Category: Democracy

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In Samoa, a fight for democracy.

New Zealand coverage of the attempt to overturn the results of Samoa’s national elections in April, when the opposition FAST Party won a one seat majority in parliament thanks to support from an independent MP, has largely been mindlessly anodyne. Take for example the unfortunate choice of words in the RNZ report (re-published in the NZ Herald) on the contested election: “the FAST party of Fiame Naomi Mataafa was expected to secure a majority of seats, overthrowing the long-ruling Human Rights Protection Party and making Fiame Samoa’s first female prime minister.”

There is no “overthrowing” going on in Samoa, at least not by FAST. That would be a coup, putsch or “golpe,” and that would involve a violent blocking of the constitutionally legitimate and electorally validated political succession process.

Instead, what has happened so far is a (yet unfinished)) constitutional and therefore legal rotation or succession in elected government between the defeated incumbent Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) led by Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Neioti Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi and the victorious former opposition, a splinter break-off from the long ruling government of Mr. Malielegaoi (the irony of the party name will be ignored here). After dominating Samoan politics since 1982 and with the last 23 years in power in its present form (where it continuously placed legal obstacles to the formation of competing political parties), the HRPP and PM Malielegaoi are a lame duck caretaker administration until the new parliament is convened and the FAST government installed. After a series of legal challenges by HRPP involving a provision that 10 percent of parliament be female (which would mean adding one more appointed female seat to parliament and create a 26-26 MP deadlock that forces a new election), the Supreme Court ruled in favour of opposition that no new seat need be created and validated the results of the April 9 polls, opening the way for the sitting of a new parliament no more than 45 days after the election. That was to happen today.

Instead, the Malielegaoi government has blocked the move to sit a new parliament as per the Court’s order.

This is a troublesome move. Blocking rotation in government after a legitimate election is a very real attempt to overthrow the voter’s mandate. On Saturday Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi, the Head of State appointed by the Malielegaoi government in 2017, declared that parliament would not re-open today. He stated the reasons for his decision would be given “in due course” and left Apia for his home village several hours drive away. On Sunday the Samoan Supreme Court heard an emergency challenge to the Head of State’s proclamation and found it to be unlawful. The Samoan Attorney General, representing the caretaker administration, walked out on the proceedings. Because it was held on a Sunday, PM Malielegaoi claimed that it contravened “God’s will” and was therefore illegal (there is no constitutional provision against holding court hearings on Sundays). The Supreme Court rejected the accusations of irregularity and reiterated that the new parliament should be seated on the basis of the April 9 results. Instead, the Speaker of the House, a member of the HRPP, shuttered the doors of the Maota Fono, claiming that he follows the orders of the Head of State, not the Supreme Court. Coincidentally or not, the website for the Samoan Observer, the country’s main media outlet, has gone off-line. The stage is set for an authoritarian usurpation.

To be clear: political democracy is based on the principle that election losers accept adverse results in exchange for getting to compete again at pre-set intervals under fair conditions. Rotation in government is considered to be an intrinsic part of democratic governance and intrinsically good because it allows opposition parties to learn how to govern and allows former government parties to refresh and gain perspective when in opposition, all while vying for electorate support. That competitive pressure is considered to be what keeps the political process healthy if not entirely honest. 

In other words, either one accepts the principle of the honest loss or one is anti-democratic. The April elections were honest and the HRPP lost–by a very small margin, but it lost nevertheless. Hence, for the HRPP the choice today is to be democratic or dictatorial. Unhappily, what is appears to be going on in Samoa is not an attempted coup by the FAST party after its victories in the April election and in the Supreme Court. Instead, it is a variation on an (attempted) “constitutional” coup carried out by the defeated HRPP.

That brings up the issue of force and outside intervention. The Samoan Police have surrounded the parliament grounds (where FAST are staging a sit-in), but it remains unclear as to who they are are loyal to. Perhaps under the circumstances we should be thankful that Samoa does not have a military. But if the Police are loyal to the Head of State (who is a former police officer as well as an ordained minister) rather than the Samoan Constitution, then the authoritarian “auto-coup” could be successful.

There is more. Under the terms of the 1962 Friendship Treaty signed between Samoa and New Zealand, NZ is duty-bound to come to Samoa’s aid in a time of crisis. As unpalatable that may be given NZ’s history with Samoa and however unforeseen this particular crisis may be, it falls within the scope of the Treaty. But its invocation depends on an official request from Samoa so the issue is who has the legal right to issue that request should they deem it necessary to do so.

Given the circumstances, a legal request can only come from the legitimately elected government that has Samoan Supreme Court sanction. That would be a FAST-led coalition. But it runs the risk of provoking large scale unrest between political factions if the Samoan Police side with HRPP and people decide to take matters into their own hands with street violence. That then raises the question of the nature of any NZ intervention if the Friendship Treaty is invoked. Given NZ-Samoan history, a minimal amount of force should be used, with the NZDF (if need be) only used in a support role for NZ Police intervention units.

Most importantly (and pressingly), diplomacy can avoid invocation of the Treaty and thereby help avert intervention. MFAT needs to be on the case now because it is quite possible that other foreign actors with vested interests in Samoa seize the opportunity to extend their influence in it by favouring one side or another in the impasse. So diplomatic urgency is required for three compelling reasons: 1) to avoid invocation of the Friendship Treaty as a means of resolving a political dispute; 2) to preserve Samoan democracy in the face of authoritarian resistance from within; and 3) to prevent extra-regional (and non-democratic) actors to influence how the political process plays out.

The Samoan diaspora can help in this regard by signalling support for democracy. Although Samoan expats cannot vote in their home elections (thanks to Tess Newton Cain for the head’s up), it would be helpful if expats voiced support for the political system rather than a partisan preference given a contentious outcome. That could assist in easing partisan and social conflict in their homeland.

At the end of today the new FAST majority was sworn into office by the Supreme Court in the Supreme Court building rather than parliament because they were locked out of the Folo by the Clerk and Speaker of the House, both HRPP minions. The farce–some say typical of recent Samoan politics– is now about symbolism rather than the substance of political change, as if the location of the investiture ceremony and who gets to sit where when it comes to exercising governmental authority matters for the exercise of elected sovereign power. To his credit, the sitting Police Commissioner has taken an agnostic stance about the political shenanigans and seems disposed to adhere to constitutional edicts and respect for the rule of law. If that is the case, no foreign intervention is necessary and Samoan bureaucrats do not need to look to a particular building for their instructions when it comes to the continuity of State business. All that is needed now for a peaceful transition that reaffirms Samoans commitment to democracy is for foreign governments to recognize the realty of the situation. Word to the wise: It is all over but the HRPP shouting, and the sooner that they shut up or are ignored, the better for Samoa things will be.

As is often said: time to move on. The next days will tell if Samoa takes a political step forward or backwards. Best then, to illuminate and encourage the path ahead.

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Between appeasement and confrontation.

The worm has turned when it comes to the relationship between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the West. Something has happened to sour the relationship beyond repair, and the strains are not limited to US-PRC, Australian-PRC or UK-PRC bilateral relations. Other countries, notably in the EU and Southeast Asia and including traditional rival India, have replaced two decades of offering warmth and goodwill with increasingly frosty and suspicious attitudes towards the PRC. That seems to be due to a combination of PRC militarism and belligerence in places like the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Line of Control in the Himalayas separating it from India, but also as a result of Chinese sharp power influence operations in liberal democracies, its coercive trade diplomacy, ongoing Chinese cyber espionage, cyber theft and cyber warfare campaigns launched against a swathe of countries (including New Zealand), its dollar and debt diplomacy in Africa and South America where debt for equity swaps are accompanied by the colonisation by Chinese labor of critical infrastructure sites in countries lacking the resources to undertake large scale projects like port modernisation or power generation, and the adoption of “wolf warrior” diplomacy where insults and bullying have become mainstays of PRC diplomatic discourse, particularly but not limited to the issue of human rights and adherence to international norms.

With regards to the latter, in some cases Chinese behaviour is so egregious, such as stationing hundreds of fishing boats outside the marine reserve surrounding the Galapagos Islands or off the southeastern and southwestern coasts of South America and Southern Africa, often using the cover of night to poach in the Exclusive Economic Zones (when not territorial waters) of various countries, that countries otherwise prone to welcome the PRC as an antidote to traditional US or colonial power dominance have started to review their positions with regards to it.

