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The Geopolitics of the Normalization Agreements
Listen Closely to the Israeli Discourse in an American Liberal Idiom: Geopolitical Dreams, Ethical Nightmares
Thomas Friedman is both an echo of the liberal establishment and a media force to be reckoned with when it comes to post-cold war, post-Trump America. Known for championing the excesses of modernity by conceiving of technology, markets, capital flows, permissive social norms, and science-based truth and rationality as alone capable of offering promises of a good life for everyone. Friedman's tone has always been arrogant and condescending. He is never shy about offering the rich and powerful the benefit of his technocratic wisdom. When it comes to foreign policy especially in the Middle East, and most particularly where Israel is involved, Friedman seeks to mount a guru's pedestal so as to position himself above the fray, yet he never departs from the party line that unconditionally affirms Israel while being blind to Palestinian grievances and hostile to Palestinian resistance and global solidarity initiatives. In other words, Friedman is to liberal Zionism, what Sheldon Adelson was to militant Zionism as epitomized by the Netanyahu leadership, but whose stance is endorsed by the spectrum of right-wing political parties in Israel that dominate the scene when it comes to victimizing the Palestinian people.
Yet even judging by the low standards that Friedman has set for himself over the years, his most recent NY Times opinion piece was as grotesque as informed commentary on the Middle East can become, especially if read carefully, and with a critical eye. Published as an opinion piece on March 2nd with a title that is as foolishly flippant as the text that follows is pernicious: "Jumping Jehoshaphat: Have You Seen How Many Israelis Just Visited the U.A.E." As if Israeli shopping trips to Dubai or Abu Dubai are political signposts indicating that the region has started to overlook the Palestinian struggle for basic rights, and get on with the more important work of servicing consumers and tourists. If a spike in U.A.E. shopping is one sign, the ICC decision of February 5th to proceed further with investigate well-evidenced allegations of Israeli criminality in Occupied Palestine points in quite a different direction. It seems revealing that this latter development does not warrant even a nod of recognition in Friedman's warped imagination that heeds market signals far more than international law grievances, especially if put forth by adversaries of the U.S. or Israel.
It is tempting to deal comprehensively with the several perversions of policy encountered in the course of a journalistic piece of less than 1,000 words, but I will mention only those that seem most outrageous from the perspective of law, morality, and transparency. The piece can be read as above all a promotional boost for the normalization agreements reached in the last weeks of the Trump presidency, a triumph of Washington bullying governments. It not only gave Israel a big political victory but helped show the folks back home that Trump's style of diplomacy succeeded where his more highminded predecessors had failed. Despite being a strident critic of Trump in conformity with his liberal persona, Friedman has this to say about the normalization agreements, which he further blesses by adopting the self-glorifying name of the Abraham Accords bestowed by supporters: "I believed from the start that the opening between Israel, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan—forged by Jared Kushner and Donald Trump could be game-changing." Not a word about the arms deals and diplomatic payoffs made to twist the arms of the Arab governments, and not even a notation that this normalization ploy was the Trumpist culmination of carrying pro-Israeli partisanship to its extremes, which meant proceeding as if the Palestinians are to be seen nor heard as little as possible, and certainly never acknowledged.
Friedman goes on to say that it is too soon to know whether this good news will go further, recalling his disappointment that the once seemingly hopeful bonding of Israel with Lebanese Christians in the early 1980s turned out to be a 'shotgun wedding and divorce.' This meant that this promise an Arab-Israeli rapprochement was nothing more than a disillusioning house of cards that failed to produce lasting results of achieving peaceful relations with Arab countries without the inconvenience of doing something for the Palestinians. Again, it is the silences that are the most revealing aspect of Friedman's lament. There is not a word in the column that the peak moment of bonding between Israelis and Lebanese Christians came during the Lebanon War of 1982, reaching its dramatic climax when Israel's IDF collaborated with the Maronite militias in overseeing the civilian massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. To lament the breakdown of this ill-fated marriage of convenience, without noting one of the starkest mass atrocities of the past half century in the region, is a typical embodiment of Friedman's hypocritical morality and opportunistic geopolitics. Friedman does not stop there. He adds a gratuitous insult directed at Hezbollah coupled with a passing slur directed at Iran because it supports Hezbollah, and thus has the temerity to challenge Israeli/Saudi/U.S. phantasies.
Bad as is this foray into the tragic realities of Lebanese politics, worse is to come. Friedman regards the real payoff of the Trump normalization process is situated in the future. He conjectures that a parallel agreement with Saudi Arabia would be the crown jewel of the process, opining that such "..normalization would be huge for both Israel-Arab and Jewish-Muslim relations." At the same time, Friedman reluctantly recognizes that the murder of Kamal Khashoggi is seen by some as an awkward impediment to reach this proclaimed goal. Here is how Friedman frames the grisly event: "The CIA-reported decision to have Saudi democracy advocate Jamal Khashoggi, who a long-time U.S. resident, killed and dismembered was utterly demented—an incomprehensible response to a peaceful critic who no threat to the kingdom."
The language, as always with Friedman is revealing in ways that should make this journalist of post-colonial imperialism squirm. Why the word 'demented,' meaning bizarre action without rational justification, when the act in question was a wonton criminal abuse of power, accentuated by the misuse of diplomatic facilities to carry out an act of aggravated state terror—the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Further that the killing Khashoggi was 'incomprehensible' because it served no state purpose since there was 'no threat to the kingdom.' Cynical and hypocritical to the core: Hezbollah is demeaned for no reason, while a much deserved condemnation of MBS is sidestepped by Friedman's rather implausible claim of being mystified by what he portrays as the senseless murder of Khashoggi a harmless critic of Mohamed bin Salmon's Saudi imperium. Having taken note of the bloody deed, Friedman makes his priorities unmistakable by giving a green light to the nefarious business of geopolitics. Friedman always ready to provide unsolicited advice, without pausing for a breath of fresh air, observe that while "[t]he Biden team is still sorting out how it will relate to MBS" it remains right "to insist that that America will continue to deal with Saudi Arabia in general as an ally."
Without the slightest show of moral inhibition, Friedman cuts to the chase, affirming the triangular relations between Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States as a constructive partnership in the region. He celebratory mood is expressed as follows: "If the Abraham Accords do thrive and broaden to include normalization between Israeli and Saudi Arabia, we are talking about one on the most significant realignments in modern Middle Eastern history, which for many decades was largely shaped by Great Power interventions and Arab-Israeli dynamics. Not anymore." Again, this realignment is presupposed to be a constructive development without any indications of qualifications either by reference to the dangers of inclining the region even more toward a military confrontation with Iran or by acting as if the daily Palestinian ordeal was not worth addressing in the course of assessing such a diplomatic misadventure.
Friedman does go on to contend implausibly that in such an altered diplomatic environment, Israel might become more amenable to a two-state solution without even pausing to point out that even under pressure, Israel never wanted to co-exist with a viable Palestinian state, and now with the rightward drift of its internal politics and its guaranty of continued unconditional support in Washington, it no longer needs to pretend. The accelerating growth of Israeli settlements in defiance of the UN, the deferred pledges of substantial annexation of the West Bank, and the evident resolve by Israel to uphold its claim to govern Jerusalem as a unified whole, capital for Israel alone, makes any resurrection of two-state diplomacy an even crueler bad joke than Oslo told to the world while Palestinian aspirations are drenched in blood and the Palestinian people faced with an indefinite prospect of suffering under an apartheid Israeli regime.
The fact that the Biden presidency wasted no time resurrecting the two-state corpse is the clearest possible demonstration of the moral and political bankruptcy of U.S. policy with respect to the Palestinian struggle to achieve basic rights after many decades of denial. Unlike the Trump years, Friedman can exult in the reality that he is no longer out of step with those who preside over policymaking in the White House when it comes to the Middle East. And now post-Trump I am quite sure Friedman would not urge the Biden/Blinken to take back any of the unlawful gifts bestowed on Israel during the four Trump/Kushner years, including the Syrian Golan Height, the UN-defying move of the American Embassy to Jerusalem, the 'legalization' of the settlements along with de facto annexation of significant territory in occupied Palestine.
Tags: Biden/Blinken, Israel, Jamal Khashoggi, Normalization Agreements, Sabra & Shatila, Saudi Arabia
Categories liberalism, Middle East geopolitics, Normalization Agreements, Thomas Friedman
Trump versus International Liberalism: Should We Care?
