RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Populism is a disease of the elites, imposed by them on the people as they struggle to maintain control, and the present crisis and popular revolt is best seen as a reaction to this.”

We are cursed with a bi-partisan political class that will say and do anything it believes might secure the hearts, minds and votes of those whose self-interest matches its own desire to remain in power. Principles and the common good? They count for nothing
“A permanent crisis in governance across the democratic world”. That is the threat we face, according to Greg Sheridan in an excellent article, “Populism diminishing democracies”. Sheridan is one of the few political commentators capable of seeing the big picture. While most journalists focus on trivia, Sheridan is able to analyse Australian politics in the context of a range of ominous global trends that will shape the future far more profoundly than Bill Shorten’s ‘man boobs’ or Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘harbourside mansion’. But is Sheridan correct? Is the crisis one of populism, as primal forces are unleashed within Western societies? Or is the crisis actually caused by the failure of the elites in those societies?

Populism, of both the left and the right, is Sheridan’s concern, and he attempts to define it and account for its emergence. Across the democratic world, the centre of the political spectrum is increasingly being deserted in favour of “gross, vulgar, hyper-partisan populism [which] is winning victory after victory for irrational hatreds and prejudices.” He cites the presidential victory of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, the success of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the US, the impeachment of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, the victory of Norbert Hofer of the far-right Freedom Party in the first round of the Austrian presidential elections, the accompanying shift of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to the ‘illiberal right’, and the embrace of naked populism by the previously economically rationalist UK Independence Party.

Only six countries voted no: the United States, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom. France, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia accepted the text and voted yes. The resolution was presented with the support of several Muslim countries – some often described as “moderate” : Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.

What

UNESCO’s resolution is not only biased : it is negationist. All traces of Jewish presence in Jerusalem and Judea in ancient times are striped at the stroke of a pen.

is worrisome is that only six Western countries were ready to reject a totally poisonous, fraudulent resolution.

UNESCO is a branch of the United Nations, and the United Nations is an organization where democracies are in the minority, surrounded by a huge majority of ​​dictatorships and authoritarian regimes imbued with hatred toward the West. Israel is virtually the only country designated as guilty of violation of Human Rights by the so-called Human Rights Council, and where, in 2009, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was welcomed as a hero.

On April 11, 2016, the Executive Board of UNESCO adopted a resolution called “Occupied Palestine.” The title immediately exposes it as a biased document. That is not surprising. All the texts adopted by UNESCO concerning the Middle East are biased.

However, those who read it carefully can see that a further step was taken.

UNESCO’s resolution is not only biased: it is negationist. All traces of Jewish presence in Jerusalem and Judea in ancient times are striped at the stroke of a pen. The Temple Mount is never mentioned. It is only called by the name al-Aqsa Mosque / Haram al Sharif. The name “Western Wall” is placed between quotation marks, to indicate that it is a non-valid name: Al Buraq Wall is used without quotation marks. The graves of Jewish cemeteries are described as “false tombs.”

Iran’s sophisticated employment of asymmetrical tactics such as “soft war” — which relies on the other side’s wishes, conscious or not, to be taken in — is apparently part of Tehran’s strategy to level the playing field against the U.S., despite America’s overwhelming military superiority.

Iran is now being treated by most of the world as a normal nation-state rather than the revolutionary, terror-supporting, totalitarian regime that in reality it is.

Iran is waging a “soft war” offensive — media, social media, charm — against the United States. Tehran believes it is scoring significant victories in this war, and it clearly has, as can be seen by the so-called “Iran deal” — technically no “deal” at all: one side, Iran, got everything.

Iran’s sophisticated employment of asymmetrical tactics, such as “soft war” — which relies on the other side’s wishes, conscious or not, to be taken in — is apparently part of Tehran’s strategy to level the playing field against the U.S., despite America’s overwhelming military superiority.

Tehran seems to think, with justification, that it has successfully exploited the Obama administration’s uncorseted desire for better bilateral relations into granting Iran concessions that are not part of the original Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA).

One of these concessions is granting Iran access to the U.S financial system; U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spent last week trawling through Europe, imploring bankers to do business with Iran, despite that minor detail that America will not.

Another concession is the U.S. offer to buy Iran’s heavy water, a product of its planned plutonium bomb-making reactor in Arak.

Noah, my 10-year-old son, was reading over my shoulder a powerful story about the state of medicine in Venezuela by Nick Casey in Sunday’s New York Times. We scrolled through images of filthy operating rooms, broken incubators and desperate patients lying in pools of blood, dying for lack of such basics as antibiotics.

“Dad, why are the hospitals like this?”

“Socialism.”

“What’s socialism?”

I told him it’s an economic system in which the government seizes and runs industries, sets prices for goods, and otherwise dictates what you can and cannot do with your money, and therefore your life. He received my answer with the abstracted interest you’d expect if I had been describing atmospheric conditions on Uranus.

Here’s what I wish I had said: Socialism is a mental poison that leads to human misery of the sort you see in these wrenching pictures.

The lesson seems all the more necessary when discredited ideologies are finding new champions in high places. When Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez died in 2013, an obscure U.K. parliamentarian tweeted, “Thanks Hugo Chavez for showing that the poor matter and wealth can be shared. He made massive contributions to Venezuela & a very wide world.”

The parliamentarian was Jeremy Corbyn, now leader of the Labour Party.

Let’s not stop with Mr. Corbyn. In its day, Chavismo found champions, apologists and useful idiots among influential political figures and supposed thought leaders. In Massachusetts there were Joseph P. Kennedy and Rep. Bill Delahunt, who arranged a propaganda coup for the strongman by agreeing to purchase discounted Venezuelan heating oil for U.S. consumers. The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel extolled Chávez for defying the Bush administration and offering “an innovative four-point program to renew and reform the U.N.”

Up north, Naomi Klein, Canada’s second-most unpleasant export, treated Chávez as heroically leading the resistance to the forces of dreaded neoliberalism. Jimmy Carter mourned Chávez for “his bold assertion of autonomy and independence for Latin American governments and for his formidable communication skills and personal connection with supporters in his country and abroad to whom he gave hope and empowerment.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Iran has arrested eight people in a crackdown against women who “promote immoral and un-Islamic culture and promiscuity,” by appearing on Instagram without wearing the mandatory hijab head covering.

The Associated Press reports the arrests came after a two-year sting operation, which identified 170 participants in this conspiracy to defy Islamic law, including 58 models and 59 photographers. In addition to the eight arrests, 21 criminal cases have been opened. Iranian media said “those targeted saw their businesses shut down, as well as their pages on Instagram and Facebook removed.”

According to Channel NewsAsia, the eight people arrested were all models, and the arrests actually occurred in March, but the Iranian government is just now publicizing the crackdown. Some of them have been released on bail, while others face “heavy charges” such as “spreading prostitution.” Based on this account, some of the models are avoiding punishment by essentially claiming they were tricked into participation.

One of the prominent women caught in this dragnet was model Elham Arab, who was shown talking to a prosecutor on Iranian television, with “her blonde hair hidden under a black chador.” Her Instagram account has evidently been shut down, she could not be reached for comment, and the AP wasn’t certain what charges she faced, or if she had been given access to a lawyer.

Channel NewsAsia quotes Javad Babaei, head of Iran’s cybercrimes court, claiming that about 20 percent of Iran’s Instagram traffic is “run by the modeling circle.”
Babaei accused this organization of “making and spreading immoral and un-Islamic culture and promiscuity,” and vowed the judiciary would “confront those who committed these crimes in an organized manner.”