Israel: Case Study in How Not to Control a Coronavirus Epidemic
"A lot of parents were overwhelmed [during lockdown] with trying to
handle schooling their kids. Many families might not have enough
computers."
"Canadians have a much different idea of personal space. A lot of
teachers in Israel don’t think it will be enforceable to keep kids
separated because they haven’t grown up that way."
"There are a lot of questions out there and not many answers yet. But there is no perfect solution until there is a vaccine."
"I think it’s a cautionary tale [Israel's large numbers of coronavirus cases] of a rushed, naïve and overconfident start-up."
Marina Milner-Bolotin, education professor, University of British Columbia
Israeli school children wear face masks to help prevent the spread of
the coronavirus as they walk in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, July 6, 2020.
(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
A
population of nine million people reports four thousand new cases on
one day alone. A trend of upward spurting cases in Israel which had been
confident in the early stages after its initial round of cases when
SARS-CoV-2 first entered the country and surged then responded to action
taken to lockdown, urging self-isolation, mandating against meeting in
groups and persuading the population to wear masks. When the caseload
became manageable and the government felt it had managed to effectively
control the outbreak, a relaxation of the rules took place and jubilant
Israelis went about life as normal. Now, Israel reports 150,000 cases with 1,600 deaths.
Schools
were re-opened and the pace of life and spontaneity returned as summer
heated up and the population flocked to beaches while the orthodox
returned to worship in synagogues; mosques and churches wee released
from lockdown because, after all, COVID-19 had been nicely tamed, and
the prime minister, smiling benevolently, assured the population that
all is well and go and enjoy summer. Naive indeed. Although Israel's
medical community no doubt felt qualms of what next to expect, chafing
against a government decision that failed to consult as it should have.
Over
the past two months cases maintained that surge of daily counts of
3,000 and 4,000 new cases overwhelming hospitals and leaving the
indelible impression among the Israeli population that their government
had spectacularly failed them. A government teetering on the brink of
dissolution and prospects of yet another election, focusing on politics,
viewing the pandemic as a mere side-issue. One that has in fact taken
control of the country as it takes a deadly toll of public health.
A technician carries out a diagnostic test for coronavirus in a lab at
Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv on August 3, 2020. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
The
display of national discipline during round one of COVID-19 imbued both
government and the people with confidence; they were doing the right
thing. But then, lockdown was onerous and people got fed up with it all,
and looked for ways to relieve the tedium, as cases tumbled and the
future looked good. Late March succeeded in its persuasive need to be
vigilant and isolated. By mid-May, fewer than 20 new cases were being
reported daily. Everyone looked for release as restaurants re-opened.
It
took until June to realize that the situation was reversing and case
numbers were escalating even as children were exposed at school and
community infection soared. By July, public health expert,
epidemiologist Prof.Ronni Gamzu was appointed to the post of coronavirus
czar, his mandate, to develop and implement a national strategy for
containment. The public dreaded an order to lockdown again; resentment
and anger toward their government built to a crescendo and public
displays of dissatisfaciton became loud and demanding.
Store owners at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market scuffle with police
during a protest over the continued closure of open-air markets, April
25, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The
real and actual threat to the entire population was well enough known;
ultra-Orthodox and Arab municipalities were never as amenable to
precautionary moves that other citizens assented to. In those
communities people live closer together; attendance at synagogue and
mosques by congregants was viewed as vital, despite government orders.
Those municipalities became hot-spots of infection. Orders to isolate
went ignored and infections soared.
"The
haredi political parties have a highly motivated voter base that
consistently delivers enough Knesset seats to hand the leaders
disproportionate leverage [in relation to their population] when it
comes to negotiating coalition agreements. And so, as happned in March,
haredi leaders told Netanyah recently that they wuld not accept being
locked down unless the whole nation was and, as they did in March, when
the mere notion of targeting haredi communities arose again in August,
the ultra-Orthodox parties threatened to quit the colaition. Netanyahu,
as he so often does, capitulated."
Vivian Bercovici, former Canadian ambassador to Israel
The
large families typical of Arab and ultra-Orthodox Jews live in cramped,
crowded quarters, and what they share is a negligent attitude toward
authority in general, and directions to change the imperatives of their
lifestyles directed toward worship and close physical association in
particular. But those same communities, under Israel's system of
electoral governance, often hold the balance of power; minority elected
governments need the support of such groups and tend to cave in to their
demands, for ongoing political gain.
The
curfews imposed on 40 "red" municipalities throughout the country from 7
p.m. to 5 a.m., the orders not to hold large weddings and other group
events went largely ignored and these typically super-spreader social
events have created a disastrous situation of rampant infections. The
medical authority's orders are spurned and cast aside; no one can tell
these communities what to do; and the government is more concerned with
the support it needs in the Knesset than enforcing the rules for the
safety of all.
"A
recently compiled list of 40 "red hot" municipalities are virtually all
majorityArab or haredi [ultra-Orthodox]. And therein lies the problem.
As they did in March, medical professionals, public servants and some
politicians advocated early on this time that more stringent measures
must be applied to affected municipalities on a targeted basis. This
caused both constituencies -- but particularly the haredim -- to protest
vigorously. They accused politicians and public health officials of
discrimination."
Vivian Bercovici in Tel Aviv
The
plan to place the ultra-Orthodox communities under lockdown reflecting
this is where COVID cases are skyrocketing, while leaving the rest of
the country under semi-lockdown conditions offends the Haredi
populations who refuse to go into lockdown unless the entire country
does. Even at a time when the country as a whole went into lockdown,
these same communities exercised a relaxed attitude to the need to
self-isolate and angrily rebuked the government when their communities
were designated as "red hot" requiring special lockdown even as the rest
of the country began relaxing theirs.
