WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 989
    [post_author] => 2
    [post_date] => 2019-05-10 16:15:45
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-05-10 16:15:45
    [post_content] => Americans tend to associate centralized government power with Democrats and the pursuit of states' rights with Republican ideology, but the truth is far more complex

“Litigation can’t solve our problems but it can illuminate them,” Stacey Abrams said at a fundraiser held this week in New York City for her voting rights’ organization, Fair Fight Action. Abrams became one of the country’s most famous Democratic politicians when she lost her 2018 bid for governor of Georgia, in a closely watched campaign that was marred by allegations of widespread voter suppression. She has refused to concede and is currently suing Governor Brian Kemp for targeted suppression of minority voters.

Abrams understands that the courts are only as principled as the judges that preside over  them. President Trump has, over the two years since he took office, appointed so many judges to lifetime tenure on the federal bench that one in six circuit court judges is now a Trump appointee. Given the long and substantial historical precedents, we can expect those newly appointed judges to cite states’ rights when upholding discriminatory policies enacted by red state legislatures. 

Americans have good reason to believe the phrase “states’ rights” is code for white supremacy. When he was employed by the Reagan White House, Republican strategist Lee Atwater notoriously revealed in an interview that the party deliberately employed abstractions like states’ rights and tax cuts as racist dog whistles. Just 13 years after the sheriff of Neshoba County, Mississippi, was tried — together with 17 co-conspirators — for the notorious 1964 abduction and murder of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, Ronald Reagan chose to launch his presidential campaign there with the phrase, “I believe in states’ rights.”

A pragmatic agenda

But enthusiasm for states’ rights tends to be based on political pragmatism rather than ideology. As historian Caleb McDaniel writes in The Atlantic, southern slaveholders were perfectly content with federal overreach so long as it benefited them. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which coerced residents of free states into returning escaped slaves to their masters, and the 1857 Supreme Court ruling against Dred Scott, which denied citizenship to black people, are two of the most infamous examples of conservatives approving of federal intervention to preserve slavery during the antebellum period. Like their conservative counterparts, progressive state courts and legislatures have historically pursued an active role as “laboratories for democracy.” When out of power nationally, progressives and conservatives alike invoke federalism and the Tenth Amendment, which reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people.” The New York Court of Appeals cited state sovereignty when it ruled in the 1860 Lemmon Slave case that eight enslaved people brought into New York in 1852 by a Virginia couple en route to Texas (both slave states),were subject to New York state law, which had abolished slavery, and were thus free. In our current era, red and blue states are taking similar steps to enact opposing agendas when challenging the federal government. On the issues of reproductive and LGBTQ rights, some states are choosing to amend their constitutions or are passing legislation that defines terms to their liking, thus solidifying rights they view as under threat. New York recently passed the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), which codifies Roe v. Wade into state law, and the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), which adds gender identity and expression to the New York Human Rights Law. Although New York already protected these rights in practice, explicit codification leaves less room for judicial interpretation. Compare this to the 16  states seeking to impose heavy restrictions on abortion access: Georgia, for example, just passed a “heartbeat bill” that outlaws abortion after six weeks; while Alabama is this week considering legislation that would make women who choose to terminate their pregnancies guilty of committing a felony.

Selective federalism

States can also exercise power by suing the federal government. In the Obama era, Republican-led states consistently challenged the president’s legislative agenda, particularly over implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  But while the challenges were consistent, the logic was not. Conservative challengers to Obamacare made conflicting arguments in separate court cases, leading Abbe Gluck, a Yale Law School professor, to call them “fairweather federalists.” In 2012, in a partial win for Republicans, the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate provisions of Obamacare while striking down Medicaid expansion as an undue burden on states, making it optional. In 2015 Republicans turned around and argued that the optional state insurance exchange programs were overly punitive. Abbe Gluck describes the legislative model of the insurance exchanges as similar to the Clean Air Act — a national program that gives states the right of first refusal before the federal government intervenes. But this model is predicated on the assumption that the federal government will enforce pre-existing laws, rather than deliberately undermine them by hollowing out administrative agencies — which is precisely what the Trump administration is doing. In January 2019, New York Attorney General Letitia James led a coalition of six states in filing suit to force Trump’s EPA into compliance with the Clean Air Act in order to protect the health of New Yorkers, whose state air quality regulations are among the most stringent in the country. Attorney General James’ predecessor, Barbara Underwood, led a different coalition of states in a lawsuit to prevent new off-shore drilling.

Battle of the blue states

States have also chosen to assert their power by refusing to enforce or implement policies and procedures handed down by the Trump administration, leading the federal government to sue them. The most salutary example of this struggle is over the issue of immigration. California has been leading the fight to protect undocumented residents from ICE detention and deportation in so-called sanctuary cities, which are jurisdictions where local law enforcement refuse to cooperate or assist in enforcing federal immigration laws.   Politico, in an article titled “Trump endorses states’ rights — but only when he agrees with the state,” noted that Trump’s lawsuit against California over its non-enforcement of immigration laws followed the blueprint of an Obama-era lawsuit against Arizona, which sought to block a bill requiring immigrants to carry proof of status and requiring law enforcement to determine a person’s status during a legal stop. Blue states have won some significant battles. The federal courts have repeatedly struck down Trump’s attempts to block federal funding for states with sanctuary cities, and experts say the courts will also shut down his latest threats to bus migrants into sanctuary cities. Meanwhile, New York state courts recently issued a directive that bars federal immigration authorities from arresting people in courthouses without a judicial warrant, curtailing ICE’s ability to arrest people who show up for hearings. These rules establish a precedent for other progressive state legislatures and courts to follow. The one major difference between the Obama and Trump eras is that the current president is widely known for his dubious financial dealings in New York City where, crucially, he still maintains significant family business interests. The consequence is that New York’s Attorney General has the unprecedented power to launch a criminal  investigation of a sitting president — and his children — for state crimes. Trump has no power to issue pardons for criminal convictions at the state level. Just to make sure, Attorney General James is seeking to amend the state’s double jeopardy laws, so that any associates pardoned on a federal level can be recharged for state crimes. In the meantime the state has forced the dissolution of Trump’s charitable foundation, and the AG’s office has sent subpoenas to Deutsche Bank regarding its business dealings with the president. In this respect litigation might, in fact, solve some of our problems. [post_title] => Why Democrats are battling Trump at the state level [post_excerpt] => Americans have good reason to believe the phrase “states’ rights” is code for white supremacy. When he was employed by the Reagan White House, Republican strategist Lee Atwater notoriously revealed in an interview that the party deliberately employed abstractions like states’ rights and tax cuts as racist dog whistles. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => why-democrats-are-turning-to-state-courts-in-the-battle-against-trump [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=989 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