The faith once placed in incorporating the PRC as a good global citizen into the community of advanced nations by admitting it into international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation and giving it leadership roles in others like the World Health Organisation and various UN agencies has not yielded the results that were hoped for. Instead, the errors of so-called modernisation theorists of the 1950s were repeated: rather than encouraging Chinese democracy by exposing it to “Western” values and helping expand its middle class on the back of increased international trade opportunities and the corresponding rise in material opportunities associated with it–something that was thought would lead to a better appreciation by and reproduction of democratic values by those emerging middle classes who would grow to see democracy as the political equivalent of the “free” economic market–under Xi Jinping the PRC has become more authoritarian, more state capitalist, more territorially expansionist, more normatively untrustworthy and more militarily bellicose. Instead of a global good citizen, it is now increasingly seen in the West as a very large bully on the world stage.

This does not absolve the US and various colonial powers of their histories. But it points to the fact that the thirty year period of relative inter-state peace after the end of the Cold War is coming to its conclusion. What lies ahead is unknown but it is likely to be marked by conflict of one sort or another or a combination thereof. The strategic postures of the US, UK, France and Australia all now explicitly identify the PRC as the primary military “peer competitor” (i.e. the enemy) that they must prepare to fight. Even NZ’s defense posture has shifted from unconventional warfare scenarios against irregular non-state actors to involvement in interstate conflicts (although the focus on peacekeeping operations remains). Reflected in defense procurement programs over the next ten years, the shift in war planning is answered by Chinese redoubling of its efforts to expand its fleet and improve the sophistication and size of its land and air-based forces. It also has renewed its bilateral military ties with Russia and courted the alliance of a variety of strategically important authoritarians regimes such as Iran and Turkey. It seems that it is only a matter of time before either by miscalculation, misperception or misadventure it will be involved in an armed engagement with a Western or Western-backed adversary, at which point the escalatory and expansionist potential of such conflict is limited only by the threat of nuclear war.

This puts small states like NZ between a rock and hard place. The diplomatic pressure is being felt in Wellington and Nanaia Mahuta’s speech to the China and New Zealand Business Council reflected the attempts to massage the stresses now apparent in its relationship with the PRC. The question is whether NZ can continue to employ its “softly-softly” approach in the face of the Western turn against the PRC and the latter’s increasingly acerbic responses to criticism of its actions at home and abroad. There can be little doubt that at this juncture if push comes to shove NZ will side with the West as a matter of values and principle. It has signalled as much and, with its commitment to diversifying its trade relations outside of the bilateral ties with the PRC, is setting the pragmatic grounds for doing so even if the short term costs of any deterioration in the relationship with the PRC proves onerous and wide-spread throughout the economy. But so long as the quarrel between Great Powers is limited to podiums and pens, then NZ can hope to finesse the contradictions in its strategic posture.

The answer on how to do so may lay in thinking of NZ’s position in the face of the US/West-PRC rivalry as a strategic balancing act in which the fixed points are appeasement versus confrontation and the slackline between the two is cooperation. The key is to find an equilibrium point along that line given specific issues and changing circumstances. There is plenty of common ground for NZ to serve as a honest broker and fair interlocutor when it comes to PRC-West relations even as it reaffirms its commitment to Western liberal values. Pragmatism and principle will undoubtably factor into the centre of gravity upon which to balance NZ foreign policy in that regard. The goal is to be nimble when demonstrating a desire to cooperate on selected issues given the competing demands by trade and security partners to appease or confront each other. Sometimes the equilibrium point may be closer to the PRC position, sometimes it will tilt in favour of the Western stance. They key to success lies in refraining from entering into broadly binding agreements or commitments and to adopt an issue-by-issue, case by case approach that serves to insulate any particular bilateral decision from the larger geopolitical struggles surrounding it.

That may turn out to not be feasible if the contending Great states do not accept NZ’s “siloed” approach and will not be a permanent foreign policy solution given the apparent inevitability of a Great Power stand-off in the medium term future. But it provides a means of finding the optimal equilibrium point on the diplomatic slackline that is NZs transitional position vis a vis China and the West until the new multipolar world system is firmly established.

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Principled, pragmatic or expedient.

For several decades under Labour and National-led governments New Zealand has claimed to have an independent (and sometimes autonomous) foreign policy. This foreign policy independence is said to be gained by having a “principled but pragmatic” approach to international relations: principled when possible, pragmatic when necessary. More recently NZ foreign policy has shifted from traditional diplomacy in which trade was a component part to a trade focused orientation to which all other aspects of diplomatic endeavour are subordinated. Seen as a marriage of belief in Ricardian notions of comparative (and now competitive) advantage with a pragmatic understanding that NZ is dependent on trade for its survival and prosperity, the “trade for trade’s sake” approach continues to reign supreme to this day.

It turns out that foreign policy pragmatism or principle may no longer obtain in certain instances, especially when trade is involved. Take the issue of NZ military-related exports. It has been revealed that NZ firms and (possibly) public agencies export everything from airplane parts to small arms, explosive ordinance, training simulators, muzzle flash suppressors, missile guidance systems and artillery range finders to 41 countries and territories. (The term “possibly” is used here because all of the NZ exporting entities are redacted in the export list made public by MFAT. While some private exporters can be broadly identified by the nature of the items sold, other special license categories make ambiguous the provenance of the equipment in question).

Most of these exports go to NATO members and other liberal democracies, while other recipients are regional partners like Singapore, Malaysia , Australia, Tonga and Indonesia. The bulk of what is exported is what might be considered to be on the soft rather than sharp end of the so-called “kill chain:” items that do not impart lethal force directly but which contribute to the accuracy and lethality of weapons systems that do.

None of this would be controversial if it were not for the fact that some of the recipient countries have checkered human rights records (like Indonesia) while others have outright dismal histories of authoritarianism and military criminality. That includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and the PRC. Saudi Arabia and the UAE lead a coalition of Sunni Arab states that have been credibly accused of committing war crimes and genocide against Houthi populations in Yemen. Saudi Arabia does not recognise the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the UAE was not party to the UDHR vote) and along with the UAE does not recognise a number of human rights conventions involving women’s rights, labour rights, political and social rights. Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia also are not party to the UDHR and while not as dismal as the Sunni oligarchies, have subpar records when it comes to adhering to international human rights norms and agreements. NZ exports military training material to the PRC, whose human rights history is known for all the wrong reasons. There are other dubious recipients but the issue is clear. In spite of claiming to be a champion and defender of human rights as a matter of principle, NZ exports military equipment to egregious violators of human rights both at home and abroad.

Some will argue that NATO members and other democracies like Australia also violate the laws of war and human rights in their own territories. There is merit to those arguments. But the difference between Australia, Canada, the UK and US and, say, Saudi Arabia and the UAE when it comes to military conduct in conflict theatres is that war crimes committed by the forces deployed by liberal democracies are exceptions to the rule and are punished (even if initially covered up) rather than systematically encouraged and later denied. Domestically, while systemic racism clearly exists throughout the liberal democratic world, it is no longer genocidal in nature even if in previous eras there was a significant element of that.

Conversely, places like the PRC systemically abuse human rights at home, deny individual and collective rights as a matter of course and treat ethnic and religious minorities as if they were foreign enemies. Turkey has grown increasingly authoritarian under President Erdogan, with its treatment of its Kurdish minority a particularly black mark on its record. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are known for their mistreatment of foreign workers, Shiia Muslims in particular but not exclusively. Jordan and Bahrain, other recipients of NZ strategic license exports, are Western allies but not known for their adherence to human rights conventions.

Even Israel, a supposed liberal democracy and a Western ally that is another recipient of NZ military-related exports, systematically violates the rights of Palestinians inside and outside of its recognised territorial limits, including targeting of civilian populations during times of conflict (in Gaza) and forcibly annexing Palestinian territory (in the West Bank) as part of an expansionist doctrine that seeks to eventually expel Palestinians from what they and Israelis consider to be their homelands. Within Israel, in spite of recent electoral gains by so-called “Arab” (Joint List) parties, Palestinians are more often seen and treated as a subversive fifth column rather than full citizens (Arabs make up around 20 percent of the Israeli population).

Most liberal democracies simply do not act this way. The West may be guilty of many things, particularly during the colonial era and Cold War, but even if flawed most liberal democracies at a minimum pay lip service to the rule of law based on civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad. A fair number of the recipients of NZ strategic exports in recent years make no such pretence.

None of this would matter if NZ had a realist approach to foreign policy that was completely pragmatic in orientation based on national self-interest. Matters of principle would not factor into foreign policy-making and trade relations. But that is not the case. Instead, NZ is a very vocal defender of small state and minority rights in the international community as an extension of its championing of international human rights, international norms and the rule of law. That makes trading with authoritarians somewhat hypocritical and exporting military equipment to murderous regimes downright reprehensible. Especially when done for a buck–that is, for the profit gain of NZ private firms.

