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jewish-privilege · 7 years

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The Anti-Defamation League publishes an annual report on incidents of anti-Semitism in the United States. This year’s audit, made available in November, showed a significant increase in relation to the previous year: 2017 saw a 67% rise in anti-Jewish hate speech, harassment, vandalism, and violence.

It’s a disheartening measure of a terrible phenomenon. Yet in the three months since the audit was released, it’s garnered little attention.

...Underlying this is a pervasive point of view is the notion that Jews, who are often conflated with whites, should “check their privilege,” because anti-Semitism just isn’t as bad as other forms of racism. On campus, where the ADL notes an acute rise in anti-Jewish hostility, alarmed Jewish students are sidelined for being white and middle-class and the Holocaust is trivialized as “white on white crime”. Elsewhere, Jews who protest anti-Semitism are dismissed for failing to ante up sufficient concern about people of color.

This erasure of anti-Semitism isn’t simply callous. It exposes a huge moral failure at the heart of the modern Left. Under the enveloping paradigm of “intersectionality,” everyone is granularly defined by their various identities — everyone, that is, except white Jews, whose Jewishness is often overwritten by their skin color. Not simply a moral failing, this erasure is deeply hazardous, inasmuch as the fight against racism happens by and large in sectors where the Left perspective dominates — the academy, pop culture, and much of the news media.

...For in a key sense, regular racism, against blacks and Latinos for example, is the opposite of anti-Semitism. While both ultimately derive from xenophobia, regular racism comes from white people believing they are superior to people of color. But the hatred of Jews stems from the belief that Jews are a cabal with supernatural powers, in other words, it stems from the models of thought that produce conspiracy theories. Where the white racist regards blacks as inferior, the anti-Semite imagines that Jews have preternatural power to afflict humankind.

This is also why the Left is blind to Anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism differs from most forms of racism in that it purports to “punch up” against a secret society of oppressors, which has the side effect of making it easy to disguise as a politics of emancipation. If Jews have power, then punching up at Jews is a form of speaking truth to power — a form of speech of which the Left is currently enamored.

...At its most trivial, a conspiracy theory is the idea that a circumstance or event can be explained by the influence of an evil secret society. As the historian Norman Cohn has shown, European civilization has embraced this idea since the beginning. The “fantasy,” writes Cohn, “that there existed somewhere in the midst of the great society, another society, small and clandestine, which not only threatened the existence of the great society, but was also addicted to practices which were felt to be wholly abominable, in the literal sense of anti-human,” has targeted different groups — the Jews, in particular — ever since Christianity conquered Europe.

...But the idea at the center of the long history of Jewish persecution is a conspiracy theory: that a wicked cabal of international Jews conspires to leech from and destroy mankind.

...As they were emancipated, Jews loomed as direct competition in economic and political life. As the preeminent historian of anti-Semitism, Robert Wistrich, writes, “Alongside the dominant cultural matrix of late-nineteenth-century nationalism, volkisch racism, and imperialism,” a new “populist social dimension” recast Jews as collaborators with the secular demons of laissez-faire capitalism and liberal democracy.

Thus, as the center of civilization shifted from Church and King to the nation state, anti-Semitism, at least outwardly, lost its religious focus. Foes of the Jews who aspired to power cast them as diabolical puppeteers who controlled the state; anti-Semites in power libeled them as seditious parasites who undermined it. This was the milieu that produced the foundational document of political conspiracism, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.

Purporting to be the minutes of an international meeting of evil Jewish elites, “The Protocols” was a detailed outline of how the Jews would enslave and exploit humankind. First circulated in the Russian empire, it was then exported by charlatans and military officers and spread throughout the world. Effectively the first “fake news”, the pamphlet, which Cohn memorably called a “warrant for genocide”, still flourishes today, especially in Arab and Muslim countries.

While it is a quintessentially modern document, “The Protocols” owes a clear debt to medieval thought. Murder, greed, warmongering, enslavement, false consciousness, opposition to the truth, and betrayal of the good are all explicit in the work.

...The Nazis furnish the best testament to the lethal power of this sinister little book. Look how indebted to it Joseph Goebbels revealed them to be:

“Jewry has so deeply infected the Anglo-Saxon states both spiritually and politically that they are no longer have the ability to see or accept the danger. It conceals itself as Bolshevism in the Soviet Union, and plutocratic-capitalism in the Anglo-Saxon states. The Jewish race has always been an expert at mimicry, that is, the systematic ability to fade into its surroundings. We know that from our own past. They put their host peoples to sleep, they drug them, paralyzing their ability to defend themselves against the life-threatening danger from Jewry.”

...Today’s conspiracist blends the mindset of the medieval magician with the viciousness of the inquisitor. The old fears about crop-fouling and well-poisoning, for example, are now directed at GMOs and fluoride in the water. The idea that doctors and sorcerers were one and the same surfaces in paranoia about AIDS and vaccines. And flat-earthers rehearse astrological debates about the cosmos.

But the Jews remain a primary target.

And it’s anti-Semitism’s source in conspiracy theory that renders it so different from non-conspiracist forms of racism, like anti-blackness.

As with most racism, antiblack bias constructs an underclass to be exploited or avoided. It positions blacks as inferior to whites and charges them with stereotypes that signal weakness: They are libeled as lazy, stupid, lustful, criminal, and animalistic.

The conspiracy theory of anti-Semitism turns this on its head. The Jew becomes a magical creature: Brilliant, cunning, greedy, stealthy, wealthy, and powerful beyond measure. Anti-Semitism imagines a diabolic overclass to be exposed and resisted.

...Above all else, anti-Semitism is a conspiracy theory about the maleficent Jewish elite. And it’s this that makes it easy to disguise as a politics of liberation, or at least, to embed anti-Semitism quietly in efforts for social justice.

...It’s critical to note that Americans are not accustomed to recognizing, let alone understanding, a sizable portion of anti-Semitism, because it typically doesn’t resemble antiblackness — the horrific down-punching form of racism that haunts American history and reverberates into the present.

But this blindness doesn’t just make space for anti-Semites to operate domestically; it occludes our sense of the history of other parts of the world (do you remember the concept of conspiracy theory coming up during your education on the Holocaust? Me neither).

...In the spring of 2016, the Stanford University Student Senate debated a resolution, undertaken in light of strident activism on campus against Israel, to condemn anti-Semitism, citing conspiracy theories about “the power of Jews as a collective—especially but not exclusively, the myth about… Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

A student senator named Gabriel Knight objected that the resolution would “irresponsibly” stifle what he thought was a “very valid discussion.” He admonished that “Questioning these potential power dynamics… is not anti-Semitism.”

A week ago, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a rant of over two hours to assemble Palestinian leaders. He alleged wild conspiracies, raving in what would have been news to Anne Frank that “[The Western powers] wanted to bring Jews here from Europe to maintain European interests in the region. They asked Holland, which had the largest navy in the world, to transfer the Jews.”

...Neither of these episodes would have been likely if we primarily understood anti-Semitism as a conspiracy theory. If he had recognized anti-Semitism as a paranoid religion that offers vulgar salvation to the oppressed, Gabriel Knight might not have insisted on interrogating the privilege of Jews. If J Street’s leaders [who publicly decried Abbas’ comments] knew the classic tropes of conspiracism, they would have heard in Abbas’ drug-dealing canard and Holocaust denial echoes of something too big to be laid at the feet of an American politician — two thousand European years of fanatical dualism, feudal fatalism, superstition, fear, and cleansing violence.

Americans are — thankfully — tuned to detect and deplore racism that punches down. But we must broaden our perspective if we want to reverse the progress of anti-Semitism, which punches up toward mass murder and extermination.

So when the ADL reports that incidents of anti-Semitism rose by 67% in 2017, view it in this light. That’s what it means when white supremacists march and shout, “Jews will not replace us!” This form of hatred thrives in conditions where demagogues undermine the institutions of liberal democracy.

We live in a time of hateful rhapsody where truth is relative and fear prevails.

This is a conspiracist moment and it’s bad for the Jews.

Read John-Paul Pagano’s full piece at the Forward.

#everyone should really read the full piece #it's everything i've been screaming for years #John Paul Pagano #antisemitism #Conspiracy Theories #long post #forward

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nataliesnews · 3 years

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Subject: Fwd: The relevant Holocaust lesson for each individual 11.4.2021

Subject: Fwd: The relevant Holocaust lesson for each individual

To:

The text is also in the appendix for the convenience of reading ------ the relevant Holocaust lesson for the individual citizen

Olek Netzer

This year I took advantage of my privileged status as a Holocaust survivor and appeared in this role in "Memory in the Living Room" to convey the lessons of the Holocaust to those gathered. I decided to settle for the relevant Holocaust lessons for each individual, so as not to provoke too much commotion.