Why Democrats are battling Trump at the state level

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 981
    [post_author] => 5
    [post_date] => 2019-05-09 15:23:43
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-05-09 15:23:43
    [post_content] => On Monday the UN published a devastating report, which identifies human activity as the reason that millions of species are disappearing at a rate “tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the last 10 million years.”  The bottom line of the report, which summarizes the work of 145 researchers from 50 countries, is that the damage we humans are doing to our environment might be irreversible — if we fail to take immediate action and heed its main conclusions:
  • Current global response is insufficient;
  • Transformative changes’ are needed to restore and protect nature;
  • Opposition from vested interests can be overcome for public good.
The following articles offer various responses to the report’s conclusions. It’s not too late to prevent the extinction of over 1 million animals and plants, reports Seth Borenstein for the Associated Press. In order to stop or even reverse this trend, we need to change how we produce food and energy, reduce waste, and address climate change — all monumental tasks that will require cooperation between governments, companies, and people. If you’ve been hearing a lot about this report but need a little context to understand its significance, The Guardian published an excellent back-to-basics explainer on biodiversity. It explains how one species can be an integral part of an entire system; the financial toll that biodiversity loss takes on humans; and the benefits humans have reaped for centuries from the diverse animal and plant species that cover the earth. The call for a Green New Deal in the United States is spreading. A proposal to rework Canada’s economy in order to battle climate change has the support of environmentalists, youth organizers, Indigenous groups, and others. Learn more here. The Green New Deal, while ambitious and promising, won’t be enough on its own to save the environment. Ben Adler argues, in an opinion piece for the Washington Post, that the Green New Deal must include support for developing nations to invest in more expensive clean energies as they industrialize. These countries have already said they are open to more ambitious energy goals — if they receive support from more financially secure nations. Cooperation is possible. Read more here. Finally, your ICYMI author recently published a how-to for Lifehacker on growing a bug-friendly garden anywhere — no matter how much or how little outdoor space you have. Insects are an integral part of the food chain, and pollinators are essential for growing fruits and vegetables; any small amount you can do for them is a help. Learn how here.   [post_title] => How to pull back from the brink of environmental catastrophe [post_excerpt] => The Green New Deal, while ambitious and promising, won’t be enough on its own to save the environment. It must include support for developing nations to invest in more expensive clean energies as they industrialize. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => how-to-pull-back-from-the-brink-of-environmental-catastrophe [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=981 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

How to pull back from the brink of environmental catastrophe

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 974
    [post_author] => 2
    [post_date] => 2019-05-03 16:55:51
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-05-03 16:55:51
    [post_content] => Healthcare professionals have found a treatment that could help end the opioid crisis, but their efforts to treat addicts are severely hampered by an arcane government regulation

Over the past two years, a team of medical scientists have been working on a project that could play a role in ending the opioid crisis. We are investigators on a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) project that seeks to revolutionize the treatment for opioid addiction available at hospital emergency departments by providing medical care providers with effective new tools. One of us is a health economist and health services researcher at the Mayo Clinic; the other is a health IT physician-scientist at Yale. The tools we have helped create work within hospital computer systems to help healthcare practitioners provide immediate treatment and link patients up with longer term follow-up to treat their addiction. In the next phase of the work, we will test these tools in five large healthcare systems across the country. We believe they will change the way hospitals treat opioid-addicted patients.

But these tools, combined with short-term treatment in the emergency department, are an incomplete solution to a national crisis. Throughout this year of work, we have been surprised and, frankly, baffled by the regulatory barriers around treatment of opioid addiction. Perhaps the most shocking (and heartbreaking) thing we’ve learned is that people addicted to opioids are resorting to the black market to treat themselves, because they are facing so many obstacles in obtaining treatment from their doctors and clinics in their communities.

Bureaucratic obstacles

There is a little known but extremely powerful regulatory deterrent to treating patients with opioid use disorder. It’s called the X-Waiver — it’s a legal requirement imposed on physicians to apply for a waiver in order to prescribe medicine that has been shown to be an effective treatment for opioid addiction. Following recent media coverage of this issue in several prominent professional publications (JAMA, STAT, NAM) and in the New York Times, the medical community is pushing to end the X-waiver. On April 8, the Departments of Health in 22 states signed a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services proposing that it be discontinued, asserting that the law is severely hampering the ability of physicians to fight the opioid crisis. We’d like to share with you details on this movement, in order to raise public awareness as part of the campaign to have the law changed. The X-Waiver is a remnant of an earlier opioid epidemic in the United States. Just like today, headlines from the popular press 100 years ago lamented the high rates of opioid use in the U.S. — higher than any other country in the world — and the large number of people addicted to narcotic drugs. Many blamed physicians, pharmacists, and patent medication manufacturers, for getting and keeping patients hooked on these drugs. In response, and as part of the same temperance movement that supported alcohol Prohibition during the 1920s, laws were passed to criminalize manufacture, sales, and use of opioids except as part of “legitimate” medical practice. Policy makers were certain that prohibiting the use of opioids (and alcohol) would cause addiction to disappear. They were so certain of this, that they started closing treatment programs in anticipation. Their mistaken belief was that addiction was a moral disorder — a failure of self-control that could be cured by taking away access to drugs and alcohol. Today, we know better. We understand that, just as diabetics cannot will their pancreas to start working and people with depression cannot will their brain to produce more serotonin, people who struggle with addiction cannot will themselves better. Fortunately, we have very effective treatments for opioid use disorder that help people to live normal lives, free of disabling withdrawal symptoms. Medications to treat opioid use disorder include methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone. Naltrexone blocks the feeling of being high, reducing the incentive to take opioids. However, it requires that a person abstain from opioids for seven to 10 days, making it more difficult to start treatment. By contrast, methadone and buprenorphine — when properly dosed — prevent the symptoms of withdrawal and allow people to feel normal, without experiencing either the feeling of being high or the distress of withdrawing. Unfortunately, the laws and stigmas held over from the last opioid epidemic more than 100 years ago are still preventing people from accessing these lifesaving treatments. Though the original law — the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914— is no longer in force, today’s laws regulating the use of methadone and buprenorphine for the long-term treatment of opioid use disorder are its direct descendants. They focus on punishment, distrust of physicians’ motives, and bureaucratic intrusion into the physician-patient relationship. Today, any physician with a DEA license (i.e., pretty much all of them) can prescribe buprenorphine or methadone to any of their patients in any amount, for dispensing in any pharmacy — as long as that medication is intended to treat pain. But in order to use buprenorphine to treat opioid use disorder, clinicians must obtain a special DATA 2000 Waiver. That means they must take a special training course, apply to the federal government for a waiver, and agree to open their practice and records to unscheduled in-person audits during the working day by DEA agents. We have never cheated on our taxes, but we still don’t want to be audited by the IRS. After meeting all these requirements a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant applies for a DATA 2000 waiver, and gets a new DEA number that starts with an X — which is why these waivers are often called X-waivers. With an X-waiver in hand, the healthcare professional now has the right to prescribe any schedule III through V controlled substance (for now, only buprenorphine meets the criteria) for treating opioid use disorder, but only to 30 patients at a time. If a thirty-first patient shows up needing treatment, he or she must be turned away or another patient has to be discontinued. After a year, the medical care provider can apply for an increase to treat 100 patients at a time. And a year after increasing to 100 patients, the clinician can apply for an increase to treat 275 patients at a time as long as he or she either 1) has additional certification in addiction medicine or 2) practices in a “qualified practice setting”, which means, among other requirements, accepting insurance for some services—not necessarily addiction treatment, just some services.

A need for urgency

These are all worthy, wonderful things, and we agree that they are ideal, but we are in the grips of a national crisis. A person born in 2017 faces a greater risk of death from opioid overdose than car crash, for the first time in history. There aren’t enough X-waivered providers available to treat everyone who wants medical help in overcoming opioid addiction. There is no evidence to suggest that clinicians who accept insurance are safer or better at the practice of addiction medicine. Nor is there any evidence to support the claim that limiting physicians to 30, 100, or 275 patients improves safety or outcomes. In fact, quite the opposite. And we have ample evidence that buprenorphine saves lives. Of the estimated 2 million Americans with opioid use disorder, only 11% are receiving any treatment: that’s 1.8 million people who might be helped if treatment were easier to access. It’s time to end these bureaucratic barriers that are discouraging physicians from providing safe, effective treatment to people who need it. That’s why healthcare professionals across the country are pushing to “X the X-waiver”: drop the restrictions on providing buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder. We need to increase treatment availability so that everyone who wants help can get it in a timely way. This will require clinicians from many specialties to work together: in the ED, clinicians can help people start on buprenorphine treatment, then refer them to a local community provider of medication for opioid use disorder who can provide long-term follow-up care. Our project is designed to help facilitate that process. And follow-up care doesn’t have to be with a specialist in addiction medicine--there aren’t enough of them to treat everyone who needs treatment. But just as primary care physicians provide long-term medication for diabetes or depression, they can also provide long-term buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder. Proponents of the current system argue that buprenorphine prescribed for opioid use disorder can be diverted for abuse. But the evidence shows that when buprenorphine is diverted –that is, when it is sold or given away by the person for whom it was prescribed—the most common use is for self-treatment for opioid use disorder or withdrawal. How heartbreaking is that? People are having so much trouble getting treatment that they go to the black market to treat themselves. Improving access to care should help to prevent this kind of diversion. But from a harm reduction perspective, buprenorphine is less likely to cause an overdose (it’s almost impossible for an experienced user of opioids to overdose on buprenorphine unless it is combined with other depressants, like alcohol or benzodiazepines), less attractive for recreational use (it’s harder to get high on), and it can’t be misused by injection because it’s formulated with a drug that will precipitate withdrawal when not taken orally. We have to do better with this opioid epidemic than we did the last time. The bureaucracy surrounding provision of the safe, effective treatment for opioid addiction has the effect of pointlessly rationing care for people who need and want it. Get rid of it: X the X-waiver. [post_title] => Doctors could alleviate the opioid crisis — if the government would let them [post_excerpt] => The X-waiver is a little known but extremely powerful regulatory deterrent imposed on physicians. It requires them to apply for a waiver in order to prescribe medicine that has been shown to be an effective treatment for opioid addiction. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => doctors-could-alleviate-the-opioid-crisis-if-the-government-would-let-them [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:15:14 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:15:14 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=974 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