To be clear, almost any hunting-related equipment can be converted for dual use military purposes. But there is much more to the NZ export list (released by MFAT to a couple of investigative reporters under OIA requests) than converted hunting equipment. It also is interesting that most of the redactions in the sanitised export list are justified on commercial sensitivity rather than national security grounds. If items were merely dual use conversions from hunting equipment, one would think that there are little commercial sensitivities involved given the global scope of the hunting industry. Nor are end users always identified on the list, which makes MFAT assurances that it knows what is ultimately being done with the exports somewhat disingenuous. Either it knows and does not want to say or it does not know even though it allowed the export license request for those items to be approved.

Consider this example. MFAT approved the sale of a general utility aircraft from a Hamilton-based aerospace company (now bankrupt) to a PRC-based aviation firm in spite of numerous concerns about the end use of that aircraft. A year or so after the sale went through the plane was photographed at an airshow wearing North Korean military livery, sparking an investigation into how international sanctions on North Korea were circumvented in the process (the sanctions violation was considered a first order offence given the military use of the aircraft). In the legal process that followed, which resulted in the conviction and fining of the Hamilton firm for violating the international sanctions regime and NZ strategic export requirements, MFAT admitted that it had no clue as to who the end user might be beyond the PRC firm that, incidentally, owned a half interest in the Hamilton company and controlled its board of directors. In other words, it took the exporter’s word as an article of faith and as a result contributed to an egregious violation of UN sanctions that NZ voted to support. Diplomatically speaking, that tarnished NZ’s reputation because neither principle or pragmatism, much less due diligence, was applied to the sale.

Even training equipment has to be considered in proper context. Artillery range finders used for training purposes (which MFAT claims was the case with Saudi Arabia) are being used to train artillery for war, not fun and games. Saudi artillery is regularly used in the Yemen civil war, so it a stretch to say that exporting equipment that trains troops to be more accurate with their artillery fire is not related to the Yemeni conflict. Likewise, even if small in terms of numbers and monetary value, exporting sidearms and squad weapons to human rights violators ignores the fact that they could be used against domestic populations and foreign civilians as well as foreign adversaries.

Again, none of this would be of concern if NZ did not proclaim itself to have an independent foreign policy based on principle as well as pragmatism. If it was a country powered by a military-industrial complex such as the US, it would all be in a day’s business to export military equipment to assorted nefarious regimes. But not so NZ, which has staked its international reputation on being an agent of honest virtue–a good global citizen, as it often says.

The truth is different. If NZ was truly independent it could resist the pressure to act as a cut-out or front for its allies’ military-related services (say, by not allowing the national airline to serve as a sub-contractor for the reconditioning of Saudi Navy gas turbines usually serviced by US Navy contractors). It could pick and choose about when to be principled and when to be pragmatic when it comes to military-related exports (say, by exporting to NATO or liberal democratic partners only). After all, although clearly lacking any basis in principle, it is really pragmatic for NZ to sell the Saudis and Emiratis military equipment when they are involved in industrial-strength war crimes in pursuit of a genocidal campaign in a neighbouring country? Will the diplomatic benefits of courting such states outweigh the costs of making its rank hypocrisy visible to the rest of the international community?

In a past life I was involved in the decision-making chain involved in US military sales and training, etc. to Latin American countries. The primary criteria for vetting military equipment and training requests was twofold: the nature of the equipment or training requested and the character of the political regime (government) making the request. If the equipment or training was too sensitive or excessively lethal and/or the regime doing the requesting was of dubious disposition, then the request was denied. If the decision was anything other than an outright “no” on the primary grounds, then other criteria was applied: state of trade and diplomatic relations with the requesting state, the geopolitical balance in the (sub) region in which that state was located, the possibility of a domino proliferation impact, the presence of other foreign weapons suppliers as substitutes for US exports, etc. Once all of this was factored in with input from the various elements of the inter-agency consultation process (involving the State Department, CIA, NSC, Treasury, Commerce and other federal agencies with a potential stake in the matter), sometimes after sounding out other countries in the region about their reactions, a recommendation was sent to the White House for approval/denial. If the White House approved the sale/mission, then the recommendation was sent to Congress for approval, something involving several committee votes and then a general vote in both Houses. The process was slow and circuitous but in the end it was comprehensive and transparent.

Although it is possible that there are similarly robust weapons exportation strategic license vetting protocols in place in NZ, that does not seem to be the case. MFAT appears to make the call, perhaps after consultation with DPMC and/or Cabinet. Parliament is not involved in the decision-making process. No public notification is made. In other words, the entire NZ strategic export licensing regime is opaque at best. You can read the official criteria here.

MFAT says that the vetting process is rigorous and that it knows exactly where NZ sourced military equipment winds up. Yet it has only denied one out of 254 special export license requests in the last three years (to the Saudis for mortar stands and fire control (observation tower) equipment, supposedly in response to the Khashoggi murder). If foreign policy principle were involved, one might expect that the approval rate would be somewhat lower for authoritarian-ruled countries. But if pragmatism and trade are the criteria in play, does it make sense to supply murderous regimes with any kill chain components? Or is the fact that the entire decision-making process for granting special export licenses is so opaque that MFAT and the suppliers thought that they would never be found out if it were not for the good work of a couple of intrepid reporters?

More than principle and pragmatism as guideposts for foreign policy, it seems that trade-promoting expediency is the new normal in NZ foreign affairs, something that continues under the Ardern government. But with expediency comes a loss of independence and autonomy as well, because among other reasons, states with their own agendas can use NZ’s trade zealotry as third party cover for transactions they themselves may be reluctant to admit publicly (even the US has suspended weapons sales to Saudi Arabia because of its behaviour in Yemen). Or authoritarians can hold non-military trade relations with NZ hostage to the provision of military equipment. Either way, that makes NZ a foreign policy tool of others rather than an honest broker in international relations and global good citizen.

Just like the fact that NZ’s “clean and green” image is more myth than reality, the foreign policy reality is that at least when it comes to trading in the paraphernalia of death, NZ is unprincipled, hardly pragmatic and dominated by logics of trade expediency rather than a commitment to the upholding international human rights. While it would be too much to expect a National-led government to put principle before trade expediency, that this continues to occur under a Labour-led government (in which the Prime Minister claims that she was unaware of the strategic export recipient list until asked about it by the media) is all the more outrageous given its constant repetition of the “independent, principled but pragmatic” foreign policy mantra.

If NZ is to regain a semblance of integrity in diplomatic circles, its foreign policy decision-making matrix must change away from trade obsessed expediency and towards the principled but pragmatic orientation that grants it the independence that it claims to have. Conversely, if it wants to put trade before everything else, then it might as well fess up and open up the country’s foreign policy to the highest bidder.

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Infiltrating extremism.

Preamble

When I got my Ph.D. I was given an extraordinary opportunity to create a Latin American Studies program for US intelligence officers. My then father-in-law (a retired FBI agent and Legal Attache) knew a retired CIA guy who had links to the Naval Postgraduate School, where the program was to be housed. My father-in-law mentioned to the ex-CIA officer that he had a son-in-law who grew up in the region and that I was about to graduate with a degree in Political Science specialising in the comparative politics and international relations of Latin America. Although I was a “commie” in his eyes, he believed that I would probably pass the security clearances. I was invited to interview for the job along with a few others and lo and behold, I got it.

My task was to create a six course MA-level curriculum in Latin American Studies for civilian and military intelligence officers who would be heading into the region after taking intensive language courses at the Defence Language Institute (DLI)–conveniently located just down the road from NPS–as a requirement for graduation. I drew up syllabi for the History of Latin America, Latin American Government, Politics and Societies, Latin American Civil-Military Relations, Latin American International Relations, Latin American Economics and Latin American Insurgencies and Revolutionary Movements and taught all courses except the economics course. The students wrote a thesis in their final two quarters after being language certified at DLI, so the entire course of study lasted eighteen months (12 of course work/thesis and six of language training).

Notice the practical aspect of this curriculum. No literature offerings, no post-modern reflections on Latin American intersubjectivity, no electives in poetry or music (although there was plenty of that on offer at off-campus parties). While all of that is important and should be the stuff of civilian university offerings, this was different. The idea was to immerse the students in the realpolitik of the region, teach them proficiency in the language(s) in which they would have to operate, and then send them into the field where they would join more experienced officers for their first assignments.