The lesson of the Holocaust relevant to the country, its government and its rulers, is clear and agreed on everything: to be strong in the face of enemies so that it does not happen to us again. This lesson is applied in the loyalty of the government, the army, the security services, the right and the left, education and culture in the country. The children of Israel visiting Auschwitz wear the state flag on their backs - the armor that protects us and the essence of the lesson that is taught and applied in practice.

For you, every citizen and every individual, the lesson of living in a strong Jewish state is not enough. The fact that Zionism has removed us from the place of sacrifice in history does not make us immune from the danger that is approaching the place of the perpetrators of the Holocaust, to tyranny, aggression, national-racial superiority and dehumanization of those who are not ours. All the more so, the fact that you or you are citizens of a strong and controlling state does not make you immune from the possibility that you will be like a mass ruin of the German people, who closed their eyes or "did not know" because they did not want to know how behind fences and walls they suppressed and abused Jews and millions of other gypsies, people of all nations and Germans, homosexuals and everyone who opposed them.

The lesson of the Holocaust requires each and every one of you to think seriously about not being like the ones who caused or made it possible for the Holocaust. Especially, if you are big patriots and supporters of the governmental power establishment - because then you are in a particularly high risk group.

The first lesson I would like you to adopt is humanity. The Nazis exterminated six million Jews, for whom they were not human beings. The truth is that they destroyed six million people, each one unique, each different, each equal to me and every other person in the world in his right to life, liberty, and just treatment. A Holocaust is possible only if one sins against the sin of dehumanization while humanity is the ultimate vaccine against it. Now, try to apply this lesson to yourself and your opinions in Israel 2021: Every Arab is a person, everyone is unique, everyone is different, everyone is equal to us in his right to life, freedom, and fair treatment. The lesson of the Holocaust requires acknowledging this and you will draw your own conclusions.

The most important lesson I would want you to adopt belongs to our humanity. You are human beings, not angels and not higher beings or higher race. Even as Jews who fight the Israeli wars in practice or in spirit - you are only human beings who can make mistakes and sin. "To develop a lying sin" - this also includes our development. Even when we wear military uniforms or sit in government, we as human beings may err and sin. "And you were very much saved for your souls" ... from sins and crimes in relation to our enemies. "

This lesson is so burning that fanatics, zealots of their people or religion, including those like the Nazis - fascists and terrorists of all kinds - are also human beings ... normal human beings with normal opinions in terms of the society in which they live and with which they identify. As normal human beings, you would not be able to hold your opinions and defend your actions if you were not right in your own eyes. Fanatics must have justification, Torah, "ideology" - otherwise they would come into incompatible conflict with the supreme values of every normal person: sanity, morality, truth, justice. So ladies and gentlemen, anyone who feels in relation to the conflict that has dominated our lives since we were born that "we are always good and just - they are always bad and guilty" or something like that - the lessons of the Holocaust require you to examine yourself individually and together lest you make mistakes and sin in your actions. You are only human.

And another lesson I took from the Holocaust: if you feel that there is a danger here of a rise in fascist moods, of moral brutality, of dehumanization of the Arabs and of verbal violence instead of discourse; If you experience violent reactions to your opinions and unwillingness to discuss, consider and listen - do not complete and do not be left alone. Do not wait for it to pass, because if you wait it will not pass but will strengthen and surround you as well. Reach out to people near and far by trying to create communication, not quarrel. Do not argue but listen respectfully to the person, and when the outburst from the other side ends, convey only the message of humanity: You are only a human being like me - you know you may be wrong. You know you may sin in your relationship to the other side of the conflict. And they, our enemies, the Arabs or the leftists, are also human beings like you, each one unique, each one entitled to life, liberty, and to be treated justly.

And for those who are religious - remember that God is a judge of justice and does not make any moral assumptions for Jews.

#Subject: Fwd: The relevant Holocaust lesson for each individual

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newstfionline · 4 years

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Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Children Are Sleeping on Mats in Overcrowded Border Facilities (NYT) Migrant children are being forced to sleep on gym mats with foil sheets and go for days without showering as the Border Patrol struggles to handle thousands of young Central Americans who are surging across the southwestern border, some of them as young as a year old. Children are arriving in groups and alone, some of them clutching phone numbers of relatives scrawled on little pieces of paper, according to two court-appointed lawyers who are monitoring conditions at facilities along the border. Many of the children interviewed by the lawyers in recent days said they had not been allowed outdoors for days on end, confined to an overcrowded tent. “It’s an urgent situation. These children are caught up in a crisis,” said Leecia Welch, a lawyer who visited a holding facility for migrant children in Donna, Texas, that was built to house 250 people but which last week was holding about 1,000. More than 9,400 minors—ranging from young children to teenagers—arrived along the border without parents in February, a nearly threefold increase over last year at the same time, presenting the Biden administration with an urgent humanitarian challenge as it opens the door to children and gradually welcomes in families fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.

Automakers embrace electric vehicles. But what about buyers? (AP) The world’s major automakers have made something abundantly clear: They believe electric vehicles will dominate their industry in the years ahead. Yet for that to happen, they’ll need to sell the idea to people like Steve Bock. When Bock recently replaced his family’s 2013 Honda Pilot SUV, he considered—and then dismissed—the idea of buying an electric vehicle. An EV with enough room to carry his two dogs would cost too much, he decided. And he’d worry about driving long distances with too few charging stations. “I would consider it if the prices would come down,” Bock said, though leaving open the possibility of buying an electric vehicle next time. Opinion polls show that a substantial majority of Americans are aligned with Bock. An EV might be on their shopping list if it cost less, if more charging stations existed and if a wider variety of models were available. In other words, the time isn’t right. For now, EVs make up less than 2% of U.S. new-vehicle sales and about 3% worldwide.

A global minimum tax on multinationals? (Washington Post) Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is working with her counterparts worldwide to forge an agreement on a global minimum tax on multinational corporations, as the White House looks for revenue to help pay for President Biden’s domestic agenda. The effort, which would involve a fraught and challenging global negotiation of tax laws, could prove one of Yellen’s biggest policy legacies if it succeeds. It also could prove central to Biden’s presidency. The $1.9 trillion stimulus legislation signed into law last week was financed completely by additional federal borrowing. But the administration is expected to raise taxes at least partly to pay for its other big-ticket spending priorities, such as the massive infrastructure and jobs package being discussed by White House officials and congressional Democrats.

Stimulus payments are already arriving (Vox) Stimulus checks have begun to arrive in Americans’ bank accounts—just days after President Joe Biden authorized them by signing the American Rescue Plan into law. The speed with which eligible Americans are receiving their third and largest stimulus checks to date during the coronavirus pandemic—less than two months into Biden’s presidency—is a political victory for a president who was unable to garner bipartisan support for his bill, but was still able to swiftly pass a sweeping relief package along party lines. As Vox’s Emily Stewart explains, most Americans will be eligible for $1,400 stimulus checks: The full checks will go out to single people making up to $75,000 and couples making up to $150,000, and phase out at $80,000 and $160,000, based on 2019 or 2020 tax returns, depending on when people last filed their taxes. Previous checks phased out at higher income levels, meaning some people who got checks in previous rounds won’t get them this time. However, the legislation includes checks for adult dependents, such as college students and people with disabilities, for the first time.

Roughly 4 in 5 Manhattan Office Workers Will Not Return Full-Time, Survey Says (NBC New York) Manhattan’s largest employers are starting to plan for the post-COVID future of work, and it seems most of them are giving up on the traditional way of doing things. Just 22 percent of the island’s large employers will require all workers to return to the office full-time when they do eventually go back, according to a Partnership for New York City survey. Some 66 percent said they would adopt a hybrid model of days in the office and days at home, another 9 percent said they would not require workers to return to the office at all, and 4 percent said it would ultimately be role-dependent. Whatever model they choose, employers don’t seem to be in much of a rush either. Survey respondents said they expect just 45 percent of Manhattan’s roughly 1 million office workers to be back to the office by this September.

Here’s looking at you, England (Wired) The future coming at you: For the last two years police and internet companies across the UK have been quietly building and testing surveillance technology that could log and store the web browsing of every single person in the country. The tests, which are being run by two unnamed internet service providers, the Home Office, and the National Crime Agency, are being conducted under controversial surveillance laws introduced at the end of 2016. If successful, data collection systems could be rolled out nationally, creating one of the most powerful and controversial surveillance tools used by any democratic nation.