Doctors could alleviate the opioid crisis — if the government would let them

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 968
    [post_author] => 5
    [post_date] => 2019-05-02 20:19:38
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-05-02 20:19:38
    [post_content] => Change is slow and hard, but the long, in-depth reporting collected here shows how it happens, from Switzerland to Turkey to the United States 2020 election season.

In Switzerland, Operation Libero is reversing the rise of right-wing populism in Europe. A key component of their tactics is taking back the narrative from the authoritarian populists. “Everywhere, the conversation’s about identity: who we are, where we’re from, the past,” explains the co-president. “But that’s their turf. We have to go on the offensive – clear the fog, refocus attention, reframe the debate.”

Operation Libero launched in 2014. Since then they have campaigned proactively, and not merely reactively, on behalf of causes like same-sex marriage. Their campaigns are playful, colorful, youthful — and also sincere. Rather than debating the pros and cons of harboring “criminal foreigners” as the right-wing populists describe immigrants, Libero re-centered the argument around “fundamental Swiss values.” Read more about their tactics and remarkable successes.

Recently The Conversationalist published the remarkable story of how Turkey’s first communist mayor came to be elected despite the country's deeply repressive political leadership. What Hande Oynar’s story demonstrates is that “transparency, rectitude, and hard work” demonstrated over years can earn people’s faith and trust, and overcome their fears of the unknown or the maligned. Read the full story here.

What is almost more difficult than shifting the politics of a country, is shifting the politics of a party. But an increasing number of democrats are coming around to the idea that “it’s the left’s turn to take the wheel,” as Ed Kilgore writes in New York Magazine, arguing that centrist democrats should focus on helping and not hindering their more progressive peers.

Kilgore is not alone in calling for a cessation of hostilities on the left; former Bernie Sanders critic Peter Daou took to the pages of The Nation to say: “I am calling on Democrats, progressives, and leftists to hit the pause button, to table our disagreements, no matter how intense, as we fight to preserve the rule of law and the last semblance of our democracy. We owe it to ourselves and our country.”
    [post_title] => Taking back the narrative: tactics that work
    [post_excerpt] => Around the world, activists armed with smart tactics are proving that they can turn back the tide of authoritarian populism. 
    [post_status] => publish
    [comment_status] => open
    [ping_status] => open
    [post_password] => 
    [post_name] => taking-back-the-narrative-tactics-that-work
    [to_ping] => 
    [pinged] => 
    [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31
    [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31
    [post_content_filtered] => 
    [post_parent] => 0
    [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=968
    [menu_order] => 0
    [post_type] => post
    [post_mime_type] => 
    [comment_count] => 0
    [filter] => raw
)

Taking back the narrative: tactics that work

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 806
    [post_author] => 3
    [post_date] => 2019-04-05 15:58:28
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-04-05 15:58:28
    [post_content] => In times of repression and despair, art plays an essential role — politically, intellectually, and spiritually

What do Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” and a giant penis on a drawbridge in St. Petersburg have in common? 

Both tell us something about the importance of art in political life.

In societies that place a high value on monetary wealth, and which regard not having money as a moral failing, artists, whose careers are precarious, are marginalized. In contemporary America, we like to think that people with the most brains and ambition go into finance, or head to Silicon Valley. 

The truth about artists and their function is far more complicated. Russian art is a good example here, because the oppressive mechanisms used against people in Russia are disturbingly similar to those employed by the current U.S. administration and its powerful supporters. The power of these reactionary forces could become even more entrenched after the 2020 election.  

It’s undeniable that the current U.S. president’s penis occupies its own space in cultural lore. With that in mind, recall the penis drawing that Voina, the Russian art collective supported by Banksy, drew to taunt agents inside the St. Petersburg headquarters of the FSB, the notorious state security agency. That drawing famously won a state-supported Russian art prize in 2011, despite the official uproar.

[caption id="attachment_809" align="alignnone" width="300"] A Dick Captured by the FSB, 2010, Liteiny Bridge, St. Petersburg. (photo: Voina)[/caption]

The FSB is one of the most feared institutions in Russia. Art critics understood that taunting the successor to the KGB with an enormous image of an erect penis drawn on the bridge outside its headquarters makes an interesting statement. Is that statement juvenile? Yes, it is. But it also identifies the fact that power in Russia, and power in general, is a dick-measuring contest.

Art as catharsis

The immaturity of the gesture is also a statement. In a chaotically repressive country like modern Russia, where self-expression can be an exhausting maze of dead ends because officials have power to make capricious decisions like cutting off an organization’s funding for political reasons, or having someone arrested on trumped up charges, waving a dick at an official organ of the state is catharsis. Catharsis — and the fearless desire to shock — brings me back to Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, with his tight combination of laughs, parodies of racist fantasies of blackness, unflinching gun violence, and so much more. The song and the video for This Is America unspool into a dissertation’s worth of political commentary. But what ties Glover’s work together is how it elevates surviving malevolent, oppressive conditions into living; it flips the experience of being caricatured into owning the narrative. If you’re looking for ways to understand how important art is to real resistance (not the hashtag kind), this is it. [caption id="attachment_810" align="alignnone" width="300"]Childish Gambino (This is America, screencap) Childish Gambino (This is America, screencap)[/caption] In an oppressive political framework, the artist occupies an interesting position — and we shouldn’t always assume it to be subversive. All art can be co-opted by a repressive state apparatus, but its meaning and role in history can also change over time.

Art as resistance

One of the most interesting, and sadly overlooked, examples of artistic resistance in practice was the husband and wife team of Arkadiy Aktsynov and Lyudmila Aktsynova. These two talented painters met and fell in love in the Soviet gulag; like millions of other Soviet citizens, the state had sent them there in the 1930s for imaginary crimes. Miraculously, they survived well into the 1990s and left behind a treasure trove of both joyful and contemplative work; their landscapes, which they frequently collaborated on, are a particular favorite of mine. Having been forced out of the Soviet cultural mainstream by the legacy of the gulag, they dedicated their lives and their work to provincial Russia, where they found recognition. “We were saved by our faith in people and in kindness, and by an immeasurable fury in our work,” they recalled in their jointly authored memoir. The fury was both a symbol of their productivity and their desire to carve out a space for themselves, to create their own landscape, even while they were prisoners hemmed in by barbed wire. [caption id="attachment_812" align="alignnone" width="300"] Landscape by Arkadiy Aktsynov and Lyudmila Aktsynova, 1962. Oil and cardboard.[/caption] The nature of state oppression is such that it penetrates into all levels of society and all factors of daily life. It seeks to demonstrate that you do not “own” yourself, and do not have a right to any damn landscape — be it outside or in your head. In the Soviet Union, oppression had a totalitarian aspect; it was bloody and brutal at the beginning of the USSR and lackadaisical toward its end. In Putin’s Russia, oppressive measures are frequently random and chaotic, their goal more psychological than ideological, creating a gripping unease that allows a small group of people to casually plunder the country. Yet the mechanisms in both instances remain the same: your life can be changed at any moment, because an official stomped his foot or waved her hand, and you will have little to no recourse in the aftermath. For Americans who follow Donald Trump’s tweets — i.e. for Americans who until recently had not considered the unpredictable nature of marginalized existence as captured by Childish Gambino — that feeling of instability might suddenly seem familiar.

