#International Federation for World Peace

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Whose peace is it? A WFWP peace festival is met with suspicion in Jerusalem

Jerusalem Post. June 3, 2004

By JENNY HAZAN

An international women’s peace festival is met with suspicion

More than 500 women representing 33 different nations were greeted with smiles as they marched from Rehov Ben-Hillel to Independence Park last Thursday afternoon, singing and waving their respective national flags in an effort to bring a message of peace to Muslim and Jewish residents of the capital.

By the time the entourage, dubbed “A Mother’s Heart for Peace” reached its final destination, its conciliatory spirit had dissipated. The "Christian" group, hailing primarily from Japan, Korea, and the United States, were met by about 100 Palestinians who had been bussed to Independence Park from east Jerusalem and Arab villages north of Haifa by the event’s organizer, the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP).

Dr. Moshe Nahum, president of the World Yemenite Federation and ambassador for the festival’s umbrella organization, the Inter-religious International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP), was puzzled by the low turn-out of Jewish Israelis.

“The only ones here who are from the region are Muslim,” he said as he glanced around the park in dismay at a group of Muslim children playing with plastic machine guns, which they directed at the Israeli policemen who came to secure the festival.

“Jews have nothing to do with this event,” commented David Cohen, one of the few Jewish Jerusalemites in attendance, who said he only came in order to stay informed about happenings in the city. “I don’t trust that the people who organized this event came to make peace.”

Rachel Gal, a Jewish volunteer with the WFWP in Jerusalem for the last five years, contested that the WFWP expected more Jewish women to come.

“I suppose Jewish Israelis were just too afraid to come,” she said.

An alternative explanation for the low turn-out is the infamous reputation of IIFWP founder Reverend Sun Myung Moon, whose Unification Church was mentioned 17 years ago in the ranks of the Church of Scientology and the Hare Krishna movement in a report by the Tassa-Glazer Knesset Commission, which was appointed by the Israeli government to investigate the dangers and damage caused by cults in Israel.

“These people don’t have a peace plan. They have a theological agenda,” said Aaron Rubin, director of the Anti-Missionary Department of Jerusalem-based organization Yad L’ahim (Hands to our Brothers), which offers help to Jews who have been persuaded to join cults and missionary movements.

According to Rubin, Moon’s Church of Unification is currently undergoing its fourth incarnation as an occult under the leadership of Rev. Moon and his wife, who also serves as head of the WFWP. The current objective of the church, he said, is to create the Fourth Israel. The church’s view holds that the First Israel was besmirched by the murder of Jesus by the Jews, the second was destroyed because Christians refused to recognize Rev. Moon as the messiah, and in the Third Israel, Christians denied that Rev. Moon represented the Second Coming.

“Moon’s followers call him The Lord of the Second Advent” said Rubin and revealed that the Fourth Israel aims to include Jewish, Muslim, and Christian followers in a joint chosen nation under the true leadership of Moon and his wife.

“The goal is to bring people of all faiths into his service,” said Rubin. “The problem is that most followers don’t understand the real agenda.”

Karen Smith, an Inter-religious International Peace Council (IIPC) representative from New York, denied that Moon has a hidden agenda and claimed that everyone affiliated with his movement sees him differently.

“The objective of the Unification Church is not at all conversion,” said Smith. “Some see him as a prophet or in a messianic role and others see him just as a smart man… Most people do respect him for what he has achieved by encouraging people to go beyond the boundaries of religion and nationality and see themselves as human beings who, if given the chance to work out our differences, can discover a genuine respect for each other.

“The church encourages followers of all religions to live up to the highest standards of their own tradition,” she continued. “That’s when we will all be making progress towards peace.”

...

Haitham Bundakji, president of the Masjid Board of the Islamic Society of Orange County (ISOC), an organization affiliated with the IIFWP, [said]

“... In America, the church is well respected and it is gaining respect all over the world.”

According to Rubin, Moon’s primary goal is to establish public legitimacy.

“Their tactic is different from most cults, since they don’t try to convert people directly, but instead try to gain legitimacy through different public conferences and festivals,” explained Rubin.

Another tactic, claimed Rubin, is encouraging the creation of advocacy groups which work on behalf of Moon, but which maintain their legitimacy by remaining officially autonomous.

Rubin gave as an example three rabbis who last year were invited to attend an IIPC-sponsored seminar in Jerusalem where they were lectured about peace for several hours before being asked to sign a symbolic treaty of solidarity in English. The treaty, said Rubin, which one of the rabbis couldn’t read, declared that the Jews were responsible for the death of Christ and that the signers vowed to encourage their congregants to repent for that sin.

“They are very deceptive people,” said Rubin, and estimated that there are over 50,000 international ambassadors for peace who are working under the indirect auspices of the IIFWP.

In addition to the IIFWP’s substantial following, the IIPC has formed a lobby group to encourage the United Nations to institute an inter-religious council.

“We recommend that the UN form an ad hoc committee to consider including an inter-religious council in the UN so that the religious voice can contribute to the peace-building work that is so desperately needed,” explained Smith.

The draft resolution submitted by the IIPC in the Philippines is currently on the table, but no decision has been reached. Until then, the IIFWP and its affiliate organizations will continue promoting their ideology through international peace festivals, seminars, and conferences. (A Mother’s Heart for Peace was among six IIFWP-sponsored events that have taken place in Israel over the last year alone.)

Forster said they have all been legitimate, peaceful gatherings.

“All we are hoping to do is make a statement in favor of reconciliation in this region,” she insisted. “As women, we feel that we have a skill that is not being utilized on the level of negotiation between governments. We have developed skills working with children and one of those is the knowledge that you can’t favor anyone when your own children are fighting with each other.”

“We have been transformed by meeting both Arab and Israeli women who have suffered,” added Susan Fefferman from Maryland, who helped to coordinate the festival. “We don’t have any answers, but we are willing to help and serve and listen, and that in itself is a step that can heal.”

Manan Aswanha, 25, a Muslim participant from Nazareth, agreed.

“It’s a lovely idea to come for a peace day. I think it’s what we need,” said the schoolteacher and mother of two. “I don’t know if efforts like this actually help the situation, but it helps me for my own personal psychology. It is nice to come to a place where you can see that there are good people who also want to make peace.”

For Moshe Fass, who had recently entered his retirement, the effort was at best naive.

“They talk about suffering, and peace, and understanding. I don’t know if they actually know what these things mean,” he said. “There is no genuine feeling of conciliation at this festival, which for all its nice words has nothing to do with reality.”

[internationaldayoffriendship]

Join us to celebrate the Friendship between people, countries, cultures and individuals; May our friendship inspire peace efforts, build bridges between communities and create a loving peaceful world together.

The Federation of World Peace and Love (FOWPAL) will host a virtual event in celebration of United Nations International Day of Friendship on July 30, 2023.