Europe’s vaccine mess (NYT) The number of new Covid-19 cases is declining, often sharply, in countries that have vaccinated a large share of residents. That’s the situation in Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Britain. Cases are also declining in the U.S. And on the other end of the spectrum is the European continent, where vaccine rollout has been slow, and new cases are surging. Europe—the first place where the coronavirus caused widespread death—is facing the prospect of being one of the last places to emerge from its grip. My colleague Jason Horowitz writes from Rome: “Governments are putting exhausted populations under lockdown. Street protests are turning violent. A year after the virus began spreading in Europe, things feel unnervingly the same.” As Eyck Freymann and Elettra Ardissino write in Foreign Policy: “Spring in the European Union is going to be dismal.” Bild, a German newspaper, recently ran the headline “Liebe Briten, We Beneiden You!”—a mixture of German and English that means “Dear Brits, We Envy You!” Wolfgang Münchau of Eurointelligence has said that Europe’s vaccination program rivals the continent’s budget austerity of recent years as “the E.U.’s worst policy error during my lifetime.” Over the summer, the U.S. was struggling more than any other country to contain Covid. Today, Europe appears to be in much worse shape.

Beijing haze (Reuters) China’s worst sandstorm in a decade caused mass disruptions on Monday as swaths of the country were engulfed in a thick, orange haze of dust and sand, forcing authorities to cancel hundreds of flights, shutter roads and schools, and suspend outdoor activities. In Beijing, poor visibility paralyzed traffic as residents posted photos of skyscrapers seemingly disappearing into the fog and compared images of the eerie haze to scenes in the dystopian 1982 film “Blade Runner.”

North Korea warns US not to ‘cause a stink’ before Seoul meeting (AP) In North Korea’s first comments directed at the Biden administration, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister on Tuesday warned the United States to “refrain from causing a stink” if it wants to “sleep in peace” for the next four years. Kim Yo Jong’s statement was issued as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Asia to talk with U.S. allies Japan and South Korea about North Korea and other regional issues. They have meetings in Tokyo on Tuesday before speaking to officials in Seoul on Wednesday. “We take this opportunity to warn the new U.S. administration trying hard to give off (gun) powder smell in our land,” she said. “If it wants to sleep in peace for coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step.”

As Israelis head back to elections, there’s a new twist: Democrats in Washington (Washington Post) Israeli voters, trapped for two years in a vote-rinse-repeat cycle of toss-up elections, are about to go to the polls for a fourth time with at least one new factor to consider: Their next prime minister—even if it is their old prime minister—will have to deal with Democrats. Since the last campaign, the Republicans in Washington that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has held in a bear hug for more than a decade are out. The Democrats he largely alienated are ascendant. In Israel, however, the Netanyahu era has shifted the center of Israeli politics sharply to right not just in tone but on substance, bringing once-fringe positions into the mainstream and posing a challenge for any reset in relations with the Democrats. Even centrist parties have supported recent calls for Israel to annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, and all but one of Netanyahu’s main election challengers have renounced the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like him, they are deeply skeptical of President Biden’s diplomatic outreach to Iran. Netanyahu, who is battling corruption charges in an ongoing criminal trial, is scrambling to extend his record 14 years in office by reaching even further to the right for new partners. He recently embraced the remnants of the banned Kahanist party, a Jewish extremist group that called for stripping Israel’s Arab citizens of their voting rights. His next coalition, should he prevail, would probably be the most conservative of any of the candidates’.

After a decade of war, the plight of Syrian refugees is only getting worse (Washington Post) Ten years ago, protesters clamoring for political reform in Syria took to the streets, hoping for change. Instead, there has only been ruin and chaos. The past decade has shattered the nation and scattered its people. More than half of the population was forced to flee. “The United Nations stopped counting the dead in 2016 at 400,000. Six million Syrians fled their homeland, escaping across its borders into neighboring countries,” wrote my colleague Liz Sly. “Five million are still stranded, barely surviving in substandard conditions. A million climbed into flimsy boats to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.” Even as foreign humanitarian aid dwindles, millions still languish in limbo in countries bordering Syria, living on the margins of the societies hosting them but too afraid of the grim fate that may await should they try to return. Conditions are only getting worse. “Poverty and food insecurity are on the rise, school enrollment and access to health care are shrinking, and the COVID-19 pandemic has wiped out much of the informal work that refugees rely on,” noted a recent report from the U.N.’s refugee agency. “People are at a breaking point,” UNHCR senior communications adviser Rula Amin told CBS News. While “the attention of the world has shifted from the Syria crisis and people tend to think that maybe it has become easier, with every passing year, it becomes more difficult, not easier for Syrian refugees.”

#headlines #news

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garudabluffs · 5 years

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American Exceptionalism Is Making Earth Uninhabitable “Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch, I’ve been arguing against America’s forever wars, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere. Unfortunately, it’s no surprise that, despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities ruined. And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of America’s wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?

“Sadly, there isn’t just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.”

“In waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.

So why do America’s disastrous wars persist? I can think of many reasons, some obvious and easy to understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here’s another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise a self-professed hawk on the subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end “endless wars” but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive F-35 fighter jet. The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking of peace. And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his inauguration he’s sent more troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other air strikes, something about which he openly boasts.

War, in other words, is our new normal, America’s default position on global affairs, and peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against the Taliban, ISIS, “terror” more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia or China, is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an unprecedented 800 or so military bases, when you configure your armed forces for what’s called power projection, when you divide the globe — the total planet — into areas of dominance (with acronyms like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you spend more on your military than the next seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion) already quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a reality of endless war?

Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn’t an “exceptional” belief system, what is?

If we’re ever to put an end to our country’s endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war’s many uses in American life and culture.

War, Its Uses (and Abuses)

A partial list of war’s many uses might go something like this: war is profitable, most notably for America’s vast military-industrial complex; war is sold as being necessary for America’s safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that “freedom isn’t free.” In our politics today, it’s far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.

As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it, war is a force that gives us meaning. And let’s face it, a significant part of America’s meaning in this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being the world’s sole superpower.

And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In an age of gaping inequality, using up the country’s resources in such profligate and destructive ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the many.

In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn’t. In a nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive, anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as “great captains.”

What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment — not against communist expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What’s stopping us from containing war? You might say that, in some sense, we’ve grown addicted to it, which is true enough, but here are five additional reasons for war’s enduring presence in American life:

The delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore winnable: No American leader wants to be labeled a “loser.” Meanwhile, such dubious conflicts — see: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with several more years, or even generations, to go — continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though they visibly aren’t. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully resisted the Pentagon’s siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off.

American society’s almost complete isolation from war’s deadly effects: We’re not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though they’re certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure, thanks in part to the cost of those overseas wars). It’s nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the media or elsewhere, this country’s never-ending war-making gets here.

Unnecessary and sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially don’t know about? Learning its lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn’t because the enemy could exploit such details — the enemy already knows! — but because the American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden, pursued and indicted for sharing honest details about the calamitous Iraq War and America’s invasive and intrusive surveillance state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be truth-tellers.

An unrepresentative government: Long ago, of course, Congress ceded to the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite recent attempts to end America’s arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden by Donald Trump’s veto power), America’s duly elected representatives generally don’t represent the people when it comes to this country’s disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly, largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech (thank you, Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in Congress than you and I ever will.

America’s persistent empathy gap. Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we’re actually doing to them. Even our globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast bases, referred to in the military as “Little Americas,” complete with familiar stores, fast food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives, these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.

All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang of a “peace train” that was “soundin’ louder” in America. Today, that peace train’s been derailed and replaced by an armed and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual war — and that train is indeed soundin’ louder to the great peril of us all.

War on Spaceship Earth

Here’s the rub, though: even the Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is climate change, not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his administration of arsonists its officials can’t express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might. Assuming we don’t annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our real enemy is the endless war we’re waging against Planet Earth.

“Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.”

The U.S. military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only wants to grow more so, but what’s welfare for the military brass isn’t wellness for the planet.

There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since we’re all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we’re its crewmembers, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely to survive, no less thrive.

In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.

Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the existence of significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures to rise even as food and other resources dwindle. Under the circumstances, what’s the best strategy for survival: killing each other while ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?

Unfortunately, for America’s leaders, the real “fixes” remain global military and resource domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as we’ve seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President Trump’s recently stated desire to keep U.S. troops in Syria to steal that country’s oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a miniscule percentage of the world’s petroleum.