Art as a teacher

The passage of time meanwhile has a salutary effect on the interpretation of art that was originally created as an act of subversion. The Aktsynovs created art in the gulag as an act of survival. But after the state rehabilitated them in the post-Stalin era, their work became woven into the history of the Soviet nation as a cautionary tale. The message was, “These terrific painters were forced to suffer because our government made terrible mistakes!” Today, I’m sure that many of the people who admire the Aktsynovs, collect their paintings, and help organize their exhibitions, are also Putin supporters. Putin wouldn’t be a very good authoritarian if he didn’t know how to harness collective complicity. As for what meanings can be gleaned from the Aktsynovs work in the future — and what kind of cultural space they will come to occupy — only time can tell. The history and fate of dissident artists under repressive regimes might sound discouraging, but it need not be. In fact, it should inspire. An authoritarian can tell you to look or not look at a certain work of art, and tell you how you should feel about it. For example, when Vladimir Putin was elected for the fourth time, Russian graffiti artists co-opted the classical ballet Swan Lake to express a political statement about the decline of Russia’s democracy. [caption id="attachment_813" align="alignnone" width="300"] Swan Lake graffiti by Yav Zone art collective, (Moscow, 2018)[/caption] In Nazi Germany, the Nazis banned as degenerate some of the most important art and artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But you are the one who is responsible for what you feel when you look at a moody rural painting by a repressed artist. I’m specifically using the word “responsible,” because authoritarianism, due to its controlling nature, is ultimately infantilizing; this is something that Childish Gambino captures brilliantly in “This Is America,” by demonstrating how oppressive infantilization was practiced against generations of black people. In Russia, the late artist Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe acted as a kind of bridge between the stuffy paternalism of the late Soviet era and the shiny cynicism in the age of Putin. Most people gravitate toward Mamyshev-Monroe’s depictions of male political leaders in bold makeup, and search for very serious political meaning. Mamyshev-Monroe was indeed a serious artist, but my admiration for his work stems from how much fun he had — how expressive, vulnerable, and powerful in his vulnerability this man was, whether dressed in drag to shock the elderly or poking fun at the celebrity cult embraced by Russia’s younger generation. [caption id="attachment_823" align="alignnone" width="300"] Russian Questions and Life of Marvellous Monroes shining with gold and silver foil. (New Museum)[/caption]

Art to bind communities

Once, the West exported capitalism to the post-Soviet countries. Now, the former Soviet Union is selling capitalism back to the West in a purer, more vicious form. Donald Trump, the sleazy real estate man who would sell state secrets for the opportunity to build a dubious casino on the banks of the Moskva River, is a good example of this exchange. But this phenomenon is bigger than one individual. It is present in greater social atomization, in greater political extremes, and in our fetishization of voting as a purely individual, consumerist act. Today, Mamyshev-Monroe is a good artist to turn to if we’re looking for creative ways to respond to seismic changes and growing rifts in our society. He knew how to poke fun while maintaining compassion toward his subject matter, inserting himself into his work not out of narcissism, but a sense of intimacy. In other words, Mamyshev-Monroe observed extremes in society — Soviet bureaucracy, the extravagance of crony capitalism — and sought to contain them, and forge something new out of them. In this light, politically engaged artists are not just cool or interesting. They work to repair the common threads that run through society. In good times or bad, art is not an escape. It’s about being present. The world being what it is, we end up being present for a lot of crap. Some people will sell you on the idea of art as transcendence, but I think of it as wading through the thick mess of existence alongside other people, reminding them that they are not alone. It’s a silly-sounding issue that is deadly serious: if we’re to make it through our current troubles, and the troubles yet to come, we must connect. We must be there for one another. Natalia Antonova is a writer, journalist, and editor of Bellingcat. She is currently based in D.C. Follow her on Twitter @nataliaantonova. [post_title] => This is your mind on art [post_excerpt] => In times of repression and despair, art plays an essential role — politically, intellectually, and spiritually [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => this-is-your-mind-on-art [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:15:14 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:15:14 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=806 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )
Russian Stardust, by Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe (Moscow Museum of Modern Art)

This is your mind on art

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 751
    [post_author] => 10
    [post_date] => 2019-03-22 17:24:56
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-03-22 17:24:56
    [post_content] => While westerners argue about whether or not disinformation really exists, eastern European states have figured out how to combat it. 

On a recent Friday night in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, about one hundred people gathered in an open concrete atrium. At first glance, it appeared to be a normal birthday celebration — there was ample champagne and a DJ spun records in the corner — until the guests started reading excerpts from George Orwell’s 1984. The guest of honor was not a person, but an organization: StopFake, one of the first organizations to draw attention to and fight the now familiar phenomenon of Russian disinformation, was marking its fifth birthday.

While the term “fake news” gained prominence in the West only after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, organizations across central and eastern Europe like StopFake have been battling disinformation for years. What they possess that Westerners lack is a clear-eyed recognition of Russian intentions and tactics. For the citizens of countries in the post-communist space, Russian disinformation isn’t foreign, ancient, or theoretical; it is a lived experience, and one that moves their societies past debate about its existence and toward practicable solutions.

Meanwhile, the western world is still debating whether disinformation exists, and if it does, whether or not it is effective. But it has not yet begun to fight it. For lessons, the West would be well advised to look eastward.

Back in the USSR

It wasn’t long ago that the former communist bloc was subject to a constant barrage of disinformation and propaganda from the Soviet authorities and their allies. The government-controlled press was the ultimate vehicle for “fake news,” and its influence permeated every aspect of life — including education, the arts, and science. The Soviet authorities set out to control the narrative about their rule. Three of their most egregious lies include: blaming the 1940 Katyn massacre of thousands of Polish military officers on Nazi Germany, although it was in fact carried out by the KGB; denying that Stalin had deliberately allowed millions of Ukrainians to starve during the man-made famine of 1932-33 known as Holodomor; and the claim, manufactured and disseminated by the KGB during the 1980s, that the U.S. military had invented AIDS as part of a biological weapons project.