Ultra-Orthodox
Jewish men pray behind a plastic screen during morning prayers in a
Jewish seminary in Bnei Brak, Israel, on Sept. 9.Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images
"How should the U.K. and its allies adapt to the Indo-Pacific century, as China grows more powerful in economic and military terms? The answer must always be to stick firmly to constitutional principles." "Britain and its allies must work together as much as possible to preserve the rules-based order on questions of economics, defence and security in the region." "What next, then, for countries like Britain and my own, Canada, in this Indo-Pacific century? First, we must avoid a China-centric view. That would cater to the more concerning aspects of Beijing's own ambitions. But it would also overlook the myriad opportunities in one of the fastest-growing regions, where strong and independent nations form a geopolitical triangle stretching from India to Japan and reaching down to Australia." "Perhaps most importantly, Britain can position itself as a constructive, intermediary in the region." Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
"We hope we can build out a coalition that understands the threat and will work collectively to convince the Chinese communist Party that it is not in their best interest to engage in this kind of behaviour." "We want to see every nation who understands freedom and democracy ... to understand this threat that the Chinese Communist Party is posing to them." U.S.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
"The UK is really clear that we need to work with our American friends,
and also with other partners together in the international system to
protect our freedoms and interest and stand up, as we've shown over Hong
Kong, stand up for our values." British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Britain's Prime Minister
Boris Johnson at Downing Street in London, Britain, July 21, 2020.
(Reuters)
Under former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada maintained a cautious distance from Beijing, mindful of its record on human rights and ongoing issues that clearly defined it as a human rights abuser. Mr. Harper's distancing Canada from too-close relations with China earned him the contempt of former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien who, during his time as Canada's leader, carefully cultivated close personal and business relations with Chinese senior elites and led a number of trade missions to China to drum up business between the two countries.
Former prime minister Stephen HarperThe Canadian Press
When Mr. Chretien was thrown out of office as a public rebuke for Liberal corruption and financial misdemeanors under his leadership, he made quick work in consolidating those contacts and joining a major, influential legal group, relied on the person-to-country scaffolding he had built, continued to carry out trade missions bringing back lucrative contracts for the law firm and businesses he helped install in China. Current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has since built on the infrastructure that Mr. Chretien had established, with the intention of forging a free trade agreement between Canada and China.
Those plans went awry on a number of fronts, beginning, but not ending, with Canada's honouring an extradition agreement with the U.S. and detaining the CFO of Huawei on a warrant, holding her accountable for falsifying data and misleading U.S. banks on Huawei's role in breaking sanctions guidelines imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran. The detention of Meng Wanzhou led to the kidnapping and imprisonment on charges of espionage of two Canadian businessmen, a death sentence for drug smuggling on two other Canadians, and trade embargoes on Canadian agriculture.
Despite all these crimes against international normatives, the spineless Trudeau government has hesitated to inform Huawei that it will not be welcome to take part in Canada's 5G upgrade, as the other four members of the "Five Eyes" intelligence coalition comprised of the U.K., New Zealand. Australia, and the U.S. have done. And irrespective of China's overt hostility and spiteful contempt for Canada, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau continues to sign contracts with Chinese-government-owned companies.
Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, representing a senior Conservative coalition published a recent article in Britain's Daily Telegraph where he urged the U.K. to undertake a role in leading its allies to counter China's aggressive 'influence' in the Indo-Pacific region. This is a China that recently engaged in a brief conflict in the Himalaya over disputed territory with India. The very same China that holds Tibet as a Chinese territory, that oppresses the Uighurs in Xinjiang, China, along with the Falun Gong, and threatens neighbouring countries in its claims of geographic sovereignty over disputed territories impinging on Japan, the Philippines and South Korea.
The American Secretary of State has cast China as a bullying aggressor and that characterization of the Peoples Republic of China is quite accurate. It appears as well to have used the occasion of the global pandemic as an opportunity to exploit the rest of the world as the premier supplier of personal protective equipment, respirators, face masks and other related equipment that stricken countries all over the world are anxious to acquire from a country whose leadership appears to have withheld vital information about the emerging zoonotic that has ravaged the world that might have apprehended it in a more timely manner.
That President Xi Jinping of China and Washington's President Donald Trump have indulged in a sorely deteriorated relationship over the issue of trade is of course a contributing factor in Mr. Pompeo's campaign to persuade Western powers to join a concerted effort to pressure China to respect international rules and regulations, laws and jurisdictions. The issue of collaboration between a neutral World Health Organization and Beijing resulting in delayed data being promulgated alongside advice from the world's premier health body, is yet another sore point.
Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore are all affected by China's machinations. They also represent countries along with the Philippines, whose administrations are more likely to reflect social, political and trade values that the rest of the world would be more comfortable relying upon than the mercurial and punishing Chinese administration has shown itself to be in international relations.
Trade, defence and diplomacy are more politically balanced and cooperation infinitely more likely with countries that find much more that bind their self-interests with those of others in comparison to a Goliath whose only interests rest in raping the natural resources and technological assets of other countries.
China's aircraft carrier Liaoning takes part in a military drill in the Western Pacific Ocean / Stringer, Reuters
"The virus remains public enemy number one." "If basics are not followed, the only way this pandemic is going to go, it is going tog et worse and worse and worse." "But it does not have to be this way." World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
"The most outrageous lies are the ones about COVID-19. Everyone is lying, the Centers for Disease Control, media, Democrats, our doctors, not all but most that we are told to trust." "I think it's all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I'm sick of it."