The pre-Trump establishment is anxiously discussing among themselves such questions as 'is this the end game of liberalism' and 'how best to revive liberalism under present conditions?' The contrary question I pose is the one assumed by the Washington/New York elites, that is, whether liberalism in its present and recent forms is worth saving. There is an embedded language problem. The mainstream arbiters of 'political correctness' here in the United States treat being liberal as a kind of leftist orientation associated with Democrats, being soft of crime, beholden to minorities, and friendly toward gay marriage and trans people, but such a designation is highly misleading when used to depict international policy positions. In these contexts, liberal is used synonymously with contemporary capitalism as currently ideologized as neoliberal globalization. True, 'liberal' in American political discourse is often used domestically to identify those who support civil liberties, a suspicion of state power, rights of suspected criminals, regulation of the police, the abolition of capital punishment, are suspicious of the military industrial complex, pro-UN and pro-human rights, and sometimes dislike military adventures abroad, but far from always. These 'liberal' positions tends to be situated left of center. These kinds of liberals overlap to a considerable degree with those on the right who champion market forces as protected by the American global state as the foundation of world order, and laud the achievements and benefits of international liberalism. That is, many Republican conservatives have long been collaborated international liberals, while decrying the social damage that they attribute to domestic liberalism.
Almost twenty years ago I published a small book, Predatory Globalization: A Critique (Polity, 1999), and although it needs updating, its central argument about the failings of international liberalism continue to seem relevant, perhaps, more so than when published. In the interim, these failings have given rise to an angry backlash that currently imperils the post-Cold War rule-based liberal international order, more popularly known as 'the Washington consensus.' The defining feature of this approach is its economistic view of the world, which contrasts with the outlook associated with old-fashioned European-schooled realists such as Hans Morgenthau and Henry Kissinger, and such American-oriented counterparts as George Kennan, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Samuel Huntington who interpret the world through a predominantly geopolitical optic.
Perhaps, John Ikenberry is the most articulate, informed, and humane exponent of international liberalism, initially emergent after 1945 at the end of World War II, and then revamped significantly, in the Reagan/Thatcher years in the 1980s in ways that accentuated the autonomy of transnational capital flows in the 1990s in the triumphalist period after the end of the Cold War. [For a full presentation of Ikenberry's views see his Liberal Leviathan (2011)] In two recent issues of Foreign Affairs several articles set forth the normative case for liberalism, insisting that compared to all past "imperial and anarchic systems..the liberal order stands alone." [G. John Ikenberry, "The Plot Against American Foreign Policy: Can the Liberal Order Survive?" Foreign Affairs 96:2-9 (2017). Ikenberry goes on to explain his affirmation: "..in terms of wealth creation, the provision of physical security and economic stability, and the promotion of human rights and political protections, no other order in history comes close." In other words, so far as human experience is concerned, the world has never had as good as under liberalism. Gideon Rose, editor of this prestigious and influential organ of the American liberal establishment, echoes this mood of liberalism under imminent siege due to Trumpism, by observing that "if the new administration tries to put [its anti-liberal] vision into practice, it will call into question the crucial role of the United States as the defender of the liberal international order as a whole, not just the country's own national interests." [Foreign Affairs 96:1 (2017)] One doesn't need to be a cryptographer to read such an admonition as celebrating the marriage of capitalism and militarism under the banner of the liberal internatonal order, which could be more transparently labeled as the American 'global domination project.' Rose is hopeful that once Trump starts governing he will see the light, and avoid a damaging retreat from its global leadership role. Some commentators regard Trump's retreat from his most confrontational campaign positions on trade and economic nationalism as already vindicating this expectation.
For Ikenberry also, the demonic forces threatening the downfall of this best of all possible worlds are associated with the worldview of Donald Trump as he articulated it throughout his presidential campaign and in inaugural address, further reinforced by his extremist cabinet appointments and the issuance of several early policy directives emanating from the White House. In sum, Ikenberry regards early Trumpism as "a frontal attack on the core convictions of the postwar U.S. global project," although after 100 days seems to be moving toward an embrace of the national security consensus, although it is too soon to tell which way the tree will fall.
Ikenberry explains what he means by setting forth the beneficial elements of the liberal economic order that he believes threatened by Trump's feared nationalist approach. First, comes 'internationalism,' the commitment to a robust international engagement based on "rules, institutions, partners, and relationships," and concretized in the form of security alliances. Trump clearly draws this bedrock approach into question by his 'America First' rhetoric and his apparent demand that close allies begin to pay their fair share or even act to uphold their security by developing their own needed military capabilities, even possibly nuclear weapons, without hovering any longer under America's nuclear umbrella. Again, the evidence of whether Trump really intends to follow through on such departures from American foreign policy orthodoxy is difficult to assess at this point.
A second feature of international liberalism is the dependence upon a closely related open international trading and investment framework, including mechanisms for involving disputes with foreign governments arising over contested economic policies. Trump is criticized by liberals for adopting a transactional approach to trade and investment issues, an approach that looks for favorable deals rather than for the establishment of mutual beneficial cooperative frameworks, and capriciously risks the revival of protectionist regimes, imposing high tariffs, border taxes, and other burdens on imports that would invite retaliation by adversely affected trading partners.
The third pillar of Ikenberry's version of liberalism is the network of institutions and rules that allegedly lent stability to a market-based world economy. It remains anchored in the so-called Bretton Woods institutions established after World War II, as well as the World Trade Organization and the UN. For Ikenberry this was a system that bound states together in mutually beneficial webs of interdependence and cooperation designed to deal effectively with both routine and crisis situations as these arose in the world economy. Ikenberry regards Trump's stress on nationalist priorities as a serious threat to multilateralism in general, and thus as undermining America's credibility as global leader.
The fourth pillar of the liberal edifice endangered by Trump is the challenge directed as America's traditional support for receptivity to immigrants and societal openness. The crusade against illegal immigrants, constructing a massive wall on the Mexican border, and a general espousal of nationalist priorities adds up to an embrace of exclusionary nationalism, which again weakens the legitimacy of American global leadership, giving a nationalist edge to hostile populist backlashes against globalization already evident around the world.
Fifth and finally, Trump is derided by international liberals because he is seen as abandoning the bonding of likeminded liberal democracies as the basis for an extra-national 'security community.' Ikenberry notes with derision that Trump "trusts Merkel and Putin equally," which implicitly repudiates the relationship between domestic liberalism and international cooperation. It is contended that such a leveling of relationship tempts America's former closest friends to hedge their bets by forging more diverse alignments that could be better trusted to uphold their security and contribute to their prosperity under conditions of diplomatic uncertainty.
In the end Ikenberry is convinced that Trump, unless restrained (or self-restrained), will damage the liberal approach to world order, but Trump is not able to destroy the liberal edifice all by himself. Ikenberry hopes that other forces at home and abroad will create sufficient resistance to lead Trump to revise his policy agenda in ways compatible with the liberal agenda. He ends his article with these words: "If the liberal democratic world is to survive, its champions will have to find their voice and act with more conviction." Such an expectation is rather opaque with respect to specifics as we do not know exactly who are these 'champions' or what they might do unless Ikenberry is hoping for the mobilization and intervention of the 'deep state.' If this is the case he should be mildly reassured by recent developments, the firing of 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield and the bellicose diplomatic response to North Korea's nuclear program.
Joseph Nye, the doyen of celebrants of the benign effects of US global leadership also exhibits similar concerns about the Trump threat to the postwar global liberal order that Ikenberry seeks to sustain. [See Nye, "Will the Liberal Order Survive?" Foreign Affairs 96:10-16 (2017)] For Nye "[t]he liberal international order that emerged after 1945 was a loose array of multilateral institutions in which the United States provided global public goods such as freer trade and freedom of the seas and weaker states were given access to the exercise of American power."[11] This strikes me as a peculiarly elliptical formulation, which presupposes that it is beneficial for weaker states to be given "access'' to American power, whatever that access might mean as a practical matter! And we know what it meant for countries whose governments were perceived as moving left such as Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973), and Vietnam (1963-1975). Nye does acknowledge that in the past there were "bitter debates and partisan differences over military interventions" but concludes by affirming "the demonstrable success of the order in helping to secure and stabilize the world over the past seven decades has led to a strong consensus that defending, deepening, and extending this system has been and continues to be the central task of U.S. foreign policy."[12] There is revealingly no reference to the various failed American interventions in Muslim majority states or the rise of Islamophobia in the West. Nye considers the threat to international liberalism posed by the rise of China, the general diffusion of power internationally, and the rise of non-state transnational forces, yet he exhibits confidence that the liberal order can effectively cope with these challenges. What worries Nye most are not these challenges from without, but the challenge from within.