Lessons learned: how to identify propaganda

The Soviet Union’s lies unraveled with its demise. But it left the former Soviet republics and satellite states deeply mistrustful of the Russian Federation. This historical experience is part of the reason officials across the former communist space now describe their populations as “inoculated” against Soviet propaganda. But this mistrust is not enough to protect all people from the internet, which has proven an insidiously effective mechanism for disseminating disinformation. During the Soviet period, official propaganda was relegated to the pages and airwaves of state newspapers and broadcast outlets. Information did not move nearly as quickly as it does today, in the internet age; but even more importantly, it was clearly recognizable as state-sponsored propaganda because it was published by state-owned media outlets. But while the purpose of Soviet propaganda was to promote a single political ideology the purpose of contemporary disinformation disseminated by the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin is only to sow chaos. It has no political ideology; Russia’s strategy today is to promote many points of view, including some that are at polar opposites of the political spectrum. The tools available to anyone on the internet allow disinformation  to travel across the world at the click of a mouse, and to be micro-targeted to reach exactly the audience that will find it most appealing. Russia and other bad actors, both foreign and domestic, use these tools weaponize the fissures in our societies, creating chaos and undermining the Western democratic order. Contemporary Russian disinformation weaponizes the fractures in target societies and amplifies them via traditional media. They disseminate state propaganda via Russia Today (RT), the state-sponsored TV channel that has a heavily watched YouTube channel, and online outlet Sputnik. Russia launders its propaganda stories via fake NGOs and fake experts who travel to conferences, appear on television, and conduct “research” in support of disinformation goals. Russian narratives are also supported and spread by local organizations, media outlets, and political parties in target countries. For example, in an attempt to destabilize Ukraine and neutralize support for the country’s democratic reforms both domestically and internationally, Russia advances the narrative that Ukraine is a “failed state” harboring “fascists” and violating the rights of Russian speakers who live in Ukraine (approximately 30 percent of Ukrainians are native Russian speakers). These narratives begin on Russian state television and travel to local Russian media properties abroad. In some cases, their editorial control is clearly labeled; but in other cases the reporting outlets attempt to disguise themselves as legitimate local media outlets, when in fact they are government owned-and-operated propaganda outlets. Facebook recently removed over 100 pages and accounts that were driving traffic in Ukraine to Sputnik, the Russian state-owned outlet that is one of its propaganda arms.

How to combat Russia’s online troll army

Eastern Europe has been quick to recognize the threat of online propaganda, and to take action. Estonia, a Baltic nation that was occupied by the Soviet Union after World War Two, leads the NATO Cyber Center of Excellence, which researches and builds capacity among NATO members on cyber security. It has invested in Russian language media programs and educational initiatives to bridge the divide between the Russian and Estonian populations; this initiative came about after Estonia discovered in 2007 that Russia had released a massive cyber attack intended to divide Russian and Estonian speakers in that country. But the attack backfired: Today Estonia leads the EU and NATO in its efforts to build both national and global awareness about the Russian threat; just last week, it released an intelligence report about Russia’s intention to meddle in European elections in 2019. When disinformation weaponizing anti-migrant sentiment cropped up on shadowy outlets in the Czech Republic, the country created a “Center Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats” within its Ministry of Interior to deal with information warfare. Across the region, including in Ukraine, where StopFake just celebrated its fifth anniversary after being formed during the height of the Euromaidan protests, when Ukraine was the epicenter of Russian disinformation, and in Lithuania, where a group of “elves” counter Russian trolls’ lies, fact-checking has taken on new life. It’s no longer the domain of journalists; it is an act of resistance.

Media literacy: the essential tool

But the Kremlin has financial and human resources that cannot be beaten back by armies of fact-checkers alone, no matter how large or well-funded. This is why the countries bordering Russia have also invested in their citizens as defense against Russian disinformation. In Ukraine, media literacy is now integrated into the secondary school curriculum. And a program for adults found that 18 months after attending a media literacy training, participants were 25 per cent more likely to consult multiple sources in their news consumption. Finland, though not part of the former communist space, has dealt with its fair share of Russian disinformation; it begins teaching media literacy in kindergarten. These responses show that while there is no silver bullet to fighting disinformation, a clear recognition from the government is critical in order to pursue the many prongs of programs and policies required to begin producing an effective response. The West must recognize the insidiousness of disinformation and implement programs and policies that both discredit the lies and teach people how to be critical media consumers. Since the 2016 election, our political leaders have further complicated the American response to disinformation by politicizing the issue. But until they recognize that Russian disinformation’s ultimate victim is confidence in our democratic system, the government will not be in a position to enter the important battle for truth and accuracy that Eastern Europe has been waging for years. [post_title] => If the West wants to combat fake news, it should look to eastern Europe [post_excerpt] => While westerners are still arguing about whether or not disinformation really exists, the countries of central and eastern Europe have been fighting it for years with serious policy implementation. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => if-the-west-wants-to-combat-fake-news-it-should-look-to-eastern-europe [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:15:14 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:15:14 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=751 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

If the West wants to combat fake news, it should look to eastern Europe

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 698
    [post_author] => 5
    [post_date] => 2019-03-07 15:50:25
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-03-07 15:50:25
    [post_content] => Many of the stories in our roundup this week are about silver linings: The activist arrests that fortified a movement; a bottom-up small-dollar revolution in the absence of campaign finance reforms; from the ashes of local newspapers and shrinking media empires, an opportunity to remake the news by learning from the mistakes of the past. We hope these stories inspire you to look for the best-case scenario in any setback, and to find the opportunity to grow and change for the better.
  • The Chinese government thought that they could nip a feminist protest in the bud by arresting five activists planning to hand out anti-sexual harassment stickers on International Women’s Day in 2015—but instead their crackdown turned the women into heroes, and laid the foundation for a growing feminist movement. On a recent episode of The Current, author Leta Hong Fincher discussed a new book she wrote on the subject. Listen here.
  • South Jersey non-profit Distributing Dignity provides women in need with free, new bras and other goods that often go overlooked, but are essential to any woman’s well-being and dignity. Read the story at The Philadelphia Citizen.
  • According to a new study published by the Aspen Institute, schoolchildren who study in an environment with strong, secure relationships grow up to become empathetic and collaborative adults. Read about the education reform that appeals to conservatives and progressives alike in Governing magazine.
  • The industry working to improve global access to clean water, food, and education, relies too heavily on jargon that obscures more than it explains—and usually excludes the very people NGOs are trying to help. Simpler, more accessible language does not necessarily mean simpler, less impactful interventions. Read the op-ed in Bright Magazine.
  • Big money distorts our democracy in favor of those with the deepest pockets, but in the absence of campaign finance reform, politicians can make small-donor contributions a cornerstone of their for-the-people platforms. Read the op-ed in The American Prospect.
  • Defying telecoms and internet service providers, cities across the country are taking steps to create municipal broadband utilities to help close the digital divide in our country. Learn more on Smart Cities Dive.
  • Although the steady drumbeat of layoffs at newspapers and media companies across the country is devastating for the people who work in the industry, one optimistic way of looking at the wreckage is to see an opportunity to remake digital news and local media, learning from the mistakes of the past. Read the op-ed in Wired.
  • Finally, a start-up seeks to make disposable coffee cups a thing of the past with its reusable coffee mugs on-demand service. Sierra Magazine has the story.
Jessica McKenzie is a freelance journalist in Brooklyn, NY. Previously, she was the managing editor of the civic technology news site Civicist and interned at The Nation magazine. You can follow her on Twitter @jessimckenzi. [post_title] => Setbacks and silver linings [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => setbacks-and-silver-linings [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=698 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

Setbacks and silver linings

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 663
    [post_author] => 5
    [post_date] => 2019-02-28 18:16:23
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-02-28 18:16:23
    [post_content] => Small changes can have big impacts: Style guides can help journalists be more accurate and precise about conflicts around the world. Cutting through red tape in bureaucratic processes can expand access to progressive programs without passing new laws. Taking low-level offenders to treatment instead of jail can change the trajectory of a life.