I got the security clearances needed to supervise classified theses (Top Secret), which was an interesting process because even then in the mid-1980s the investigators were obsessed with whether I had ties to a communist party. They did not care about Peronists and when I told them that I was more of a Euro-Marxist along neo-Gramscian lines, they just stared blankly and asked if he had any relationship with Che Guevara. Since I did not belong to a CP and Gramsci did not travel in the same temporal or political circles as El Che, I was deemed fit for purpose.

NPS is located in Monterey, California, which is a very beautiful place. The Monterey Institute for International Studies (MIIS) is located there and I managed to secure an Adjunct Professor job at it teaching Latin American Politics. My in-laws lived in Carmel down the road, and there was blue water, open roads and clean air to run, swim and bike galore. Plus NPS has a serious gym with some very serious fitness freaks in it, so I was always able to work out and find training partners rain or shine (this privilege continued when I was in the Pentagon years later. Let’s just say that the US understands the benefits of sports and exercise quite well). My students were all around my age–late 20s and early 30s–so we played ball together even though technically I outranked them on and off the field. That made for some amusing moments when arguing with opposing players.

Student discipline, as you would expect, was superb. Many were very conservative in their political views but they understood where I was coming from given my background and also understood that they needed to comprehend why the US was opposed in many places and who opposed them (remember, these were the days of the Sandinistas, FMLN, Sendero Luminoso and assorted other leftist insurgencies). It was more than just knowing the enemy of the day. As I used to say to them, “you guys are professional security agents of a superpower but the people fighting in the insurgencies opposing the US and its client regimes are all volunteers. Why is that?” Since I had a visible distaste for military-bureaucratic authoritarians of the right as well as Lenenists and Stalinists, it was illuminating for them to hear me explain the reasons why.

I did a very good job getting that curriculum up and running (called the Western Hemisphere Area Studies program in the Department of National Security Affairs). But it was not to last. During the second Reagan administration word got out that there was a Marxist teaching at NPS and an ideological inquisitor from the Defence Department, ironically the son of a political theorist that I had studied under at Chicago, came to see what I was doing. Although no one said anything bad about me and in fact my students and colleagues were full of praise, I was ordered to start teaching Latin American maritime strategy and naval warfare even though no other area studies program had such requirements (there were already established programs in Asian, Middle Eastern and European Studies in the NSA Department).

Needless to say, although I had been studying geopolitics since undergraduate school and had a fair handle on Latin American military thinking, it was clear that, as a civilian who does not sail, I would struggle to fulfil the task. So I quit and went off to a civilian university, where two things happened: I continued to get military officers as my students because their commands were pleased with what I taught so moved them to the school I went to; and I developed a consulting relationship with various military commands and the intelligence community that was to last until I emigrated to NZ.

One of the most interesting things about that job was the unexpected and informal quid pro quo I developed with the intelligence community. Within weeks of joining NPS I was invited to give lectures around the country to military and civilian intelligence audiences (including, I must admit, the infamous School of the Americas). On one side, I was very sporty in those days and so managed to convince various military commands to allow me to run the obstacle courses on a number of military bases when visiting them to guest lecture (needless to say the military guys were suckers for putting a civilian academic through the grinder of their physical training routines). With my knowledge of the subject already established, the ability to do hard exercise in turn led to me being invited to join in various US irregular warfare activities as an observer, then advisor and consultant, something that continued until I left the US for NZ.

On the other side, I was eventually asked to participate in some leadership analysis and strategic deconstruction exercises for intelligence shops in DC and elsewhere (of ideology and tactics, such as whether guerrilla groups adopted Marighella’s two-pronged approach to irregular warfare, Guillen’s “Robin Hood” urban warfare approach or Guevara’s “foco” theory and whether they were Leninist, Maoist, Trotskyite or hybrid in ideological orientation). I had the security clearances so that was never an issue, and because I spoke both Spanish and Portuguese and lived so long in Latin America, I was very well received wherever I went because of the insights that I could offer on things like cultural mores, social do’s and don’ts, etc. Eventually the relationship with the intelligence community developed to the point that I would get invited to see aspects of how they trained human intelligence officers and even got to offer my thoughts on how to improve said training. I was told that the courtesy was simply a way of repaying me for my efforts in creating and running the Western Hemisphere Area Studies program. It was very enlightening to see how and what intelligence officers are taught before they become case officers in the field and/or subject analysts.

The exposure to both the military and intelligence sides of the coin (no pun intended for those in the know) was a luxury that few non-career people get to enjoy. It became the basis for how I approach the subjects of strategic analysis, threat assessment, intelligence collection and warfare.

The issue.

Which brings me in a much convoluted way to the point of this post: the differences between detecting, monitoring and infiltrating rightwing as opposed to to leftwing extremist groups. That was something that came up in conversation from time to time during my days in and around the US intelligence and military communities, since both types of group have historically been present in Latin America. From rightwing paramilitary death squads like Mano Blanca in El Salvador and the Triple-A in Argentina to the leftist populism of the Tupamaros in Uruguay and Bolivarians in Venezuela to the Maoism of Sendero Luminoso in Peru and FARC in Colombia to the Trotskyite tendencies of the ERP in Argentina, both sides of the ideological spectrum have armed extremist factions with violent histories.

The basic difference, and the one that makes the extremist Right easier to infiltrate than the extremist Left, is that the Right defends the capitalist class structure of society whereas the Left seeks to overthrow it. What that means is that the Right, as a defensive or restorative movement, seeks and often receives the shelter of capitalist class fractions, including some directly represented in government. Unconsciously or consciously, the extremist Right operates on behalf of the capitalist State, whereas the extremist Left seeks to confront it. The extremist Right sees itself as the ideological vanguard of a system of property-based class relations that is too weak to defend itself from assorted usurpers. It therefore offers autonomous protection to the capitalist class fractions most threatened by those groups and often receives capitalist support and cover in return.

The extremist Left has no such luxury. Dedicated to the overthrown of the capitalist system and the State that emerges from and serves it, leftist extremists cannot afford to reveal themselves to potential patrons outside of ideological fellow travellers. Back in the day, this forced many Latin American revolutionaries to seek support from Cubans, Russians, Chinese and Vietnamese even if these were not fully cognisant of the ideological and physical terrain in which the Latin Americans were fighting in (Che Guevara’s failed campaign in Bolivia being a remarkable example). Although extra-regional and foreign, they at least could be trusted out of shared ideological conviction, whereas even members of the domestic petit bourgeoisie, organised labour and public service could not be trusted due to their penchant for cooptation and hence betrayal of the class line.

Because of this, Left extremists have developed comparatively secure operational security systems in which secrecy, insularity, compartmentalisation, siloing and atomisation of cellular networks is paramount. Right extremists, on the other hand, prefer more overt displays of power tied to the classes that they support and defend. This occurs via public demonstrations such as the march on Charlottesville or the assault on the US Capitol, but the usual displays are local in nature. This can be seen in the connections between US extremists like Oathkeepers and Proud Boys with members of the Trump entourage and retrograde billionaires like Erik Prince or the Pillow Guy. It is likely to be the case with Action Zealandia, whose overt public media efforts (including Facebook and Twitter accounts) serve as a disguise for more violent planning and hint at links to funding and patronage beyond the known membership. These groups operate openly but generally conceal their violent tendencies and more extreme views in the public space while cultivating relationships with class allies and sponsors under the guise of moderation.

Such is true even when the Right moves to decentralised small cell or lone wolf tactics because unlike Left extremists, there is always a class patron in the background and a broader network of enablers and accomplices to which the extremists look for shelter and camouflage. To that can be added the more specific commonalities that cross between certain Right subgroups, including the symbology of tattoos and heraldry, interest in body-building (a trait shared by some jihadists), tenuous if not hostile relationships with females, interest in weaponry and anger at the way “things” are going in society. The combination of personality traits and collective expression of identity are the most visible signs of a penchant for extremism and lie at the core of the type of profiling that is the bread and butter of counter-terrorism operations. But this needs to be supplemented by a broader perspective in order to discern the full context in which extremists materialise and operate.

Put another way, whereas for Mao the peasantry were the sea in which the guerrilla fish swam in pre-revolutionary China, for the Right in liberal democracies it is among the (I would argue descendent) capitalist class fractions where the extremists seek to organise and hide. That is the starting point from which counter-extremist measures should be undertaken.

Broader historical context supports this view. Leftist perspectives have been the exception to capitalist rule since the end of the Cold War. Leftist extremists were mostly defeated where they engaged in armed struggle and those that did not fight, say in Europe, North America and the Antipodes in the 1960s and 70s, were coopted and bought off. What was Left into the 2000s has very little support and even less shelter for its extremist elements. Moreover, once the political Left adopted market-friendly “Third Way” policies and the activist Left splintered into identity politics and other forms of post-modern self-characterisation, the movement as a whole lost the class line unifier that could have allowed it some critical mass for revolutionary action propelled by an extremist vanguard. Today the Left are extremist in name only, running from the terms “radical” and “socialist” rather than embracing them for the emancipatory promise they contain within.

