"Imperialism in the East"

 Martin Luther King’s emphasis on character over race is a lesson for us all, as we in the United States and in these discordant times, celebrate his birth today. Unlike our color, height or biological sex that are determined genetically, character is a quality for which we bear responsibility, and something on which we can all work.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Imperialism in the East”

January 17, 2022

 

“…the American left should focus on where empire

as an ideal truly endures, which isn’t in the West.”

                                                                                                              Robert D. Kaplan (1952-)

                                                                                                              American author and political commentator

                                                                                                              The Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2022

 

President Biden’s two immediate predecessors fractured the nation with divisive talk. In his campaign, Mr. Biden promised unification. Instead, he has increased dissension, focusing on identity politics, federalizing voting laws and diminishing the role of the traditional family, all the while calling his political opponents misogynists, racists, xenophobes, bigots and domestic terrorists who want to destroy democracy. Such intemperate language does little to bridge legitimate differences between Democrats and Republicans – progressives and conservatives. He has wasted political capital, personally denigrating those with whom he disagrees, which has meant less time on issues that affect all Americans, regardless of Party – from the economy, inflation, education and illegal immigration at home to the consequences for the United States as to what is happening in the Middle East, Central Asia, China and Russia.

 

The calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan sent a message to its allies that the United States’ commitment means little, and to its enemies that America need not be feared. The Abraham Accords, one of the Trump Administration’s finest achievements, has been stalled by the anti-Israel stand of the Biden Administration, and by a desire to reinstitute the Iranian nuclear deal. While Western imperialism of an earlier time is, perhaps justifiably, denigrated, its reincarnation in the East – in China and Russia – is ignored by the same pundits who criticize the West. Recent riots in Kazakhstan and the plight of the Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang Province are examples of unrest that are being dealt with harshly by Russia and China, while the West turns a blind eye.

 

Under both land-based and sea-based Belt and Road initiatives (BRI), Chinese banks and companies fund and build roads, power plants, ports, railways, 5-G networks, and fiber-optic cables around the world. According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), as of last March 139 countries from five continents have joined BRI. Not all members host projects, but all endorse BRI as a concept and “pledge to cooperate with China to promote the initiative.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has lauded China’s BRI for having “sustainable development as the overarching objective,” and pledged that “the United Nations stands ready to travel this road with you.” China’s Belt and Road initiative began, shortly after Xi Jinping assumed the Chinese Presidency in 2013. The absorption of Hong Kong and China’s threat to Taiwan have shown what they can (and will) do to free markets and political freedom. In increasing the dependency of member states on China, BRI is reminiscent Ivar Kreuger’s early Twentieth Century scheme to create monopolies in myriad countries for his match businesses, by lending the countries money. Kreuger’s business collapsed in bankruptcy in 1932. China has an anti-democratic, authoritarian government that competes for the hearts and minds of people around the world, with their supposed economic success. It risks impoverishing its Belt and Road members by indebting them.

 

The threat in Ukraine appears more imminent. Over 100,000 Russian troops have gathered on Ukraine’s eastern border and have been joined by tanks and other weapons from Russia’s east. “Mr. Putin,” wrote Kathryn Stoner, author of Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order, in Saturday’s The Wall Street Journal, “has a history of using foreign policy to improve his domestic standing when he has felt his status slipping.” COVID-19 and the economy have caused his poll numbers to slip. They are now at their lowest level in ten years. Last September’s national election saw proceedings so corrupt that even the Communist Party – the “loyal opposition” – cried foul. In December, a Russian court closed the Memorial Human Rights Center, originally established to document Stalin’s crimes against humanity. In 2014, with his poll number slipping, Putin invaded Crimea, and then saw his approval numbers jump from around 60% to 90%. Since, they have slipped. Vladimir Putin justifies his imperialistic tendencies by claiming concern for the security of his homeland. It is true that the Baltic states, which had been part of the Soviet Union after World War II and at least six former Warsaw Pact countries have joined NATO. However, the only threat Ukraine poses to Russia is the pitting of democracy against authoritarianism. Putin’s interest in Ukraine is personal. As Ms. Stoner wrote: “What does any autocrat truly fear? Being strung up by his own people from a lamp post.” 

 

What we are seeing is what Yaroslav Trofimov of The Wall Street Journal termed the “Great Power competition.” The question: What will the West, led by the United States and Europe, do to deter this trend? The prognosis does not instill hope. Wokeness and identity politics dominate both cultures. Europe’s focus on social welfare has meant that it spends little on defense. Led by Germany, the Continent has become dependent on Russian energy. At the same time, the United States has given up its oil independence and has been embroiled in battles of self-hatred, focusing on what is wrong with our lifestyles and government, rather than what is right. The West is smug, fat and complacent. Europe’s lack of defense and now buying oil and gas from Russia, and with Mr. Biden disparaging his political opponents as enemies of democracy, the West risks the world becoming more authoritarian.

"The Boy Who Cried Wolf"

 Two lessons come with Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia: One, Republicans should stick to issues, such as education, which are more important to voters than personalities, and two, endorsements by Donald Trump are fine, as long as he does not campaign in the candidate’s district.

 

New Jersey, as I write, is still too close to call.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Boy Who Cried Wolf”

November 3, 2021

 

“Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you

start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible.”

                                                                                                       Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

                                                                                                       American author & filmmaker

                                                                                                       Michelin Lecture, Caltech, January 17, 2003

 

The moral of Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf is that false cries for help mean real calls for help will be ignored. A climate apocalypse has been forecast for years, sometimes by the well-intentioned but naïve looking to do good, but often by the cynical seeking political or personal advantage. 