[whatisonthemoon]

Howard Wiarda on the Moonie-Organized “Global Economic Action Institute” (GEAI)

Howard J. Wiarda was an academic, associated with both Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

In the mid-1980s, I contracted with the Global Economic Action Institute (GEAI) to edit a book on development successes and democracy in the Third World. The main case studies were Costa Rica, Hungary, Ivory Coast, and Malaysia, so the project required me to acquire expertise on three countries that I didn't know well (Hungary, Ivory Coast, and Malaysia; Costa Rica I already knew well) — countries whose development I have followed closely over the years. I was not a completely independent actor in doing this small book: GEAI had given me a partially completed manuscript drafted by some of its own personnel and advisers that had a strongly pro-democracy, pro-free market slant. The draft was way too strident and conservative for me, but I could certainly support a moderate democracy/free market position. My assignment from GEAI was to take this draft, rewrite it, and convert it into prose that academics, think tankers, and policy experts could support. A handsome honorarium was involved.

So, I took the draft, started from word one to rewrite, toned down the more ideological language of the original manuscript, and introduced a tone into the report that was social-scientific and academic. The report forced me to do considerable new research; it also got me thinking seriously not just about analyzing development in the Third World but, for the first time in a policy sense, how to achieve development. Some twenty years later, I would return to these themes in my own, single-authored book on the developing nations where the main subject was what works in development and what doesn't.

I was about halfway through the project before I came to realize that GEAI was a front for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. This was a "Moonie" project, and I was working for the "Moonie Church." I hadn't realized this before since all the officials I'd dealt with at GEAI, as well as the individuals who'd done the first draft, were all Americans. What to do? Rev. Moon, he of the karate chop delivery, the mass marriages (in the thousands in a football stadium) of his followers, and some truly bizarre religious and political beliefs, was not my favorite fellow. I didn't want to sell out my academic reputation; on the other hand, the money was good, and I had been assured of complete academic freedom. So, I finished the project. It turned out to be a respectable monograph and was published by GEAI, even though, fearing for my reputation from being associated with the Moonies, I asked that my name not be listed as the author on the front cover.

In the course of doing this project, I got invited to several Moonie events in the Washington area. One was a large, annual Moonie reception for all its friends and hangers-on at the luxurious Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington. Iêda and I were amazed to find over 2,000 people present, the cream of Washington society and politics. We were also invited to other Washington Institute (another front for the Unification Church) sponsored seminars and policy forums; there I was surprised to find such luminaries as intellectual Richard Rubenstein, former Kissinger aide Hal Sonnenfeldt, philosopher and editor Morton Kaplan, and political boy wonder, then head of the Republican Young Americans for Freedom, Ralph Reed. All of these were friends or acquaintances of mine from Washington policy circles; I was as surprised to find them at a Moonie event as they were to find me. Rev. Moon had certainly bought himself access and influence in Washington; I assumed that, like me, they were all on the Unification Church payroll.

Related

Fishing for Respectability - on the Unification Church’s “Global Economic Action Institute”

C-Span videos of Global Economic Action Institute conferences and panels - one of these videos ("Foreign Trade and Domestic Subsidy Policy") features Most Durst

Moon on why he founded the Global Economic Action Institute:

I founded the Global Economic Action Institute to help distribute and re-invest inactive, or "sleeping" money to make it work for the world. A world-level bank is necessary to go beyond the boundaries of any one nation. This bank will not lend to individuals, but only to nations. The world is coming into unity, which means that independent governments will merge into one to be more operable on a global scale. Only global thinking and institutions can solve the world's economic problems.

The Imperial Ghost in the Neoliberal Machine (Figuring the CIA)

Emperor of the Universe video.                                       

[humanfraternityday]

As world citizens, let us embrace our fraternity and unite for the common purpose of creating a more peaceful world with conscience.

The Federation of World Peace and Love (FOWPAL) will host a virtual event in celebration of International Day of Human Fraternity on February 4, 2023. Join us to celebrate International Day of Human Fraternity. As world citizens, let us embrace our fraternity and unite for the common purpose of creating a more peaceful world with conscience.

3:00 ~ 4:00 pm GMT

7:00 ~ 8:00 am PST

[todayontumblr]

Monday May 1.

May Day.

Today is a day that requires little introduction. It is #may day, otherwise known as #international workers day or Labour Day. Celebrated every year on May 1, or the first Monday of May, it marks a day of celebration and solidarity between laborers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labor movement. It is a national public holiday in many countries across the world and has a fascinating, inspiring history. The Marxist International Socialist Congress met in Paris in 1889, where they established the Second International as a successor to the International Workingmen's Association. It was here they established a resolution for a "great international demonstration" to support demands for an eight-hour working day from the working classes. Today's date, May 1, was selected by the American Federation of Labor to mark a general strike in the United States. This strike began on this date in 1886, and subsequently became an annual event. In 1904, the Sixth Conference of the Second International called for "all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the eight-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace". But it is not just consigned to history, by any means, because #may day continues to this day.

There are strikes, marches, rallies, and protests across the world today marking May Day. The struggle continues, but today is also the celebration. Wherever you are across the world, and however you're spending International Worker's Day 2023, we wish you love, light, and solidarity in the fight for better. 

[kdrtsz]

Travel the World of Imagination: Journeys Beyond Border

Kieth Denmark M. Retes | BSIT1A OVERVIEW:

Switzerland originates from the Old Swiss Confederacy established in the Late Middle Ages, following a series of military successes against Austria and Burgundy; the Federal Charter of 1291 is considered the country's founding document. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Switzerland has maintained a policy of armed neutrality since the 16th century and has not fought an international war since 1815. It joined the United Nations only in 2002 but pursues an active foreign policy that includes frequent involvement in peace building.

Switzerland is the birthplace of the Red Cross and hosts the headquarters or offices of most major international institutions including the WTO, the WHO, the ILO, FIFA, the WEF, and the UN. It is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), but not part of the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area, or the eurozone; however, it participates in the European single market and the Schengen Area. Switzerland is a federal republic composed of 26 cantons, with federal authorities based in Bern. references: Switzerland - Wikipedia

Switzerland, a small yet influential country nestled in the heart of Europe, stands out in many ways. From its awe-inspiring landscapes to its unique political system, Switzerland offers a blend of natural beauty, cultural diversity, and global diplomacy that few other nations can match. Its distinct character is a product of centuries of neutrality, innovation, and a deep respect for its heritage, all of which contribute to the nation’s unparalleled reputation on the world stage.

One of the first things that captivates visitors to Switzerland is its breathtaking scenery. The country is dominated by the majestic Alps, with towering snow-capped peaks that attract adventurers and nature lovers from around the globe. Whether it’s skiing in world-class resorts like Zermatt and St. Moritz or hiking through verdant valleys and along crystal-clear lakes, Switzerland offers outdoor experiences that are hard to rival. Beyond the Alps, the country is dotted with picturesque towns, lush meadows, and sparkling lakes, such as Lake Geneva and Lake Lucerne, each offering their own unique charm. The country's commitment to environmental preservation further enhances the beauty of these landscapes, ensuring that they remain pristine for future generations.

