Tag Archives: Ukraine

Elon Musk And The Public/Private Dilemma

Alexandra Petri recently had a gloriously snarky opinion piece in the Washington Post,comparing Elon Musk to her toddler. Titled “Things both my toddler and Elon Musk do that are signs of genius, apparently” it included things like “Constantly yelling at people to change things that cannot be changed” and “When presented with slow, patient explanations of why things are not possible, just screams louder;” and “Likes to seize nice things and ruin them because of a fundamental misunderstanding of what they are for.”

And of course, “Wants to be center of attention at all times.”

It’s disturbing enough when a man-child (“man-toddler?”) has enough money to buy and control what had been a significant mode of communication, but its terrifying to discover that this petulant child has the power to interfere in matters of global war and peace. As multiple media outlets have reported, Musk’s SpaceX refused to allow Ukraine to use its Starlink internet services to launch an attack on Russia last September–a decision that undoubtedly prolonged the conflict and benefitted Russia.

Musk has defended his decision as an effort to prevent possible nuclear war. Whatever your opinion of that excuse, or his action, the episode raises a profound question: should a single private citizen–even one less mercurial and self-aggrandizing than Musk– have the power to decide such questions? 

We live in a very weird time. Government evidently gets to decide what I do with my uterus, but not how the U.S. will assist in the defense of its allies….

I know this will come as a shock to several self-satisfied “captains of industry,” but having a lot of money does not necessarily translate into superior knowledge or nuanced understanding. Musk is actually a poster boy for that disconnect–as David French (who spent years as a First Amendment lawyer) recently wrote in the New York Times,

Despite his loud and frequent protestations, Elon Musk may be the worst ambassador for free speech in America. To understand why, it’s necessary to look at X, the website formerly known as Twitter, which he owns and rules over like the generalissimo of a banana republic….

Instead of creating a platform for free speech, Musk created a platform for Musk’s speech — or, more precisely, Musk’s power. First, he has demonstrated that he’s perfectly willing to take action against people or entities that challenge him or challenge X. As my friends at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (where I used to serve as president) have detailed, he has used his authority to suspend accounts, to throttle (or limit the traffic of) competitors and reportedly to boost his own voice.

As French quite accurately notes, rather than making Twitter (now X) into a free speech paradise, Musk has turned it into the generalissimo’s playpen, where the generalissimo’s values shape everything about the place.

X is Musk’s company, and he can set whatever speech rules he wishes. But do not be fooled. When Musk defends his decisions by shouting “free speech,” I’m reminded of the immortal words of Inigo Montoya in the movie “The Princess Bride”: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Musk isn’t promoting liberty; he’s using his power to privilege many of the worst voices in American life.

Power and privilege. Those two words are–or should be– at the heart of the public/private distinction. Once again, we come back to that fundamental question: what is government for? What functions are properly left to the private sector–to the individual, to the marketplace, or to the wide variety of nonprofit and voluntary organizations–and which must be exercised by a democratically-elected government? 

Right now, that essential inquiry is mired in a host of very serious concerns about the declining health of democratic decision-making, and the increasingly obvious effort of MAGA Republicans to turn America into an autocratic, White Christian Nationalist state. If they are successful, American government will no longer be legitimate under any definition of that term, and the allocation of power between those privileged by the regime and the rest of us will be moot.

If we do manage to salvage democratic governance–if voters come out in 2024 and deal a sufficiently robust defeat to the MAGA Confederates still fighting the Civil War–we will need to turn our attention to the necessary divisions between public and private power.

Governments can and do make grievous mistakes, but that is no reason to allow individuals–even individuals considerably more mature and informed than Elon Musk–to usurp decision-making in realms that must be subject to public accountability.

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Not The Start Of A Science-Fiction Story…

One of the comforts I had growing up as a bookish nerd was the steady stream of science fiction available –the books and short stories that explored what if? What if in the future X or Y happened? What if there were threats to the continued existence of humans? What if the Earth became uninhabitable? What if there really are aliens “out there”? What if they’re not friendly? What if they are?

These scenarios triggered all sorts of speculation–especially about what an “evolved” future might look like.  (There was a reason that, when the Star Trek franchise came on the scene modeling such a future, so many of us enthusiastically embraced it.)