Contrarily, as a pro-capitalist movement, the ideological Right has ridden a market-oriented and -led political wave that harks to the Chicago Boys in Chile, Reaganism, Thatcherism and the pro-market reforms in NZ of the mid 1980s to become an all encompassing and largely unchallenged world view that continues to this day. It is not just a dominant theory about preferred economic organisation, policy and behaviour. It has become a holistic world-view based on principles of individualism, property and self advancement even if these principles are more mythical than real. In this cultural environment extremist Right views flow as a sub-current in the dominant ideological stream while Left extremists swim against it. One side hides in the open while the other seeks the cover of marginality. This has consequences for their respective praxis.

Because the extremist Left cannot “hide” in the capitalist class structure it is much more furtive and surreptitious in its approach to the armed struggle. Because the extremist Right sees itself as a champion of a system of property and society under siege and therefore well supported by the “silent majority,” it is more prone to let its guard down in front of kindred spirits when it comes to enunciating its plans and preparations for confrontation with those who would seek to challenge tradition, custom and class relations. When its views are repeated and shared by politicians as shared “truths” (say, by calling for NZ borders to be closed to people from “dirty” places like India or by saying that US elections were “stolen” by an evil cabal of liberal swamp people), then there is reason to believe that they are justified in assuming that their more devilish schemes will go unnoticed or be wilfully ignored. What differences may exist between more moderate Rightists and their extremist counterparts (say, on Jews), the unifying binds of capitalist class defence is what ultimately ties them together. A Leftist extremist is a threat to the system and traditional values; a Rightist extremist is a misguided or overzealous defender of that which is given and good.

This is true as much on-line as it is in the real world. That matters because on-line has become a major channel for extremist recruitment and organization. In the world of political blogs and message boards, the language of Rightwing extremism overlaps and mixes with those of economic or social conservatives, whereas the extremist Left is seldom seen or heard at all, much less in “moderate” Left conversations. After a period of supposed self-reflection and increased moderation, mainstream Rightwing blogs in NZ have reversed course and allow thinly veiled extremists back onto their threads. From my perspective this is a good thing because if intelligence agencies are worth their budgets, they will spend time using their technical and analytic skills to triangulate between the frothing blog commentators, the quietly vile ones, and the denizens of hate fests like 4 Chan’s political boards in order to determine measures of violent intent. It really is not hard if the will is there and resources are made available. To repeat: more often than not extremists on the Right are more likely to be hiding in plain sight when compared with those on the Left.

Less readers point to lone wolf attacks as evidence that I am wrong, let me state that I reject the notion that people like the Christchurch, Pittsburgh, San Diego and El Paso killers (to name a few) flew under the radar and that no one could have predicted their murderous actions. Contrary to the official narrative, all of these had on-line and physical presences that pointed, if not screamed aloud what their intentions were. But in each case they were cloaked in concentric circles of sympathy, connivence and disinterest that allowed them to move unimpeded towards their final act. Intelligence agencies with other priorities downplayed the danger posed by the extremist Right even after the 2011 Norway attacks, considering it to be a local enforcement problem rather than a global security threat even though rightwing groups and individuals were well established on-line. Official postmortems of these crimes all sought to downplay this particular fact, attributing blame to maladjusted and socially isolated individuals acting out on completely unforeseen dark fantasies.

I beg to differ. In any event I very much doubt that any Leftist could have gotten that far in this day and age. Or a radical Muslim, for that matter, even though, in spite of their conservatism, penetrating jihadist circles is harder precisely because they do not enjoy capitalist class support in the societies in which many live.

In summary, this is just one way in which intelligence analysis can help focus and allocate resource better within a given threat landscape. As I have written elsewhere, it is good to downplay the specific ideological cause behind irregular acts of violence such as that involved in terrorism, since that focuses attention on the crime rather than the motive (because doing so elevates the latter over the former in the public eye, thereby reifying the crime). But within the confines of the agencies involved in countering extremist threats there needs to be a nuanced understanding of the difference between ideological motivations as they translate into support networks, operational security and tactical opportunities presented to violent-minded extremists. That in turn allows security agencies to design proactive infiltration and monitoring strategies that seek to detect and impede extremist plots earlier rather than later with an eye towards deterring or disrupting rather than defending against or responding to them.

In other words, one must understand the breadth and depth of the socio-economic and cultural terrain if one is to move undetected within the landscape of ideological extremism.


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The unmentioned C word.

Right-wingers have been making much ado about so-called “cancel culture.” In this most recent version of their culture wars strategy, they have updated the anti-Political Correctness (PC) narrative to whine about liberals and lefties “canceling” conservative voices via advertiser, store and product boycotts, public shaming, counter-protests and the like. This is seen as a violation of free speech and the right to express opinion, however distasteful or unpopular. Besides the hypocrisy of accusing others of doing exactly what conservative have done to any number of views that they dislike (say, when others use flags and other patriotic symbols in “disrespectful” ways or substitute “traditional” symbology with newer heraldry, “desecrate” religious icons, sit or kneel during national anthems, refuse to address “nobility” by their titles and use vulgarity and obscenities in lyrics), the rightwing conveniently forgets that there is a third unmentioned word that starts with “c” that causes cancel culture censorship: consciousness.

More precisely, it is the lack of consciousness in expression that gets censored, not words by themselves. Words have weight and weight has impact. Words can lead to deeds a consequential result or as a reaction. One must be mindful of this when choosing words in the public space. That is where the concept of consciousness or lack thereof comes in.

In order to explain this better, let me turn to Spanish because the concept of consciousness is much better developed in that language. As an aspiring juvenile delinquent growing up in Argentina I was often admonished to “tener conciencia” of my actions. This is a common phrase that is best translated as “be aware” but which encompasses the past, present and future. One must have consciousness of how past and present actions have consequences for the future of ourselves, those around us and others with degrees of temporal and spatial separation from us. In English, the notion that the shadow of the future hangs (often darkly) over our present decision-making is one way of capturing one aspect of being aware in this “consciousness” sense of the term, but the concept has collective as well as individual dimensions embedded in it.

The basic idea is that one has to be conscious of the consequences of ones words and actions before engaging the public sphere. One cannot just blurt out or do anything that comes to mind without regard to the context and situation in which one is in (this a type of situational awareness not necessarily connected to personal or collective security). To do so is to invite negative consequences if the behaviour is inappropriate for the occasion. Whether it is or is not appropriate is not defined by the person doing the act but by those impacted by it, be it in the past, now, or in the future. For example, waving Rebel flags or hanging a noose at a Black Lives Matter rally evokes painful memories of past injustices carried forward and, given their symbolic history, constitute a present and ongoing implicit threat to non-white communities. Those who choose to wave such symbols may feel that it is nothing more than an expression of pride or resistance to transgressive usurpations of the proper order, but it is not them that define whether the displays are appropriate. Whatever their intention (and in many cases the intention is to deliberately provoke), it is how their actions are perceived and interpreted that matters. Be it a riot or a rear-end whuppin,’ the consequences of their acts are determined by their lack of or disregard for consciousness about the context and effect their acts have on the witnesses to them.

Likewise, expressions deemed appropriate in the past may come to be deemed inappropriate in future circumstances. For example, recently several Dr. Seuss books were pulled from shelves by the contemporary publisher, acting behalf of the author’s estate. The books in question were written as World War Two US propaganda and contained grotesque cartoon racial and ethnic stereotypes of Japanese, Germans, Italians (and even some allies). In the context in which they were written they were deemed appropriate because the objective was to demonise the enemy that was seen to be posing an existential threat to the nation. Japanese and German-American opinions and sensitivities were not considered because they were deemed to be a threat from within. However today such caricatures evoke an unhappy chapter in US history that only serves to perpetuate bigotry and racism, so the author’s family wisely chose to remove them from circulation. in my opinion this helps reaffirm Dr. Seuss’s reputation as a children’s book writer rather than tarnish it by keeping his propaganda work on equal footing. The latter can still be displayed in museums and in historical archives as examples of the extremes to which a nation will go when put under wartime stress, but as with Confederate symbols and nooses, they have no mainstream place in heterogeneous democratic societies based on principles of equality and fair play.