Then again, big changes—like Yazidi women creating a women-only community to rebuild and heal after genocide—can have big impacts, too. This is our roundup of stories about making changes of all sizes for the better.
  • The cost of living is skyrocketing around the country, and wages have failed to keep pace. Paltry wage increases won by labor unions across the country mean little when those dollars don’t go as far as they once did. That is why unions should make affordable housing an organizing priority. Read The American Prospect op-ed. 
  • Journalism shapes the way we understand the world, and accuracy and precision matter. Words like "ethnic"—as in "ethnic tension"—can obscure and mystify what's really going on in conflicts around the world, so the Global Press Journal banned the word in its style guide. Learn more at Neiman Reports.
  • NGOs are getting better at admitting to failure—making the industry more transparent and encouraging open and honest conversations. For decades, only successes were rewarded by the funders and supporters of NGOs, and failures have been carefully hidden or disguised—making it difficult to create open channels for discussion about what works and what doesn’t. Bright Magazine has the story.
  • Displaced Yazidi women who escaped ISIS violence are building a women-only commune in north-eastern Syria, free from "patriarchy and capitalism.” Read The Guardian report.
  • Over-policing is a problem in many U.S. cities, but a new program in Albuquerque allows police officers to take low-level offenders to substance abuse treatment, helping individuals avoid arrest and a criminal record, The Albuquerque Journal reports.
  • The Affordable Care Act was supposed to make mental health services available to all, but fell short of the promise. Some cities, including Denver and Seattle, are stepping up and raising taxes to fill that gap. Governing magazine has the details.
  • When conservative American lawmakers are unable to legislate services like Medicaid or SNAP out of existence, they throw up bureaucratic roadblocks in front of people who need to access those services. In addition to proposing new laws, a progressive agenda should push for reversals of those roadblocks, making it easier for people to access the benefits for which they qualify. Read the op-ed in The American Prospect.
Jessica McKenzie is a freelance journalist in Brooklyn, NY. Previously, she was the managing editor of the civic technology news site Civicist and interned at The Nation magazine. You can follow her on Twitter @jessimckenzi.
[post_title] => Acknowledging failures and errors is the first step forward [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => acknowledging-failures-and-errors-is-the-first-step-forward [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:15:14 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:15:14 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=663 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

Acknowledging failures and errors is the first step forward

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 398
    [post_author] => 2
    [post_date] => 2019-01-22 14:38:04
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-01-22 14:38:04
    [post_content] => 

Donald Trump is a criminal, just not in the spy-game fever dream you’ve imagined.

The real trick to making sense of Trump lies in understanding the black market. You know who gets this dual mentality? Vladimir “Panama Papers” Putin. The chaotic narrative of Trump’s actions gains some coherence when you frame his dealings as either legitimate or on the side. It’s a kind of double-speak Russians are familiar with.

Once known primarily for fraud, including allegations of money laundering and labor trafficking, Trump has leveled upwards in the gangster world. As president, his social set now includes mercenary billionairesbanking oligarchs and oil tycoons. Men who considered him small fry just months ago are knocking down Mar-a-Lago’s door.

Some have likened this presidency to "House of Cards,” but Trump can’t hold a candle to Frank Underwood’s brilliant maneuvering. As has been noted before, Trump is a Batman villain rampaging through a Gotham with no Batman. He’s the Queens construction boss with a short fuse, mob ties, a penchant for stiffing workers and a predatory appetite for women. Bankrupt morally and financially, he becomes a reality star and ultimately President. Next step, attempted global domination.

Is it any wonder that Americans jumped at the mention of Trump Escorts being trademarked in China? Never mind the Trump lawyer’s reasonable statement that it was done to circumvent notorious Chinese piracy. On some level, however, we were hoping for a new twist in the drama, for some kind of evidence that our president is a glorified pimp.

After all, human trafficking, defined by the use of force or coercion to extract labor, including sex work, is the second-most lucrative transnational crime after drugs. Trafficking often occurs when migrants are forced from their homes in search of opportunities elsewhere, whether due to poverty, violence or increasing geopolitical and environmental instability. Long before he was president, Trump had a track record of intimidating vulnerable immigrants, his wives included.

Trump has previously capitalized on women through beauty pageants and his modeling agency, which is alleged to have trafficked women into the country on incorrect visas, subsequently taking their passports and withholding wages. Boasting about spying on underage women doesn’t help his case. Meanwhile, whether the sensational Steele dossier is true or not, one thing it did reveal is how comfortably Putin and Trump laugh when characterizing Russian prostitutes as one of Russia’s great natural resources.

Trump stinks of corruption. Even if we don’t know what he is up to exactly, we do know something about his scene. The tourism industry has come under increased scrutiny over its unique position with regard to human trafficking. Hotels, not pizza parlors, are known hot spots for many forms of trafficking. Victims range from the construction workers who build them and the house keepers who clean them to the sex workers who service men in them.

To use the earlier example of China, the 2016 Global Study on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism says that increased business travel in East Asia has increased the likelihood of children being sexually exploited. “Corporate culture in these [East Asian] countries often calls for after-hours “meetings” characterized by alcohol and sex to cement social and business relations.” The study further notes that some Chinese men value sex with children because virginity brings youthfulness and good fortune in business.

More generally, the 2016 U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Reportnotes that like many countries, criminal syndicates and local gangs run trafficking networks in China. Meanwhile, the One Child Policy and cultural gender bias has created a lopsided number of male children. Women from poorer regions and neighboring countries have been trafficked in to make up the difference.

Some international hotel chains like Marriott International and Wyndham Hotels have taken note of the larger problem and partnered with anti-trafficking groups ECPAT-USA and Polaris to create the Code, a specific set of practices and guidelines for the tourism industry to combat the sexual exploitation of children. The new training guidelines were implemented by Marriott in Rio de Janeiro during the Olympics and has gained traction since.

As for Trump, there has been no sign of his hotels’ participation in these tourism initiatives. Trump may have left Atlantic City for the White House, but he’ll never be better than Trump Taj Mahal.

Take for instance Vice’s report from Dubai about Trump paying migrant workers poorly, keeping them in squalor while they build his new golf course. The New Yorker’s investigation into Trump Tower Baku opens up the possibilities that Trump was in bed with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard through a partnership with the Mammadov family, paid for in cash and personally supervised by his daughter Ivanka.

As president, Trump continues to exploit workers while paying lip service to human trafficking and sexual assault. His current reign of terror against undocumented immigrants in the U.S. is reminiscent of the time Trump threatened to deport the undocumented Polish workers who cleared the land for Trump Tower. Mexican and Central American construction workers are still victims of trafficking here in America.

Trump has preyed on vulnerable communities his whole life, as the repeated labor violations and discriminatory practices show. As President, he’s vowed to fight the epidemic of human trafficking though he openly promotes policies which exacerbate its root causes. Banning refugees, closing our borders, and stirring up global and environmental chaos benefits the criminal underground, as Trump well knows.

Time to face it — we’ve put a thug in the Oval Office because we’re racist snobs about crime and who constitutes a “criminal.” When Trump strikes, his tailored suit doesn’t in any way mean that he hurts people less; it just helps conceal who he actually is. If you don’t believe me, ask the Russians.

 

[post_title] => Trump Underground [post_excerpt] => The chaotic narrative of Trump’s actions gains some coherence when you frame his dealings as either legitimate or on the side. It’s a kind of double-speak Russians are familiar with. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => trump-underground-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=398 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

Trump Underground

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 378
    [post_author] => 2
    [post_date] => 2019-01-22 14:24:07
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-01-22 14:24:07
    [post_content] => 

Valid criticisms of Melania Trump have been taken as a license to mock her marriage.

It’s hard to feel sympathy for Cersei Lannister, the icy queen from Game of Thrones. She’s a vindictive, murderous woman whose only redeeming quality is her love for her children (until it isn’t.) Still, I cannot rejoice when her character is paraded naked before crowds shouting “Shame! Shame!” nor when her brother rapes her or her father brutally dismisses her. Her humiliation in those instances is too familiar. It’s not fantasy. The thing about those scenes is that Cersei is not being punished for the evil she’s committed — she is being punished because she’s a woman. Gender violence is like an invisible cage, and no amount of money or status can free you from it. I won’t ever cheer for it.

This is why the recent attacks on Melania Trump, an unsympathetic character, give me chills.

It’s not because she’s immune from criticism, whether for enabling Donald Trump or for her own bigotry, far from it. It’s because those valid criticisms have been taken as license to mock her unfortunate marriage to DJT.

Trump is an abuser. He himself has made that clear. That makes him dangerous to his wife. And she likely won’t be able to redeem herself without putting herself and her child in harm’s way.