If America’s wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it’s that every war scars our planet — and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.

Despite all of war’s uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, it’s time that we Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few enough of us experience “our” wars firsthand and that’s precisely why some idealize their purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes everyone involved into a murderer.

We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship Earth.

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courtneytincher · 5 years

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Netanyahu Lost. His Enemies Won. But Who Can Govern Israel?

Jack Guez/AFP/GettyThe strangest episode of Israel’s raucous election—the second in six months—flickered by almost unnoticed, one clip among the 30 videos Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted to his YouTube channel in the final two days before Tuesday’s vote.Lush with images of sleek Israelis surfing off Tel Aviv beaches and sipping coffee and cocktails in a succession of inviting bars and cafés, it almost looked like a product of the tourism ministry— until the part where you see a woman’s toes peek beyond a blanket, reaching out to tease the toes of the man sharing the bed with her, and those manly toes turning away.“Right-wing voters have to wake up!” the caption blared. “On Tuesday, you have to go out to vote Likud, and bring family and friends!”The Likud is Netanyahu’s party, and the ad was meant as a counter-incentive. Netanyahu’s pitch can be summed up thus: Don’t sleep with your hot girlfriend. Don’t go to the beach. Don’t enjoy Tel Aviv’s great cafés. Go out and vote for me!If Netanyahu was concerned about voter fatigue, he needn’t have worried.Turnout was a few points higher than it was in the April 9 vote, despite fresh memories of the night six weeks later in which Netanyahu acknowledged he’d failed to form a coalition government and—instead of returning the mandate to Israel’s President, Reuven Rivlin—dissolved the parliament and sent Israel into second elections.On first glance it looks like Israelis returned a second inconclusive verdict, this time with gusto.The apparent draw between Netanyahu’s Likud and the main opposition party, Blue and White, led by former army chief of staff Benny Gantz, with each claiming about 33 seats out of the parliament’s 120, seems to indicate that Israelis have no idea what they want.On second glance, it is clear that Netanyahu, who has dominated Israeli politics for decades and has served as prime minister for the last ten years, lost—if only because all of his perceived enemies won.Netanyahu ran his campaign as if he was besieged in a bunker, regularly taking aim at sham nemeses.He deemed Avigdor Lieberman, a hardline secular nationalist best known for advocating the death penalty for terrorists, “a leftist.”Lieberman, Netanyahu’s former defense minister, triggered both the elections of 2019, first by resigning in December 2018, and then by refusing in May to join a coalition beholden to the demands of ultra-orthodox Jewish parties. Lieberman’s wager paid off, and he has come close to doubling the number of seats his party holds in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to a projected eight or nine.Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute, in Jerusalem, said “Lieberman is the ultimate kingmaker. Netanyahu does not have a government without Lieberman. Lieberman can really dictate the makeup, to a certain extent, of the next government.”Official elections results are expected on Sept. 25, after the certification of the ballot counts, which is conducted by hand.Netanyahu attacked the media from the start to the end of his campaign, complaining, in his 3 a.m. Wednesday not-concession speech delivered before a largely empty hall, that the press had forced him to contend with "the most difficult, the most biased campaign ever."But the press got it right this time, forecasting that he would be left without room to maneuver ahead of the Oct. 2 hearing at which his attorney general, who announced his intention to indict Netanyahu on a raft of corruption charges last February, will lay out the evidence against him. Netanyahu, Facing Indictments, Rains Scorn on His Political EnemiesSuch is Netanyahu’s predicament that on Wednesday, he canceled his participation in next week’s United Nations General Assembly, one of his favorite events of the year.Gantz vows to pursue peace with the Palestinians, to institute term limits, and, has unrelentingly promised his supporters that he will never join a government including Netanyahu while he remains a criminal suspect.This stance seems to rule out a possible government of national unity, in which Blue and White would sit together with the Likud.This electoral dead end is leading observers to envisage what was once unthinkable: a unity government in which Likud would be led by someone else.In the event the party, hungry to hold on to power, ousts Netanyahu as its leader, “a new chairman of the Likud might be able to form a government with Blue and White, and then we will probably witness an outcome of a rotation of the position of the Prime Minister between Mr. Gantz and whoever the Likud will elect,” Plesner says, predicting that Israel is “about to enter a period of political uncertainty.”Throughout his campaign, Netanyahu reserved his most vicious, most uncompromising, and finally most unhinged attacks for Israel’s Arab minority, 20 percent of the population and about 16 percent of the voting public, whose participation in the last vote sunk to an historic low. He accused Arab politicians of supporting terrorism. He accused his opponent, Gantz, a decorated general, of conspiring with Arab leaders to name them ministers.Netanyahu also accused Gantz of concealing the fact that Iran had hacked his phone, obtaining sleazy photographs proving sexual misbehavior—an accusation that appears to have been invented out of whole cloth.In the campaign’s frenzied final week, Netanyahu tried to rush through the Knesset a law allowing his party to hide cameras in Arab polling places—as it did, illegally, in April, causing an uproar. The bill failed. And he became the first head of government to be sanctioned by Facebook for hate speech, when his page sent out messages warning that “Arabs want to annihilate us all – women, children and men.”The Joint List, a majority-Arab party, that ran as several disparate factions in April, mobilized a major get-out-the-vote operation, apparently surging to 13 seats and becoming Israel’s third largest party, after the Likud and Blue and White.With an Arab, Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh, who exulted late Tuesday that “incitement didn’t work!” and a "leftist," Avigdor Lieberman, poised to play kingmakers, the election results constitute a Netanyahu nightmare. “Netanyahu was defeated,” Ehud Olmert, a former prime minister and Likud elder, told The Daily Beast in an interview, “he lost, and as far as we can see, there is no feasible way he could form a new coalition.”But since it looks “doubtful that any possible coalition would achieve the support of 61 Knesset members,” Olmert said, “it is likely there will be another round of elections in early 2020.”For Israel to once again have a stable government, the only solution Olmert sees is another round of elections “very soon.” But unlike Netanyahu’s opponents, who have spent the past year admonishing the public about the danger the prime minister poses to Israeli democracy, Olmert is sanguine.“The country’s democratic foundations are very stable,” he said, “and there is no real fear they are being undermined.” Not only that, he said, mentioning the United Kingdom, “the difficulty of ruling a state is not just an Israeli phenomenon… These are relatively common phenomena and Israel is no exception.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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debrahnesbit · 5 years

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The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 15: Cows, Cars, and Copyright – A Conversation With Myra Tawfik on the IP Concerns With Implementing the USMCA

The new NAFTA – dubbed the USMCA or CUSMA depending on where you live – took a significant step forward recently with the introduction of Canadian legislation designed to ratify the treaty. The economic implications of the agreement are enormous, particularly with respect to digital issues and intellectual property. Myra Tawfik, a law professor at the University of Windsor and Senior Fellow with CIGI, joins the podcast this week to discuss Canada’s longstanding history of facing external pressure on copyright, the role that trade negotiations now play with that pressure, and the implications of the USMCA.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Canada Introduces USMCA Implementation Bill…Without a Copyright Term Extension Provision

Credits:

CBC News, Canada Introduces NAFTA 2.0 Implementation Bill CNBC, Trump: Trade Deal Protects Patents, Intellectual Property Globe and Mail, Flashback: President Clinton’s Original Signing of NAFTA Into Law in 1993 CNBC, Key Differences Between the New USMCA Trade Deal and NAFTA

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 15 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix

Michael Geist: This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

CBC News: Signed sealed and now delivered to the House of Commons. Just last hour the Federal Government tabled a bill to implement the new NAFTA a deal that Canada the US and Mexico reached six months ago after 15 months of negotiations.

Justin Trudeau: Canada the US and Mexico are at our most efficient most secure and most profitable. When we work together. And it’s about time we got back to that way of thinking. Mr Speaker, the new NAFTA will secure access to a trading zone that accounts for more than a quarter of the global economy. And it’s now time for the members of this House to ratify it.

Donald Trump: Likewise it will be the most advanced trade deal in the world with ambitious provisions on the digital economy, patents very important.

Michael Geist: The new NAFTA, dubbed the USMCA or CUSMA depending on where you live, took a significant step forward recently with the introduction of Canadian legislation designed to ratify the treaty. Bill C-100 comes near the end of the legislative session and just months before a federal election but the government may still work to rush it through the parliamentary process. The economic implications of the agreement are enormous. As Professor Myra Tawfik, my guest on this week’s podcast has noted it, touches on everything from cows to cars to copyright. Professor Tawfik is a leading copyright expert at the University of Windsor and a senior fellow with CIGI, the Centre for International Governance Innovation. She joined me to talk about Canada’s long standing history of facing external pressure on copyright, the role that trade negotiations now play with that pressure, and the implications of the USMCA.