Swiss culture is characterized by diversity, which is reflected in diverse traditional customs. A region may be in some ways culturally connected to the neighbouring country that shares its language, all rooted in western European culture. The linguistically isolated Romansh culture in Graubünden in eastern Switzerland constitutes an exception. It survives only in the upper valleys of the Rhine and the Inn and strives to maintain its rare linguistic tradition.

Switzerland is home to notable contributors to literature, art, architecture, music and sciences. In addition, the country attracted creatives during times of unrest or war. Some 1000 museums are found in the country.

Among the most important cultural performances held annually are the Paléo Festival, Lucerne Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Locarno International Film Festival and Art Basel.

Alpine symbolism played an essential role in shaping Swiss history and the Swiss national identity. Many alpine areas and ski resorts attract visitors for winter sports as well as hiking and mountain biking in summer. The quieter seasons are spring and autumn. A traditional pastoral culture predominates in many areas, and small farms are omnipresent in rural areas. Folk art is nurtured in organisations across the country. Switzerland most directly in appears in music, dance, poetry, wood carving, and embroidery. The alphorn, a trumpet-like musical instrument made of wood has joined yodeling and the accordion as epitomes of traditional Swiss music.

references: Switzerland - Wikipedia

[palestinegenocide]

More than 300 Palestinian sports teams are calling to ban Israel from the Olympics over its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The Israeli offensive on Gaza has claimed the lives of 26,706 civilians, including 11,422 infants and children. Ninety percent of Palestinians are internally displaced and living in inhumane conditions with “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel.” No functional hospitals. No mosques. No churches. No libraries. No schools. No universities. No bakeries. At this rate, the brutal Israeli regime will soon destroy every aspect of life in Gaza, including its sports.

Join the global campaign to peacefully disrupt the road to Paris 2024 calling on the IOC to #BanIsrael until it ends its crimes against Palestinians and recognizes our UN-stipulated rights.

Register your group to join the campaign

We thus urgently demand:

An immediate suspension of Israel from participation in all international sports until it fully complies with international law and sports regulations

For global and European sports governing bodies to immediately uphold their statutory obligations – especially their own rules on human rights and non-discrimination given Russian, South African and other precedents. This would include, inter alia, a ban on Israel competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, FIFA World Cup, and UEFA’s EURO. 

For a deeper analysis on the rationale to suspend Israel from international sports, please review this paper (also available in Spanish) that will be sent to sports organisations.

Here’s what you can do.

1. Join the Global Day(s) of Action, March 15-17 

Ahead of the IOC executive board meeting in Lausanne Switzerland (March 19-21), take the call from Palestinian teams to your National Olympic Committee, International Sports Federations and Recognized Sports Federations. Organize protests, sit-ins, peaceful disruptions, or awareness raising events on Israeli attacks on Palestinian sports. Register your group for more information.

2. Olympics qualifiers and events

From now until the Olympic Games start in July, the road to Paris will be filled with opportunities to remind the IOC that there is no place in the Olympics for genocide perpetrators. Earlier this month, four runners took the #CeasefireNow message to the Olympic Trials Marathon in Florida, crossing the finish line with Palestinian flags. Find information on Olympic time trials and qualifiers (also here) or other Olympics-related events in your area. Register your group for more information.

3. Kick Israeli apartheid out of sports

Is your country a signatory to the International Convention Against Apartheid in Sports? If so, it has an obligation to “take all appropriate action to secure the expulsion of a country practising apartheid from international and regional sports bodies.” Register your group to learn what you can do.

4. Sign the petition to ban Israel from world sports

Join more than 70,000 people from all over the world who have signed the petition calling for banning Israel from international sport.

Add your signature here

Israel has killed Palestinian Olympic Football coach Hani Al Masdar, destroyed the Palestinian Olympic Committee offices, and turned sports facilities into shameful mass detention and torture centers.

We can’t sit back as the IOC allows Israel to use the Olympics to sportswash its genocide in Gaza and its apartheid regime against Palestinians everywhere. Support the call from Palestinian teams. 

Join the campaign to #BanIsrael from the Olympics and peacefully disrupt the road to the Paris 2024 games. 

[gunnrblze]

City Dweller, pt. 1

☾ Hesh x Reader, 2k+ words, SFW

New fic based on my little Roomate!Hesh drabble :)

Hello friends, so happy y’all liked my little drabble so much! Loved seeing the comments n feedback, I’m naturally pretty iffy about my own writing so I appreciate it a lot! Here’s this lolll :)

Santa Monica was beautifully warm. Palm trees littered around, sunshine beating down during the peak hours of the day. Only remnants of a past war, a ghost of what was. Your ‘fresh start’ as you’d been calling it felt almost…conventional, all things considered. Hallmark movie-like, the apartment you’d found yourself touring looking almost suburban, but distanced enough from what you imagine the suffocation of a cookie-cutter neighborhood would feel like.

Years after the Federation had been defeated, the world attempting some chance at peace and uniformity, you needed something new. With a decent job offer, and an already established friend living in the city, you figured it made more than enough sense.

Knocking on the door of a decently sized complex, you didn’t have nearly enough time to really zone in on your anxiety and attempt to squash it. Instead, your endeavor was halted by a large, athletically sturdy man appearing in the doorway with a warm, ice melting smile. Your eyes tracing over him instead of the 207 plastered on the door.

You didn’t know what to expect, honestly. Hell, you didn’t really have many expectations for meeting Hesh, other than the involuntary assumptions you made based on the bit of information your friend had given you. But all that information came from their friend Logan, Hesh’s brother. Considering that you’d hype up your sibling in the same scenario too, you were counting on having to gain your own footing. Going in blind to meet a man you didn’t know and touring his apartment almost felt like a poor decision. But hey, if this guy was a freak, you at least had a friend who knew where you were.

Of course, you couldn’t quite form any actual thoughts for a moment, a bit too stunned with how pretty he was.

A physique damn near sculpted from marble. A smile so gentle and welcoming it made your teeth ache. Bright green eyes that made you wonder how it was possible to have a simultaneously easy-going yet poised energy. A beard that was almost starting to border into mutton chops territory, that he somehow pulled off in your eyes.

It was no wonder your internal monologue blacked out for a moment.

He welcomed you in, introducing himself first as David, then explaining that you can call him Hesh like everyone else does. You only wondered for a moment how that nickname must’ve been born from ‘David’, before he insisted showing you around the apartment.