Unfortunately, when a recent speech by the chief of the UN described not-theoretical existential threats faced by humans on planet Earth, I looked in vain for a Jean-Luc Picard-like figure able  to lead a bunch of not-so evolved humans from chaos into a satisfactory future.

In an alarming assessment, the head of the United Nations warned world leaders Tuesday that nations are “gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction” and aren’t ready or willing to tackle the challenges that threaten humanity’s future — and the planet’s. “Our world is in peril — and paralyzed,” he said.

Speaking at the opening of the General Assembly’s annual high-level meeting, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made sure to emphasize that hope remained. But his remarks reflected a tense and worried world. He cited the war in Ukraine and multiplying conflicts around the world, the climate emergency, the dire financial situation of developing countries and setbacks in U.N. goals for 2030 including an end to extreme poverty and quality education for all children.

He also warned of what he called “a forest of red flags” around new technologies despite promising advances to heal diseases and connect people. Guterres said social media platforms are based on a model “that monetizes outrage, anger and negativity” and buys and sells data “to influence our behavior.” Artificial intelligence he said, “is compromising the integrity of information systems, the media, and indeed democracy itself.”

The world lacks even the beginning of “a global architecture” to deal with the ripples caused by these new technologies because of “geopolitical tensions,” Guterres said.

It’s hard to dispute his analysis.

As Guterres accurately pointed out, geopolitical divisions are steadily undermining the efforts of the U.N. Security Council–not to mention international law, trust in democratic institutions and most forms of international cooperation.

“The divergence between developed and developing countries, between North and South, between the privileged and the rest, is becoming more dangerous by the day,” the secretary-general said. “It is at the root of the geopolitical tensions and lack of trust that poison every area of global cooperation, from vaccines to sanctions to trade

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine not only unleashed a global food crisis–it has worsened divisions among major powers in a way not seen since the Cold War and raised fears of a nuclear catastrophe, either due to accidental mishaps at nuclear plants or (as Putin becomes cornered) via weaponry. Inflation is worldwide. Diseases and pandemics are proliferating.

And looming above every other threat is climate change, and the almost daily reports of  extreme weather it is triggering.

In those long-ago stories I read, this confluence of emergencies would either be countered with scientific innovations, or human ingenuity would allow some portion of humanity to escape our doomed planet and find a new (class M) home.

I hate to be negative, but at least in the short term, I don’t see either of those things happening.

I should hasten to say that I do see evidence that the threat of environmental disaster has incentivized some truly impressive science. Whether those breakthroughs will ameliorate some of the worst of the crisis or are “too little, too late” remains to be seen.

It’s also too early to tell just how much the fat cats who have been massively profiting from fossil fuels (and the legal advantages they’ve managed to buy for themselves) will slow adoption of those breakthroughs….

Science also is producing enormous progress in automation, which–at least in the short term–will displace millions of people from the tasks they are currently performing; that displacement will only add to the existing grievances that are increasingly being expressed through violence, as people unable to cope productively with enormous social, technological and climate change look for someone or some group to blame.

And while we face these and multiple other challenges, our governing institutions are gridlocked by obsolete mechanisms that  empower corrupt and wildly incompetent lawmakers.

The term “a world of hurt” has never been more apt.

Unfortunately, there’s no Federation to come to our rescue….we will have to rescue ourselves.

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That John Wayne Worldview…

Paul Krugman recently commented on Tucker Carlson’s residence in a tough White male alternate  reality.

On Aug. 29 Tucker Carlson of Fox News attacked President Biden’s policy on Ukraine, asserting among other things: “By any actual reality-based measure, Vladimir Putin is not losing the war in Ukraine. He is winning the war in Ukraine.” Carlson went on, by the way, to assert that Biden is supporting Ukraine only because he wants to destroy the West.

Carlson’s timing was impeccable. Just a few days later, a large section of the Russian front near Kharkiv was overrun by a Ukrainian attack. It’s important to note that Putin’s forces weren’t just pushed back; they appear to have been routed. As the independent Institute for the Study of War reported, the Russians were driven into a “panicked and disorderly retreat,” leaving behind “large amounts of equipment and supplies that Ukrainian forces can use.”