In this regard, Nye like Ikenberry, and the American national security establishment worry most about the rise of an illiberal populism within the United States that is hostile to economic globalization and its frameworks of multilateral rules and institution. Without mentioning Trump by name, Nye believes that polarization at home will diminish the effectiveness of a liberal order that he believes depends upon a continuation of a central American role in global policymaking and security arenas with respect to both hard and soft power. Nye believes that this role is imperiled by "[p]olitical fragmentation and demagoguery," which undermine the ability of the U.S. "to provide responsible political leadership."[16] Nye ends his essay on a forlorn note, suggesting that "Americans and others may not notice the security and prosperity that the liberal order provides until they are gone—but by then it may be too late."[16] In effect, Nye is of the opinion that a danger is the tendency for Americans to take the benefits of liberalism for granted, and thus be complacent about its protection.
A more European perspective, more nuanced and less U.S.-centric, is provided by Robin Niblett, Director of Chatham House (the British counterpart to the Council on Foreign Relations) [Niblett, "Liberalism in Retreat: The Demise of a Dream," Foreign Affairs 96:17-24(2017). Although agreeing with Nye that the main threat is internal as well as sharing the view of both Ikenberry and Nye that populism is challenging the liberal order, Niblett points out that the limitations of American-led global leadership preceded Trump. Niblett believes that the effort to spread the values and institutions of liberalism in the post-colonial world were not generally successful, failing most spectacularly in the Middle East, exemplified by the tragic fate of Syria. Niblett also stresses the innovative contributions to liberalism by way of the pooled sovereignty that characterized the European Union, which he believed to be the cutting edge of "a new liberalism" exhibiting many capabilities that exceeded those of states acting on their own, but he regards this promising past to be in deep trouble in the post-Brexit era. In this regard, Niblett is implicitly critical of those American intellectuals who think that liberalism is essentially an American contribution to world order, and do not properly acknowledge the co-equal European role.
Niblett is not optimistic about restoring the kind of liberalism that Ikenberry and Nye believe produced a long period of relative security and rapid economic growth and stability. Instead he sees things falling apart: "..over the past decade, buffeted by financial crises, populist insurgencies, and the resurgence of authoritarian powers, the liberal international order has stumbled."[18] He attributes this downward spiral to "deep unease with globalization," which is not likely to be soon reversed, and certainly not merely by reining in Trump. In Niblett's view the liberal order has been decisively weakened in the West and can no longer serve as the basis of a coherent world order. Despite Niblett's sensitivity to the weakness of liberalism his hopes for the future rest on the willingness to work out a kind of pragmatic coexistence between liberal and illiberal states reinforced by a continued realization that "a liberal international economic order" is indispensable for the maintenance of the "prosperity and internal security of both types of states."[24] Note that this kind of diversely constituted community of states challenges the Ikenberry/Nye emphasis on domestic constitutionalism as an essential element of the international liberal approach to world order. In effect, Niblett detaches domestic public order considerations from the viability of international liberalism.
Despite this, Niblett sees the future as shaped by a new phase of ideological competition for hearts and minds, this time between liberalism and authoritarianism (fueled by right-wing populism and ultra-nationalism) as alternative internal public order systems. He concludes by observing "[i]f history is any guide, liberal democracy is the best bet."[24]
I can only wonder whether history is a trustworthy guide in the twenty-first century, given the radical and unprecedented challenges confronting a state-centric system with very little capacity to generate global public goods, or to promote global interests as distinct from aggregating national interests. It is questionable whether the affirmation of the past American role as global leader during a period when the liberal consensus prevailed internally, at least in the West, can withstand critical scrutiny, given the degrees of inequality, persisting poverty, refusals to work toward nuclear disarmament, marginalization of the UN and international law with respect to war/peace issues, and patterns of militarism and interventionary diplomacy. What seems beyond serious question is that the collapse of this internal liberal consensus here in the United States, which long preceded Trump's shattering of any illusions about the continuity of American foreign policy, makes impossible any reasonable expectation of responsible U.S. leadership in the near future. Although Obama was a dedicated domestic and international liberal, efforts to promote his policy agenda were increasingly stymied by a right-leaning Republican Congress, and when it came to counter-terrorism, his approach did not depart very significantly from the preferences of his illiberal critics. Whether it is any longer even accurate to locate the United States on the liberal side of the geopolitical balance sheet is an open question.
Other liberal heavyweights were also participants in this debate about the future of world order, which centered on offering prescriptive suggestions to offset the advent of Trump. For instance, Richard Haass, President of the Council of Foreign Relations, the publisher of Foreign Affairs, has his own way of trying to adapt to the challenges of the present. [Haass, "World Order 2.0: The Case for Soverign Obligation," Foreign Affairs 96:2-9] He accurately avoids putting all the blame on Trump, and considers the problem of change in the global policy agenda to be at the root of the challenge to international liberalism, and seems to suggest that a response requires recasting the Westphalian state in rather fundamental ways. He rests his hopes for the future on states accepting a new identity that gives central importance to what he calls 'sovereign obligation,' the responsibility that each state should accept to gear its policies toward the provision of global public goods, a move so fundamental as to give rise to 'World Order 2.0.' We are never told how at a time of resurgent and inward looking nationalism almost everywhere, the political energy will come for such a deep change in the approach of governments to the balancing of national interests against the wider claims of global wellbeing. Underneath this call by Haass for reform is an affirmation similar to that of Ikenberry, regarding globalization, benign U.S. leadership, and mutually beneficial international cooperation as indispensable.
What is most missing from this debate, aside from self-scrutiny, is the failure to appreciate that Trump and the populist surge, are trivial distractions from addressing the more fundamental challenges to the very survival of the human species. There seemed absent from the Foreign Affairs symposium any awareness that nuclear weaponry and climate change are generating a biopolitical moment that is testing whether the human species has a sufficient collective will to survive to surmount the current array of global challenges. Whether we realize it or not, we may be living in end-times, meaning that the christening of this age as 'the anthropocene' is nothing more than an indirect acknowledgement of human responsibility for the ascendance of negativity.
Liberalism is an intergovernmental structure maintained and enforced by geopolitical actors, chiefly the United States. What is required to address the challenges of the biopolitical moment are globally constituted problem-solving mechanisms. Such mechanisms can alone provide enough support to achieve global public goods under current conditions, but are prevented from coming into being by the interacting resistance of global market forces and state-centrism. Only civil society militancy on an unprecedented scale can create a mandate for the kind of global transformation in ideas and structures are necessary to enable a sustainable future resting on the values of eco-humanism. If this analysis is correct, Trumpism and liberalism are nothing but sideshows.
Tags: Biopolitical Moment, International Liberal Order, international political economy, John Ikenberry, Joseph Nye, liberalism, Richard Haass, Trump
Categories Biopolitical Moment, Commentary, International Liberal Order, John Ikenberry, Joseph Nye, liberalism, Reflections, Richard Haass, Robin Nisblett, World Politics
An Open Letter to Myself
An Open Letter to Myself on New Year's Day 2017
Forebodings
I have a politically active liberal friend who in the aftermath of the Trump victory believes rather fervently that 'clarity,' not 'hope,' is the opposite of 'despair.' To be awake to unpleasant, even dire, realities and resist the temptations of denial demands increasing resolve in the face of the mounting evidence that the human species is facing a biopolitical moment threatening civilizational collapse and species decline and fall as never before. Wakefulness can give rise to mindfulness, encouraging radical choices of right action individually, and even possibly collectively. My friend's clarity was more narrowly focused—limited to recovering and carrying on in America after the unexpected electoral victory of Trump. For those of us living here, the fear of what Trump will do 'to make America great again' is overwhelming and deeply depressing without taking the slightest account of the biopolitical crisis threatening the future of the human habitat as well as already producing the extinction of many species that are being swept away by forces beyond their, and more often, our control.
The wonderful Euromed Team that lends valuable civil society support to the Palestinian people and their prolonged struggle, counsels a different spirit in their holiday message: "Keep Calm, Stay Human." I will do my best to heed this advice. Calmness rather than hysteria, human as profiled by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially in the often neglected, yet aptly visionary, language of its Preamble. Treat others, near and far, with the dignity they and you deserve, and do your utmost to protect those vulnerable within your reach whether family, community, country, world.
Another source of insight relevant to this moment comes from the brilliantly progressive Jean Bricmont, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Louvain and author of Humanitarian Intervention: Using Human Rights to Sell War (2006) and other books, who insists that all positive political action rests on a foundation of 'hope and indignation.'(p.7) I view 'hope' as a matter of informed will as contrasted with optimism, which is often an escapist refusal to acknowledge surrounding risks, harms, and dangers. Optimists too often greet the future with a vacuous benign smile as if there is nothing to worry about so long as you meditate twice a day. To be authentically hopeful under current conditions presents a difficult essentially spiritual challenge, which depends on some form of faith, given the depth of the multiple crises that imperil human and non-human futures. 'Indignation' is an appropriate response to the pervasive wrongs associated with corruption, exploitation, patriarchy, and unjustifiable discrimination, and serves as a necessary foundation for raising political consciousness, making mobilization feasible and transformation possible.