The apartment was nice and clean, almost verging on dull, but you weren’t too surprised after being told he was an army Lieutenant. Usually gone for work, absent more than he was present. It made sense the way the kitchen nearly looked straight out of a Home Depot display. All sharp edges and clean surfaces, new stainless steel appliances that almost made you swoon. But with enough personal touch to let you know he dwells here, at least.

It got even more convenient when he showed you down the hall toward what would be your room. You tried to breathe regularly, but something about him was both refreshing and suffocating. Your eyes swept over picture frames on the wall, both new and dated photos of him and his brother Logan. A man who he vaguely resembled, perhaps a father. A woman that looked eerily twin-like to his brother…you were starting to get the picture. He gave you a cursory peak of his own room just to acquaint you with everything, the details you caught before he shut the door again already conjuring more assumptions about him. What kind of games does he play on that setup? He must really be partial to the color green. How do you even make a bed that neat? Was that a dog bed-wait, was that an actual dog too?

You must’ve been daydreaming a bit, when his slight chuckle broke you out of the trance you’d tripped into.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know if Logan mentioned to your friend that I have a dog, Riley. Is that a problem?” He’d ask, voice smoother than whiskey, warm and heavy and settling into the few feet standing between your bodies. His tone was lacquered with kindness and welcoming, but his firm, assured nature stood next to you like a brick wall. Unwavering and almost comforting, for a stranger.

You explained that you didn’t mind, you liked dogs well enough, after all. And with the way he assured you that Riley was indeed, a very good boy, and went to work with him everyday, you suspected it wouldn’t be a problem. “You’ll hardly even know he’s here, usually stays in my room. He’s fully trained and housebroke, too” he followed up after seeing the quick mental debate you were going through. Just an extra, furrier roommate, no? Maybe a piece of info you’d like to know beforehand, but something inside you just didn’t care too much. Maybe it was how casual he acted about it. Just a dog, man’s best friend and all, you figured.

After the little German shepherd shaped surprise, he showed you to the second bedroom. Smaller than his, which you didn’t mind considering he claimed his stake a while ago, and it was just like the rest of the apartment anyways.

Perfect.

Or did he feel perfect? Did he, in this apartment, perhaps feel perfect? Were you being ridiculous, since you’d only known him for a mere 10 minutes so far? Surely a David Walker sized miracle didn’t just land in your lap like this. He’s just some guy, with a dog, and an empty bedroom.

There’s plenty of those. But you were starting to want this one.

Clean and spacious, perfect for all your belongings, you wondered how you lucked out. The light filtered into the room from the open blinds, and it all felt a bit tranquil and relaxing. Cream colored walls surrounding you, sturdy hardwood flooring that your shoes clacked on with every step. Hesh stood a reasonable distance from you the whole time, however you couldn’t help but feel as if his presence lingered closer. As if he were right on your heels, instead of being a respectable few feet away.

After showing you the rest of the apartment, the laundry area and bathroom just as seemingly spotless, you were already fantasizing about how you’d decorate your room and slowly worm your knickknacks throughout the rest of the apartment. When he asked you a bit about yourself, you almost looked unsure for a moment, caught off guard. Why you were faltering so much, you had to mentally blame on your lack of consistent human connection. Usually being holed up away from everyone else for work made you a bit of a recluse.

And how you could even begin to think about yourself when you had a large, square shouldered man leaning against the doorframe of his kitchen was beyond you. Those forest eyes narrowed in on you, and you only. Both staring a hole through you, and somehow keeping you all in one piece at the same time. His composed demeanor couldn’t possibly lack personality, though. His smile was something warm. That cup of coffee on a chilly morning, the one that you can feel blaze a trail all the way down your throat and throughout your chest upon first sip. So heedlessly friendly and hospitable, like a frosting that’s just a little too sweet. One that makes your stomach hurt a bit. But the ache is so tender, isn’t it?

You gave enough of an idea about yourself, not too much information for a stranger, but enough to hopefully warm him up to the idea of you moving in. And it seemed to help, or maybe it was that slight ‘when are you ready to move in?’ attitude he already seemed to harbor. As if he were just waiting for you to agree. Like he’d already decided it would work out the moment you stepped inside. It took you by a quiet surprise, the way he held the conversation in such a tone that he’d already made up his mind on you, and now it was simply your turn to decide how you felt. So self assured, so nonchalantly confident that it even made you want to stand up a bit straighter.

. . ・ 。 . ・ ゜ ✭ ・ ☽ ・ ✫ ・ ゜ ・ 。 . .

You weren’t expecting your first apartment touring to be so…immaculate, when are they ever? But you found yourself dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s on the lease paper by the end of the week, and moving your stuff in.

Not without his help, of course.

You’d insisted you could have a friend help, or call a moving company, to which you nearly watched him laugh at. The idea of paying someone money when you had him to help, seemed out of his scope of understanding. So he helped, not busy enough with work for once to assist you in moving boxes upon boxes up the stairs and into the apartment. Logan even came to help with the heavier furniture you had. You’d only briefly met him once through that mutual friend that’d recommended you as a potential roommate, and he seemed to be just as kind and friendly as his brother, only quieter. You could see clear as day how they were related, moving like a well oiled machine as they carried your bed frame up the stairs.

The two of them shared a couple looks when they naturally assumed you weren’t paying attention. But you had eyes in the back of your head while inside an apartment with two men who were technically, still strangers to you. Looks you couldn’t quite decipher, and decided to willfully ignore, lest you start jumping to conclusions and psych yourself out of this arrangement. A little smirk plastered on Logan’s face whenever he caught Hesh glancing at you. Always glancing, always looking. And you couldn’t help but notice. Your eye contact with him felt like a game, both eyeing one another and trying to pretend you really weren’t. How he managed to keep an eye and his focus on two things at once though, you just chalked up to his skills as a soldier, maybe. Because you couldn’t focus on much else whenever your eyes roamed over the back of his head, the slightly grown out brown hair that curled up around his ears, or the way his t-shirt fit across the broad expanse of his chest.

After all your things had been lugged up the stairs and into the apartment, you could take a little breather. Unpacking and really settling in would be another feat, and you wanted to start as soon as you could, despite the exhaustion from the busy day.

After thanking Logan again for helping, he left the, your, apartment. And it was odd, that this was also your apartment now. Boxes stuffed inside and name on the lease next to his. You felt like an intruder, like you couldn’t mark your territory properly since he’d done it first. Not that he felt that way, of course. It was your space now, too. Your room, your bathroom, your kitchen, your living room. Just with a man and a dog inside, too.

A man who seemed to have been harboring a spot in your thoughts since you met him a few days ago. Always on the back burner, always bouncing around like the ball in a pinball machine. That charming cadence in his voice, his little grin that seared itself into your brain. What was it about him? You didn’t know. You didn’t really want to know. He was your roommate now, you couldn’t have yourself swooning for a man who was simply kind and respectful towards you.