"My son tested positive for the virus, and I feel for those suffering and especially for those who have lost loved ones." "[I never said COVID was a hoax, but it was
the only way my critics] could really twist and use it against me." Chuck Woolery, game show host, United States
A week ago the announcement was made that total world infection is now above 13 million. It took just five days for the tally to leap forward by one million. Over a half million people have now died from the effects of the novel coronavirus. The disease, according to the Reuters global tally based on government reports, is rising fastest in Latin America, where more than half the world's infections and half the deaths are now occurring, thanks to the massive outbreak in Brazil.
The United States alone has over 3.3 million confirmed cases; elsewhere success has been realized in 'flattening the curve', making it possible to ease lockdowns. But in the United States a daily global record of 69,070 new cases was declared a week ago, while Brazil saw 1.86 million people test positive, including Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and where over 72,000 Brazilians have died.
Despite all of this, U.S. President Donal Trump and his White House officials repeat their contention that the disease has been brought under control, and that schools must reopen in the fall. It took three months to reach one million cases, from the time the first cases were reported in China. More currently it took a mere five days to climb to 13 million cases from 12 million recorded on July 8.
In the high stakes of COVID strikes, over 3.4 million Americans have contracted the disease, with 137,800 deaths reported in the United States. Trump's 83 million followers received a tweet from him re-tweeting accusations launched by the former game show host claiming "everyone is lying". A few days later that same game show host tweeted that his son has tested positive for COVID, and he closed down his Twitter account.
Insisting that the CDC guidelines for school reopening were impractical, expensive and tough, the Trump administration plans to proceed under their own guidelines. Ex game show host Woolery's podcast co-host tweeted that the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is interested in instituting "an ID card to go shopping", and President Trump re-tweeted that, too. "Dr.Fauci is a nice man, but he's made a lot of mistakes", Trump told the Fox News Channel. In an interview with the Financial Times a day later, Dr.Fauci admitted he has not, for the past two months, briefed President Trump. Over the weekend the White House distributed lists of statements Fauci committed in the early pandemic days that were overturned once understanding of the disease deepened. Dr.Fauci has no idea why President Trump is undermining his medical credentials.
"As we speak, Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States." "China is also applying this power in more proactive ways than ever before, to exert influence and interfere in the domestic policy and politics of this country." "After the fall of the Soviet Union, we assumed that a free China was inevitable. Heady with optimism, at the turn of the 21st Century, America agreed to give Beijing open access to our economy and bring China into the World Trade Organization." "The Chinese Communist Party has also used an arsenal of policies inconsistent with free and fair trade, including tariffs, quotas, currency manipulation, forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and industrial subsidies that are handed out like candy to foreign investment. These policies have built Beijing's manufacturing base, at the expense of its competitors -- especially the United States of America." "As our National Security Strategy states, 'Competition does not always mean hostility'. As President Trump has made clear, we want a constructive relationship with Beijing, where our prosperity and security grow together, not apart. While Beijing has been moving further away from this vision, China's rulers can still change course, and return to the spirit of 'reform and opening' and greater freedom." U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence
"Recently, as the U.S. side has been constantly escalating trade friction toward China, it has also adopted a series of actions on the Taiwan issue that harm China's rights and interests, and has made groundless criticism of China's domestic and foreign policies." "We believe this has been a direct attack on our mutual trust, and has cast a shadow on China-U.S. relations. We demand that the U.S. side stop this kind of mistaken action." Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi
U.S. President Donald Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping.
Photo: Thomas Peter Pool/Getty Images
Substitute identifying China with all the trade and production, export and import charges levelled at that country with its unprincipled, covert intrigues characterized by espionage so ambitious that it covers every aspect of a nation's GDP, manufacturing, technological advances, international relations, military, science and society and the American Vice-President, without missing a beat, but lauding instead of decrying the drive, initiative, enterprise and entitlement to describe the business acumen and practices of the United States of America.
In the case of China, admittedly, the nature of intrigue, infiltration and threat has been taken to a new level entirely. If one were to reduce the issue to mere and sheer bullying, they would both come up on a scale balancing neatly in common measure. China's worldscale manufacturing and export capabilities on the global market was not simply due to China's aspirations to become the world's most influential and powerful exporter of an entire range of goods more efficiently produced, cheaper to buy and sought after because of their affordability. Consumers the world over wanted cheap and they got it.
Affordability was the consumer byword for manufacturing jobs leaking out of Europe and North America to China where wages were low, and production efficiency, cutting corners and materials substitution verging on the dangerous, led to China's powerhouse marketing status. Giving it the confidence to produce ersatz products mimicking authenticity in chemicals, foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals. China, with its immense population, is able to market internally and still reap untold profits, but power and influence lure it outside itself as well, where territorial ambition and 21st century-style colonization call.
The United States is accustomed to its entitled role as the world bully of note. It has little appreciation for the fact that China outrivals it in population and enterprise, influence and mercantile output. While the United States has long established itself as a 'mentor' to dependent nations in the East, positioning itself as a military support, China's ambitions have not yet led it to similar outposts in the suspicious West, other than covertly and with an eye more to industrial and military espionage irritating its targets no end.