This is the heart of the matter. What liberals and lefties may wish to “cancel” are expressions that lack consciousness, or awareness of how said expressions affect others. The same is true for the Left, which can also lack awareness of the impact of certain forms of discourse and behaviour on others (especially if the intent is non-revolutionary but instead reformist in nature). This is different than performance art and other manipulations of words and symbols for dramatic theatrical effect (say, political satire). Here the (even if unconscious) objective is provocation without consequence. The trouble in this reasoning is that consequence is a given, especially when consciousness is absent at the moment of expression. And since consequences are often negative when consciousness does not obtain, those who decry “cancel culture” may be wise to engage in some self-reflection before they enter the public space in either word or deed.

Truth be told, what right-wingers are essentially doing is complaining about how they do not have impunity when it comes to expression; they cannot just say or do racist, bigoted or otherwise prejudiced things without consequence. Under the cover of freedom of expression, they maintain that they have the “right” to say whatever they want whenever they want without consequence. The trouble for them is that not only is the syllogism underpinning the logic of no-consciousness expression flawed on its merits, but their individual rights do not always, in every instance and context, supersede the collective rights of those around them. In other words, consciousness or lack thereof is a major determinant of the consequences that follow.

Left for another time is discussion about, having failed miserably to improve the material and social conditions of the majority of society when in power, contemporary right-wingers in liberal democracies fall back on culture wars as the first line of defence. That the culture being defend often happens to be racist, xenophobic, misogynist, patriarchal and bigoted does not matter. What matters is to keep up a relentless whinge that diverts liberal-left leaning movements and governments from the real policy issues that need to be confronted in the interest of progress and the common good.

Perhaps we need to “tener conciencia” of that.

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US capitalists as political saviours.

Having watched and read about the Conference of the Paranoid, Angry and just plain Crazy (CPAC), including the Orange Merkin’s return to the political centre stage, I am more convinced then ever that if US conservatism, and indeed the US itself, is to find its way back to some semblance of stability, it is US capitalists who will have to lead the charge. This may seem odd for a left-leaning blog to say, but the logic underlying the rescue lies in some structural imperatives and some non-structural pathologies.

As has been written before in these pages, the State and Society in the US and places like NZ are capitalist because they depend on a profit-driven system of capital accumulation and distribution for the welfare of capitalists and workers alike. Capitalists invest and pay wages out of profits, so both overall economic and specific wage growth depend on the continuation of the profit-investment cycle. Capitalists borrow from other capitalists in order to grow their businesses, which in turn help expand the web of opportunity (measured in employment and/or higher wages) for wage-earners down the productive chain. In other words, the material welfare of everyone depends on the investment decisions of capitalists.

This is the structural imperative: the State and Society are capitalist because of their material dependence on a system of private accumulation and economic decision-making. Even state capitalist systems abide by the immutable laws of the profit-investment cycle, but in the US (and NZ) the vast majority of decisions about accumulation and distribution ultimately rest with capitalists. So long as capitalists invest and workers produce so that profitability is sustained, current welfare and future growth is safeguarded.

In order to maintain this cycle and encourage capitalists to re-invest in the domestic economy, the State uses tax and social policy to sustain economic growth and otherwise frame the investment “climate” in ways conducive to investor confidence. The ways in which it can do so and the effectiveness of what it does is influenced, when not determined, by the political and social climate of the current moment and the outlook for the future. That is because above all, capitalists want two things in tandem: stability and certainty over time. Socio-economic and political stability lends certainty to the investment environment, which encourages regular rates of investment and return on which to make future decisions on investment and wage-setting. The more this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle, the more a capitalist nation-state grows and prospers, thereby reaffirming the utility of the economic model under specific political conditions.

That is the notion that lies at the heart of classic liberalism: the combination of market-driven economies and democratic political institutions is considered to be the most preferable (or least bad) political-economic model because it places (theoretically at least) a premium on private choice and individual freedom. Within parameters broadly set by a State led and managed by a political bureaucracy, capitalists chose where to invest and workers chose where to work given where investment flows. Or at least that is the general idea.

Here is where the superstructural problem starts for the US. Under Trump, the Republican Party has increasingly become untethered from its pro-business bias and devolved into a national-populist cult of personality. The events of January 6 and sociopathic displays at CPAC–displays not isolated to Trump himself–clearly demonstrate that conservatism in the US is no longer based on pro-market ideologies and an understanding of the structural dependence of the State and Society on Capital. Instead, it is now the fevered product of a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories, religious opportunism, racism, bigotry, prejudice and xenophobia, with many of these inimical to maintaining business growth. Trump is the poster-boy of this collective derangement but the GOP is awash in it far beyond him.

That is bad for business. The threat of irrational political leadership and the distinct and ongoing possibility of civil unrest, including irregular collective violence, undermines the stability-certainty cycle because there is a mutual or co-dependence between the political superstructure and the economic base. Political and social instability can and often does lead to economic instability, something that is bad for all concerned.

Under such conditions overall demand drops, many businesses slow production, workers are laid off and investors hedge, sell and take profits rather than make long-term investment plays. Shorter investment horizons add to market uncertainties, which in the US is compounded by the practices of “shorting” stocks (whereby anticipating further value losses the investor borrows stock and sells it at current market value in anticipation of buying it back a future lower price before the loan expiration date) and stock buy-backs (where companies use profits to buy stocks in the company in order to reduce the number of stocks freely available and thereby squeeze the stock price upwards).

Both of these are forms of speculation rather than productive investment and are a hallmark of the US financial markets. They have also attracted the attention of so-called mom and pop “retail” or “day” traders and semi-organised small investor groups whose goals are individual self-enrichment rather than contributing to industry profitability, job creation, technological innovation or overall economic growth. These speculative practices by small and large investors have a negative impact on investment, employment and wage stability, further undermining popular faith in the economic system and the political edifice that serves and protects it.

The combination of anarchic (and self-serving) financial market behaviour and increasingly anti-business fanaticism in Republican/conservative ranks (think of the constant attacks on the techno-oligarchy for de-platforming extremist speech on social media) has attracted the negative attention of credit rating agencies, where debates about lowering the US government credit rating from AAA (outstanding) to something else, previously unthinkable for the global reserve currency issuer, are now common practice. When combined with the possibility of labour conflicts and industrial slowdowns tied to civil unrest, the rise of deranged demagogic politics within the US political Right is a threat to, literally, business as usual.

It is said that, according to the invisible hand of the market, economic actors are self-interested maximisers of opportunity and that the sum result of their self-interested actions clears the market at the collective level. That may or may not be true. What is true is that the “market” involves political as well as purely economic factors and agents, and when political actors interfere with the the profitability of self-interested maximisers of economic opportunity, then measures must be taken to mitigate or overcome those political obstacles.

For US capitalists the problem is not one of class struggle but about class survival. It is not about class war but about self-preservation. The threat to their status comes not from the working classes radicalised by anti-capitalist ideologies but by self-professed capitalist supporters. Not all supporters of capitalism are capitalists themselves or understand the relationship between capital accumulation and distribution at a macro level, and many do not add value and wealth to society but in fact subtract value and wealth from it (be it in their rent-seeking microeconomic behaviours or other forms of myopic malfeasance). Moreover, US capitalist classes are variegated and often in conflict, with ascendent and descendent class fractions competing for political as well as economic dominance (think high tech versus industrial manufacturing elites).

Trump and his supporters represent a large but descendent segment of the capitalist class constellation, but they are not the only or the dominant faction and are a clear threat to the interests of other (ascendent) capitalist class factions (again, think of the techno-oligarchy). Not all corporate elites in the US favour Trump’s behind-the-wall, low skill, low education, industrial-era blue collar form of economic nationalism, and many see it as a simple wave to the past in the face of (and impediment to) an automated and transnationalised productive future. The political fight is consequently as much more or within the capitalist classes as it is between them and the working/subaltern classes and, however couched in the language of cultural conflict and competing value systems, that fight is microcosmically distilled in the struggles over the direction of the Republican Party.

Let me be clear. This does not mean that anti-Trump capitalist elites are good people or interested in the overall welfare of the nation. People like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are as much innovative exploiters of the many as they are creators of wealth and opportunity for some. The entire financial industry is populated by selfish people and greedy logics and is in desperate need of major reform (since the post 2008 crash reforms were cosmetic at best). But the necessity of the situation dictates that these type of people be seen as tactical allies in the fight against neo-fascism at a time when progressive forces do not have the strength to help stem the deterioration of the American Right. In other words, desperate times require desperate measures, and the appeal to anti-Trump capitalists is one such thing. Nothing more.