But now you were alone with him. And it almost didn’t even feel odd. Being alone with a man in a new city, a new apartment, would normally put anybody at least a little on edge. But he made it more delightful and pleasant than you thought he’d really even attempt to try. Was he even trying? Or did he just have the energy of a snake charmer?

It was difficult to tell, since he didn’t at all seem to regard you as a snake. No, he looked at you like you were the finest wine. Something he sought to cradle in his large hands, careful not to squeeze too tightly incase you decide to hightail it. He was charming and respectful and sweet but it felt heavy. He tried to be casual, or maybe he just was, and it worked, but his near reverence for you slipped from the cracks, and it sparked up something light and fuzzy in the bottom of your chest.

Maybe you were both being a little silly. Perhaps he didn’t get much personal social interaction outside of his own working hours either. Maybe that’s why the apartment felt both calm yet cramped with both of you inside now. You’d only known him for a handful of days so far, but he made it feel as if it were longer.

All you could do for a moment was sit on the edge of your unmade bed, and take a deep breath. You had mountains of boxes and emotions to unpack, one of which you decided to close the lid on for now.

[ankle-beez]

To Our Guild Leadership and Staff: We are proud rank-and-file union and trade association members from every corner of our industry — working on screen, stage, set, and in the field — united in solidarity with the global call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a just, lasting peace. As artists and storytellers, we cannot stand idly by as our industry refuses to tell the story of Palestinian humanity. Following SAG-AFTRA’s statement in sympathy with Israel regarding October 7, many SAG-AFTRA and sister guild members have watched in horror as the Israeli government wages a war of collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza — killing over 40,000 Palestinians, injuring over 90,000 more, forcibly displacing 2 million people, and openly targeting members of the press and their families. As the IDF continues its assault on “safe zones,” schools, and hospitals, and as civilians in Gaza die from starvation, dehydration, and lack of medical supplies and fuel, major human rights groups have labeled these acts as war crimes, human rights atrocities, and even genocide. The UN has described Gaza as a “graveyard for children” — and estimate that by mid-July “half of the population — more than a million people — could face death and starvation.” As of now, there is no end in sight — only escalation, death, and destruction.

Despite these clear violations of human rights and Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land and lives, our union leadership has remained silent. Thus, they have made conditional which atrocities we choose to condemn and which innocent lives we choose to acknowledge and mourn. Moreover, SAG-AFTRA and nearly all our sister guilds have remained silent in the face of flagrant and unprecedented attacks on freedom of the press, including the deliberate targeting and murder of Palestinian journalists and their families by the IDF. The Committee to Protect Journalists has declared the war on Gaza “the deadliest period for journalists covering conflict since CPJ began tracking in 1992.” Some of those journalists were members of news organizations whose domestic affiliates are represented under SAG-AFTRA contracts. While SAG-AFTRA issued a public statement at the outset of the Ukraine war demanding that “journalists of all nations working in the war zone are kept safe,” its words now ring hollow if they only apply to some journalists of certain identities.

On December 13, 2023, Israeli forces attacked The Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp and kidnapped several of its members — fellow actors and directors, who have called for solidarity from theatre workers worldwide. Palestinian trade unions have called for international labor solidarity, reminding us that “the struggle for Palestinian justice and liberation is a lever for the liberation of all dispossessed and exploited people of the world.” Worldwide labor has heeded that call, including major Australian, British, Belgian, Indian, and American unions. On Nov 15, our British peer union, Equity UK, called for an immediate and lasting ceasefire, stating: “We send our solidarity to Palestinian artists suffering in the horrendous conditions created by Israeli bombing, occupation, and apartheid.” Since then, UAW International has called for a ceasefire and announced the formation of a Divestment and Just Transition working group; The Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839) became the first Hollywood union to call for a ceasefire in Gaza; five of the 10 largest American labor unions and federations have officially called for a ceasefire including the NEA (National Education Association), SEIU (Service Employees International Union), and the AFL-CIO; and unions collectively representing a majority of organized workers in the US formed The National Labor Network for Ceasefire. In July, 7 major unions representing over 6 million workers published a letter to President Biden demanding an arms embargo on Israel.

The global call for a ceasefire — from organized labor, artists and fellow SAG-AFTRA members, human rights groups, world leaders, and the majority of the American public — grows louder every day. And yet, our government continues to sponsor the Israeli forces’ assault on Palestinian civilians, and our industry union leadership still refuses to speak out. We reject this silence. Our calling as artists, news reporters, and storytellers is to bring truth to the world. To fight the erasure of life and culture. To unite for justice in the name of the most vulnerable among us. It’s exactly what we did during our historic strike in 2023.

We are the labor that built and sustains this business. When our leaders can’t stand up publicly for peace and justice, then we must do what we always do: organize, fight for change, and win. Our guild leadership must join the largest and most diverse peace movement in a generation — the integrity of our legacy demands nothing less. When confronted with genocide, oppression, and injustice, let us ring the bell for humanity and liberation. An injury to one is an injury to all. We, the undersigned members of SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, WGA, Teamsters, DGA, AEA, AFM, Hollywood Basic Crafts, CSA, PGA, and more, demand our leadership issue a public statement calling for a permanent ceasefire, release of all hostages — both Palestinian and Israeli, and immediate funding and delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid; to speak out against the targeting and killing of innocent Palestinian civilians, health workers, and our journalist colleagues; to condemn our industry’s McCarthyist repression of members who acknowledge Palestinian suffering; and to eliminate any doubt of our solidarity with workers, artists, and oppressed people worldwide.

[mariacallous]

Lame-duck periods are meant to be inconsequential, but on Thursday afternoon at the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden got a chance to present one of the most important breakthroughs of his time in office. In what was the largest U.S.-Russia prisoner swap since the Cold War, involving at least seven countries over a period of months, a total of 24 people moved across borders as pawns in a game of global 3D chess.

Eight Russians are returning home in exchange for a combination of 16 Americans, Germans, and Russians. Within an hour of confirmation that U.S. prisoners were safely out of Russia, Biden assembled family members of the freed Americans at the White House and addressed a gathering of journalists. As he looked into the cameras, he no doubt knew that he was being closely watched by his counterparts in Beijing and Moscow, by millions of people around the world, and by history.

Even in his moment of triumph, Biden found a way to focus on the human reality of the moment. He singled out Miriam, the daughter of the released Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. It was one day until her 13th birthday, and Biden put an arm around Miriam, leading a chorus of the world’s most popular song. The joy was obviously precipitated by a major international development, but it was also the day a teenage girl would see her mother again after more than nine months in prison, convicted for the crime of writing about Russia’s army.

There’s a long list of prominent names involved in Thursday’s prisoner swap, including Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter sentenced to 16 years in prison under false claims of conducting espionage, and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who was in Russia for a friend’s wedding and accused, again, of espionage. There were German citizens and even Russians, including Oleg Orlov, a human rights defender and co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group Memorial, in prison for speaking his mind about his country’s war in Ukraine.

