Democracy gone Astray: Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Former Obama adviser: Don’t let politicians take over Harvard

Amid outrage over comments they made during a hearing on anti semitism on their campuses, presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have faced calls from politicians and donors to resign – and one, Penn President Liz Magill, is already out of the job.

But some, including a former Obama adviser, are defending Harvard President Claudine Gay, and urging the school not to bend to external pressure.

When Rudy Giuliani steps into federal court on Monday, the only mystery will be how severely he is sanctioned for lies about the 2020 election.

U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell has already found him liable for defaming two Georgia election workers — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — who faced threats and harassment after Giuliani and Donald Trump falsely accused them of manipulating ballots after the 2020 election. Those lies fueled conspiracy theories that have festered to this day.

The Indian government instructed its consulates in North America to launch a “sophisticated crackdown scheme” against Sikh diaspora organizations in Western countries, according to a secret memorandum issued in April 2023 by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. The memo, which was obtained by The Intercept, lists several Sikh dissidents under investigation by India’s intelligence agencies, including the Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Elon Musk reinstated notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ account on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday amid the billionaire’s continued loss of advertisers on the platform.

“Reinstate Alex Jones on this platform? Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk, who owns X after buying the social media platform for $44 billion last year, said in a post on Saturday. Early Sunday, Musk tweeted, “The people have spoken and so it shall be.”

On February 19, 1942, two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. It initiated a Department of Defense program that resulted in the rounding up and incarceration of about 122,000 individuals of Japanese descent. They were to be placed in federal “relocation centers” that would popularly become known as “internment camps.” As it happened, they were neither. They were prisons set up to house and so violate the civil and human rights of a despised and racially different group defined as “the enemy.”

In an obscure dispute between Venezuela and Guyana, its much smaller neighbour, that is provoking irresponsible talk of war, some things are clear. One is that Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s far-left, authoritarian president, has deliberately reignited tensions over the issue for personal political purposes.

Unpopular Maduro, who succeeded his charismatic mentor, the late revolutionary socialist Hugo Chávez, in 2013, faces an election next year that, if it is free and fair, he will likely lose. The cynical whipping up of nationalist, patriotic sentiment is a familiar refuge of rogues lacking better ways to win votes.

Eternally long lines of stalled transport trucks at Ukraine's border with Poland may be an apt metaphor for broader frustrations and challenges facing the war-weary nation as 2023 winds down.

A blockade by Polish truckers is just one in a series of cascading issues that have combined to thwart Ukraine's ability to support its military and resist Russia's almost two-year-old invasion.

"Increasingly, domestic politics [among] Ukraine's allies is interfering with Ukraine's security," said Orysia Lutsevych, an analyst with Chatham House in London who has paid special attention to the war in Ukraine.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli warplanes struck parts of the Gaza Strip in relentless bombardment Saturday, hitting some of the dwindling bits of land that Israel had described as safe zones when telling Palestinians in the south to evacuate.

Frustration was growing with the United States after it vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, despite wide support, and approved the emergency sale of tank ammunition worth more than $100 million to Israel.

Is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government now planning to introduce a new, tougher Sovereignty Act to fight Ottawa’s proposed emissions regulations?

As is well known, the plainly unconstitutional Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act has been shown to be a meaningless joke.

So this morning Smith and her environment minister, Rebecca Schulz, who lately has been reduced to the role of an insignificant cheerleader for the premier, published a belligerent statement about the proposed federal “de facto production cap” in which they vowed to “develop a constitutional shield in response to this and other recent attacks on our province by what is fast becoming one of the most damaging federal administrations in Canadian history.” The cap on oil-and-gas emissions was announced by Federal Environment Minister Steve Guilbeault today.

In the week that followed the expiration of the “humanitarian pause”, Israel has escalated its invasion of the Gaza Strip. Aerial bombardment by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) resumed within minutes of the uneasy week-long pause that ended on December 1. It was then followed by advances of armoured units, artillery and infantry on the ground.

During the truce, Israeli forces continued issuing warnings and threats aimed mainly at Hamas but also at the Palestinian population. Once the truce was over, Israel showed it meant what it had said, making a strong and determined push into the south of the strip, mainly targeting the city of Khan Younis.