The viral video of Melania’s face falling as her husband turns his back to her during the inauguration made many people laugh. But while you’re mocking their marriage, he’s likely terrorizing her for letting her face slip on television.

How do I know that?

1)The news is already filled with White House leaks about his uncontrollable narcissistic rage.

2) An abuser’s greatest fear is that his victim might tell on him. Around the world, women and children in abusive situations are killed over revelations far smaller than what this GIF reveals:

Your denial of the stakes involved only isolates abused women and children further.

Believe me, they feel your indifference. They know that you don’t believe them. Their worst fears are realized every time people turn their heads, close their eyes and refuse to bear witness.

Victims of domestic violence, if they’re lucky, find strength in good samaritans — people who are disturbed and refuse to look away — people like Michelle and Barack Obama, who graciously waited for Melania on inauguration day and escorted her inside the White House. Even then, the relief is temporary. Eventually she’ll be alone with him again.

Don’t fear intimate violence in your daily life? Lucky you. Now shut up, because you know nothing.

The comedian Russell Peters has a famous bit about immigrant parents beating their children. “White people, please beat your kids,” he says. Why? Because immigrant kids want what white kids have — no real consequences for their behavior.

In Peters’ bit, a white kid tells little Russell, “next time your parents try and beat you, threaten Child Protective Services.” Little Russell goes home, threatens his Indian dad and gets his ass whooped like never before. Never adopt that angry white kid’s advice, Peters warns — it’ll get you killed.

Think about that the next time you judge Melania for staying with Trump. Imagine what kind of threats he uses to make her stay. It’s hard to understand them if you’ve never been subjected to them. It’s easy to be like the white kid in the Peters bit.

Remember, this country was so indifferent to Trump’s abusive ways, it elected him President. He has the lawyers, the money, and the muscle. He is free to humiliate any member of his family — whether it’s publicly agreeing that his daughter Ivanka is a “piece of ass,” or making it obvious that he cheats on his wife.

Once upon a time, Melania was literally an illegal immigrant, and while the hypocrisy of that fact in light of Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant campaign is obvious, her vulnerability should be too.

After multiple divorces, it’s no accident that Trump eventually seduced a much younger, poorer immigrant woman who could not defend herself publicly for fear of being kicked out of the country.

Though Melania consented to marry him, liberals who claim she therefore deserves whatever comes next are adopting Trump’s logic.

Meanwhile, Melania’s famous nude photos are empowering to Trump but not to her. He shows his wife off like a thoroughbred. She, on the other hand, can’t win. If she’s proud of them, she’s a whore. If she’s not, she’s a prude and a hypocrite.

Either way, Melania is stuck with a conman who raped his first wife, Ivana, because he was enraged about a bald spot, and whose idea of consent is to grab first and never apologize. Let me remind you that, according to this man’s lawyer, “you can’t rape your spouse.”

Speaking of which, where have Ivana and Marla been hidden? Ivana has been conspicuously silent about her daughter, Ivanka, essentially playing First Lady for her ex. Marla has reportedly been begging for hand-outs.

Finally, if you think Trump wouldn’t forcibly separate his youngest son Barron from his mother, you’re naïve.

Trump, like other narcissists, gets off on the impunity with which he transgresses norms. He wants you to think that Melania “deserves” whatever she gets.

Appearances can be deceptive. #BlackLivesMatter, for example, has disrupted white Americans’ benevolent view of “nice police officers who are only doing their jobs.” Melania, meanwhile, disrupts the commonly held belief that “a wealthy lifestyle means you’re safe.”

For abused women and children, the family home is not a refuge — it’s a prison. Despite what you think, prisons can come in gold.

I never felt for Melania more than when she was allowed to remain in New York with Barron. She didn’t want to see Trump every day — who would? And my stomach flipped when Trump looked over Melania’s shoulder as she voted. We turned that image into another fun meme — but ignored the darker implications:

Trump wasn’t just checking to see that Melania voted for him. He was threatening her should she hesitate.

Why? Because monsters hate being reminded that they’re monsters. Abusers beat you harder when you wince.

Forgive the frankness, but despite what you think, Melania’s job isn’t to get fucked by her husband; it’s to smile and scream that she loves it when he hurts her. He relishes her forgiveness of the unforgivable; her total submission.

Remember how he embarrassed her for laughs at the Al Smith dinner? It was played as a warm-hearted joke — but Trump never makes jokes like that about himself. And while Trump’s base may laud “Empress Melania”, her stunning good looks, and her submission to her husband, none of that makes her safe from him or his well-documented rage.

Don’t think this is just a private matter between husband and wife. Humiliating those closest to him gives Trump the energy to screw this country. Abuse makes him feel like a king. Not just Melania’s king anymore. Our king.

So don’t trash Melania just to get to Trump. He already tells her she’s trash every day.

If you don’t have the energy to go to bat for Melania, I respect that. There are many underprivileged victims of abuse in this country who need our support. I believe that we can support them without kicking a woman who, in one way or another, gets kicked every day, fancy clothes and shoes be damned.

Attack Melania’s birtherism. Criticize the fact that she hung journalist Julia Ioffe out to dry and didn’t care about the anti-Semitic attacks that followed. But please don’t talk about how she “deserves” her abusive marriage. You’re only empowering Trump when you do that.

For more information about domestic and gender violence: https://www.sanctuaryforfamilies.org/

 

[post_title] => Think Melania 'deserves what she gets'? Guess what, you’re helping Trump [post_excerpt] => Don’t trash Melania just to get to Trump. He already tells her she’s trash every day. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => think-melania-deserves-what-she-gets-guess-what-youre-helping-trump-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:14:03 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:14:03 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=378 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

Think Melania ‘deserves what she gets’? Guess what, you’re helping Trump

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 368
    [post_author] => 2
    [post_date] => 2019-01-22 14:19:09
    [post_date_gmt] => 2019-01-22 14:19:09
    [post_content] => 

This remarkably prescient and insightful analysis was originally published on January 10, 2017. 

Early on in Ridley Scott’s movie Gladiator (2000), an overwhelming Roman force is poised to slaughter assorted Teutonic tribes, with the aging emperor, Marcus Aurelius wearily looking on from a gloomy, snow-covered hilltop. As the tribesmen raise their defiant clamor in anticipation of battle, a young Roman commander wryly opines: “A people should know when they’re conquered.” Within minutes, that point is brought home with bone-crushing vividness as the tribesmen are utterly decimated and consigned to a blood-soaked earth and to historical oblivion. Only then, however is the movie’s underlying conceit revealed.

For no sooner have the “civilized” Romans vanquished their barbarian foes than the Romans’ own, inner barbarian is released. Thus the old, philosophically inclined Marcus Aurelius is dispatched, no less violently, by his upstart son Commodus, a type who at this precise moment in our nation’s time will seem distressingly familiar: suffused with petty resentments, vacillating between bouts of insecurity and sudden imperiousness, and a narcissist who consistently blurs the lines separating crude gladiatorial spectacle from the craft of politics.

The scene comes to mind as our country awaits the transfer of political power, from a cool, articulate, and circumspect rationalist to a man of Commodus-like temper who by force of his personality and a lifetime record of fraudulent dealings has at last seized the presidency.

In this, the president-elect ended up being supported by party leaders who, temporarily caught up in a struggle between fading “principles,” stung pride, and native opportunism, predictably resolved that conflict in favor of the latter.

Having concluded its long journey from initial disbelief at an improbable candidate to groveling support of the president elect, the GOP is now poised to seize control of all three branches of government and to enjoy the spoils of a post-democratic order whose contours Trump so vividly drew throughout his seemingly endless and intensely divisive campaign.

Ideological purity and personal integrity have been sacrificed to the prospect of unchecked political power and economic interest. Meanwhile, the president-elect traverses his realm on a “thank you tour,” declares himself immune to conflicts of interest, declines intelligence briefings, stokes the passions of his fanatical supporters with irrelevant tweets at 3 a.m., and generally refuses to distinguish between fact and fantasy, promise and fulfillment.