Both the United States and China view themselves as entitled to rule the world, and both offer a double vision of themselves; oppressor and benefactor. China is capturing Africa and the East into its wide embrace with investment and the building of vital infrastructure meant to bring the continent closer to helping it fulfill its need to produce employment for Chinese workers enhancing communication and transportation in a bid to overwhelm emerging economies with interconnected ties prospering China and its subordinate allies by default.
It's a philosophy that has served the U.S. for a long time, and one which went into temporary decline under a president who wanted his country to have a reduced global footprint, to be more modest in its outreach, more confined and refined in its interference abroad, succeeded by a president who has promised to give greater focus and impetus to internal matters, while aggressively damning those countries which have long depended on it for direction and clarity, yet still wedded to the greatness of its international outreach.
China and the United States are simply testing one another's resolve; that of the reigning power and the upstart cannily imitating a proven and true formula of the powerful indulging in what comes naturally, exerting its entitlement to bully its neighbours, its hangers-on, its groupie nations, its dependents -- reminding them occasionally who calls the shots and who obeys the orders. The Chinese focus on infiltration leaves clumsy footprints the U.S. can readily read in the invidious spying computer chips used by U.S. government agencies giving Beijing access to internal networks of American companies and government. Prodding the U.S. to react.
For shame and Tsk! Tsk! American altruism repaid by Chinese duplicity....!
U.S. President Donald Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with
China's President Xi Jinping on November 9, 2017 in Beijing, China.
(Thomas Peter-Pool/Getty Images)
"We need to bring back a sense of safety in Swedish society because the government has failed us." "We need to employ more police -- put 10,000 of them on the streets." "No women, no teenager, no old person, no one, should be scared." Jimmie Akesson, leader, Sweden Democrats
He's a man of confidence, a man of the world who's not afraid to tell people what he thinks." "Sweden Democrats is not an anti-immigrant party, and we are not anti-refugee, but we do feel we have taken in far too many people." Jimmy Gronfoss, 34, Sweden Democrats supporter
"He is too extreme. I think he is exploiting people by taking extreme examples [of migrant violence] and saying it's normal." Boll Wallberg, 50, Motala, Sweden
Sweden’s violent reality is undoing a peaceful self-image An armed police officer in Malmo, Sweden. The topic of crime is a
sensitive one in the country | Johan Nilsson/AFP via Getty Images
Sweden's Jimmie Akesson, whose party came in third in the popular vote in Sunday's election, garnered an impressive 20 percent of the vote. While other parties, all of whom he has stated he is willing to work with, refuse to cooperate with the party he founded with its expressed desire to "Keep Sweden Swedish", there are sufficient Swedes fed up with the number of refugees that have invaded the country to give his party their support. The issue is that Sweden absorbed a greater number of refugees per capita than any other country in Europe during the migration flooding Europe.
The younger members of Sweden Democrats were known to have expressed clear racist leanings, and Jimmie Akesson responded by inviting them to leave his party. He will have nothing to do with the terms "populist" and "far right", considering the party to be nothing less than a respectable conservative and nationalist movement. One occasioned by the flood of refugees changing the face of Sweden, its concerns and its values, straining its social contract and introducing a level of crime hitherto unknown.
At 39 years of age the man has taken up a difficult task. Aside from purging racist mentalities from the party, he must convince the majority of Swedes that he is not an extremist but a patriotic Swede distressed as most others are, at the literal changing face of their nation. The government would have it statistically that gun crime, rape and sexual assault rates have increased since the 2015 refugee influx, but will not divulge the perpetrators' nationalities. It is an open secret that identifies refugee populations as the major source of those crimes.
The state broadcaster shed some light on the matter when it released its own figures, finding that in the past five years 58 percent of sex crimes were foreigner-committed. Europe in general is gradually moving in its sentiments toward the centre-right and Sweden is only the latest country in Europe to recognize the problem inherent with an intake of majority Muslim refugees.
"I think that [the connection between sex attacks and Muslim immigrants] is due to cultural differences in how you view women and women's rights", stated Mattias Karlson, MP and former party leader.
"The allies are certainly sick of this but don't seem to have an alternative." "The Europeans are invested down a path of trying to please the president [Donald Trump], not out of belief but more hope against hope that they will convince him." "[The real question for the Europeans] is not if they stick with the deal [nuclear agreement with Iran] but will they stand up in the American effort to unravel it and take active measures to protect their companies and banks trading in Iran?" "[That would be] an extremely confrontational stance, and it's not clear that their companies really want that." Jeremy Shapiro, former official, U.S. State Department; European Council on Foreign Relations
"Can't we defend what our own interests are? Isn't it wiser to temporarily part ways with the Trump administration?" "Trump and Europe have fundamentally different objectives." Nathalie Tocci, senior adviser, European Union
"At some point -- after having pushed the Europeans on NATO, Paris, the Jerusalem embassy move, trade and now Iran -- the Europeans will come to the conclusion that they're better off going their own way." "And that point is rapidly approaching." Ivo H. Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO
"Nobody thinks the trans-Atlantic alliance is over. But how do we make it work with a U.S. leadership that doesn't want to play the role of leader?" "How do we move ahead in a world, not without the U.S., but with an American leadership not willing to play its traditional role?" Pierre Vimont, former French ambassador to Washington
There could tough talking between Trump and his allies over his decision. Credit: PA
American allies in Europe want the status quo to continue; which is to say the long-acknowledged leader-of-the-pack suddenly, with a change of administration, is no longer interested in leading. It wants to withdraw, not necessarily its influence, but its direct responsibilities in ushering the trans-Atlantic alliance toward its self-satisfied goals in aspirational self-interests. Mostly that represents recognizing the frailties and faults of those nations not within their direct political orbit but holding their collective noses and recognizing trade opportunities to stuff their own coffers with the profits.