Krugman’s column went on to analyze/deconstruct the worldview of those who–like Carlson–clearly prefer Putin’s Russia to Zelensky’s Ukraine.

He noted that there’s “a whole school of self-styled ‘realists'” who keep insisting that Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion is futile, and who continue to call on Ukraine to make big concessions in order to end the war.  He then proceeds to investigate the worldview that leads so many on the political Right to laud Putin’s brand of leadership–a worldview that, as he writes, mistakes tough-guy swagger for effectiveness.

This worldview has warped the right’s perception not just of the Russian Army but also of how to deal with many other issues. And it’s worth asking where it comes from…

After providing some relevant quotes from Rudy Giuliani and Trump, he says

it’s not hard to see where the MAGA right’s admiration for Putinism comes from. After all, Putin’s Russia is autocratic, brutal and homophobic, with a personality cult built around its ruler. What’s not to like?

Yet admiring a regime’s values needn’t mean having faith in its military prowess. As a center-left advocate of a strong social safety net — or, as Republicans would say, a Marxist (which, of course, I’m not) — I think highly of Nordic welfare states like Denmark. But I have no opinion whatsoever about the effectiveness of Denmark’s army (yes, it has one).

The conflation of Right-wing values with strength can be seen in the Right’s transformation of Jesus into a MAGA Republican–a change so dramatic it now prompts satirical “GOP ads,” like this one.

Back in March, I wrote about a book I’d just finished–Jesus and John Wayne, written by a religion scholar at Calvin College who traced how the Jesus of Evangelical imagination had morphed from the “wimpy, feminine” prophet my  Christian friends continue to worship into a “manly, dominant” John-Wayne-like warrior. The book documented the degree to which misogyny and male dominance have become central to the Christian Nationalism that is today’s Evangelical belief system.

For a stunning number of conservative White Evangelicals, the “good news” of the Christian gospel has become a staunch commitment to patriarchal authority, gender difference, and Christian Nationalism, all anchored in white racial grievance.

The background provided by that book helps to explain the disdain of  MAGA Republicans like Ted Cruz (who has criticized  America’s armed forces for being feminized and “woke”) for Ukraine. That criticism, of course, is quite unlike their admiration for the Russian army which–as Krugman points out– is nothing if not brutal.

It is notable that –among its other “woke” features–women make up more than a fifth of Ukraine’s military.

Krugman points to what should be obvious: despite the Right’s celebration of brute strength, modern wars aren’t won by looking tough.

Courage — which the Ukrainians have shown in almost inconceivable abundance — is essential, but it doesn’t have much to do with bulging biceps. And bravery must go hand in hand with being smart and flexible, qualities the Russian Army evidently lacks.

Jesus and John Wayne added evidence to the arguments in Robert P. Jones’ book The End of White Christian America. Read together, the two books explain the transformation of Evangelical Christianity into the distinctly un-Christian worldview advanced by Tucker Carlson and other MAGA Republicans. Both books–together with a veritable mountain of social science research–document the morphing of a significant number of White Christian Americans into a very un-Christian cult.

The members of that cult frantically resist the inexorable progress of cultural and demographic change; they continue to reside mentally and emotionally in eras long past–in times when brute strength (epitomized by John Wayne) was more important than skill and smarts.

The obsolescence of that worldview is just one of the lessons we’re learning from Russia’s tragic and brutal war on Ukraine.

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The Long And The Short Of It

Like lots of Americans, I go to the doctor twice a year for check-ups, and I respond to the standard initial questions: have I fallen in the past six months? Have I been depressed? Thought about harming myself?

I have standard responses to those last two standard questions: I’m only depressed when I pay attention to the news. I haven’t wanted to harm myself, but I have definitely wanted to harm some other people I could name….

Actually, I’m pretty sure I have a widely-shared medical condition I’ll call “news sickness.” Its symptoms are lack of focus, feelings of futility, and free-floating anger.