Right-wing Populism: A Vehicle for 21st Century Fascism?
Others are sounding various alarms in anxious response to the rise of right-wing populism in a series of countries around the world, warning us that a 21st century fascist virus is viciously attacking hearts, bodies, and minds, often with a democratic mandate, giving rise to a new generation of popular autocrats. This virus is dangerously contagious imperiling the body politic of an increasing number of societies. It appeals especially, even if unconsciously, to those escaping from the discontents of and alienation brought about by the predatory effects of neoliberal globalization. In Europe and North America, especially, these discontents are being dangerously aggravated by anti-immigration nativism, hysteria, demagoguery, libertarian gun policies, and monetized politics. Some perceive fascism in different guises emerging in a variety of societies, capturing and magnifying state power, scapegoating minorities, reversing feminist gains, encouraging a science-defying consumerism, and diverting attention from the menaces posed by the possession, development, and deployment of nuclear weaponry, as well as by a planetary temperature that is pushing against thresholds of irreversibility.
I found the following cautionary list composed by the eminent Yale historian, Timothy D. Snyder, author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010) and Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (2015), perceptive, instructive, and above all, a stimulus of further thought. Pondering Snyder's list of 20 lessons is to be forewarned. The intended audience seems to those of us living in the West, either Europe or North America.
Snyder List of 20 Lessons (dated Dec. 1, 2016)
"Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.
Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You've already done this, haven't you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.
Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.
When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of "terrorism" and "extremism." Be alive to the fatal notions of "exception" and "emergency." Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don't fall for it.
Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don't use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps "The Power of the Powerless" by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.
Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.
Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.
Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.
Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.
Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.
Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.
Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)
Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.
Be a patriot. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it."
[Snyder suggests that if this list seems useful, print it out and pass it around!
I find this list of concerns to be suggestive and useful, despite not perceiving quite the same trajectory of political threat. In some respects, the vigilance proposed by Snyder is summarized by Pastor Martin Niemoller's extraordinary poem written beneath the crushing weight of Nazi Germany:
First They Came
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.
What seems beyond questioning in the present context within the United States is the political imperative to become maximally engaged. It is crucial that there be many highly visible citizens of conscience and that we all remain on high alert with respect to the dangers posed by a governing process dominated by a media oriented demagogue that has mobilized right-wing populism in the US as never before and is surrounding himself with dedicated reactionary ideologues.
Although this last commentary narrows concerns to American forebodings, the intended and unintended consequences are certain to be much broader. The United States acts as a global state. When Washington makes mistakes they tend to reverberate around the world. This is most obvious with regard to the economic, environmental, and security policy agendas, and also there are likely to be various negative impacts on geopolitical behavior raising risks of international warfare, although this is not entirely clear at this stage. If Trump's opening to Russia is not thwarted by the American national security establishment, which is how I mainly interpret the Obama move to sanction Russia in retaliation for the recent hacking episode. The American reaction of outraged innocence seems wildly overblown considering our own cyber attacks on Iran and the many flagrant interferences over the years under CIA auspices with foreign elections and even elected governments. Thankfully Putin is so far repudiating the tit-for-tat game, and would deserve credit, along possibly with Trump, for halting this disastrous push by the deep state in the United States to revive the cold war, this time with high hot war risks.
The Calmer Liberal Option
For still others, for whom political activism in a largely liberal mode is the key to avoiding a deeper descent into a planetary inferno the call is: 'don't despair, organize and resist.' The brilliantly attuned filmmaker and cultural critic, Michael Moore, offers Americans a five-point plan for resistance worth reflecting upon: 1) visit local congress representatives to express concerns; 2) insist on the drastic reorganization of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) taking the form of progressive leadership; 3) form local rapid response teams of 5-10, consisting of friends, neighbors, family that can protest adverse developments as they occur; 4) Participate in the protest events in Washington relating to the inauguration of Donald Trump as the next American president, as well as protests elsewhere; 5) Devise a Plan B because as bad as you think things will be, they will actually will be worse. Moore's proposal is very much responsive to the peculiarities of the current American political landscape, essentially relying on liberal values and associated procedures for energizing constructive forms of participation in this type of constitutional democracy. Whether it goes nearly far enough to counteract the Trump surge is a question not likely to be answered by the end of 2017 at the earliest, but I have my strong doubts. Without addressing the roots of the malaise, which are shaped by neoliberal capitalism, militarism, nuclearism, and patriarchy, we are, at best, in my view, playing for time. At worst, fiddling while the planet burns.
The Progressive Case for Trump: Abstractions Lost in the Ruins
I have several admirable overseas progressive friends that continue to rejoice in the defeat of Hillary Clinton, equating the rejection of her candidacy with a major defeat for the US national security establishment. It is important not to dismiss these views. It is well to remember that during the electoral campaign most Republican defense stalwarts and high profile neocons denounced Trump and threw their support to Clinton. Added to this were several substantive issues. Trump's campaign calls for an end to regime-changing interventions and state-building ventures throughout the Middle East. If implemented, this seems to presage a kind of welcome geopolitical retreat from the region. And, of course, Trump's much publicized support for a cooperative relationship with Russia, despite the crimes of Vladimir Putin, angered and worried the establishment consensus. It should be appreciated that Trump seems to be stepping back from Obama's irresponsible diplomacy with respect to Russia, a dynamic that Clinton would certainly have accelerated against a background of Beltway applause.
The most telling opposition of security insiders to Trump's candidacy arose in my view because he seemed to be proposing an abandonment of what I have in the past called the 'Global Domination Project,' which was the grand strategy associated with American ambitions to play a hegemonic security role associated that was to be expected of the first global state in human history. Anti-Trump militarists should not be too discouraged as Trump promises 'to rebuild the American military' and has appointed a series of notorious militarists to the most critical security positions, making his 'America First' rhetoric unlikely to be translated into policies associated with lowering the American security profile around the world. There are likely to be ambiguous and questionable responses to Trump's encouragement of foreign governments to invest more in their own defense and his seeming complacency about the further proliferation of nuclear weaponry.
Despite these weighty considerations I feel strongly to that Trump's ascendancy to power is posing apocalyptic risks that all sane persons should act to avoid. Also Trump's victory overlooks the likely impact of his domestic policies on the vulnerable (immigrants, minorities, women, especially African Americans, Muslims, Hispanics) and poor, a prospect given frightening potency by an irresponsibly right-wing Congress and a supportive Supreme Court. It also fails to take account of Trump's counter-terrorist extremism ('crush ISIS,' revive waterboarding, and authorizing even worse forms of torture) and seeming casual embrace of nuclearism, both by seeming to tell allies to consider developing their own nuclear weapons arsenal and promising to retain a position on top of nuclear weapons pyramid even if means unleashing an expensive and dangerous arms race.
There is bound to be uncertainty and confusion associated with the early stages of the Trump's presidency. Despite trembling at the prospect, no one knows exactly what to expect. For one thing, Trump contradicts himself frequently, or restates his most provocative proposals with decidedly more moderate ideas about implementation. For another, there is a tension between his primary persona as an exemplary entertainer of the digital age and his hard line cabinet and staff appointees who seem primed to actualize a reactionary agenda. Whether the president as commander-in-chief will turn out this time to be the entertainer-in-chief is at this point anyone's best guess. And just maybe, given the alternatives, the world will be better off with an entertainer, especially if the political class steps back to let the show go on! What might be most toxic would be a kind of collaborative governing process that provides media performances as spectacular distractions (bread and circuses of our time) while an unfolding assortment of regressive programs, policies, and practices were being enacted.
Tags: fascism, Hillary Clinton, Pastor Martin Niemoller, right-wing populism, Timothy Snyder, Trump, Trump Era
Categories Commentary, Euromed, fascism, Global Governance, Jean Bricmont, liberalism, Martin Niemoller, Michael Moore, Neoliberal Capitalism, Nuclear Weapons, Reflections, Timothy Snyder, Trump, Trump Era