Michael Geist: Mayra thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.

Myra Tawfik: Thank you for having me it’s a pleasure to be here.

Michael Geist: Well it’s great to have you and it comes at a time where there is a lot certainly taking place from an intellectual property perspective. We’ve had just this week as we’re recording this another copyright review which will have significant consequences for where things go but but even more there is now a bill at the house that deals with the implementation and ratification of the new NAFTA, the USMCA, which has significant implications for intellectual property as well. And so I thought we could focus a bit on what’s in the bill but even more the very issue that that IP becomes an important part of these trade deals which we can take people by surprise. So why don’t we start there.

Myra Tawfik: IP hasn’t always been a big part of trade deals. I mean it was NAFTA actually that the first NAFTA, the original NAFTA that introduced the concept of having intellectual property rights as part of international free trade agreements.

Bill Clinton: I’d also like to welcome here the representatives from Mexico and Canada and tell them they are in fact welcome here. They are our partners in the future that we are trying to make together.

Myra Tawfik: And that was a significant shift. So we’re talking sort of what are we talking about sort of 25, 30 years ago where the the U.S. particularly started to think about ways in which it could maintain and grow its advantage in the international trade landscape and IP of course in the U.S. is sort of a huge developer and exporter of intellectual property. And I think that’s has had a fundamental shift in the way intellectual property rights have been viewed both domestically and within the international framework. So NAFTA was the first to do it. So it’s a fairly you know in the grand scheme of things it’s it’s not that that long ago. But from NAFTA to the WTO TRIPS and onward to every international trade negotiation and trade agreement since then there has been an intellectual property code in most of them.

Michael Geist: Ok. And when you talk about international code and these trade agreements I assume we’re talking about everything from the new Canada- EU trade agreement, the TPP the Asia trade agreement, this isn’t just a U.S. Canada Mexico thing. This is global in scope.

Myra Tawfik: It is global in scope. It is although if you if you look at some of the bilateral trade agreements that Canada has entered into since NAFTA and TRIPS sort of you know a number of them with some some of the South American countries et cetera we you know we we haven’t necessarily put intellectual property in those trade agreements which suggests to me sort of you know Canada’s you know Canada’s perspective within this context that IP rights or IP codes within trade agreements may not necessarily be to our priority of ours but yeah absolutely. So at particularly every trade agreement in which the U.S. is involved or the European Union you’ll find you know these intellectual property provisions or intellectual property code name calling codes but sort of you know chapters that deal specifically with the various forms of intellectual property rights. And what we’ve seen over the years from this from NAFTA as the beginning adapted WTO TRIPS is an increasing kind of attention to raising and enhancing and strengthening the intellectual property rights with each trade iteration of these new trade agreements.

Michael Geist: So that’s interesting because it suggests that Canada’s participation in these trade negotiations and agreements and then ultimately with these IP chapters isn’t something that’s necessarily a priority for the country if you take a look at the recent Israel agreement, the South Korea agreement or some of the other agreements. It’s not Canada that is pushing this you’re suggesting this is this is coming in this case from the United States.

Myra Tawfik: Yeah I think that’s correct. I mean you know I think you know I do. If you look at kind of you know over the long term the centuries you know at least a couple of centuries of Canadian involvement in international intellectual property rights especially the international copyright space but generally, we’ve always been somewhat sort of ambivalent about you know where where we should place ourselves as a middle power, generally an importer of intellectual property so it’ll always it’s always going to cost us more sort of to buy the IP from elsewhere and obviously the US looms large not only kind of in you know in the practical realities of of us engaging with US in in you know imports and exports of you know copyright works et cetera but also just sort of in terms of you know a dominance you know sort of thing that this sort of there’s a you know sort of a psychology around our relationship with the United States that you know that you can trace that way back you know to the 19th century. So you know it’s not it is it is always sort of this this you know ambivalence about what our what our place should be within these these intellectual property international intellectual property system. And it is usually the U.S. that looms large kind of in. In determining our approach to to a great extent not totally but to a great extent.

Michael Geist: You’re one of the leading copyright historians in the country can I want to come to today. But you know I can’t help it but ask you ask you to sort of expand a bit on sort of the history side and since we’ve seen this for decades if not centuries in terms of U.S. pressure on Canada.

Myra Tawfik: Yeah. No I know we want to talk about today but I do think I mean one of the things about looking back in time is you start to see a picture that is sort of more kind of longitudinal and evolves over over centuries in our case. But you know there there was one of the most poignant things about doing copyright history is to realize that there was probably a there was only about a decade and this was prior to confederation where Canada or Canadian colonies at the time actually had autonomy to determine their own sort of intellectual property laws to do the course and the policy underlying the intellectual property laws and by the mid 19th century the U.S. had become sort of a very important force in you know with with Britain. I mean was still a British colony at the time. But the point is it sort of became it started to assert its own economic and cultural interests in a global space by the the middle of the 19th century. And we were caught up in that.

Myra Tawfik: And so every time sort of the US sort of had to add up a dispute with UK over the imports of British copyright works etc. We got caught in the crossfire because our market became a bargaining chip for the British for example to try and enter into some kind of compromise agreement with the United States and so I know it’s there I do want to get it is too much to get into the detail but the point is that you know with every international trade agreement including the Berne Convention I’m not trade but the copyright agreement the Berne Convention we’ve always been sort of there’s been this ambivalence because we can’t detach ourselves from the reality that we love to consume American entertainment and other products sort of in the copyright space but we also don’t we lose control then autonomy over how to determine our own policy interests and therefore how to chart our legislative course in a way that matches those. And what we’ve tended to do is adopt multilateralism I mean that somehow that that there’s strength in numbers and that we should sort of be you know good international citizens and that we’re better off kind of in a regional or multilateral agreements than on our own. And I think that’s generally been a good approach for us but it does mean that particularly on the internal intellectual property front we are often dictated to by you know by others whose standards are by definition you know necessarily higher than ours, because they are the ones that are producing the intellectual property that we’re consuming and I. And that has been a pattern sort of you know I mean I say I won’t go into the detail it’s fantastic history but it it has been our pattern and I don’t know. I mean I think work arriving at a moment where we are actually engaging. I see it with greater maturity in these international negotiations. I mean there are some of some parts of Canada U.S. Mexico agreement that that are actually sort of do you know take into account Canadian interests the cultural industry’s exemption which we had in the first NAFTA, the notice and notice kind of preservation of notice and notice, I mean those are things that you could see sort of Canada’s identity or autonomy coming through. But on the whole every time we’ve entered into any of these international trade agreements it’s because someone else and usually the United States has wanted to impose higher standards because it serves their interests. So we’ve often adopted sort of international principles or rules that serve the interests of other countries rather than first and foremost our own and that on that point that has been our history for a long long time.

Michael Geist: Amazing to think that there’s nothing new here in the sense of facing pressure from the United States and ultimately as part of that broader trading relationship being willing to give on the intellectual property side presumably in the expectation that there were gains elsewhere.

Myra Tawfik: Right. That’s right.

Michael Geist: So I do want to touch on some of the places where we may have shown that greater maturity or willingness to stand up for ourselves. But I guess first let’s just make sure people are familiar with the landscape here. The USMCA or CUSMCA depending on which country you and what acronym you want to use. There is of course still some doubt as to whether or not we’ll get ratified it is rather old disorienting to the extent to which you had the U.S. vice president promoting the trade agreement in Canada at the same time that Trump was threatening new tariffs on Mexico suggests that this may not go anywhere. But what if it does Canada clearly wants to be ready. They’ve now put forward a bill that allows them to do that for someone new to the issue thinking about intellectual property. What’s the what’s the what’s the biggest issue in there in that bill do you think?

Myra Tawfik: I think that while the biggest issue again because you know my my bias is towards copyright is is sort of the term what we call the term extension so the the the obligation that Canada will have to extend the term of copyright protection what from what it currently is which is life as the creator of the copyright work plus 50 years after the death of that creator to to to move to move it or increase the term by 20 years to a life plus 70 duration of protection which is also the norm increasingly becoming the norm in in key international and key you know partners, international partners or an in in key jurisdictions like the European Union, the United States has a similar kind of you obviously as a life plus 70 term, Mexico I think still has a life plus a hundred term. But we have maintained and been very strong on maintaining our view that we should only abide by what we’re the minimum term that we’re required to do to to adhere to under the terms of the WTO TRIPS and the Berne Convention which is a life plus 50. So this will be significant.