So regimes that are truly destructive of the human spirit, controlling and manipulative which gain the disapproval of the partnership members are still acceptable for what they can provide in capitalizing on their natural resources to provide revenues for themselves and profitable investments for those willing to set aside their ethics and forget about moral obligations of democratic societies toward populations stifled by corrupt, domineering dictators and profiteers.
While countries like Iran are using their profits to sustain their terrorist non-state militias, it fails to hinder investment and trade with them on the part of Western European nations who prefer not to 'notice' the deep linkage between their investment and profits and the offside support on their part to the fundamentalist, Sharia-driven warmongering terrorism the Islamic Republic of Iran supports, from Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, drenched in the blood of his Syrian Sunni civilians, to Palestinian Hamas, garroting the aspirations of Gazan Palestinians.
That the despicable quasi-politician-businessman-social pariah Trump appears to have scruples eluding the patrician French and punctilious Germans whose major concerns about the collapse of the Iran nuclear agreement is the potential impact on their corporate interests and investment banks trump all other concerns of which they prefer not to know the details calls into question who among them is the more intelligent and decent of human beings.
Quite dreadful of Mr. Trump to decide to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, a city with which Judaic history and heritage is plump with meaning, despite the contemptible short shrift given it by UNESCO at the bidding of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Quite horrible of Israel to defend its borders from the incursion of people infused with hatred of Jews, instructed by Hamas to bring along weapons and to infiltrate the Jewish state to help it celebrate the recognition of Jerusalem as its capital; a dreadful misunderstanding, for which Hamas operatives paid the deadly price.
So selfish of Mr. Trump to think in terms of "America First", as though members of the European Union think of themselves as one big happy family sans borders, without a single thought of their aspirational national fortunes before those of their neighbours. Sad that Britain has decided to ditch the family, but true to form remains concerned about the fallout on trade; in that area alone it fits right in with the others it spurns.
Of course the European governments who deplore Trump's unwillingness to absorb more migrants and refugees particularly from countries that breed Islamist terrorists are themselves focused on migration, but challenged by their pledge to fight Islamophobia making them truly conflicted as though they share a fundamental pathology of both inviting and rejecting the random violence that has afflicted their societies and threatens to overturn their culture and reverse their laws and their politics.
"Many of you have worried that Canada has lost its compassionate and
constructive voice in the world over the past 10 years." "Well, I have a simple message for you: on behalf of 35 million Canadians, we’re back." Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
They can have him....!
"Some countries really wish to see the presence of Canada [within the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement]. Others might have less interest ... So, I think this is a very delicate balance which is in question." "So we are sincerely hoping and strongly hoping that we can go ahead with Canada on board, yes. Otherwise this delicate balance might be affected." Japanese Ambassador to Canada, Kimihiro Ishikane
Justin Trudeau made many election promises on the campaign trail. Canadians liked those promises and they elected a majority Liberal government, dismissing the majority Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Politicians are very skilled at making election promises. They place a wet political finger high in the air to see what popular sentiments from the public waft by, and as they do, flail wildly to capture them and make them their own. Justin Trudeau did so with an emphasis on "sunny ways", interpreted as smiley faces, particularly his.
Justin Trudeau, a young man with previous experience as a snowboard instructor, a drama teacher at a private boys' school, and plenty of experience on the remunerative speaking circuit as the wealthy and telegenic son of a previous prime minister, felt he had what it would take to lead Canada into the future. A future which, under his tutelage and guidance, would prosper and became a 'nicer' place with a lot of smiley people eager to take selfies with a man pleased to share those selfies.
So, how's he doing? At his inauguration, his mother was overheard to murmur her own sentiments about her "Golden Boy". The Golden Boy with the Sunny Ways likes to have things go his way. And he enjoys moving among the big players on the world stage -- their reactions are so predictably courteous, including the one whose boorish ignorance and tendency to react on uninformed whims calls out for prudent grovelling on the part of supplicants.
Pierre Trudeau used to muse about the difficulty of a mouse living in close proximity to an elephant, fearful of it rolling over. Pierre Trudeau also recognized that in matters of trade with Canada's largest trading partner Canada would always be poked with the short end of the stick, so he reasoned that the Canada he led must look elsewhere for trading partners; that sentiment has stuck with his successors. And now, here's his son with one of the most vital files leading to Canada's future prosperity.
Australia was so taken aback and shocked at Justin Trudeau's behaviour -- boorish in the extreme -- at the TPP summit in Vietnam in November that resulted in an "unpredictable situation" with Canada, it informed the press that Canada had "sabotaged" the deal. Expected to appear at a meeting where all the leaders were to have signed the agreement to make it official, the leaders of Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam were left cooling their heels when Canada's Trudeau failed to appear.
Simple enough; he was having a hissy-fit of anticipated entitlement inexplicably denied. Free trade agreements are meant to feature his personal signature, inclusive of specific wordiness, and inclusion of women's equality rights, demands that might seem out of place in a group of ten other heads of government whose focus might be elsewhere; this is trade, after all, not a philosophical treatise on human rights skewed Trudeau-way.
Perhaps Trudeau felt he could strong-arm those Pacific nations with his pacific beatitude. Canada, after all, alongside Mexico, is getting reamed by their great-trade-power partner, the United States of America by a president who scorns free trade, abhors the thought that other nations might benefit by opening up trade with the U.S. and insists on America First in all measures, fairness set aside. As for the Liberal fixation with a free trade deal with China which previous PM Jean Chretien had all but set up, Justin Trudeau's entitlement sense appears to have rubbed Chinese sensibilities the wrong way.