text:
Home Forums > discussion > music >
Dave Brubeck 'Time Out' different versions
Discussion in 'music' started by miles_b, Jul 3, 2019.
miles_b pfm Member
I currently have two versions of this classic recording in my collection - the Australian black CD release on Sony/Columbia from 2004, and the Jazz Wax Records JWR 4525 Direct Metal Mastering 180 gram LP from 2010. It's absolutely stunning how much better the LP is than the CD. Comparatively, the CD sounds two-dimensional and like the instruments are made of cardboard. The LP sounds rich and dimensional, and particularly on the intro to "Strange Meadow Lark," Dave's piano sounds as if it could have been recorded yesterday. There's a little more tape hiss on the LP, but there's also a better sense of space between the instruments, and the bass is tighter / more solid.
I was under the impression that the Australian black CD releases were supposed to be top quality, but I'm a bit disappointed there. Is there a better CD release that I'm missing out on? Heck, is there a better LP release that I'm missing out on? I'd prefer not to go chasing down some impossibly rare and expensive 45 RPM pressing, but short of that, which are your favorites that are available now?
miles_b, Jul 3, 2019
MusicMiles pfm Member
miles_b said: ↑
Is there a better CD release that I'm missing out on? Heck, is there a better LP release that I'm missing out on? I'd prefer not to go chasing down some impossibly rare and expensive 45 RPM pressing, but short of that, which are your favorites that are available now?
Analog Productions 33 or 45.
MusicMiles, Jul 3, 2019
Tony L Administrator
The Jazz Wax issue looks like a knock-off/pirate, see Steve Hoffman's site here. As such it could be a needle-drop, re-EQd CD, copy of a cassette, in fact anything aside from a transcription of the actual master tape. I'm surprised you feel the Columbia CD sounds poor, I'm assuming it is the same mastering as The Complete Columbia Studio Albums Collection, which sounds pretty reasonable to me. I also have the long out of print Classic Records audiophile vinyl which is wonderful.
Tony L, Jul 3, 2019
Stunsworth pfm Member
It was volume 5 in the De Agostini Jazz LP series. I've not listened to it for a while, but like most of the rest of the series it sounded very good.
Details here...
https://www.discogs.com/The-Dave-Brubeck-Quartet-Time-Out/release/8287801
Stunsworth, Jul 3, 2019
daytona600 Registered User
+1 Analog Productions 33 or 45.or Sacd
http://www.theaudiobeat.com/music/dave_brubeck_time_out_lp.htm
daytona600, Jul 3, 2019
poco a poco pfm Member
I have DeAgostini and as Stunsworth says It is pretty good. It is probably from a digital master tape though, but it is a properly licensed reissue. The DeAgostini shop where you have been able to order back numbers seems to have been offline for a couple of weeks now, but they say you can order by phone. The back numbers are £14.99 each.
https://shop.deagostini.co.uk/
poco a poco, Jul 3, 2019
blossomchris I feel better than James Brown
I have the 1995 classic, 200g release. Never needed to look for another recording
blossomchris, Jul 3, 2019
paulfromcamden Baffled
It's an album that sold really well at the time so vintage copies aren't super expensive, especially European pressings in VG+ or EX condition if you can live with a copy that isn't minty.
Does anyone know how these compare sonically to US originals?
paulfromcamden, Jul 3, 2019
Woodface pfm Member
It is a very well recorded record, this reminds me to give it a play soon
Woodface, Jul 3, 2019
mikechadwick pfm Member
daytona600 said: ↑
mikechadwick, Jul 3, 2019
Tony L said: ↑
That JWR pressing came from Amoeba Music. It was the only new pressing they had in stock at the time. All of the printing and packaging had the appearance of an official release, and the price was the same as new Columbia reissues of Miles Davis albums on vinyl, so I didn't really think to check the issuing label before purchasing it. There is a sticker on the front that claims it to be newly-remastered, so I'm not sure what that entailed - no further details on who did the remastering, when, where, or with what equipment. But it still manages to sound richer and more dimensional than what was supposedly the best CD release at the time. Those black CDs were supposed to have some sort of advantage in controlling stray reflections during playback.
Anyhow, it looks like the Analog Productions is still available new, and the price seems reasonable for what it is. I think I'll file that way for the next time I pick up a new issue of the album.
Swamp Thing Green Member
classic records 45 rpm single sided clear vinyl red box
Swamp Thing, Jul 3, 2019
myles Intentionally left blank
Stunsworth said: ↑
Yeah, I bought this recently on recommendation from the Hoffman forum. I was cynical about the Jazz LP series but it seems I shouldn't have been.
myles, Jul 3, 2019
myles said: ↑
I bought the whole series and was disappointed when it ended after 70 issues - at the launch they said there'd be 100.
That JWR pressing came from Amoeba Music. It was the only new pressing they had in stock at the time.
That really surprises me as copyright law is stricter in the USA and it is very clearly a pirate assuming it is this copy (Discogs). Instant tells are the removal of all Columbia branding and the lack of any meaningful copyright info or licensing. I'm surprised Amoeba would have it in their shop (I'd not have it in mine and its legal here!).
PS Chances are it is just a copy of the CD with a bit of bass boost! The pirates very often apply a bit of EQ to disguise the actual mastering source.
That appears to be what I have. But interestingly, if you scroll down on the page, all of the reviews are also praising the sound quality, some in spite of being weary of JWR's reputation. As far as copyright issues relating to Amoeba carrying the record, I would expect that if the US distributor of this pressing represented it as an authorized reissue to Amoeba's buyer, the distributor would carry the burden of copyright law more so than the store. Regardless, it's such an enormous store, that I doubt they have the staff capacity to research the provenance of every disc coming through their doors. As a brick and mortar retail establishment with only 3 locations, they're probably much less a target for copyright investigation and enforcement than a large online seller would be.
Simon Dawson Angry, Ill & Ugly
paulfromcamden said: ↑
I've got a UK 1959 mono Fontana copy which sounds very good, detailed and dynamic. I don't think it was stupidly expensive. I have not compared it to any of the reissues.
Simon Dawson, Jul 5, 2019
paulfromcamden likes this.
duckworp pfm Member
The basic Sony CD release sounds pretty amazing to me. One of the best recordings in my collection. Amazing really for something recorded 60 years ago.
duckworp, Jul 11, 2019 at 5:40 PM