 

Two years ago, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, recognizing that global temperatures are indeed rising, compiled a list of dire climate predictions that did not happen. Here is a sample: In 1969, the Nobel winning German scientist, Paul Ehrlich predicted that everybody would “disappear in a cloud of blue steam.” In 1974 Time Magazine warned that “space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast.” The New York Times in 1978 reported that an “international team of specialists” feared the world would experience a never-ending “cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere.” Over the next ten years, Cassandras changed their forecasts from cooling to warming: An Associated Press headline from 1989 read, quoting UN officials: “Rising seas could obliterate nations.” And who could forget Al Gore’s 2006 movie, An Inconvenient Truth, in which he predicted that Artic ice would be gone in seven years. Today, doomsayers blame every forest fire, drought and hurricane on anthropological-caused climate change.

 

I am not a climate change denier. In fact, I know of no one who is. The term is used by climate disciples to belittle heretics who dare question the dogma that man alone is at fault for a warming planet. They are ruthless in their treatment of those skeptical of their professed causes of a changing climate. In National Geographic’s film Before the Flood, Bjørn Lomborg is listed as one of the ten most prominent “climate deniers.” Mr. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and, in my opinion, the most reasonable voice on the subject. He begins every interview by repeating that he believes the Earth is warming. His sin is that he uses empirical evidence, logic and common sense to demonstrate that claimed apocalyptic consequences are more hyperbole than factual, which he explains in his 2020 book False Alarm. Fostering panic over climate change gets Progressives elected, sells books and movies and abets corporate welfare for renewable sources of energy. But for the rest of us, it does more harm than good.

 

Nobody really knows the costs of climate change, but it is not cheap. “Analysts,” according to an article in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, “say as much as $150 trillion is likely needed over the next three decades to fund renewable energy projects, upgrade electric grids, mothball fossil fuel plants, seed new agricultural technologies, and pay for damages tied to climate change.” The questions have always been: What are the economic and social costs of doing nothing versus the economic and social costs of holding the rise in temperature below two degrees Celsius? And, is that possible? Regardless, funds will be needed. The job of convincing the world’s banks of the urgency of adjusting their loan portfolios to accommodate what politicians are calling for has fallen to Mark Carney, former head of central banks in Canada and the UK, and now the United Nation’s point man on climate-change finance.

 

It was the Industrial Revolution, which raised living standards for all fortunate to live in countries affected, that caused man-made emissions of CO2. And it has been that wealth over the years that has enabled the problem to be addressed. Assuring future economic growth is the best antidote to the problems of climate change (and of poverty). Policies that hinder growth, such as raising the cost of energy, whether in developing or developed nations, will harm living standards. We should all take responsibility for how we live our lives, which means being environmentally sensitive. But leaders must avoid fomenting a class war. We must recognize that the poor, whether individuals or nations, need affordable sources of energy to improve lives. Feel-good corporate welfare, in contrast, funds favored businesses in exchange for political support and boondoggles that are more spectacle than substance. 

 

A meeting of the G-20 in Rome last weekend preceded the United Nations’ 26^th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow. Leaders of five countries (China, Russia, Mexico, Japan and Saudi Arabia) failed to show up. Those five countries represent just over 40% of all CO2 emissions, according to worldometer. The meeting in Glasgow brought together between 20,000 and 25,000 politicians, officials and businesspeople from about 140 nations, fifty fewer than met in Paris in 2015. Nevertheless, London’s Daily Record estimated on Sunday that “more than 400 private jets will blast 13,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere…which will produce more global warming gas than 1600 Scots burn through in a year.” 

 

In Rome, President Biden brought with him seven cabinet officers, including Secretaries of State, Treasury, Interior and Transportation. He traveled in an 85-car motorcade for a one-on-one meeting with the Pope. All vehicles had been shipped to Italy, with some shipped on to Scotland before heading back to the U.S. Perhaps such grandeur was felt necessary, but it seemed excessive and insensitive when the subject was man-caused climate change. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would have united in condemning such a monarchial display by the President.

 

With the exception of a trade agreement with the EU on steel and aluminum, most news reports said the Rome meetings failed to live up to expectations. In an interview with the Associated Press, Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa said of the G20 meeting in Rome: “The world’s biggest economies comprehensively failed to put climate change on the top of the agenda ahead of COP26 in Glasgow.”

 

On the Glasgow conference’s opening day, Jeremiah’s continued with dire predictions. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who hosted the meeting, likened the challenge to a James Bond “doomsday,” saying time was running out to save the world from global warming: “this is not a movie – and the doomsday device is real.” He warned that, in the worst-case predictions, cities like Miami, Alexandria and Shanghai could be lost “beneath the waves.” Johnson was followed by Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN. He said we are “digging our own grave.” The Prince of Wales, told the world leaders that “time has quite literally run out.” At some point, doomsayers will be right. The Earth had a beginning. It will have an end. Scientists have estimated that that time is probably a billion or two billion years in the future, based on a six or seven-billion-year life.  A changing climate is a prospect for which we must be prepared. But rather than giving a false sense of hope that we can forestall the inevitable, we should focus on adaption. What happens if we hit net zero in terms of CO2 emissions and climate continues to warm…or cool? Those who issue calls of doom would be wise to re-read the story of the boy who cried wolf.