, his party's brand is slipping:

Small wonder, with so many of his ministers stepping in cowflops. Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr told worried businesspeople in Calgary that the police and the military would deal with any civil disobedience by anti-pipeline protesters. This was not music to the ears of First Nations chiefs, or environmentalists, or anyone who has been watching the debacle of Standing Rock. The Liberals apparently have forgotten that it was the Harperites who saw these people as terrorists. Carr’s subsequent backflip was unconvincing.

And with the PM presenting himself as a champion of youth, Finance Minister Bill Morneau invited young Canadians to prepare for a future of short-term contract positions and “job churn” — otherwise known as living hand-to-mouth. Remarkably, Trudeau picked up on this hopeless, defeatist message when he told a youth labour forum that precarious work is now a fact of life.

No wonder they booed him. Youth unemployment is double the national average; after a year of Trudeau, and despite his promise to create 125,000 new jobs for young people annually, that number remains stubbornly high.

Moreover, some of Trudeau's recent moves have angered some of his strongest supporters:

The plundering and blundering of the cash-for-access fundraisers has up to now been restricted to rhetorical volleys against the government in QP. But now Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson has decided she’s heard enough: She plans to personally interview the PM to see if he put himself in a conflict of interest by mingling with corporate aquarium-suckers seeking influence with ministers at political fundraisers for $1,500 a pop. (I hope he has better sense than to tell her that he attended these mating rituals for lobbyists to “champion” the middle class.)

And his decision to green light Kinder Morgan certainly looks to the past, not the future:

While Trudeau is expanding tar sands projects, others are dropping out, in part to go green. Statoil, the Norwegian oil giant, is dumping its Canadian assets. The company spent US $2.2 billion for its tar sands lease in 2007; it is selling it for $832 million Canadian.

So, light is appearing at what has been a dark tunnel for the NDP. But who the party chooses as leader will make all the difference. 

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His Achilles Heel

 
Wesley Wark writes that Donald Trump should not ignore the reports about Russian cyber activity during the last election:

The epicentre of concern over Russian cyber aggression, for the foreseeable future, is going to be the United States. The reason is that the issue has now become highly politicized, with Mr. Trump denying the validity of any claims about Russian electoral meddling and casting aspersions on the credibility of the Central Intelligence Agency, a throwback to Richard Nixon’s loathing of the CIA as a bunch of “clowns.”

For Mr. Trump, allegations of Russian interference in the election are a deep blow: to his credibility; to his desire for a much friendlier relationship with Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a hallmark of a new style of foreign policy; and to his control of the machinery of Washington. He has responded in a manner familiar from the campaign trail – by denying and lashing out. These tactics won’t serve him well once he enters the White House.

Wherever the current investigations into Russian cyber disruption of the U.S. election ultimately lead, President Trump will have to confront two realities. One is that the United States is a major target of cyber attacks from foreign actors, both state and non-state, and as Commander-in-Chief he will have to come up with ways to strengthen cyber defences and make tough decisions on the extent to which the U.S. engages in its own brand of cyber offensive attacks.

Despite his claims about his special relationship with Putin, Trump clearly does not understand Putin's Russia: 

Mr. Putin runs a security state of a kind very unfamiliar to Westerners. Part of the makeup of that security state is a profound belief that Russia is the constant target of malicious information warfare and intelligence activities conducted by unfriendly Western states.

From a Russian perspective, information warfare and cyber attacks targeting the West are just a form of tit-for-tat, in the Russian lexicon, the “new normal” of international relations. If they can use their power to influence domestic politics in the West, so much the better for them.

Trump's Achilles Heel has always been his ignorance. And you can bet that Vladimir Putin plans to take full advantage of it. 

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Will He Stand Up To Them?

When it comes to Israel, Gerry Caplan writes, Justin Trudeau's policy is the same as Stephen Harper's policy. Do nothing to annoy Benjamin Netanyahu:

The new government’s policy towards Israel and Palestine, as articulated by the G-G, just happens to be identical to the old government’s policy. Canada may be back, but in the Middle East it’s Stephen Harper’s Canada that is back. And both governments’ stands are curious given that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has flatly said he will never accept an independent Palestinian state. Everyone but Canadian governments seems well aware of this.

Trudeau says he is for a two state solution. But that's empty rhetoric. Meanwhile, things keep getting worse for the Palestinians:

The unjust status quo continues to be steadily reinforced. Constantly increasing numbers of Israeli settlers have moved into Palestinian lands that Israel has been occupying for fully half a century. In the past decade or so, their number has increased from 249,000 to 370,000. These “facts on the ground” give settlers ever-greater influence in the centres of Israeli power and leave the Palestinian West Bank, says [Roger] Cohen, a collection of “countless little self-administering enclaves … broken up by Israeli settlers.” There are in actuality 165 of these separate little Palestinian islands.

Netanyahu has vowed he will never agree to force those settlers off Palestinian lands, nor can President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, effectively an Israeli collaborator, accept a Palestine that is not viable.

The reality is that it is madness to imply any kind of equivalence between the two entities. Israel is a normal, thriving independent western nation, except that it receives many billions in “aid” from foreign governments, especially the United States, and its neighbours cause it occasional anxiety.