Predictably, there has been vehement opposition, not just to Trump’s often lurid pronouncements during the campaign (a “beautiful wall” to be built; an opponent to be jailed) but also to his policy proposals: to undo his predecessor’s executive orders aimed at protecting the environment; to strip employee rights and protections; to dismantle the Affordable Care Act; to unweave the delicate fabric of legal restrictions governing business and finance and aiming to establish some semblance of parity between the haves and the have-nots of our society.

Both prior to and since November 8th, 2016, opposition to the looming deregulation of this country’s established social contract has mainly originated from what has been so dismissively and (as we now see) effectively been labeled the “liberal media.”

Facebook and Twitter accounts remain awash with conversation groups and anxious posts recalling or uncovering pertinent statistics and “facts” (a quaint word, it now seems); and social media are deluged with well-meaning advice about how to “fight back” or, more realistically, how to “survive” the coming Trump administration. And, underneath it all, the basso continuo is always the same: “How could it all have gone so wrong so suddenly?”

Which brings me back to my initial quote: “A people should know when they’re conquered.”

For so consumed have Americans been with the startling sea-change in national politics here, that they are only now, and arguably too late, beginning to realize that the shift to an autocratic form of politics in this country is part of a global pattern that has been unfolding ever since Vladimir Putin rapidly transitioned from Prime Minister (1999) to President (2000) of a crumbling and shrinking, post-Soviet empire.

Putin’s ascent was nothing if not Commodus-like as his charismatic machismo obscured unpleasant economic and geopolitical realities. As has often been observed, facts have had little or no standing during the Putin era (nor, indeed, during the eight decades or so preceding it); and anyone attempting to rouse an increasingly apathetic public with details about Russia’s pervasive corruption, the brazen manipulation of the judiciary by a small elite of oligarchs, or the staggering costs of state-sponsored violence in Chechnya and elsewhere, was silenced quickly and decisively. Anna Politkovskaya and Boris Nemtsov could tell us all about that if they were still alive.

In the context of U. S. politics, raising the tragic fate of Russian journalists and politicians who paid the ultimate price for exposing their leaders’ countless depredations may seem groundlessly alarmist. Unburdened by first-hand experience or detailed knowledge of twentieth-century totalitarianism, most Americans may yet prefer to dismiss, even ridicule, any suggestion that similar state-sponsored killings and repression could ever play out on the streets of Washington or Dallas. Time will tell. Still, evidence is mounting that a similar campaign of intimidation has already begun in this country.

Consider hundreds of documented instances of hate-speech and violent attacks that followed the 2016 election or such the president-elect’s decision to invite CEO’s of the major news organizations for a widely-reported dressing-down at Trump Tower in NYC less than two weeks after the election. The proposition so unsubtly extended on the occasion was plain enough: give up your claim to independent and critical reporting, or lose all access to information.

Meanwhile, having steadily expanded his game plan, Putin for the past several years has systematically, and lately in increasingly brazen fashion, sponsored Western Europe’s far-right parties as they plot to overturn democratic institutions and processes across Europe. He has acted as an ideological and financial sponsor of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front in France and, just this week, has signed a cooperative agreement with Austria’s far-right Freedom Party.

Putin’s autocratic style has served as the template for ultra-nationalist leaders in Poland and Hungary, and it shapes the aspirations of other far-right politicians diligently working to destabilize and, in time, overthrow a seemingly threadbare and irresolute liberal-democratic framework in Italy, Holland, and Germany.

Yet the consummation of Putin’s carefully orchestrated destabilizing of his Western competitors must surely be this country’s election on November 8th. Already, the president elect and his foreign policy advisors have removed Russia from the list of this country’s major threats; and all indications are that Putin’s strategy will pay off handsomely as the reputed bastion of liberal democracy (and Russia’s greatest geo-political competitor) is poised, starting January 20th, to join the post-democratic order that he has patiently been forging across Eastern and Central Europe.

Still, it would be a mistake to credit Putin with unilaterally bringing about this fateful denouement in American politics. More accurate would be to say that he has patiently and systematically exposed and exploited the deterioration of democratic process and the self-sabotage of this country’s major institutions, a pattern that has been unfolding since September 11, 2001.

If you want to blame Putin for everything — you’re taking the easy way out

The way stations of our democracy’s by now palpable demise are many: a frivolous and ruinous war waged against a far-away country starting in 2003; accelerating gerrymandering across many of the fifty states driving a wedge between popular vote counts and effective representation; a Citizens United Supreme court decision equating money and speech, and thus drowning out the voices of those without significant financial means; the rise of disinformation networks (right-wing talk radio and social media), all of which have cumulatively erased the one capacity that Plato had regarded as indispensable to a just state: being able to distinguish between truth and opinion.

So, if “a people should know when they’re conquered,” they should also acknowledge their own responsibility for that outcome and, most importantly, should understand the full magnitude of their defeat. Those intent on thwarting Mr. Trump, our nation’s Commodus, need to begin by letting go of all the old verities: traditional demographics of the electorate have proven deeply flawed; the dignified and stubborn appeal to “facts” has clearly proven an ineffectual strategy; judicial redress against the expected depredations and potentially unconstitutional actions of an autocratic president and his administration seems a long shot; and expecting congress to do anything other than what it has always done, namely, take care of its own, would be downright foolhardy.

Here, too, the rise of Putin offers an instructive analogue. For it was his predecessor’s violent 1993 siege of parliament and dismantling of an independent judiciary that had laid the foundation for Putin’s autocratic style.

To be sure, not every coup d’état is sudden and marked by conspicuous loss of life. It can also take the form of protracted legislative and judicial inertia or outright obstructionism, such as we have seen in this country for the past decade: a Congressional majority deciding not to make law but, instead, to thwart all legislative proposals for eight years; a Federal judiciary crippled by countless vacancies (currently numbering 107) that have gone unfilled for years; and a protracted degrading in word and deed of the very idea of institutions (Congress, the judiciary, the media) as agents needed to sustain a viable and balanced social order. Such, after all, has been the daily bread of Americans over the past decade or so, with talk radio, Fox News, and alt-Right websites spewing disinformation and paranoid fantasies on a daily basis. Unsurprisingly, then, distrust in congress, the judiciary, and indeed the presidency is now at an all-time high.

Hence, with this country’s key institutions having long betrayed and discredited their intrinsic purpose, recourse to traditional politics and constitutional remedies will no longer prove effective when it comes to checking a small and rapacious financial and political elite single-mindedly pursuing its interests.

In less than a month, Americans will learn the hard way that their notion of democracy, long thought to be an eternal covenant, has become an empty shell whose institutional pillars have long been crumbling. Four years from now, the oligarchs and kleptocrats about to enter through the gates of our nation’s capital will likely have reduced the Jeffersonian ideal to a fading memory. To be sure, one may hope that America and the democratic ideals it has long taken itself to embody will rise again from the ashes of 2016, hopefully as a covenant of genuinely communitarian spirit and capable of geo-political restraint.

Yet whether post-democratic America turns out a Phoenix or just the latest in a long history of empires fading into the twilight, this much seems clear now: the institutional foundations of our democracy no longer furnish viable grounds for effectively opposing those who have just conquered the Republic.

 

 

[post_title] => The Republic Conquered: on America entering the post-democratic era [post_excerpt] => So consumed have Americans been with the startling sea-change in national politics here, that they are only now, and arguably too late, beginning to realize that the shift to an autocratic form of politics in this country is part of a global pattern that has been unfolding ever since Vladimir Putin rapidly transitioned from Prime Minister (1999) to President (2000) of a crumbling and shrinking, post-Soviet empire. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-republic-conquered-on-america-entering-the-post-democratic-era-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-08-28 21:11:31 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=368 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

The Republic Conquered: on America entering the post-democratic era