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Britain Votes: Breitbart London Election Night 2019 Live Wire
Oliver JJ Lane and Jack Montgomery
Polling stations have now closed on the United Kingdom's 2019 snap election, the fifth national vote in Britain since 2014, and results are expected to roll in until early Friday morning.
While the first results may come in as quickly as an hour after the polls closed at 2200GMT, some of the most rural and remote areas — including the Scottish Islands where votes have to be brought to the mainland by boat — could take until Friday morning.
A so-called exit poll, based on interviews with voters as they leave polling stations across the country and trying to forecast the overall vote can legally be published immediately after 2200, when all polling stations close and its results can no longer influence would-be voter
UPDATE 1000 — Tory 364, Labour 203
With all but one seats nationwide now declared — St Ives in Cornwall are taking their time — the extent of the Conservative victory overnight has become apparent. With 364 seats so far, the Tories have a strong majority in the Commons of 79 seats. This is historic stuff for Boris Johnson, and gives him a strong mandate to deliver Brexit.
An important point to note is the nationwide Conservative vote share remained broadly the same as 2017, when Theresa May had her disastrous election result. Then, she lost a parliamentary majority with 42.4 per cent of the national vote giving her 317 seats. Today, Boris Johnson achieved 43.6 per cent — a rise of just 1.2 per cent — but won a clear majority of 364 seats.
The important difference is not so much the number of votes nationwide — but where they were cast. Nigel Farage may be able to take a bow here — by not standing against the Conservatives ins seats they already held, Conservative activists were more free to travel the rest of the country and drum up support in marginal seats. Clearly, the gamble paid off.
UPDATE 0635 — Trump congratulates Boris
President Donald Trump has congratulated Boris Johnson on his "great WIN!" and predicted a British-American trade deal after Brexit which will be far bigger and more lucrative than with the EU.
Read more here: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/12/12/celebrate-boris-trump-hails-uk-election-result-massive-new-trade-deal-after-brexit/
UPDATE 0510 — Dennis Skinner loses seat
Labour's Dennis Skinner, the (in)famous "Beast of Bolsover", has lost his seat to the Tories after an astonishing 49 years in Parliament.
The former miner was a staunch socialist but a firm Brexiteer — one of only a very few in the Parliamentary Labour Party — and admired across the political spectrum for his independence of mind.
BREAKING: Dennis Skinner LOSES his Bolsover seat to the Tories after 49 years as an MP.
— Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) December 13, 2019
UPDATE 0500 — Tories have OFFICIALLY WON
The Tories have officially won the general election, claiming their 326th seat in the House of Commons. It is no longer even theoretically possible for Boris Johnson's party to lose the election — and they are projected to win an overall majority of around eighty; the largest since Maragaret Thatcher's last election in the 1980s.
UPDATE 0345 — Red Ken Blames "Jewish Vote" for Corbyn's Losses
The former Labour Party mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said that Boris Johnson's predicted landslide victory spells "the end" for Jeremy Corbyn, blaming the loss on the "Jewish vote".
In the latest antisemitic outburst from the far-left ex-Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone blamed the loss of his "close ally" Jeremy Corbyn on the 70-year-old socialist's handling of allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party.
Mr Livingstone said: "The Jewish vote wasn't very helpful."
Read more here: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/12/12/ex-labour-mayor-london-blames-corbyns-demise-jewish-vote/
UPDATE 0345 — Boris retains seat, gives acceptance speech
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has seen off leftist efforts to unseat him from his constituency through tactical voting comfortably.
Flanked by a number of independents — a common sight in prime ministers' constituencies — the Prime Minister offered a shout-out to one of them, "Lord Buckethead", by name as well a gentleman dressed as Elmo, before thanking the police, returning officers, and other involved in organising the election, and pledging to govern with renewed vigour.
UPDATE 0335 — Tories take Tony Blair's former constituency
The Conservative Party have taken the constituency of Sedgefield, once held by former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, signalling the scale of the swing against the left-wing party.
Sedgefield: Con GAIN
CON: 47.2% (+8.4)
LAB: 36.3% (-17.1)
BREX: 8.5% (+8.5)
LDEM: 4.7% (+2.8)
GRN: 2.4% (+0.8)
Swing: Lab to Con (+12.8)
Full results: https://t.co/wVfQPUtvng #GE2019
Tony Blair's former seat.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) December 13, 2019
UPDATE 0330 — Corbyn Gone
Jeremy Corbyn has retained his parliamentary seat but confirmed he will not lead the Labour Party in a future general election following tonight's unfolding disaster in his acceptance speech. He will continue to lead during a post-election "period of reflection", however.
"I will not lead the party in any future general election campaign," @jeremycorbyn announces in front of the Monster Raving Loony nominee in the Islington constituency pic.twitter.com/I829MM6RFZ
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) December 13, 2019
UPDATE 0320 — McDonnell retains seat, cries of "terrorist", punches thrown
Chaos has erupted at the count in John McDonnell's constituency. The Shadow Chancellor, who is known for having made comments sympathetic to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) terror campaign against the British state and British citizens, was denounced as a "terrorist" by members of the crowd, and a scuffle broke out in which blows were exchanged before the police intervened.
Scuffle breaks out as "you terrorist" and "shut up" are shouted at John McDonnell as he speaks at his Hayes and Harlington count which is in the same venue as Boris Johnson's count. McDonnell now denouncing "right-wing violence." pic.twitter.com/i2rVWMGEuR
— James Cook (@BBCJamesCook) December 13, 2019
UPDATE 0310 — DUP Westminster leader loses Belfast North
Nigel Dodds, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party's Westminster contingent, has lost his Belfast North seat. The pro-Brexit, socially conservative party, which favours maintaining the Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, made a so-called confidence and supply arrangement with the Conservatives after Theresa May lost her parliamentary majority in 2017.
Belfast North has had a unionist MP since partition. It's just unseated Nigel Dodds and replaced him with Sinn Fein.
Law number 1 of British politics: if you work with the Tories, it never ends well.
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) December 13, 2019
UPDATE 0305 — Chuka Umunna fails in bid to remain a member of parliament
Former Labour member of parliament turned Change UK and then Liberal Democrat member Chuka Umunna — a key anti-Brexit MP — has failed to remain in Britain's lower chamber. He was contesting the seat for Westminster but lost out to the Conservative's Nickie Allen who won 17,049. The former Streatham MP got a respectable, but nonetheless insufficient 13,096 votes under the Liberal banner.
UPDATE 0225 — Brexit Party fails in Hartlepool
A key target for Nigel Farage's Brexit party — being challenged by party chairman Richard Tice — has been held by Labour. Disappointing for the Brexit Party, certainly, but the party so far this evening has shown very little sign of splitting the right-wing vote — a key criticism of Mr Farage's approach to the election so far.
UPDATE 0215 — Go woke, go broke
Since Britain considered the possibility of leaving the European Union, the political scene has been inundated with former Prime Ministers telling people how to vote. One of them is former Tory leader John Major, the Prime Minister who took over the party from Margaret Thatcher and too the country into the controversial Maastricht treaty — an act which essentially kick-started the eurosceptic movement in the United Kingdom.
The problem for Major's elder statesman act is — according to the unproven exit poll — is how much more popular Boris Johnson's pro-Brexit pitch to the people seems to be than his approach. Indeed, if the exit poll plays out this morning, Boris Johnson will have achieved a lead over Labour four times larger than Major's in 1992.
Go Woke, Go Broke: Brexiteer Boris Projected To Win Majority Four Times Larger Than Remoaner John Major https://t.co/9ucfUa6uoz
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 13, 2019
UPDATE 0200 — Labour makes a gain!
In their first gain of the night, the Labour Party have won in Putney, besting the Tories with 45.1 per cent of the vote. The seat is the first result so far in which Labour have gained more votes than the 2017 election as the party continues to bleed support nationwide.
Conservative GAIN Leigh from Labour.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham's former seat.
UPDATE 0125 — Workington man votes Tory
The Conservative Party has won Workington — not only a seat that has never voted Conservative before, but the seat reckoned to characterise the whole election. Party leaders travelled to Workington to woo the so-called "Workington man", a Brexiteer in a traditionally Labour area.
Cearly the Tory plan is working. The seat was created after the First World War and has voted consistently Labour ever since 1979, and mostly Labour since 1918. This is a predominantly working-class area — further evidence that the Conservatives have picked up working class, so-called left-behind areas abandoned by the increasingly liberal, urban Labour party.
Workington: Con GAIN
IND (Cockburn): 2.0%
Swing: Lab to Con (+9.8)
UPDATE 0110 — Tories enjoy strong swing in key Nuneaton seat
Nuneaton was the key seat in the 2016 Brexit referendum — for many pundits seeing the key bellwether had voted to leave the European Union was the giveaway that Britain as a whole would do so.
The Conservative MP for the town Marcus Jones has dramatically increased his majority to over 13,000 tonight — up from 4,700 in 2017. This is an absolutely major swing for the Conservatives in a swing seat that had been Labour for decades before Jones won the seat for the Tories in 2010.
Labour's majority down in every seat declared so far: https://t.co/pHAmhckPls pic.twitter.com/OcitkScDBi
UPDATE 0030 — About Blythe Valley…
Landslide: Conservatives Take Seat Held By Labour For Nearly 70 Years https://t.co/NHDphi75C4
UPDATE 2335 — Newcastle Upon Tyne wins the race to first to declare
Labour has retained the seat of Newcastle central, the city returning Chi Onwurah to Parliament again. Her vote fell by 2,500 — interestingly near exactly the same number of votes the Brexit Party achieved.
Sunderland followed shortly after, also returning a Labour MP — Bridget Phillipson. Her vote also fell considerably — again by a similar number of votes to the Brexit Party, who enjoyed a decent showing with 15.5 per cent of the vote to Labour's 40.7 per cent.
We've also had the first Tory MP of the night — the Conservatives have taken Blyth Valley from Labour, overturning a strong majority to take the seat by 600 or so seats. The Conservatives have a ten per cent swing in this key seat — considered a key to the rest of the night's results.
647 seats to go…
UK, Blyth Valley constituency: this seat has voted for a CON-ECR Member of Parliament for the first time since its formation in 1950.
It has been won by LAB-S&D for its entire history. #GE2019 #GeneralElection2019 #GeneralElection19 https://t.co/4XH1bA4pqe
— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) December 12, 2019
UPDATE 2300 — Twitter responds
Because our political class lives on Twitter, here are some choice responses:
Boris Johnson is obviously happy:
Thank you to everyone across our great country who voted, who volunteered, who stood as candidates. We live in the greatest democracy in the world. pic.twitter.com/1MuEMXqWHq
But Labour's David Lammy is not:
This looks abysmal. The result will be devastating for communities like mine all around the country who are now facing five years of Boris Johnson with unchecked power. I am more fearful for our country than at any point in my lifetime.
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) December 12, 2019
Hollywood luvvie Hugh Grant — who has been campaigning for anti-Brexit candidates this election — is also not a happy fellow:
There goes the neighbourhood.
— Hugh Grant (@HackedOffHugh) December 12, 2019
He's joined by Labour's Jess Phillips
There are very few words for how heartbroken I am for the community I represent who have been through enough.
— Jess Phillips Esq., (@jessphillips) December 12, 2019
I'm so, so sorry guys. Just utterly devastating. Brexit just smashed us. Keeping together an electoral coalition of Remainers and Leavers as the country bitterly divided just became impossible.
— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) December 12, 2019
An important point — you either believe in democracy, or you don't:
I cannot imagine how so many people in England can have been quite so stupid
Sorry, but it has to be said
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) December 12, 2019
UPDATE 2230 — How would this result compare to elections past?
A majority of 368, if the exit poll is correct, is obviously nothing like any election result the United Kingdom has seen in the past decade. The last time any UK party exceeded that number was the then left-centrist Labour party in its 1997 landslide under europhile globalist Tony Blair, who won 418 seats.
The last Tory win of such a magnitude was Margaret Thatcher in 1983, when she won 397 seats, a majority of 144 seats.
Read more at Breitbart London:
Latest: If the UK election exit poll is correct, the Conservatives will have won their best victory since the days of Thatcher https://t.co/yh5fHXAdy3
UPDATE 2203 — Exit polls suggest enormous Conservative majority, Labour collapse
The exit poll has now been released, and if the figures are to be believed — bearing in mind even this poll has got it wrong before — there will be champagne corks popping in Conservative headquarters.
While the Conservatives needed nine seats to control the house, the prediction is they would actually gain 50, taking them to 368. This is a majority of 86 over Labour — a potentially major achievement that would give the Conservatives the largest majority for the party in decades.
UPDATE 2200 — Polls close
Polling stations have now closed, leaving the not inconsequential task of counting. Sealed crates of paper ballots will be transported to local government counts around the country where they will be counted and verified, before the constituency returning officer declares the results.
We're in for a long night.
The Day So Far
British electoral law prevents journalists from reporting on many aspects of the day so not to influence voters on the day they actually cast their ballots — but some unusual events have permeated the shutdown.
Police in Motherwell, Scotland were called to a polling station in the early hours of this morning after a "suspicious device" was spotted. The incident was deemed sufficiently serious that the surrounding area was evacuated before a bomb disposal robot was sent in to destroy the device.
Police subsequently revealed the object was not a "viable" bomb, but arrested a 48-year-old man. Information about the identity of the suspect, or a potential motive.
Britain Goes to the Polls in So-Called 'Brexit Election' https://t.co/PaC7fneemJ
Why is this election happening? A potted history of Brexit
British politics has been in an unusually intense state of political activity in recent years, with the watershed moment arguably coming in 2014 — meaning the British people have been in a state of near-constant debates, coverage, and national votes for half a decade.
This has been largely down to Brexit — Britain's withdrawal from the European Union — probably the defining political feature of this generation.
Then Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron promised Eurosceptics an in-out referendum way back in 2013, a major concession but an easy concession for him to make. Not only did Cameron not believe the country would vote for it — offering the vote would allow him to silence anti-Europe critics within his own party for a generation — but he said he would only give in in 2015 or later, after a general election he did not believe he would win.
This promise became complicated for him when the British people voted Nigel Farage's UKIP into first place in the 2014 European Union elections. Not only did this knock Cameron's Conservatives off the top perch in the European Parliament, it meant an overtly Eurosceptic party had won a national election for the first time.
With the following year came the 2015 general election Cameron did not expect to win — but win he did, and this time without the need of a coalition partner — leaving him with a manifesto promise to give that EU referendum to the British people. The pollsters had failed to predict the outcome of the 2015 election, and after a failed attempt to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the European Union to make remaining seem more appealing, the pollsters got it wrong in 2016 when they failed to predict the outcome of the referendum.
The British people voted to leave the European Union, giving Brexit the greatest political mandate for any issue or government in British political history. But rather than taking the message — the vote threw into crisis a government which had been whole-blooded in its support for the losing side — David Cameron resigned as prime minister within hours of the news coming in.
Then followed Prime Minister Theresa May, elevated to the leadership of the Conservative Party after frontrunner Boris Johnson dropped out of the race. May — a Remain supporter who nonetheless promised to deliver Brexit — was determined to get a new parliament to carry her plan through, but bungled the 2017 snap general election and put the events in motion that inevitably led to today's general election.
After two years of, at times, torturous 'negotiations' with the European Union, May found herself unable to pass her Brexit deal through a House of Commons her party had no majority in. While she clung onto power, it was Nigel Farage again winning the European Parliament elections — in 2019 under a newly concocted Brexit Party banner — that finally brought the curtain down on May's reign.
Mr Farage in the meanwhile credited himself with the scalp of a second Conservative prime minister in three years.
Reigns of the Conservative Party now passed to Boris Johnson, Britain again moved into another period of renegotiation with the European Union. This more swiftly concluded, the so-called deal again failed to pass through Parliament, Johnson having inherited the same hung fractious, broadly anti-Brexit parliament that had frustrated Theresa May.
Hence today's snap election — after several attempts, Boris Johnson finally got the blessing of Parliament to hold fresh votes. While Brexit is far from the only issue at stake, it has certainly been the most discussed — hence the British press dubbing this the 'Brexit election'.
Yet despite that, it will be the fifth national vote in five calendar years — and the fourth dominated by Brexit. Whether this will be the last Brexit election or not, depends on the polls and the coming months and years.
London / EuropePoliticsBoris JohnsonConservative PartyGeneral Election 2019jeremy corbynUK LabourUnited Kingdom