In the common parlance of Chinese nick-names, Justin Trudeau is known as the 'Small Potato', with or without his sunny ways. So that brings us to other important issues brought up during the election campaign, with a change the Liberals would bring in election reform high on he list of immediate 'to-do', when Trudeau announced his would be the last election under the current FPTP. Forget about that, now, dead and buried, awkwardly handled, embarrassing to the government -- almost.
During the election campaign, Trudeau asserted knowledgeably that the F-35 stealth jet fighters most of NATO were signed on to was 'untested' and unreliable. And having stated unequivocally that Canada, despite its investment in the plane's advanced technology would not acquire them, worked himself into a corner where now 18 obsolete second-hand Australian CF18s will temporarily fill the gap of a shortage of military jets for Canada. Boeing is in Canada's bad books for bringing a suit against Bombardier of unfair competition.
"Canada is back" as a member of the world community prepared to resume its 'traditional' peacekeeping role with the United Nations. Musing over African commitments and rearing back with the realization that African conflicts are horrendously costly, deadly and unstoppable, Trudeau committed to restructuring his promise and offering instead training equipment and air transportation to help other countries committed to having their military wear blue helmets.
The long-promised solution to forming a commission to investigate the issue of murdered and missing indigenous women has run into roadblocks. Inefficiency, lack of focus and discipline, and the censure of First Nations chiefs (as per tradition where those same chiefs fail to investigate the issue of violence within the communities victimizing both men and women) into the structure and lack of purpose of the commission before it even got off the ground.
Finally, the clumsy and unprincipled behaviour and actions of the finance file, where the Minister of Finance was brought up short on his very own actions as an immensely wealthy man whose family business stood to gain enormously with the enaction of amendments to taxation avoidance. The Ministers of National Defense and Finance have both diminished their own stature and that of the offices they hold by their demeanor and their inability to divulge the truth.
"In the past, for reasons I try to explain, I've often felt I had to be careful in public, like I was up on a wire without a net." "Now I'm letting my guard down." Hillary Rodham Clinton
"Now free from the constraints of running [?sic], Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules." "In these pages [forthcoming book, 'What Happened'], she describes what it was like to run against Donald Trump, the mistakes she made, how she has coped with a shocking and devastating loss, and how she found the strength to pick herself back up afterwards." Simon & Schuster publishing bumph
"Hillary Rodham Clinton has written a new book. Except maybe she hasn’t. It all depends on what the definition of 'written' is." "The former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state had some help on her new memoir, 'Hard Choices.' Clinton employed a phalanx of aides and associates in producing the volume, which is being released Tuesday." "But
don’t expect to hear much about Clinton’s 'book team', as she calls
those who helped her write the book, which carries her name alone on its
cover." "Clinton’s acknowledgment of her three-man team — Dan
Schwerin, a former Senate and State Department aide to Clinton; Ethan
Gelber, another State Department aide; and Ted Widmer, a Clinton adviser
and Brown University historian — appears in just a few sentences on
Page 597 of the 635-page book. Their exact contributions, however,
aren’t spelled out." "Such is the lot of the ghostwriter." Paul Farhi, The Washington Post, June 9, 2014
HiIlary Rodham Clinton listens before signing a
copy of her book, "Hard Choices" at Barnes and Noble bookstore in New
York. (Bebeto Matthews/AP)
On Thursday the announcement of this latest work of fiction from Hillary Clinton was made public.
Instant sensation. The title of her new book leaped forward from its position number 3,350 to 17 on Amazon.com. It is now the 'must-have' tell-all of the month, presumably. Ever hopeful, people who plan to read the exculpatory tome written by someone, certainly not Hillary Clinton, though viewed through her personal lens, will be treated to a version of events that put this woman in high dudgeon until she managed to recover, consoling herself with the assurance that it wasn't her fault.
That Ms. Clinton, the infamously famous woman who imagined herself entitled through a long apprenticeship to sit in the White House, not as a 'first lady' but a First Lady, wrote yet another book is a risible absurdity, and an insult to those who actually labour at the task of writing books. Her name is always front and center as the author of the books in her name, while sometimes the actual name of the person who wrote the book, like the writer of 'It Takes a Village', Barbara Feinman Todd, Georgetown University lecturer and writer who spent 7 months writing it, went unnamed.
These incidental oversights appear to be endemic to Hillary Clinton. She has a casual approach to so many vitally important nods to responsibility and honest revelations, with a penchant toward portraying herself as misunderstood and under-appreciated. Clearly she was misunderstood when she spoke of the type of wretched American voters to whom Trump appealed as presidential material. Just as she was massively under-appreciated when so many of the U.S. voting public felt her past performance revealed too much about her personal style that was unappealing to them as presidential potential.
And perhaps it somewhat stuck in the craw of the ordinary American who struggles to make ends meet living in a society that favours the enterprising and the wealthy -- a nation that prides itself on its exceptionality as a democratic republic that views all its citizens with equanimity in an equal light of opportunity, however disadvantaged a large demographic is when seeking health care, unable to afford what they need to remain healthy and able to maintain employment -- that this woman never missed an opportunity to enrich herself.