Michael Geist: Yes there’s a change. It will. Thank you for that. It will be so just so we’re clear though Canada does currently meet its international obligations with the life plus 50.

Myra Tawfik: Absolutely. Canada has always met. I mean that’s what sort of Canada’s always met its international obligations. You know again if you go back over the parliamentary debates around Berne and or in and early in the 20th century we’ve always been very conscious and conscientious about meeting our international obligations. So there’s no doubt about that where where the quibbling is is in. You know that there is wiggle wiggle room in terms of these international treaties and there should be and some sort of other countries insist that we actually should be adhering to higher standards but we are we are adhering to our international commitments. Absolutely.

Michael Geist: Okay. What’s your argument then for you know that I know some of the answers, but I’d love to hear your perspective on what are some of the arguments then to extend copyright term if as a starting point we meet the international standard and if copyright is about creating incentives for creativity along with access. If we’re going to in a sense gift an extra two decades of protection to works that have been already created which is there a strong policy argument for extending term beyond this is the pressure we’re facing from the United States.

Myra Tawfik: Well I mean I see that the sort of the most kind of I suppose sort of benign or neutral argument is that you know the life plus 50 term sort of originated you know in the early late 19th early 20th century and that at the time it represented sort of the life of the author plus two generations basically as of heirs or you know estate that could could claim the copyright. In other words there was the sense that you know because the that the author the creator has created something sort of that’s worth you know worthy or worth something to posterity that the heirs should be able to claim after the author passes away. And so you’ve got sort of that that 50 50 as two generations and so that you know, well people are living longer and therefore it’s only natural to extend the term I mean it’s just a sort of a no brainer kind of thing you extend the term by 20 years because people are living longer so you’re you’re adhering to the same principle and you know recognizing the reality that you know and in our in our sort of century we’re living longer. And so what could be you know a problem with that.

Myra Tawfik: The other argument of course is because of the you know the international dynamic I mean one of the reasons or one of the pressures that comes from increasing intellectual property standards globally is that Canadian creators et cetera will start to realize or will feel that they’re actually disadvantaged or that you know the Canadian market is disadvantaged because there isn’t this sort of harmonization of the term by 20 years. And so they would put pressure again on on on Canada to meet what is now at you know notionally the claim is now becoming the international standard. And so you know I mean I find it I I. Obviously biased. I mean I don’t I don’t think first of all intellectual property rights were never intended to unlimited rights. I mean they’re they are limited for particular public policy purposes. And so the idea of continuously Oh it’s just 20 years it’s just another 10 or so people are living longer whatever it doesn’t persuade me that this is something that is in the best interests of Canadians as a whole. And Canada sort of as a country. So I find it hard. I mean you know those are the arguments that are put forward. But I think no matter what what you do any extension of copyright term you know it harms kind of the ability for people to access and work with the sort of ah ah you know cultural literary but you know sort of the also sometimes very technical practical software for example is a copyright work but to to enable us to engage with those works once a reasonable period has expired where the copyright holder has had the benefit of being able to exploit commercially the there there create the results of their creativity.

Myra Tawfik: So know I don’t if I answered the question but it’s hard. I find it difficult because I I feel fundamentally that that copyright should be limited in duration and that you know the argument that it’s just another 20 years because people are living longer doesn’t persuade me that it’s always necessarily a good thing to continue to heighten or strengthen copyright rights.

Michael Geist: So there and there is certainly is clear opposition to this notwithstanding that the Canadian Heritage Committee had to say in its review of some copyright and remuneration issues when it didn’t hear from anyone that was opposed to it it’s quite clear and we saw it in the other in the main copyright review that there is. And you’ve articulated the arguments for but also some of the costs because there are costs associated with it. So Canada has resisted this for some time both in terms of sticking to what they’ve done as well as taking it off the table in some other agreements for no mistake and including for example the CPTPP.

Myra Tawfik: That’s right. I mean I think the CPTPP is a really good example of where Canada positions itself in the international trade and IP landscape because if you look at sort of the original TPP when the U.S. was a participant you see a lot of the same kinds of provisions that we’re seeing and sort of NAFTA 2.0. But when the U.S. withdrew the agreement that ultimately signed if Canada participated in contains some suspensions of key intellectual property provisions which you know in other words again that the duration of copyright this extension of term was not included as part of an obligation or at least suspended. And in terms of an obligation under the CPTPP. So I think you get an indication there of where Canada’s feels more comfortable developing or whether increasing or remaining at you know its life the life plus 50 for example level which he has had is has been sort of the standard for for a long long time. So yeah I think there’s there’s there’s there’s evidence there of Canada’s position on these things and that’s a good example of Canada taking more of a lead lead once the U.S. withdrew to be it being able to carve out something that is maybe closer to where Canadian policymakers think the international IP system should the direction it should be taking.

Michael Geist: It strikes me that that we’ve seen an attempt to perhaps continue that even within this USMCA because in this bill I think most expected to see an extension in the term of copyright but we didn’t get it immediate. No no. The there is a transition period, two and a half year transitional period, and it would appear that Canada is intent on using that transition period to delay implementing an extension and perhaps thinking about alternative ways to extend term of copyright if that’s an ultimate requirement. What do you think they might have in mind and what’s this delay in a sense about.

Myra Tawfik: Well I think I mean you’ve obviously commented on this and I think this is a really good example of Canada sort of looking for you know being part of the international community but looking for Canadian made or solutions that actually work within or that that that that that is consistent with you know Canada’s vision or understanding of its of its role in the international intellectual property space because it really is sort of this this two and a half years to consult to sort of figure out ways of compromise I think is is really genuinely you know an assertion of autonomy in these negotiations and if there’s any indication I mean if you look at the Standing Committee on Industry Science and Technology there report that just was it was just released. They make a suggestion about how we might address the last 20 years of our life moving to life plus 70 by imposing a formal registration requirement for those last 20 years and any infringements. So if you have sort of if if copyright is infringed in that those last 20 years only the registered only you could only sort of pursue for infringement if you’ve registered your right. So life plus 50 and then a 20 year period where we are introducing a formality or that’s the recommendation of the INDU committee a registration formality.

Michael Geist: Right. It’s a really interesting approach.

Myra Tawfik: So it really is.

Michael Geist: For those that aren’t familiar with the issue around formalities you’re not permitted to have those formalities for the base requirement internationally. So that’s the life plus 50. And so what it appears there may be a possibility of doing it well we’ve even seen a recommendation now to do is to simply say we’ll provide life plus 50 plus 20 as opposed to a pure life plus 70 and that extra 20 is there if you want it but I assume that or presume that that many makes. By that point in time say we’re comfortable with this being in the public domain which will allow us to allow those copyright owners who want to ensure that they’ve got copyright protection to continue to have it for that full period. But those that by that point in time aren’t interested anymore to ensure that those works flow into the public domain.

Myra Tawfik: Absolutely I mean I think what it does is it creates certainty for those last 20 years for like you said as you say. I mean for those either the work. I mean there’s no one you know sadly no one cares about the work anymore in that that after that length of time or you know the the the copyright holders are happy with having it fall into the public domain. That’s that’s great. But only those who have made then a formal and have identified themselves through a registration formality so there’ll be a registry that you could go and check and determine whether or not they’ve made they’re maintaining their rights. I mean that creates certainty in ways that actually in the past the registry you know before has explained copyright you don’t have to register your right there are no formalities to securing the right. There used to be way back when and that you know there’s sort of we gave up. I mean that creates certainty. Those records obviously create certainty and there were very sound policy reasons for moving away from that but reintroducing this in in the last 20 years I think is a really innovative creative compromise to addressing some of the problems about the length the duration of copyright. You know in relation to for example sort of orphan works which are works in which the author can no longer be found to secure permissions. I mean there are all kinds of things that happen if you think about you know the lifespan of of of us an author or creator and then 70 years after the author’s death. You’re talking about a long period for there’s you know lost the loss of living memory here at least there would be a tangible record of the individuals maintaining their their copyright right. So I actually think that’s a really creative and effective compromise that you know I’m I really it’s really quite interesting that it came out in the standing committee’s report.

Michael Geist: Right. It’s exciting to see that happening both at the policy development level through the committee and then potentially at the government level as well given that they have not put it into this bill. There’s this is obviously not the only provision in there. Are there other things people should be paying attention to on the IP side within Bill C-100 and this implementation.