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← Emanate: Various Artists, Emanated (Emanate) The Black Heart Procession, S/t (Cargo/headhunter) →
Jets To Brazil, Orange Rhyming Dictionary (Jade Tree)
Posted December 31st, 1998 by admin · No Comments
Orange Rhyming Dictionary
Jade Tree
By: Eric G.
After Jawbreaker sold out with its fourth and final album, Dear You, the band quickly dissipated in the wake of the ensuing backlash. Jets To Brazil is ex-Jawbreaker guitarist/vocalist Blake Schwarzenbach's new lease on life. Rounding out the trio are bassist Jeremy Chatelain, formerly of the New York City hardcore outfit Handsome, and drummer Chris Daly of Texas Is The Reason. Jets To Brazil avoids any immediate similarities to its former bands, particularly Jawbreaker, but Schwarzenbach's voice is hard to disguise. His throaty, guttural scream was Jawbreaker's main attraction even though it almost cost him the use of his voice, which in turn caused the unwelcome change in direction on Dear You with its obvious radio friendly production and lighter singing.
Orange Rhyming Dictionary embraces aspects of pop punk without pigeon-holing itself with its use of catchy melodies and stop/start dynamics. The melodies aren't the easy singsong type that Jawbreaker embraced on albums like Unfun and 24-Hour Revenge Therapy. Schwarzenbach's sense of melody has expanded beyond what the pop punk kids are so eager to cling to, which may cost him the immediate acceptance of that fickle genre, but when those kids grow out of that phase they will surely be coming back to this record.
J. Robbins, formerly of Jawbox, gives this album a slightly experimental feel with his studio trickery. The vocals are very loud in the mix- another element that will put off many of the punk kids who are bound to give this album a listen just to see what Schwarzenbach's new band sounds like. The guitars are gritty and avoid the overuse of cliched power and octave chords. The band's dynamic range is impressive for its debut album- just compare the immediacy of a song lie "Crown Of The Valley" with its catchy hooks and surge of tainted guitars to the keyboard-enhanced morosity of "Sea Anemone."
On the downside, some of the songs about midway through the album seem to drone on too long (too many breakdowns that don't build back up), but that lag is more than made up for by the last few tracks, particularly "Lemon Yellow Black" and "I Typed For Miles", which display a confidant understanding of effective structural breaks and changes. Schwarzenbach's lyrics have evolved with his songwriting craft. The direct address approach he copped with Jawbreaker is replaced with literate stories of disenchantment, boredom, and self-loathing: "They're playing love songs on your radio tonight/I don't get those on mine/you keep fucking up my life" ("I Typed For Miles"). Orange Rhyming Dictionary deliberately avoids easy categorization so that a false standard isn't applied to its sound because once you say you're punk you're a sellout if you don't adhere to its boundaries.
Tags: review