And good gracious, here she is, doing it again. Letting her guard down in a mission to explain her lapses in judgement, not those lapses that painted her as unlikely presidential material, but those in failing to understand and connect to the needs of those not as privileged as she. To whom her adversary did appeal and connect with, an issue that in the larger scheme of things, made all the difference. Her defeat at the polls, a 'stunning blow' to someone who expected to breeze into the Oval Office was definitely not her fault. Cue the Russian card. And then-FBI director James Comey; both scuppered her, undeniably.
She talked a good line in excusing herself, from her email server to her State Department response on Benghazi, and her embroideries about being under fire in a field of combat. The field of combat that really mattered to her might have seen a lot of people souring when word of her use of State Department contacts to embellish the charitable enterprise of her husband certainly did her no good. She has a certain way of evincing indignation at suspicions of her self-interested motivation; there we go again, misunderstood.
A flawed candidate in capital letters. In capital letters though she would not have enhanced the status of president while basking in the euphoria of representing the first American woman to hold that position, surely her win at the polls that fateful election day would have been preferable to the election of that uncouth, ignorant, vengeful, egotistical habitual liar whose lack of knowledge and certainty of his personal wisdom is destroying whatever is left of the dignity of political office in Washington.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder -- If It Fits, Wear It!
"Inflated sense of grandiosity, lack of empathy, tendency to react angrily when matters fail to go their way, a constant need of admiration, bound up with a shell of self-confidence." "According to DSM-5,
individuals with NPD have most (at least five) or all of the symptoms
listed below (generally without commensurate qualities or
accomplishments).
1 Grandiosity with expectations of superior treatment by others."
2 Fixated on fantasies of power, success, intelligence, attractiveness, etc.
3 Self-perception of being unique, superior, and associated with high-status people and institutions.
4 Needing constant admiration from others.
5 Sense of entitlement to special treatment and to obedience from others.
6 Exploitative of others to achieve personal gain.
7 Unwilling to empathize with others' feelings, wishes, or needs.
8 Intensely jealous of others and the belief that others are equally jealous of them.
9 Pompous and arrogant demeanor."
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during a rally at
Southeastern Livestock Pavillion on October 12, 2016 in Ocala, Florida. (Gerardo Mora/Getty Images)
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the next President of the United States of America and Commander-in-Chief of the United States. January of 2017 is not all that far into the future. As each day passes edging toward that future, the world remains agog with amazement that this autocratic, belligerent, oafish, self-entitled braggart was successful in buying the presidency of the most powerful nation on the planet. And deigned to accept the confidence displayed in him by a majority of the electorate.
The alternate candidate did her utmost to snatch the purchase out of his mocked hands and indeed outspent him magnificently, but her overweening ambition was no match for his, and her lies though seemingly modest in comparison to his, came from a source that came complete with the kind of political baggage and entitlement that dwarfed even his. Her contempt for the alter-electorate matched his, but he made promises to a disenchanted public tired of establishment entitlements and political correctness. And she promised more of the same.
Donald Trump's narcissistic displays of character failed to offput a good swathe of the electorate. Although that swathe is described as middle class and white, it also included college educated women, blacks, Latinos and Muslims. Close to 62 million Americans voted for the now president-elect, well aware of his failings that were very well publicized by himself and by the news media. While voting Trump into office, they also rejected a Democratic Senate, House and state governors.
Among them many who had happily voted to bring Congressman Barack Obama into the presidency in 2008 and once again in 2012. Basically, people resent being patronized, and hate it even more when they are held in contempt. Hillary Clinton managed to hit her stride on both accounts, sneering at the basket of "deplorables" whom she identified as Trump supporters. They sneered right back, countering with her deplorable attitude that she was free to do whatever she liked.
Not that Donald Trump will not be a compromised president, despite his claims that his vast business holdings will not constitute any form of illegitimacy as the president. Everything, he feels, is nicely copacetic. And his will be a family affair in administering government. After all, Hillary Clinton used the State Department as a springboard for influence and incentives to invest in the Clinton charitable enterprise and the Clinton name pulled in extravagant fees on the speakers' circuit.
Hillary Clinton tarnished her reputation through her own inimitable agency. Forty-five percent of white women, college-educated voted for Trump, along with 30 percent of Latino and Asian voters, demographics that Clinton aimed foursquare for on her 'record' on human rights. The urban centres on the coasts preferred to colour themselves blue, with the vast interior a sea of incandescent red. So much for informed prediction. Enter eye-rolling rage.
Yet so much for public aversion to a man shamelessly presenting himself as singularly sexist, racist, homophobic, phallocentric, bigoted, imperialist, neo-fascist, Islamophobic, and xenophobic, though of course as President of the great United States of America he is none, absolutely not one, of these labels personally. It merely seemed that way during this most scabrously, scandalous of election campaigns. Which nonetheless won him a non-"rigged" election.
It cannot be entirely without merit to mention that perhaps the obligatory sensitivity tiptoeing about on campuses and in corporate offices mandating attitudes be "correct", speech codes acceded to that forbid "inappropriate" humour and the like had something to say about this election outcome that has resulted in a tsunami of "not my president!" But yes, he is, and will be, at least for the succeeding four years, and perhaps even more.
The lashback on political correctness and the labelling of those rejecting delusional hypertrophic liberalism as social troglodytes brought matters to this state, resulting in a massive backlash of its own, as the liberal-left finds itself in the grip of a psychosis of mass hysteria. The distortion of the fundamental tenets of liberal democracy in the ordering of individual freedom, equal rights, democracy and tolerance reached heights of absurdity.
Radical elitism was rejected and the power of the presidency is now in the hands of the deplorables. Perhaps it can all be analyzed as just desserts.