Barbara Ehrenreich has chronicled the plight of Palestinians:

Ehrenreich paints a haunting picture of injustices repeatedly perpetrated by Israelis against Palestinians. Every day, some Palestinians defy the latest form of oppression, mostly by unarmed resistance, and usually they lose. Most Israelis are unaware this rite even takes place.

It’s David versus Goliath, but, this time, the giant Goliath is an Israeli, and the victor. As Ehrenreich watches, his Palestinian friends, together with their possessions, are humiliated, terrorized, abused, insulted, evicted, demolished, confiscated, dispossessed, expropriated, beaten, wounded or killed by Goliath, and imprisoned, often in solitary confinement (which means torture) for long stretches.

Increasingly, the world is stalked not by giants but by bullies. Can -- and will -- Trudeau stand up to them?

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Lest We Forget

The American election was tainted from the beginning. It was tainted by Donald Trump's lies, bigotry and misogyny. But, Paul Krugman writes, now that Trump has been revealed as the Siberian Candidate -- combined with the intervention of the FBI -- the extent of electoral corruption comes into clear focus:

Did the combination of Russian and F.B.I. intervention swing the election? Yes. Mrs. Clinton lost three states – Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – by less than a percentage point, and Florida by only slightly more. If she had won any three of those states, she would be president-elect. Is there any reasonable doubt that Putin/Comey made the difference?

And it wouldn’t have been seen as a marginal victory, either. Even as it was, Mrs. Clinton received almost three million more votes than her opponent, giving her a popular margin close to that of George W. Bush in 2004.

So this was a tainted election. It was not, as far as we can tell, stolen in the sense that votes were counted wrong, and the result won’t be overturned. But the result was nonetheless illegitimate in important ways; the victor was rejected by the public, and won the Electoral College only thanks to foreign intervention and grotesquely inappropriate, partisan behavior on the part of domestic law enforcement.

As the story continues to unfold, it  also becomes clear that Noam Chomsky is right when he claims that the Republican party is the most dangerous organization in the world. So, Krugman asks, what do we do about it?

Politics being what it is, moral backbones on Capitol Hill will be stiffened if there are clear signs that the public is outraged by what is happening. And there will be a chance to make that outrage felt directly in two years — not just in congressional elections, but in votes that will determine control of many state governments.

Now, outrage over the tainted election past can’t be the whole of opposition politics. It will also be crucial to maintain the heat over actual policies. Everything we’ve seen so far says that Mr. Trump is going to utterly betray the interests of the white working-class voters who were his most enthusiastic supporters, stripping them of health care and retirement security, and this betrayal should be highlighted.

But we ought to be able to look both forward and back, to criticize both the way Mr. Trump gained power and the way he uses it. Personally, I’m still figuring out how to keep my anger simmering — letting it boil over won’t do any good, but it shouldn’t be allowed to cool. This election was an outrage, and we should never forget it.

Lest we forget. 

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Trumping O'Leary and Trump

 
Unlike his father, Justin Trudeau doesn't wear a rose in his lapel. To many Canadians, however, Justin was a rose. Lately, the bloom has been coming off that rose. Michael Harris writes:

• If you are an environmentalist tired of Harper’s abuses, two, maybe three tar sands pipelines, and a monster LNG project were not exactly what you had in mind when you voted for Trudeau. If you happen to be a member of the First Nations living in British Columbia, you may believe along with Grand Chief Stewart Philip that Trudeau has “completely failed” in his duty to protect sacred lands in the name of the “national interest.”
• If you took Trudeau at his word on electoral reform, you may be disappointed by his washy-washy commitment to change.
• f you favour transparency in our public discourse, you might think Trudeau is a hypocrite for pulling a permanent shroud over information touching Canada’s jet-replacement plan.
• And, if you think that one of Trudeau’s biggest promises, amending Harper’s police-state-encouraging Bill C-51, is vital, you might not like what you see in the Department of Public Safety’s survey about its review of this subject. It looks like the Liberals may want to retain some of the controversial elements of the Harper-era legislation, including warrantless access to information about Internet users.  

But, just as buyer's remorse was beginning to set in, a minority of American voters has declared Donald Trump will be president:

Donald Trump hates pretty much everything about Canada, from the political stripe of our government to our publicly-funded medicare plan. Having handed the American Environmental Protection Agency over to a climate change denier, he won’t be a big fan of Trudeau’s recent carbon tax framework, supported by 11 out of 13 other political jurisdictions in this country. Since he hates Obamacare, imagine what he thinks of our publicly-funded medicare system. As for NAFTA, he wants to tear it up and start all over again — and not to Make Canada Great Again.

The only thing that stands between being shorn like sheep at the hands of Donald Trump, and retaining our national integrity is Justin Trudeau. All the pressure will be on him to cooperate with the Americans as our most important trading partner. All the pressure will be applied to accept that Trump is the Elephant and we are the Mouse in most dealings. Potential CPC leadership candidate Kevin O’Leary has already taken to Youtube to predict the outcome of the coming collision. It will be, he said, Godzilla versus Bambi.

It's interesting that the same guy who produces O 'Leary's show also produces Trump's Apprentice. Perhaps O'Leary sees himself as a Canadian Trump. It will be Justin's job to trump O' Leary and Trump.

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