The lack of focus is most maddening. What should I be concentrating on–what news should I be following– at a time when there is a new threat to democracy, to well-being, to sanity every single day? A morning scan of the media highlights the most recent atrocity, in this case, the murder of yet more innocent children and their teachers in a Texas classroom. That followed closely on the White Nationalist massacre in Buffalo, and has prompted media reviews of the unthinkable number of mass shootings in America, along with statistics showing that gun violence is a peculiarly American problem. (Evidently, the mentally-ill in other countries are less murderous…)

These recent events have operated to overshadow other recent and important matters: an unprovoked war in Ukraine that is killing thousands, displacing millions, and threatening to ignite World War III; revelations of traitorous behaviors uncovered almost daily by the January 6th Committee in the course of its investigation into the unprecedented attempt to overthrow a duly elected President; the increasing successes of the retrograde movement to strip women of their right to self-determination, beginning with abortion but sending strong signals that the war on women and gay people won’t end there…

And then there are ongoing debates over COVID measures, and the shameful revelations about Baptist clergy, who–it turns out–are just as prone to sexual misbehavior as Catholic priests (and undoubtedly other “men of the cloth.”).

Hovering over all of these and many other issues is the threat posed by climate change. And hovering over all of it is the adamant refusal of the Republican Party to engage responsibly with any of these issues, and its determination to keep others from doing anything about them either.

Here, for example, is a recent report from the New York Times, detailing an organized GOP effort to punish corporations trying to be responsible stewards of the environment.

In West Virginia, the state treasurer has pulled money from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, because the Wall Street firm has flagged climate change as an economic risk.

In Texas, a new law bars the state’s retirement and investment funds from doing business with companies that the state comptroller says are boycotting fossil fuels. Conservative lawmakers in 15 other states are promoting similar legislation.

And officials in Utah and Idaho have assailed a major ratings agency for considering environmental risks and other factors, in addition to the balance sheet, when assessing states’ creditworthiness.

Across the country, Republican lawmakers and their allies have launched a campaign to try to rein in what they see as activist companies trying to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.

Every single day, we get media reports with the same story: Republicans continue to block even the most modest gun control efforts. State-level Republicans are passing draconian measures aimed at criminalizing abortion and punishing both women and those who might help them obtain one. Republican lawmakers are resisting subpoenas and refusing to testify to the January 6th Committee. Senate Republicans filibustered and defeated the recent anti-terrorism bill.  Senate Republican “leadership” refuses to sanction the party’s (several) “out and proud” congressional White Supremicists. A significant number of Congressional Republicans resist sending help to Ukraine, and to varying degrees, offer justifications for Russia’s invasion.

If you make a list of the most pressing issues facing the United States, it becomes blindingly clear that the federal government and the various governments of America’s Red states are doing virtually nothing to address those issues. It also becomes blindingly clear why that is: today’s Republican Party has morphed into a White Christian Supremicist cult, dismissive of science and evidence and intent upon “returning” the country to a time that never was. Thanks to gerrymandering and several outdated elements of America’s electoral system, that cult wields considerably more power than fair democratic elections would otherwise give it, and it is using its disproportionate and unrepresentative power to thwart passage of desperately-needed legislation.

What’s wrong with America today can be reduced to one simple statement:  the Republican stranglehold on government.

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Will Tomorrow Ever Come?

Speaking of Ukraine…

A few days ago, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when I came across a post directing me to a YouTube of Broadway entertainers gathered to sing in support of Ukraine. I’m embarrassed to admit I teared up. The large crowd sang outside despite the rain, and umbrellas partially hid the Ukrainian flags and the tee shirts with pro-Ukrainian sentiments.

The lyrics to the song–“Do You Hear the People Sing” from Les Miserables–were eerily appropriate to the genocidal assault we are witnessing. I’m just going to share those lyrics and refrain from commenting further, except to say that what is happening in Ukraine to people who were just going about their lives–going to their jobs, sending their children to school, cooking dinner–is heartbreaking evidence that much of humanity hasn’t come very far on the road to actual civilization.

The resistance of these brave people is evidence that many other humans are fighting and dying for a better tomorrow–a tomorrow that–fingers crossed!– will be civilized.

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?

Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Click through and watch the YouTube.

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