Journalists, tourists, and activists went one way in the prisoner exchange; on the other side was Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel in Russia’s Federal Security Service serving a life sentence in a German prison for a hit on a former Chechen fighter, conducted in broad daylight in Berlin. Others included a Russian citizen involved in international money laundering, a hacker, a credit card fraudster, and an actual spy.

The historic exchange instantly evokes imagery from the Cold War, when such transfers of prisoners were more common. But rather than the historical parallels, it is the contrasts drawn by Thursday’s events that will be remembered. There was Washington, fighting for the freedom of not only its own citizens but also Russians who dared to criticize their own government, and in stark relief there was Moscow, openly trading journalists for criminals and Nobel winners for fraudsters. The Kremlin has gleefully applauded knocks to U.S. soft power, from the misadventure of the Iraq War to the botched U.S. departure from Afghanistan in 2021, but the symbolism of the moment will have not been lost on Russian President Vladimir Putin: This exchange isn’t a great look for him. And even though Biden’s claims of a grand battle between democracies and autocracies are often criticized for being too black and white for the modern multipolar world, the lame-duck president now has a moment to mark his favorite reference in the history books.

It’s an election year in the United States, so contrasts will also be drawn around the alternate visions of Washington’s role in the world—currently being debated by surrogates for the Democratic and Republican campaigns. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has long argued for a more transactional approach to geopolitics. In such a world, there are two players—one is a winner, the other a loser. The Trump worldview prioritizes singular might over alliances; values don’t matter as much as the value of the hand of cards a player is clutching to their chest. Biden, while careful to focus on the humanity and history of the moment, couldn’t resist pointing out the difference: “For anyone who questions whether allies matter, they do.” He was referring in particular to the role of Germany, which had reportedly been reluctant to give up Krasikov. Biden personally spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in January and February, arguing the importance of the prisoner exchange.

Speaking a short while later to reporters, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan built on his boss’s message as he detailed the roles played by Germany, Turkey, and others in the prisoner swap. “There is no more powerful example of the importance and power of allies,” he said. “This was vintage Joe Biden.”

Supporters of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris are also pointing out her role, visiting the Munich Security Conference a few times as vice president and building relations with German and European leaders.

Sen. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, was quick to offer an alternative view: “We have to ask ourselves, why are they coming home? And I think it’s because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump’s about to be back in office, so they’re cleaning house. That’s a good thing.”

And so the race for the White House rolls on, with both sides seeking to score points and spin their version of events. Thursday will be a historic study in contrasts—between Washington and Moscow and between rules and impunity. It will also be a moment that could play a part in an American referendum on Washington’s role in the world and whether the electorate favors the slow, painstaking diplomacy of Biden or the instant gratification and drama of Trump’s dealmaking.

[progressivepower]

Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fuelled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”

Written by Andrew Coyne

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Joe Becigneul 

“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fuelled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”

Written by Andrew Coyne.

Andrew Coyne is a highly respected Canadian columnist with the Globe and Mail and a regular panelist on CBC's The National, who has previously worked with Macleans Magazine (Senior Editor) and the National Post.

[detroitpedxing]

(Archived News, Sept. 17. 2024) Second Apparent Assassination Attempt on Trump Prompts Alarm Abroad

There is widespread concern that the November election will not end well and that American democracy has frayed to the breaking point.

In the nine years since Donald J. Trump entered American politics, the global perception of the United States has been shaken by the image of a fractured, unpredictable nation. First one, then a second apparent attempt on the former president’s life have accentuated international concerns, raising fears of violent turmoil spiraling toward civil war.

Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, has said he is “very worried” and “deeply troubled” by what the F.B.I. said was an attempt to kill Mr. Trump at his Florida golf course, fewer than 50 days before the presidential election and two months after a bullet bloodied the ear of Mr. Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

“Violence has no part to play at all in any political process,” Mr. Starmer said.

Yet, violence has played a core part in this stormy, lurching American political campaign, and not only in the two apparent assassination attempts. There is now widespread concern across the globe that the November election will not end well and that American democracy, once a beacon to the world, has frayed to the breaking point.

In Mexico, where elections this year were the most violent in the country’s recent history, with 41 candidates and aspirants for public office assassinated, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “Even though what happened is still unclear, we regret the violence against former President Donald Trump. The path is democracy and peace.”

At a time of wars in Europe and the Middle East and widespread global insecurity as China and Russia assert the superiority of their autocratic models, American precariousness weighs heavily.

Corentin Sellin, a French history professor, said the “brutalization of American politics” had left France “wondering whether the presidential campaign will finish peacefully.”

France was stunned, he said, by the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, and “there is this notion that the story that started with that insurrection has not yet ended,” and that the Nov. 5 election will determine how it does.

The threat of violence — at times, even the need for it — has been a core part of Mr. Trump’s message.

He has already cast doubt on the credibility of the coming November election results. He has persistently laced his language with calls to “fight” and used incendiary terms to insult immigrants. Just before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, he urged followers to “fight like hell” or they would not “have a country any more.” In general, he has shown an ironclad incapacity to accept many truths, including the result of the 2020 election.

Democrats have responded by depicting Mr. Trump as a direct menace to American democracy, a “weird” would-be autocrat of fascist tendencies and a “threat to our freedoms,” in the words of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. The left-leaning New Republic magazine portrayed Mr. Trump as Hitler on a recent cover, expressing the view that a second Trump term is likely to lead to some form of American tyranny.

Some Europeans see things in a very different light.

“They tried to do everything,” said Andrea Di Giuseppe, a lawmaker with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party. “They tried to bring Trump down with trials, they tried to bring him down with insinuations, they tried to bring him down by scaring people that ‘if Trump arrives democracy ends.’ Then, since all these attempts did not work, they tried to kill him.”

The authorities have identified a suspect in the Florida episode, Ryan W. Routh, a 58-year-old building contractor with a criminal history and a passionate embrace of the Ukrainian cause. He was charged in federal court with two firearms counts. More charges may follow.

Responding to the apparent assassination attempt, Carsten Luther, an online editor for international affairs, gave voice to deep concerns about the survival of American democracy in the respected German weekly Die Zeit. “The warnings of a civil war can be heard and no longer sound completely unrealistic,” he wrote. “It seems almost banal, as if it was bound to happen at some point.”

Of course, other Western societies, including France and Germany, are also viscerally divided and have seen the rise of xenophobic, far-right parties with many of the same messages as Mr. Trump. In May, an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia left him critically injured.

But a far more restrictive European gun culture has curbed the extent of political violence while leaving Europeans alarmed and incredulous at the ease with which Americans are able to obtain weapons.

Félix Maradiaga, a former Nicaraguan presidential candidate and political prisoner who is now a fellow at the University of Virginia, said that polarization, intolerance and the widespread availability of high-caliber weapons in the United States had led to a “perfect storm.”