It does strain credulity doesn't it? Places an untenable weight on one's struggle to believe that there is surely an equal number of people capable of discerning value and quality capability, intelligence and trustworthiness to balance those who fall prey to the promises of frauds portraying themselves as White Knights capable of overturning all the worrisome problems bedevilling citizens finding their governments oblivious to their most basic needs. That out of a capitalist jungle of swindlers and bankruptcy artists could erupt a brash, swashbuckling circus barker corrupt to the core whose hubris reflects the confidence conman whose vast financial gains made of him a celebrity, vowing to the discontented and bewildered that he would deliver them from the land of naught to the paradise of plenty, exiling all those hated politicians who fail to give heed to their existential need -- who could foresee? That this skilled necromancer could manipulate and impress great swathes of the population to cast out the old and vote him into high office was a matter of laughing disbelief, until it happened and laughter turned to tears. Do not despair ye of broken faith, for this too shall pass.
"It all went so fast. In the space of about twenty minutes, I went from feeling completely normal to having a rapid heart rate, really high blood pressure, to sweating and vomiting all over the place, and then I lost consciousness." Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian opposition leader
Vladimir Kara-Murza is back on his feet and in RussiaPhoto: Dmitri Beliakov/The Telegraph
"The government is using the special services to liquidate its enemies. It was not just Litvinenko, but many others we don't know about, classified as accidents or maybe semi-accidents." Gennadi V. Gudkov, former member of Parliament, former lieutenant colonel, K.G.B.
"All of this sounds like paranoid conspiracy theories. But there are too many of these happening to important people. Captains of industry and lawyers are not dying left, right and centre like this in the West." William F. Browder, American financier, anti-Russian government campaigner
Russians tend to be extremely courageous in continuing to offend their president, Vladimir V. Putin, by challenging his authority. Mr. Putin is not someone who takes such instances of obvious disrespect lightly, and it seems he is not a forgiving man. Too many journalists and political opponents have paid the supreme price of death for their belief that they could reasonably survive criticizing Mr. Putin. The amazing thing is, they continue to express their opinions, in defiance of his reputation and his penchant for instructing death squads to pursue his brand of justice.
Mr. Putin is, if nothing else, a man of supreme confidence in himself and contempt for those incapable of envisioning him as a man who has dedicated his life to Greater Russia, greater and greater Russia, through oppression and purloining of other neighbours' borders if need be, but a task to which he has dedicated himself with tremendous zeal. Mr. Kara-Murza had visited Washington to take part in public meetings to persuade American lawmakers to make full use of the Magnitsky Act, to hasten political change in Moscow.
The Magnitsky Act was adopted in the United States through the lobbying of American financier William Browder, target of tax fraud when he worked in Russia and who employed Mr. Magnitsky as his lawyer, recognizing his role as an anti-corruption crusader in Russia, hated by the authorities. Mr. Magnitsky had been arrested on trumped-up charges, imprisoned and died there when medical care was refused and his health deteriorated morbidly.
Once back in Russia, Mr. Kara-Murza, during a meeting with associates was the subject to a poisoning attempt, and lived to tell the tale. After emerging from a week-long coma, it was clear a security service had extended its use of capital punishment which, in this instance, failed. Political murder is a commonplace in this Russia; it worked during the Stalin era, and it works now. Journalists who think they can write about massive state corruption, rights advocates, opposition politicians, whistle-blowers and others who seek to change government are all targets of this very special backlash.
The whistle-blower that brought the attention of the world to Russia's sports doping scandal, Grigory Rodchenkov, well understands that to return to Russia is to agree to his own penalty meted out by government secret security, so he has decided to save his life and live elsewhere, though there are no guarantees, since that same secret security detail is quite capable of, and has proceeded to murder Russians abroad, with impunity.
Alexander Litvinenko fell ill after a meeting with former KGB contacts in London in 2006
The most infamous of its foreign ventures was the polonium poisoning of Alexander V. Litvinenko, an opponent of Putin who didn't live to tell the story. The world saw photos and news stories of Mr. Litvinenko's suffering in a hospital bed in London as he agonizingly suffered the deadly effects of polonium destroying his body internally until death finally gave him release from his agony. His death too serves as a warning to other critics of Russian government.
Yulia Stepanova, a Russian runner, is now in hiding in the United States with her husband, both of whom were forced to flee Russia in fear. "If something happens to us, then you should know that it is not an accident", she recently stated, of her involvement in revealing to the world the extent of the Russian government doping scheme at the Olympics. A coroner recently ruled that Kremlin insider Mikhail Y. Lesin died of blunt-force trauma in a Washington hotel room, not a heart attack as was originally stressed.
An intelligence officer who was accused of defecting and in the process betraying a ring of Russian spies working undetected undercover in American suburbs died in the United States. Aleksandr Poteyev, 65, was a former Russian intelligence officer whom the Russian Interfax news agency reported dead, due payback for revealing damaging information for Moscow and certainly for the undercover agents who had little option but to return to Russia, their identities revealed.
Russian banker Alexander Perepilichny in 2009 passed on records to Swiss investigators and in 2012, aged 44 in excellent health, suffered a heat attack, while jogging. In 2014, a botanist identified the cause of his death; not a heart attack. His stomach revealed traces of geisemium, a poisonous plant from the Himalayas, known to have been used in China for assassinations.
"How can you protect yourself? What can you do? Not eat? Bring your own lunch everywhere? How can you predict a poisoning?", asks Mr. Kara-Murza's wife Yevgenia, rhetorically, beside herself with concern and frustration over her husband's prospects for reasonable longevity.
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