Hamas has said that Israel bombed Gaza’s medieval Omari Mosque, causing widespread destruction to the landmark site, and urged UNESCO to protect historic buildings in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Footage and images posted on social media by the Palestinian group on Friday appeared to show the Great Omari Mosque, the largest and oldest in Gaza City, reduced to rubble.

Only the minaret appeared to be intact, with the surroundings shattered. The site has been a Christian or Muslim holy site since at least the fifth century.

Shameless liar Alex Jones made the most of the 90 minutes that Tucker Carlson granted him on his X show, claiming that President Joe Biden traipses around the White House in the buff. (Watch the video below.)

He also said Biden attacked a dog, prompting Carlson to sneer, “Attacking a dog, what a pig he is.”

Jones attributed the dog report to Secret Service contacts “and by people who, let’s just say, work with him and I’m gonna leave it at that.” Then he graduated to the more salacious assertion about Biden.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) blasted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Wednesday after the far-right lawmaker went on a lengthy tirade about Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who pulled a fire alarm in a Capitol Hill building earlier this year.

The House voted to censure Bowman on Thursday over the September incident, which he has said was an accident.

Israel’s military has continued its heavy bombardment amid intense fighting in Gaza as its war with Hamas hit the two-month mark and the resulting humanitarian crisis threatened a breakdown of public order.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had struck about 250 targets in Gaza over a 24-hour period, ending on Thursday morning.

In a residential part of Rafah, a town on the southern border with Egypt where the IDF has told people to relocate to avoid areas likely to be bombed, about 20 people were killed in airstrikes that hit two homes. Women and children were among the dead, according to witnesses.

The Kremlin’s spy chief Sergei Naryshkin warned the U.S. that Ukraine will turn into its “second Vietnam,” amid disagreement in Congress over funding for Kyiv.

“Ukraine will turn into a ‘black hole’ absorbing more and more resources and people,” Russian foreign intelligence chief Naryshkin said Thursday in a written statement published by his agency’s house journal, the Intelligence Operative.

“Ultimately, the U.S. risks creating a ‘second Vietnam’ for itself, and every new American administration will have to deal with it,” he added.

A House committee is considering legislation introduced by Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert that could leave taxpayers on the hook for up to $17.7 billion in costs associated with cleaning up oil and gas wells abandoned on public lands by fracking companies and other polluters, according to a new report from the watchdog group Public Citizen.

Oil and gas industry lobbyists and their allies on Capitol Hill are working to defeat a Biden administration proposal that would strengthen federal requirements designed to force fossil fuel companies to plug wells and clean up drilling sites on federal lands after extraction. Boebert’s bill would direct the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to withdraw its proposal, and the House Natural Resources Committee considered the bill for markup on Wednesday.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration official who is now a co-host on ABC’s “The View,” said on Tuesday that it would be dangerous for former President Donald Trump to serve another term in the White House.

“I will not vote for Donald Trump. And I think that should be a pretty easy thing to say,” Griffin said in a discussion on the show about Trump. “If you thought the first term of Trump was bad, buckle up.”

Steven Guilbeault and Danielle Smith are both in Dubai this week for the COP28 conference on climate change. But you could be forgiven for thinking they’re on different planets.

On Monday, federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Guilbeault announced Canada would be cutting climate-warming methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by at least 75 per cent over the next six years.

Alberta Premier Smith immediately issued her own statement from Dubai calling the target “dangerous and unconstitutional” and in a personal attack suggested Guilbeault wanted to grab international headlines to benefit his “post-office career.”

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he is willing to make “significant compromises” on border policy in exchange for funding for Ukraine and Israel.

“We need to fix the broken border system — it is broken,” Biden said from the White House ahead of a Senate procedural vote on his national security supplemental that Republicans plan to filibuster over a dispute on immigration policy. “Thus far, I’ve got no response.”

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is leaving Congress at the end of the month, he announced Wednesday in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The announcement comes weeks after McCarthy was thrown out of the speakership in a historic vote led by hard-right members of his own party, abruptly ending his steady rise in the House.

“No matter the odds, or personal cost, we did the right thing. That may seem out of fashion in Washington these days, but delivering results for the American people is still celebrated across the country,” McCarthy wrote of his time in the House.

Democracy gone Astray