“The world is watching, and the stakes could not be higher,” he added. “Russia and China are undoubtedly taking satisfaction in this deterioration of democracy.”

Lebohang Pheko, a senior research fellow at South Africa’s Trade Collective, an economics research institute, said that she perceived “a militarization of everyday life in the United States, and this essentially seems to be spilling into these elections.”

Mr. Trump has often appeared to seek this very militarization of which he has narrowly escaped being a victim. The multimillionaire son of a real-estate developer from Queens, he has positioned himself as the defender of the gun-toting, God-fearing American frontier against what he portrays as the Democrats’ politically correct socialist takeover.

Alluding to his Democratic opponents, he has blamed “the things that they say about me” for the first assassination attempt and the second episode, not the easy access to guns that he defends.

The question now is how violent will this political confrontation in America prove. For many around the world, it seems to contain the seeds of rampant conflict.

“There is a sort of reciprocal delegitimization, where the political opponent is no longer a normal political competitor, but also an existential enemy,” said Mario Del Pero, a professor of United States and International History at Sciences Po University in Paris. He called this process “a degradation of political and public discourse.”

In the United States, this has been a degradation compounded by guns, as much of the world sees it.

“Style over substance. Image over issues. Lies over facts. Distractions over policy. Repeated violence,” said Tomasz Płudowski, the deputy dean of the School of Social Science, AEH, in Warsaw. “That seems to be the contemporary American reality.”

The core confrontation in Western societies is no longer over internal issues. It is global vs. national, the connected living in the “somewhere” of the knowledge economy vs. the forgotten living “nowhere” in industrial wastelands and rural areas.

There lies the frustration, even fury, on which a Trump or a Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right French National Rally, or Ms. Meloni in Italy have been able to build.

The perceived vulnerability of American democracy has already provoked many reactions around the world, from Russian gloating and interference to European anxiety about its security. Few countries in the developing world want American lessons in how to run their societies these days.

Yet, a fascination with the United States endures, and the checks and balances of its institutions have proved resilient, including through the first Trump term.

Mr. Trump often cites the template of Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary: neutralizing an independent judiciary, subjugating much of the media, demonizing migrants and creating loyal new elites through crony capitalism. But it would not be easy to impose in America.

Still, the world is anxious. The 48 days to the election feel like a long time.

“In the end, the only real final word is for the American people,” said Mr. Di Giuseppe, the Italian lawmaker. “And if you want to defeat a person whom you think is not fit to govern the United States of America, you have to defeat him in a democratic system with elections, not with justice or Kalashnikovs.”

[whatisonthemoon]

FFWPU’s Naokimi Ushiroda admits UC abuse in order to prove a point

Attempting to defend themselves from criticisms made by the Hyun Jin (H1/Preston) schism, the UC mentions how there is a 22-page complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee about the human rights abuses of UC members in Japan, and says that under Hyun Jin's leadership, he never voiced objections.

Source: Naokimi Ushiroda (FFWPU) response to Howard Self

[justforbooks]

Jimmy Carter

US president whose subsequent decades of tireless humanitarian work brought him the Nobel peace prize

The former US president Jimmy Carter, who has died aged 100, achieved a far more favourable reputation after leaving the White House than he ever secured during his single term of office. Following his electoral defeat in 1980 – when Ronald Reagan beat him by 489 to 49 electoral college votes – his sustained efforts to improve life for the deprived people of the world won him the 2002 Nobel peace prize.

Carter left a mixed heritage from his presidential term. He put human rights firmly on the international agenda, persuaded Congress to cede US control of the Panama canal, demonstrated that peace settlements could be achieved in the Middle East, and completed the second strategic arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union.

But he was not cut out for the White House. He became the 39th president because he was not Gerald Ford: he was ousted after one term not only because of his administration’s inept handling of the Iranian hostage crisis but because he was overwhelmed by the job.

Carter came into office faced with the continued economic aftermath of the Vietnam war. To meet its burgeoning costs, President Richard Nixon had abandoned the fixed international exchange rate agreed after the second world war and allowed the dollar to float. That immediately imported inflation into the US, exacerbated by the 1973 Yom Kippur war in the Middle East, which provoked Arab oil-exporting nations to quadruple the price of their oil. Carter arrived in Washington with inflation running at 7%. Within 18 months it had climbed to 11.3%.

Oil, which had been $20 a barrel, surged to $107. Carter’s response was to ask the US to curb its profligate use of energy. The plea fell on deaf ears. He then nominated Paul Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board to deal with the problem. Volcker arrived proclaiming that the US “could not inflate itself out of a recession” and embarked on a ferocious campaign to kill it. The interest figures tell the story: in June 1979 America’s prime rate was 11.5%, by November 15.5%, by March 1980 18.5% and by the end of that year it peaked at 21.5%. During his election campaign Carter had devised what he called the misery index, combining unemployment and inflation. It stood at 13.5 when he was elected. He left the White House with it at 19.9.

He eventually retrieved his reputation by founding the Carter Center in his home state of Georgia and embarking on a vast range of activities designed to defuse international conflict and to introduce democracy and a decent standard of life across the globe.

This took him to countries ranging from Zambia to Peru and from Sudan to Guyana, for such disparate projects as mediating in civil warfare, encouraging sustainable agricultural development, establishing a proper judicial system, or installing a clean water supply. He became a familiar figure at election counts around the globe, part of the international team that sought to ensure that where skulduggery could not be prevented, it was at least well publicised.

With the agreement of the Clinton administration, in 1994 Carter took up an invitation to visit Kim Il-Sung in Pyongyang, and out of their talks came the Agreed Framework, by which North Korea undertook to suspend its nuclear weapons programme in return for increased energy aid from the US. Initial progress was not sustained, and by 2003 relations between the two countries were openly hostile again. In 2008 he was criticised in the US and Israel for urging peace talks involving Syria and Hamas. In August 2010 he returned to North Korea to secure the release of a US citizen, Aijalon Gomes; he visited the country again in 2011, and six years later indicated his willingness to do so once more if called on.

Carter acknowledged that much of the energy he brought to the Carter Center had stemmed from the unexpected frustration of his presidential career. “I don’t think that if I had had two full terms in the White House, I would have launched so ambitious a new career. I would probably have become a professor and written some books.”

Born in Plains, Georgia, Jimmy (James) was the eldest of four children of Lillian (nee Gordy), a nurse, and James Carter, a peanut farmer. He planned a naval career, graduating from the US naval academy in 1946. Then he became involved in the design and development of nuclear power for ships, and later with training seamen to serve in them. This was apparently when he acquired his dogged interest in organisational and functional minutiae.

In 1953, however, the death of his father obliged him to resign his commission to take control of the family business. This sparked an interest in politics and, in 1962, he was elected a state senator. At the end of his four-year term, he ran unsuccessfully for the governorship of Georgia. In 1970 he was elected at his second attempt and began to plan his presidential campaign.