CNBC: Now one of the main goals for renegotiating NAFTA was to create a more modern agreement. The current deal took effect about 25 years ago before the advent of the digital economy. Now there’s a framework for dealing with intellectual property. Pharmaceutical companies will also get exclusive marketing rights on biologic drugs for 10 years.

Myra Tawfik: Well one of the provisions that’s been controversial has been this issue regarding patents and biologics. And I must admit I’m not you know sort of as you know familiar with the technical side of it but it relates to some forms of sort of pharmaceuticals and some of the arguments. So we have currently have an eight year sort of protection sort of added protection or additional protection for that form of patented invention and the obligation for us is to move to 10 years and the two year I mean it may seem not not seem like a long time two years but two years and sort of. You know when when you’re dealing with you know very expensive pharmaceuticals where we want to introduce new medicines to you know for public health reasons et cetera that these these this added two years will create a burden in terms of the fear is that it will raise the costs which are the costs of drugs for Canadians with which are already quite high. We’re paying a lot for our pharmaceutical medicines. So that’s one that is worth watching because there has been a lot of criticism about that again the idea that that the enhancing intellectual property rights, So two year term on biologics or life plus 70 in copyright I mean every time you you enhance kind of the right to give more rights to the to the the right holder there’s there’s a cost associated with that and obviously those who those countries that are strong producers of those outputs or outcomes or whatever are the ones in there it’s in their best interest to ensure that they can get us as much protection for as long as possible. And of course the corollary is for those countries like Canada that cannot compete and cannot produce to the same extent. It means that there is a cost to us and the cost here is sensitive obviously because a lot of we’re talking about in many instances obviously sort of important pharmaceutical products.

Myra Tawfik: So that’s one that I think you know needs to be looked at which has raised some criticism or discussion. The the other is there’s some, you know there’s I mean the intellectual property provisions obviously cover every form of intellectual property so copyright patents trademarks trade secrets industrial designs. I mean it covers the range and provides enhancements and you know tweaks and sometimes significant changes to all of the forms of intellectual property. The other one that’s been flagged as an issue for Canada relates to what we call trade secrets or the law of confidential information where the U.S. has been pushing it.

Myra Tawfik: And if you read kind of the you you you the the various reports issued by the U.S. trade representative sort of on it’s intellectual property assessments annually. It’s concerned that countries don’t provide enough criminal sanctions for industrial espionage basically or misappropriation of trade secrets with intent or you know that we’re not we’re not aggressive enough and that there are provisions in the Canada U.S. Mexico agreement that that deal with you know enhancing the criminal side of our existing laws trade secret laws which are provincial actually. So it does create kind of another layer in terms of constitutional jurisdiction that we need to pay attention to. But again the arguing some argue that we already do provide sufficient we already meet our obligations under you know NAFTA and therefore won’t require any significant changes. But I think there’s sort of an ethos behind what you the US kind of criminalizing appropriation of certain kinds of trade secrets that you know we need I think to watch for even if we do in principle abide by the the the the rules in the NAFTA 2.0 agreement. I think that there’s there’s good it’s opening the door to further persuasion negotiation et cetera around us developing a much more robust or aggressive criminal range of criminal kind of remedies or criminalizing certain aspects of of trade secret law that we don’t currently do.

Michael Geist: So we’ve got expansion of trade secrets including criminalization related concerns, we’ve got higher costs on the patent side, higher costs on the copyright side. Why don’t we wrap by just asking is this the right place for these kinds of issues. Each one on there would be a major policy issue that one would like to see debated. Is there a concern – rhetorical question. Yeah shouldn’t there be a concern that these kinds of big policy issues with real costs run the risk of getting lost amidst massive trade deals that have implications for every aspect of our economy.

Myra Tawfik: That’s absolutely right. I mean I’ve never. I mean once we we agreed and once the international community decided that intellectual property rights should be contained or these chapters should be contained in international trade agreements you know we have been unable because what they do of course is they’re inflexible. There are kind of you know you have to buy into the whole agreement not just you can’t pick and choose. So you can’t say I don’t like the intellectual property chapter so I’m not going to agree to that but I will agree to the chapter on that dairy or whatever it might be. So we have to accept everything within the agreement which means it’s sort of horse trading you’re going to give and take in certain areas the policy these fundamental policy issues around each one of intellectual property and how they they they land a practice in Canada and what kinds of you know what’s the global public interest in relation to intellectual property rights get lost.

Myra Tawfik: And so if we could turn back the clock and go back to the time where we had separate international treaties or international agreements on each form of intellectual property. So the Berne Convention that deals with copyright, the Paris convention that deals with you know patents trademarks industrial industrial property, I mean you’ve got all of those international treaties that dealt specifically with each form of IP and address the policy concerns you know in a in a multilateral sense. Now we’ve got we’re trying to do all of our intellectual property within the rules and constraints of an international trade agreement which is a fundamentally different sort of beast basically settlement different. Agreed. The nature of it is fundamentally different from the nature of standalone intellectual property agreements. So absolutely I think where I think each. Each time each time we enter into these agreements each time we deal with enhanced IP rights globally we lose flexibility and I think we do need to ask ourselves this is not just a Canadian issue. I mean it is an international issue. Is it necessarily in this global public interest that we should continuously be engaging in in with IP in the International Trade Forum and with a view always to increasing and enhancing the rights. There is a point at which it’s strong you know sort of there. There will be a tipping point if we haven’t reached it already where you know intellectual property rights actually hinder impede innovation creativity and we will be you know all of us globally the much poorer for it. So I agree I think I think we need the policy issues that we need to be addressing are not being dealt with in the international trade format yet that’s become the primary forum for dealing with international IP. You know since since NAFTA since the first NAFTA.

Michael Geist: I just just a riff on a line that you used when we reached the agreement. That’s all happening from a Canadian context where we are prioritizing economic issues like cows and cars.

Myra Tawfik: Yeah you’re right. Yeah yeah I think it should be the three C’s cows cars and copyrights. We can’t lose sight of of the importance especially near global innovation economy of our our need to start to understand how to play in the international spaces in intellectual property. So we have cars cows and copyright.

Michael Geist: That’s a great way to end it. Myra thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.

Myra Tawfik: Thanks Michael.

Michael Geist: That’s the Law Bytes podcast for this week. If you have comments suggestions or other feedback, write to lawbytes.com. That’s lawbytes at pobox.com. Follow the podcast on Twitter at @lawbytespod or Michael Geist at @mgeist. You can download the latest episodes from my Web site at Michaelgeist.ca or subscribe via RSS, at Apple podcast, Google, or Spotify. The LawBytes Podcast is produced by Gerardo LeBron Laboy. Music by the Laboy brothers: Gerardo and Jose LeBron Laboy. Credit information for the clips featured in this podcast can be found in the show notes for this episode at Michaelgeist.ca. I’m Michael Geist. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

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Oct. 25, 2025: Columns

Del Monte coffee?

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

Some time ago, I wrote a piece about the seemingly endless variety of patent medicine remedies manufactured and sold nationally during the early 1900’s by the Brame Drug Store. It is truly fun and fascinating to read the labels of these various medicines with names like Vapomentha Salve, which competed head to head for years with Vick’s Vapo Rub. Others included, Brame’s Pain Knocker; Lime Water, an antacid; Fematone, the great regulator for girls and women; Rheuma-Lax for aches, pains and rheumatic fever; the ever popular Castor Oil; and my personal favorite,Brame’s Laxative Cold Tablets.

Since spending all those days in the attic and the cellar of the old Brame building on Main Street, I have found myself looking more and more at old jars and bottles, particularly those with paper labels. Most are common and far less than unusual, but I want to share a couple of what I consider “finds” today. Now, my definition of a find may differ from yours, but to me it is something I have not seen before, or have developed a whole new interest in for whatever reason.

Today, I want to talk about coffee jars.

First off, I can barely remember ground coffee being in jars at all, but I do. We all know about Maxwell House, Choice, Eight O’Clock, Nescafe, Starbucks, J F G, and, my current early a. m. choice, Folger’s, of which I sip a cup every morning, patiently waiting for the day they call me to do a commercial. The jars I found, however, are for a coffee I never knew existed, Del Monte.

Now, clearly I understand that there is a really big book that can be written about things I have never heard of, but in the 30 years or so I have actively pursued things old and unusual, I had never seen a jar of Del Monte coffee until I found them in the upstairs of the old Payne building on Main Street here in North Wilkesboro. Since then, I have shown them to practically everyone who has stopped to visit at my office at The Record, as well as tried to contact Del Monte for information.