In some countries, the military serves as the saviour of economic elites under stress. In the US that possibility used to be dismissed as laughable but in recent years became a topic of discussion. Although it continues to be seen as a remote option, the ongoing viability of national-populist sentiment in the Republican Party and emergence of an insurrectionist movement within broader political Right circles keep alive the issue of external intervention in the discussion about how to rescue that side of the political system from itself.

This is why US capitalists have to ride to the rescue of the Republican Party. If they do not do so then others may have to, and it will not be revolutionary workers or the peasantry who will be the ones to step up. Inviting military intervention could be catastrophic to the Nation, assuming for a second that the US military would even consider such a move. Social movements will not have the clout to impress Republicans into reform and change away from what they have become. It is therefore up to capitalists to undertake the task.

The Republican rescue involves tough love. In order to save it, the GOP must be broken from the grasp of the national-populists, cultists, MAGA morons and conspiracy theorists. The best way to do so is with the threat or use of a specific type of capital strike. The corporate elite need to threaten the Republican Party with a complete withdrawal of political funding if Trump and his acolytes are not purged. If that threat is not heeded then the funding should be withdrawn, preferably before the next election cycle begins.

The insurance policy to what otherwise would seem to be a risky strategy is the Democratic Party and Biden administration. For all the talk of socialists and radical Leftists, capitalists know that their bread is buttered by the structural dependence of the State and Society on Capital, and Democrats clearly understand this fact. US capitalists may have a more restrained partner in Democrats and may need to concede more on issues of accumulation versus distribution when they are in power, but at least the Democrats are not led by an irresponsible and utterly self-serving myopic cabal that no longer seems to understand the bread/butter relationship.

One gets the feeling that some of this may already be going on. But to be effective the capitalist political strike against the Republican MAGA wing must be public and comprehensive in scope. Winks, nods and quiet backhanders will not suffice. The move has to be out in the open, at least among the economic and political elites.

If that does not happen or does not work to kick the MAGA morons to the curb, then the possibility of a real capital strike must be considered. It can come in the form of a Wall Street sell-off/downturn manipulated by interests most closely associated with the Republican Party or industry slow-downs in regions where Republican support is strongest (say, places where the fossil fuel industry is dominant). Consumer and advertiser boycotts of and slowdowns in supply chain servicing of privately held companies affiliated with Trump are additional forms of capitalist strike.

Needless to say, however sector-specific any economic downturn will be seen over the short-term as a rebuke of the Biden administration, but if quiet assurances are made as to the real intent of the ploy, then both the administration and the productive sectors involved will survive the moment. After all, the goal is to send a message to the Republican political establishment that business will no longer tolerate the national-populist threat to making money, not to kill off profit-making entirely.

In a weird way, this ploy should come naturally to Corporate America. They sell on the future of a Republican Party dominated by Trump and other national-populists and they buy (short term) on Democrats buttering their bread while they bet long term on non-MAGA Republicans restoring the GOP to its status as preferred political interlocutor. There is risk in this strategy but for the private sector, the US as a society, the political system as a whole and the Republican Party as a political institution, the rewards of embracing it will be well worth the challenge.

After all, capitalism is all about risk-taking under conditions of limited information involving structural and super-structural constraints, so the field is open for private opportunity-taking in the national interest.

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The tyranny of the dishonest and stupid.

One theme in the literature dedicated to democratic theory is the notion of a “tyranny of the minority.” This is where the desire to protect the interests of and give voice to electoral minorities leads to a tail wagging the dog syndrome whereby minorities wind up having disproportionate influence in debates about policy. The minorities in question may be political, ethnic, religious, racial, cultural or identified by other characteristics, but the commonality is in their (previous) relative disenfranchisement when compared to dominant electoral groups, again defined by various criteria. For example, white, straight, christian males have traditionally been an electorally dominant group in the US; transgender gay afro-asian atheists have not.

In democratic practice the issue is one of striking a fair and equitable balance between the rights of the (electoral) majority and the rights of minorities. This has been attempted via re-districting and voter enrolment schemes that allow for more minority representation in politics at all levels, affirmative action initiatives and regulations that preferentially promote minorities in fields and institutions in which they are traditionally underrepresented, advancement of historical accounts and alternative artistic expressions that reflect the experiences of the subaltern, exploited and dispossessed, etc. The objective is to level the playing field across the gamut of social endeavour, thereby leading to more democratic outcomes in politics and society.

The push to democratise has by now gone well beyond politics and deep into the fabric of social life. Old notions of what is permissible even in the sanctum of family life have been challenged and redrawn away from traditional heterosexist patriarchal hierarchies. Private firms can no longer ignore gender bias or subtle racism in their ranks. Children no longer fear the teacher’s rod or strap.

All of this is good. Historical injustices have been addressed and authoritarian social structures have been reformed as a result of democratisation efforts world-wide. The fear now, in some quarters at least, is about an over-reaction to previous ills when it comes to democratising society. It also has prompted a backlash by reactionaries, who in earlier decades whined about “political correctness” and “culture wars” and who now whinge about “triggered” “wokeism,” “cancel culture,” “snowflakes” and limits on “free speech” (when what they actually mean is restrictions on public expressions of various forms of racism, bigotry and other intolerance).

At its core the argument against economic, social and political democratisation is about over-compensation and giving a few people too much just because they were done wrong somewhere down the road. To wit: unencumbered by traditional forms of discipline, children will run roughshod over their parents. Students will have rights without responsibilities. Wives and teenagers will mouth off with impunity and people of color will expect and demand equal treatment by law enforcement. Once tradition goes, chaos will rule.

Of course none of the above is true and fears grounded in such beliefs lack substantive foundation. But the concern that minority rights might eventually supercede majority rights is a real one for more than political scientists, and has become what is known (in very simple terms) as the tyranny of the minority.

The backlash to economic, political and social democratisation was to be expected because the backlash comes from those who benefitted from the majoritarian electoral status quo before the political, economic and social rights of minorities was even allowed, much less considered as part of the democratic equation. But now the backlash has taken a particularly sinister turn in the form of the dissemination of disinformation and false narratives under the banner of democratic “balance” when it comes to minority voice.

As a lead in, let’s consider the CNN approach to political debates on its opinion shows. In the interest of being “balanced,” CNN shows regularly feature paid Republican shills (reportedly on a retainer of US$150,00/year) who with increased frequency over the years have blatantly lied, denied, denigrated, insulted, engaged in specious false comparisons and “whataboutism,” and generally acted like the a-holes that they truly are. Rick Santorum, Kayleigh Mcenany, Paris Dennard, Kelly-Ann Conway, Jason Miller and assorted others were given a huge platform from which to dispense their bulls**t, and some even managed to use the CNN enhanced profiles to step into White House jobs in the Orange Merkin administration (Dennard and Miller were caught up in sex scandals so are now relegated to talking to the converted on Fox News).

Given their disinterest in honest debate and fair play and their use of the CNN platforms to push fake news and disinformation, why on earth were they given that privilege? What was CNN thinking? Did it do so out of a naive belief that these people would behave with a modicum of grace and decorum? Or did it feature them out of some mistaken belief in “balance?” What objective balance can exist between an honest and neutral commentator and a dishonest partisan spin-scammer? Why would one even try to “balance” objective truth with rabid lies?

That is the crux of the tyranny of the minority today. Because of the advent of social media and (successful) practice of sowing deliberate disinformation and fake news, everyone who has an opinion is not only entitled to one but has equal weight in the debates of the moment. Take the anti-vaccination crowd. Even though a thousand scientific journal articles and books by leading epidemiology and vaccinology experts have been written about the effectiveness of vaccines, even though polio and other diseases were essentially eradicated within a few years of immunization campaigns being introduced against them, some celebrity chef or other uninformed ignoramus will find one medical practitioner and a few tinfoil quacks who claim that vaccines cause autism, rabies, droopy eye syndrome and alien reproductive parasitism in humans and use that as a counter-argument against vaccines. Rather than ignore these fools, some other internet-schooled morons seize upon the minority opinion to show “proof” that the counter-narrative is true.

Many will embellish the original stupidity with talk about Big Brother Deep State social control schemes, and before long the internet is festooned with anti-vax screeds vying for attention with real scientific publications. Because scientific publications are hidden behind paywalls or in university libraries and use technical language in order to be understood, the “my kid has autism because of a measles shot” scientifically uneducated crowd have the upper hand in the democratic space that is the unregulated social media market. So much for being blinded by science (apologies to Thomas Dolby).

When confronted by the utter inanity of their claims, the anti-vaxxers will respond with something along the lines of “you may have your truth but I have MY truth.” The false equivalence between them then becomes not a matter of fact versus fiction but a matter of disputed (selective) facts. Everyone not only has an opinion and places to publicise them. They now have their own set of cherry picked facts to back up their views (“links please”). At that point the slippery slope toward full blown conspiracy theories begins.