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Solomon Abudarham (died 1804) was Chief Rabbi of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar until his death from yellow fever in December 1804. Also known as Shelomo Abudarham II, the rabbi established a school of religious study on Parliament Lane and laid the inaugural stone for the Flemish Synagogue on Line Wall Road. In 1820, his academy was converted into the Abudarham Synagogue, named after the rabbi.

Biography

Solomon Abudarham, also known as Shelomo Abudarham II, was the grandson of Shelomo Abudarham I of Tétouan, Morocco. It is also probable that he is the descendant of the Spanish Rabbi David Abudarham, author of Sefer Abudarham.  The younger Abudarham immigrated to the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar from Morocco in 1790, prompted by the reign of terror which began when the Muslim Mawlay al-Yazid became Sultan of Morocco following the death of Sidi Muhammad ben Abdallah that year. Abudarham succeeded Rabbi Yehuda ben Yitshak Halevi as Chief Rabbi of Gibraltar.

The late 18th century was a time of prosperity for Gibraltar's merchants due to the French Revolutionary Wars. At the same time, some of the congregants of the Great Synagogue on Engineer Lane had reservations about the trend toward a less formal, more Moroccan style of service at their house of worship. They opted to build a new, lavish synagogue on Line Wall Road, with a service that would be more in-keeping with that of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The new synagogue was built in a garden for a total of US$26,300 and closely resembled the Amsterdam synagogue. It was entitled Nefusot Yehudah (The Dwelling of Judah), but is more commonly known as the Flemish Synagogue (). It was founded at the turn of the 19th century, in 1799 or 1800. Chief Rabbi Abudarham laid the inaugural stone which bears his name and is still present at the site. He also established a Bet Medrash (School of Jewish religious study), the Academy of Rabbi Solomon Abudarham, on Parliament Lane.

Chief Rabbi Solomon Abudarham died in the 1804 yellow fever epidemic which claimed more than a thousand lives in Gibraltar. He was interred in Jews' Gate Cemetery on Windmill Hill near the southern entrance to the Upper Rock Nature Reserve. His grave rests in an enclosure which also surrounds the tombs of other Dayanim (Judges of Religious Law). His tomb is the oldest of the six Dayanim in the enclosure. The rabbi's inscription reads:

Legacy

Other than an 1802 decision which dealt with the exemption of Torah scholars from the payment of taxes, fairly little of the rabbi's writings survive. In the early nineteenth century, recent Moroccan immigrants to Gibraltar expressed their desire for a synagogue that was more intimate in scale and less formal than the Great Synagogue. In 1820, the school of religious study that Abudarham had established was converted into a synagogue, the Abudarham Synagogue (). The building on Parliament Lane had formerly been used as the Freemasons' Hall. As a consequence, Parliament Lane is sometimes referred to in Spanish as El Callejón de los Masones (Freemasons' Street). It is speculated that the building housed the municipal council when Gibraltar was in the possession of the Spanish. Both the Flemish Synagogue and the Abudarham Synagogue continue to be active houses of worship for Gibraltar's Jewish community.

References

External links
 Photographs of Jews' Gate Cemetery

Gibraltarian rabbis
Chief rabbis
1804 deaths
Moroccan people of Spanish-Jewish descent
18th-century Moroccan rabbis
People from Tétouan
Gibraltarian Sephardi Jews
Year of birth unknown
British people of Spanish-Jewish descent

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Het Kasteel La Fenderie (Château de la Fenderie) is een kasteel, gelegen in de plaats Trooz, aan de Rue de la Fenderie 5.

Het kasteel werd midden 17e eeuw gebouwd. Het behoort bij het vroege metaalbedrijf La Fenderie, waar metalen plakken in handzamer stukken werden gezaagd. Het kasteel staat hoog boven het water van een zijtak van de Vesder.

De gevel aan het water heeft een hoog blind gedeelte, waarboven twee rijen vensters te vinden zijn. Het geheel wordt gedekt door een zadeldak en geflankeerd door twee torens. Als bouwmateriaal werden blokken kalksteen en zandsteen gebruikt. De noordelijke toren is de oudste en heeft een eigenaardige trapeziumvormige plattegrond. Ze werd met een vierkante toren verhoogd. De zuidelijke toren heeft een vierkante plattegrond.

Het geheel is tegen een vrij steile helling aan gebouwd.

Fenderie
Trooz
Beschermd erfgoed in Wallonië


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I ordered this customized decal because it looked so much like my dog. I entered the text I wanted and was sent a proof in less than 48 hrs, which was impressive because I ordered on a weekend. When I received the proof I asked for one additional detail to be added so it really looked like my dog. Bam, presto, zap in less than 30 minutes they made a new proof and it was PERFECT! I approved it and it arrived by the end of the week. My custom dog decal is on my front door now and makes me smile every time I see it. It also seems quite durable. It survived three rain storms in less than two weeks, one the same day I applied it. Still looks pristine.


The Nuxeo Agenda package provides users with a new documents type "Event" that enables them to manage their list of meetings and other events using an Agenda gadget on their dashboard.
Events can be created in workspaces and folders.
On the window Available document types, click on the desired document.
Fill in the document's creation form.
In the Agenda gadget, events can be created from the list view only.
On the Agenda gadget, click on the Add button.
Fill in the event creation form.
The event is displayed in the list of the Incoming events.
Events can be modified from the Edit tab. Unlike other documents, they don't have additional metadata from this tab, and users cannot choose to create a new version of the event when they edit it. The system automatically creates a new version of the event when it is modified.
Click on the Edit tab of the event.
Modify the event's properties you want.
The modifications are immediately available in the **Agenda** gadget. A new version of the event is automatically created by the system.
Events are displayed in the Agenda gadget, which shows all the events you have access to.
The gadget offers two views of the events list.
The list view shows the events as a list. By default, it displays all the coming events, but you can choose to display on the day's events, all the events planned in the coming week or in the coming month. Click on Day, Month, Week or Incoming to change the list filter.
The Calendar view shows the events in a calendar. By default, the calendar shows a month calendar by default, but you can display only one week or one day. Click on Day, Month, Week to change the calendar view.
To see the details of an event, click on the event's title from the Agenda gadget or from the Content tab of the workspace or folder. The event's Summary tab is displayed. You can then edit it, link it to other documents, comment it and tag it.


This Guy Received A Call From Fake 'Pakistan Army' Scammers And His Reactions Were Priceless!
This Guy Received A Call From Fake 'Pakistan Army' Scammers And His Reactions Were Priceless!
Pakistan Army, the strongest institution of our country, our brethren and saviors, who give up their lives to make sure we can live according to the spheres we want, regardless of what goes on, on the borders, in red-zones, we give up all our worries and leave it with the men in uniform.
In Pakistan, the Army is looked upon as the most since pillar of the state, one that only works in the best interest of the country. Thus, we show massive respect to all its ranks and affairs. However, people in today's day and age believe that the can ruin the sacred institution's image, and take advantage of common civilians by faking links to the Army.
One Pakistani on Facebook recorded an unbelievable conversation between two scammers and himself. As per him, this was not the first time that similar scamming calls have been on his phone. Thus, he decided to record the audio before the conversation even began. Before begining, it is pertinent to add here that the ISPR had warned Pakistanis at the start of this year of fake calls like these.
The statement said: "There are reports of fake telephone calls being made to the general public by individuals impersonating as Pakistan Armed Forces officials. The impersonators try to seek personal details like CNIC, bank accounts etc on the pretext of CENSUS verification etc.
Apparently, the person trying to scam this innocent civilian was calling from 'Pak Army' and wanted information regarding 'business endeavors' and 'account details' of the person, because apparently, Pakistan Army was conducting a 'scrutiny' on the matter. As funny and fake as it sounds, the guy who they tried to scam, took full interest in the matter and decided to fool the people trying to scam him.
When the scammer asked about details of his bank account, he replied that he did not have a single account in Pakistan, as all his transactions are done from the Swiss bank. When the scammers couldn't understand what he meant by Swiss bank, he said that he did not work in Pakistan and exported material from here, so he deals in international banks.
Then the scammers tried to insinuate him and get details of someone else's bank account details through him, to save their face at least. However, the person involved was extremely confident on his part that indeed, the people calling him were scammers and not representatives of the Pakistan Army.
Finally the scammer says, they are trying to trace funds of espionage and sabotage in Pakistan, being carried out by traitors of the country. To this, the man involved says, he is one of them. He exports and smuggles heroin and all sorts of things from the black market. And then he started laughing, to the pain of the scammers.
In the end, the scammers tried to scare him by useless threats of 'getting him called from GHQ' but the man continued laughing. It seemed that the scammers were not from Pakistan, but from elsewhere. But this incident was handled in a very beautiful manner.
KIA Is Returning To Pakistan With New Vehicles And Finally, It's The Welcomed-Change Our Roads Needed!
'YouTube Pulse Pakistan 2019 ' Revealed Some Eye-Opening Insights About YouTube And We're Absolutely Stunned!
This College Student's Impressive Weight Transformation Is Inspirational In More Than One Way!