So far, no one has ever seen Del Monte coffee before, and the Del Monte company hasn’t seen fit to respond to our inquiries. Also, since the Del Monte coffee “find” I have looked in numerous stores and junk holes looking for another, also to no avail.

Next, I want to move on to an old bottle of Clorox Liquid Cleaning and Washing Compound. I found this beauty in the same place, the Payne building, and the 1942 copyright date on the label places it in the 60 plus year old category. You will notice I didn’t use the word bleach—it was only mentioned incidentally along with numerous other uses, which included removing stains, scorch marks, and mildew. This quart glass bottle of Clorox also proclaimed that it was Ultra-refined R and could be used as a disinfectant, deodorizer, and germicide. Above a clothes line filled with laundry, it proudly proclaimed, “The White Line is the Clorox Line.”

All this was in bold on the front, but that was just the beginning. On the back, the label continues in earnest, with Clorox being touted as good for cleaning, among other things, basins, bows, bathtubs, bottles, chopping blocks, coffee pots, crockery, cuspidors, and various other items throughout the alphabet.

But there’s more. After laundry instructions, the label moves onto pets, poultry and livestock uses, including directions for “…an antiseptic, deodorizing bath” for cats and dogs. Last, but not least, is the list of personal uses, which include: making drinking water safe, cleaning dental plates, instructions for the use of Clorox to treat insect bites, scratches and burns. From there it moves on to poison oak, ivy, sumac, ringworm and, of course, athlete’s foot. The back label even offers help with, ahem, feminine needs.

The more I read, the more I was amazed—all this from a bottle of Clorox.

As ever, it has made me all the more curious. If any of you want to look at these bottles, and for that matter, any of the other assorted memorabilia that decorates the offices of The Record, feel free to stop by. We love the company. If you have any old product labels you are willing to share, or any information on Del Monte coffee, I especially would like to hear from you.

Now, if Folger’s will just call…

Rewire your brain

By LAURA WELBORN

Rewiring your brain takes hard work.

More and more studies are showing that mindfulness and focused breathing techniques show a reduction in anxiety and depression. Learning to witness and monitor depressed and anxious thoughts can help you manage them and be less prone to push the panic button.

Mindfulness can actually reduce the activity of the genes that produce inflammation in the body. Inflammation is how the body deals with pain and stress. When we can't control our reaction to pain or stress we can cause inflammation which affects our health. Mindfulness on areas of loving kindness and compassion for others can redirect and rewire our brains to better health.

My own experiences of exposure to people who essentially transmit loving kindness and compassion are a personal testimony towards how much better I feel when I see them- it "makes my day." Some of the things I must remind myself of so I can be that person who gives off loving kindness and compassion are:

"Sometimes you subconsciously dehumanize people you disagree with. Be careful. In our self-righteousness, we can easily become the very things we dislike in others. Ultimately, the way we treat people we disagree with is a report card on what we’ve learned about love and compassion. Every single person you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something. Know this. Respect this. And be extra kind

Your response is always more powerful than your circumstance. A tiny part of your life is decided by completely uncontrollable circumstances, while the vast majority of your life is decided by your responses. Where you ultimately end up is heavily dependent on how you play the hands you’ve been dealt

Everything gets a bit uncomfortable when it’s time to change. That’s just a part of the growth process. Things will get better. Be patient.

Patience is not about waiting. Patience is the ability to keep a positive, focused attitude while working hard to move your life forward.

New, good habits don’t form overnight. It takes roughly 66 days to form a habit. So, for the next nine weeks, look at the bright side of your life, and you will rewire your brain.

Old patterns are hard to break. Be aware. Act consciously and consistently. Don’t fall back into your old patterns. Toxic habits and behaviors always try to sneak back in when you’re doing better. Stay focused.

Sometimes it’s better to let go without closure. Actions and behavior speak volumes. Trust the signs you were given and gracefully press on.

If you always play the victim, you will always be treated like one. Life isn’t fair. But you don’t have to let the past define your future. Try to take life day by day and be grateful for the little things. Don’t get caught up in what you can’t control." Marc and Angel Hack life blog inserts.

I miss the breakfast club that met at Woodhaven restaurant- Ted Brown, Gerald Lankford, Jim Swofford, to name a few. They were my fix on loving kindness and compassion, now I can just hope to run into them and get a hug of kindness.

Laura Welborn, Mediator and Counselor. [email protected]

Part II: The Plague of Islamic Ideology—World Stability is at Stake

By EARL COX

Special for The Record

The Iran nuclear deal is once again making news. Iran's leaders have carefully crafted their plan for worldwide domination in which the nuclear deal fit nicely. A quick look at the basic tenets of Islam and relatively recent history reveals some interesting information and chilling parrallels with rogue regimes of the past.

Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, militant proxies (Hezbollah and others), and quest for expansion “from Tehran to the sea” through Lebanon, Iraq and Syria threaten not just Israel and America, but the world. Iran’s insidious ideology animates these threats.

Iranian mullahs have devised a peculiar brand of jihadist and sharia-rule—with a twist. Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1970 book Velayat-e Faqih (Governance of the Jurist) endows a Shiite faqih (Islamic scholar) with full political and religious powers, including rule over Shiites worldwide—and ultimately, global dominance. Khomeini conveniently granted himself the title “Imam,” and declared himself a stand-in for the 12th Imam (Mahdi—a messiah figure). His doctrine, now enshrined in the 1989 constitution, sanctions state-sponsored violent jihad, and “mandates global export of the same Islamic Revolution that brought the mullahs to power,” said Lt. Col. James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.) The constitution’s preamble concludes with “the hope this century will witness the establishment of a universal holy government and the downfall of all others,” said security expert Richard Horowitz.

Shiites believe their Supreme Leader has power only until their Mahdi returns, an event that must be “triggered by world chaos,” followed by global Islamic rule, Zumwalt said. In a deviation from traditional Shiism, Iran’s mullahs believe man can be a catalyst of the chaos required for the Mahdi’s return, citing Israel’s destruction as the trigger. Iran’s nuclear program is a means to these ends.

If history offers any lessons, then the parallels between Iran’s (and radical Islam’s) ideology, and Japanese State Shinto in World War II deserve consideration. The deadly assaults of Japan’s crazed banzai troops and kamikaze suicide pilots—most younger than 24—have significant parallels to radical Islamic “martyrs.” Kamikaze means “divine wind,” referring to a typhoon that wrecked an invading Mongolian fleet—attributed to the gods answering the Japanese emperor’s prayers, according to War History Online. Japan considered its emperor a sacred descendent of the ancient sun goddess Amaterasu–whose red-sun symbol is emblazoned on the Japanese flag.

“The idea of the sacred imperial line descended from the sun goddess became a political dogma about 500 years ago,” said Ian Buruma, for The New York Times. The fertility cult Shinto was also cast as the national religion, with Amaterasu as its principal female deity, to “enforce unification and national identity.” State Shinto is a “contrived version of Japanese culture … turned into a religious cult for political reasons,” Buruma said. An example was Japan’s notoriously militant propaganda. Striking a similar tone, both Iranian and Palestinian leaders use religion to foment anti-Israel fervor under the banner of the “Al-Aqsa is in danger” campaign.

As Amaterasu’s descendant, the emperor was Shinto’s high priest, giving him “a divine right to rule not only Japan, but the world,” the BBC said. It also became official doctrine that since the Japanese descended from the gods, they were superior to all other races—chillingly familiar concepts in Nazism.

As head of the allied occupation, Gen. Douglas McArthur targeted State Shinto—the militaristic religious ideology that fueled Japanese aggression—but he allowed non-politicized “Shrine Shinto” to stand. According to the BBC, he attempted to deconstruct State Shinto by reforms, which, among others, severed religion and state; and implemented freedom of religion—which is protected by Israel, but rejected in Gaza and The West Bank. He also restructured Japan’s education system, including teaching manuals and textbooks—like calls for similar initiatives in Palestinian schools, which distort history and foment violence against Israel. MacArthur’s directives also rededicated Japanese national life to peace and democracy.

Without addressing the long-term effectiveness of MacArthur’s reforms, his is an encouraging example of a leader who understood the central role that despotic religious ideology plays in conflict resolution, and who did something about it when given the chance. The Allies’ military superiority doubtless provided the leverage for positive change.

Since the concluding sentence of Iran’s constitution says its theocracy and ideological basis are “unalterable,” leverage and intervention are required. Rescinding and revising the nuclear deal is our best first step. World stability is at stake.

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