That is where we are today. Conspiracy theories vie with objective reporting as preferred narratives on social issues. The latest conspiracy gem from Q Anon involves fake snow in Texas rather than the real blizzard-caused sub-zero snow and ice that killed over 50 people and left that state without power water for days. One can only conclude, charitably, that those who subscribe to such views do not live in the Longhorn State.

However absurd all of this is, real damage has been done. Well before the January 6 conspiracy-motivated assault on the US Capitol, the pervasive echoing of political and social conspiracies permeated rightwing media, whether out of a sense of sincere conviction or opportunistic political gain. Faith in government at all levels has been consistently undermined by the promulgation of minority extremist ideological views that in a truly fair and confident society would never see the light of day but which now are given equal space with fact-based reporting. In an effort to democratise social and political discourse, the field has been given away to the tyranny of an often deranged or evil-minded ideological minority.

The truth is that not all opinions are equal. Not all views are worth considering. Not all “facts” are empirical, falsifiable or objectively measured. Some thing should simply not be considered because they are not worth the time or energy to do so. But here we are, with Plan B (non-expert) academic fools in NZ disputing the expert scientific approaches to pandemic mitigation and me arguing with anti-vax housewives in the primary school parking lot.

I blame post-modernism, including cultural relativism and other forms of inter-textual subjectivity, for greasing the slippery slope into the tyranny of the ideological minority. I do so even as I recognise the contributions that modes of critical inquiry like subaltern studies have made to the study of humanity and the advances to the human condition pushed by non-binary interpretations of what constitutes personhood. But the descent to the “all truth is subjective and therefore all views are equal” syndrome that has led to the popular rise of pseudo-scientific claptrap masquerading as alternative truth and conspiracy theories as counterfactuals to reality-based narratives lies in the notion that one can transpose an alternative methodology designed to interpret human social behaviour onto “hard” scientific inquiry or the lived and experienced reality of the people in question.

In reality, Pizzagate did not happen. The Democratic leadership demonstrably does not run a pedophile ring. It has been repeatedly verified that US election results were not stolen, in any State. On the other hand, fake snow in Texas and Jewish space lasers setting fires to California forests for profit are not objectively provable and yet are peddled (by Republican politicians even!) as if they were empirical fact. The commonality among them is the all of these views share space in the rightwing conspiracy ecosystem that is by design focused on countering observable and verifiable information provided by objective reporting in various media.

In other words, it is not what you know and the basis for how you know it. It is about how you interpret things based on what you are told, whether it is verifiable or not.

In a weird way, the path towards democratising stupidity is proof that human social evolution is dialectical, not progressive (in the sense of progressing from lower to a higher forms of knowledge, consciousness or material well-being). The push for economic, political and social democratisation, which through much trial and error and while still a work in progress, has yielded significant gains for populations previously denied agency in their lives and in society in general, has also eventually led to the spectre of the tyranny of the minority. As a result, much effort has been put into ensuring that democratisation efforts do not result in the “tail wagging the dog” effect mentioned at the beginning of this essay, and much pushback has been levelled at that effort by those who fear the effects of democratisation on the traditional socio-economic and political hierarchies that constituted the previous era.

This all is evidence that human societies do not always progress from more simple to more complex. But the dialectical progression is most clearly seen in the democratisation of social discourse to the point that idiots and evil-doers are given equal opportunity and space to vent their irrational, mean-spirited and unreal views as if they were truth, and where a minority of ideological retrogrades can manipulate the digital media space to dissemination lies, falsehoods and disinformation unimpeded by reality-based filters or objective facts.

Before, the fear was that democratisation of electoral and social opportunity would lead to a tyranny of people denied voice because of who they are by the previous systems in place, and who would use the new, more open institutional structures to impose their minority preferences on the majority. Now the threat is posed by ideological minorities who in a rational world would be laughed off stage but who now, with the democratisation of telecommunications, have global media platforms on which to spew hatred and ignorance unencumbered by a grounding in objective knowledge and notions of honesty, civility and fair play.

If Hegel could see us now, I wonder what he would say.

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A self-mutilation ritual.

It appears that rather than follow the not-so-sage advice offered here in KP a short time ago about how to save their future as a political party, the Republicans have decided to double-down on their Trumpist/MAGA bet. After the House Democratic majority stripped a recently elected QAnon freak from her committee assignments (I will not mention her name here) because of her deranged behaviour and speech (including calls to kill Democratic congresspeople and claims that the Rothschilds used a space laser beam to start California fires in order to make a profit and that the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings were faked), her GOP colleagues reaffirmed their support for her while rebuking the 11 of them who voted for Trump’s impeachment on grounds that he incited the January 6 insurrection in the Capitol building. The freak then held a press conference and announced that the Republican Party was “Trump’s party.” No Republican contradicted her and state Republicans in the home districts of the pro-impeachment GOP renegades voted to censure them.

This is going to end badly for the GOP. Corporate America and (prodded by lawsuits) even mainstream Rightwing media appear to realise the danger that the assault on Congress represents. Non-Republican rightwing extremists have infiltrated the MAGA ranks and exploited them for their own purposes. Conspiracy theory craziness has taken hold in the MAGA movement. Seeing this, some regretful MAGAites have defected once they realised that the Trump pipe dream was not going to become reality or that his claims about the stolen election were deliberate lies that cost taxpayers millions of dollars to refute (in the form of recounts and litigation). To be sure, there are still many who still worship the ground he walks on, but many more are glad to see the back of him and want it to stay that way.

Catering to the remaining MAGA base may solidify GOP support in hard Red states, but the rest of the country is turning Blue as demographics increasingly work against perpetuation of that base as a proportion of the population, much less as a cohesive voting bloc. Insurrectionists are bad for business as well as law and order, so for a party that claims that it is the champion of both, kowtowing to the violent maniac fringe is a losing proposition over the long term. The MAGA brand is turning to mud even if those loyal to it cannot see what is coming at them down the road.

There is the hitch. Most analysts now see the GOP as divided into three parts: a MAGA populist wing, a neo-con Reaganite wing and a bridge faction with feet in both wings that attempts to straddle the fence of specific policy issues (or want to have things both ways–conspiratorial crazy on the one hand and soberly responsible on the other). After the attack on the capitol, what many of the non-lunatic factions in the GOP fear is two things: being physically threatened or attacked by MAGA and QAnon extremists egged on by Trump and his acolytes if they do not accede to his wishes; and being “primaried” out of office by them with funding provided by the Trumpsters (“primaried” refers to the practice of putting up candidates against incumbents in party primaries so as to replace them with more ideologically aligned people).

The combination of physical and political threats has paralysed most of the GOP party leadership, who have opted for the default option of blaming Democrats for assorted ills while looking to them for the knock-out electoral blow on the lunatics in 2022. They understand that things have gone too far and they cannot prevent the MAGA wing from trying to take control of the party as a whole while Trump continues to agitate from the sidelines. So this is their state of play: hope that the Democrats win big in the congressional mid-terms so that they can purge the MAGAites from the party and return to some semblance of conservative normalcy. They know that the purge of moderate candidates in GOP primaries will likely lead to massive losses in the 2022 general election and the consolidation of Democratic control of the federal government for the near future. That allows the non-MAGA Republicans to clear house and get their affairs in order without the burden of having to govern, something that can set them up well for 2024 and beyond. People like Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney understand this well.

Of course, many of those immediately involved in the fray may not see things in this light and may continue the internecine fights over the heart and soul of the GOP well after 2022. The MAGA wing certainly see their future as wedded to Trump, and the Senate impeachment trial will go a long way towards determining which of the GOP factions will prevail over both the short and the long term. But as long as they are divided and the Democrats coalesce while in power and restore some semblance of respect, normality and competence to governing (not a sure thing but more plausible today than in the past because of the stakes at play), then the Republican Party is going to increasingly be on the outside looking in when it comes to national policy-making. And that will suit the lunatic fringe just fine, as they have been exposed as being uninterested in democracy if such a thing involves compromise, toleration, transparency, equality and mutual consent in the policy-making process. That, however, will only increase their marginalisation as a political force. They had their moment during the last four years and soon they will pay a political (and in some cases, criminal) price for their sins.

In the meantime, watching the Republican in-fighting is like watching someone repeatedly cut themselves. The difference is that self-mutilation is most often not fatal to the person doing it, whereas what is going on in the GOP has the potential to be terminal to the party as a democracy-supportive political institution.