His ambitions coincided with the Watergate scandal and the enforced resignation of Nixon in August 1974. Ford, a Republican congressman from Michigan, had been hand-picked by the beleaguered incumbent as his successor. The electorate, initially neutral about the constitutional niceties of this procedure, erupted in fury when the newly sworn-in President Ford announced an unconditional pardon for his patron. The stage was thus set for Carter’s bid, on the basis that he did not belong to the Washington establishment and that he espoused the simple moral and religious values that the electorate was then seeking.

In the 1976 primaries he easily outpaced his Democratic rivals. But his presidential victory was uncomfortably narrow: he won only 23 of the 50 states and secured less than half the popular vote (excluding Washington DC). His arrival in the White House arose more through the quirks of the electoral college, where he predominated by 297 votes to Ford’s 240. His election showed plainly what became even more starkly evident as his term progressed: that support in the country was marginal and could be eroded by almost any setback. The honeymoon lasted long enough domestically to get the Panama canal treaties ratified in 1978 – no small achievement – and internationally to bring Israel and Egypt to a widely applauded peace settlement in 1979, brokered by Carter.

But the very nature of his electoral campaign quickly rebounded on him. He chose to emphasise the shift from previous administrations by appointing a group of inexperienced assistants to senior posts. Within a short space of time, his budget director, Bert Lance, was forced to resign amid allegations of impropriety – charges that sat ill with Carter’s repeated emphasis on probity. His chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, became notorious for his poor handling of influential figures on Capitol Hill, a vital factor for any administration, but even more critical in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate climate in Washington.

Congress, in its own eyes, had been bulldozed into the expansion of the Vietnam war by Lyndon Johnson, grossly affronted by Nixon’s constant claims of executive privilege and eventually by his illegalities, and circumnavigated by Ford’s accession. It had fettered the White House with the War Powers resolution of 1973 and came within a whisker of impeaching the president. It was singularly unimpressed by the arrival of a man whose experience was as a one-term southern governor.

It might have been easier had Carter arrived with a clear political agenda, but he seemed geared to the politics of symbolism rather than substance. In an effort to focus his compatriots’ attention on their profligate use of energy, he addressed the nation wearing a woollen cardigan, which simply drowned the message in derision. His national energy policy was barely recognisable by the time it emerged from Congress.

The international community also found itself with problems caused by the amateurism of the White House. Within six months of taking office, Carter requested funds to develop neutron warheads for missiles deployed in Europe, particularly West Germany. There had been no consultations within Nato, and a row erupted in Europe. The Dutch defence minister resigned and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany, faced with demonstrations and parliamentary dissent, publicly dissociated himself from the move. The furore continued for months, until Carter suddenly announced that he had abandoned the idea, having exposed serious rifts within the Atlantic alliance to no useful end.

In spite of alarming the Kremlin with unsignalled proposals for huge cuts in strategic weapons (later abandoned), his administration did manage to negotiate the Salt II (strategic arms limitation talks) agreement, a complex, phased programme of strategic disarmament. But it aroused deep suspicions in the Senate, which had little liking for the president anyway, and the treaty was consequently never ratified.

By now it had become evident to the country that its chief executive was becoming impotent through his insistence on bogging himself down in detail to the extent that he even insisted on drawing up the playing rota for the White House tennis courts. With his popularity waning steeply, particularly after a disastrous television address in which he seemed to saddle the nation with his own uncertainties, Carter was hit by the twin crises that doomed his presidency – the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the fall of the shah of Iran.

Long after he left office, it emerged that much of the blame for the Afghan crisis could, in fact, be laid at his door. In February 1979 the US ambassador in Kabul, Adolph Dubs, was kidnapped and died in a botched rescue attempt by the local police. The Soviet Union was alleged to have been behind the kidnapping and, in retaliation, Carter signed a secret directive on 3 July 1979, authorising the CIA to fund and arm Muslim opponents to the Kabul regime, which the Soviet Union supported.

This decision was later described by Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, as “giving the Soviet Union its own Vietnam”. Its consequences, including the rise of the Taliban, have clanked unpredictably through the ensuing decades. As US-funded fighting spread rapidly across Afghanistan, the Kabul regime tottered and Moscow decided that the only answer to the destabilisation of its strategically vital southern border was to invade.

Carter, already in deep trouble over the fall of the shah, responded to the Soviet invasion by shooting himself in the foot. With domestic political attention focused on the impending 1980 presidential campaign, he announced an embargo on a portion of US grain exports to the Soviet Union, the prime victims of which were America’s midwestern farmers rather than the USSR.

He did manage to see off the internal party challenge of Senator Edward Kennedy, but slipped badly in the broader race for re-election. He had been unlucky in inheriting the brewing Iranian crisis, but he handled that no better. The shah was entirely the creature of successive US administrations. It was, therefore, self-evident that the dethroned monarch would turn to his patrons in his final crisis and that, conversely, the new Iranian regime would stoke the anti-Americanism built up by his autocratic reign.

The US embassy in Tehran sent repeated warnings of the likely Iranian reaction if the terminally ill shah was allowed into the US, but they were ignored by the White House. Within three weeks of his arrival for medical treatment, the embassy had been seized and 53 of its staff held hostage. A bad situation was made far worse by an ill-conceived and ultimately disastrous attempt to mount a rescue operation. Its chances of success were always slight and were wholly nullified by the combination of equipment failures and excessive interference from above.

Had Carter been held in greater confidence by his countrymen, they might have had more sympathy for his dilemma. He had nothing to bargain with, and it became evident that for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the fundamentalist Shia cleric who had overthrown the shah, the crisis had become a personal contest. He released the American hostages only at the moment when Carter was succeeded by Reagan.

Carter’s political ambition far outreached his experience or capacity, but his brief sojourn in the Oval office at least gave him the international standing to carry out the humanitarian work for which he will probably be best remembered. With his wife, Rosalynn (nee Smith), whom he married in 1946, he visited more than 140 countries.

He wrote 30 books, including A Call to Action (2014), which addressed discrimination and violence against women, and A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety (2015). Having turned 100 last October, he fulfilled his aim of voting in the presidential election.

Rosalynn died in November 2023. He is survived by their four children, Amy, Jack, Chip and Jeff, 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

🔔 James Earl Carter, politician, born 1 October 1924; died 29 December 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

President of Russian Federation Arrives in Pyongyang to Pay State Visit to DPRK

At a crucial time when the friendly relations between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation have emerged as a strong strategic fortress and an engine for defending international justice, peace and security and accelerating the building of a new multi-polar world, another meeting of the top leaders of the two countries took place in Pyongyang, clearly demonstrating once again the invincibility and durability of the DPRK-Russia friendship and unity.