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Ed Webb

Ever Given: Egyptian Can-do Helped Unclog the Suez Canal - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...o-helped-unclog-the-suez-canal

Africa Egypt politics development economy opinion analysis Suez shipping

shared by Ed Webb on 01 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • the sense of relief, joy and pride Egyptians felt over their success. The dredger and a fleet of tug boats had worked day and night to unclog one of the world’s most important waterways, eventually refloating the Ever Given in a week — Egyptian can-do beat the expectations of experts who predicted it would take twice as long.
  • served as a reminder of how much of their potential is stymied by a political economy that deters experimentation, punishes innovation and ultimately pushes many Egyptians to seek opportunities abroad
  • Centered on a bigotry of low expectations is the idea that Egyptian workers are uniquely unimaginative and unindustrious, and that these traits — rather than the greed and grift of their rulers — are to blame for the country’s economic failings.
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  • the industriousness and ingenuity displayed by the Mashhour crew and their colleagues on the tug boats are the very qualities that allow millions of Egyptians to survive the misrule that has led to rising poverty levels even as limited reforms have primarily benefited the ruling elites and crony capitalists. While the government in Cairo has received kudos for GDP growth, Egypt’s poverty rate has nearly doubled over 20 years, from 16.7% in the year 2000 to 32.5% in 2019.
  • The patronizing view that the man in the street needs the guiding hand of his betters has often encouraged international partners over the years to direct funding to the elites rather than small and medium-sized enterprises, despite pledges to prioritize those very sectors.
  • their government provides them with neither the competitive market economy nor the political freedoms that would allow them to demonstrate their readiness.
  • the waterway is of exceptional value to the government in Cairo: Not only is it a significant source of hard currency for a country with a chronic trade deficit, its strategic importance to global commerce elevates Egypt’s international status
  • Many who seek the resources — and salaries — commensurate with their skills must leave the country to find them. This is why remittances from abroad dwarf many sectors of the economy. Remittances in 2020 were worth $29.6 billion, over five times the Suez Canal’s revenue of $5.61 billion and more than double the revenues from tourism at its 2019 peak of $13 billion.
Ed Webb

After the Capitol Insurrection, the United States Must Understand the Psychological Und... - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...envy-change-diversity-populism

authoritarianism US USA politics analysis fear xenophobia bigotry psychology

shared by Ed Webb on 30 May 21 - Cached
  • Rather than tangible economic grievance, decades of cross-national empirical research show that feelings and perceptions of sociocultural threat are the principal drivers of surging authoritarian sentiment among the electorate and the demagoguery that rises up to service it.
  • In a modern, multicultural society, certain citizens simply become overwhelmed by growing complexity and rapid change. These individuals fear a loss of their social order, status, and familiar way of life. Whether rational or not, this trepidation provokes intolerance of threats to the collective order, in which they are unusually invested.
  • About a third of the population in Western countries is predisposed to authoritarianism, which is about 50 percent heritable. Authoritarians have an inherent preference for oneness and sameness; they favor obedience and conformity and value strong leaders and social homogeneity over freedom and diversity
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  • Comparative data suggests that the United States may be somewhat overstocked with authoritarians, though they may simply be more easily identifiable in the country’s high-arousal political environment.
  • Whether in Washington or Warsaw, Western liberal democracy’s ongoing struggle with populism is united by fear.
  • Authoritarianism is not the same as conservatism, although they are modestly correlated. Authoritarians’ fundamental aversion to diversity—complexity and variety—is distinct from traditional conservatives’ aversion to change—which is more about novelty and uncertainty
  • the rapid demographic transformation of the United States likely provokes both authoritarians opposed to diversity and traditional conservatives averse to change
  • All people have an innate bias toward those like themselves; studies confirm that humans are wired to be tribal. For authoritarians, this bias is greatly magnified
  • Significant proportions of both Democrats and Republicans appear willing to endorse violence or violate democratic procedure to defend their values
  • the strongest predictor of anti-democratic attitudes among Republicans was not partisanship or political expediency; it was ethnic and racial antagonism
  • the strongest predictor of a Brexit “leave” vote—ostensibly rooted in racial and ethnic intolerance—was support for the death penalty and for the public whipping of sex criminals
  • those who are predisposed to favor freedom and diversity over authority and conformity must recognize that the authoritarian preference for oneness and sameness is largely innate and unlikely to change
  • even creating the mere feeling or appearance of oneness and sameness can be reassuring to authoritarians
  • authoritarian predispositions are not a problem that can just be educated away: In fact, liberal democracy’s loud and showy celebration of freedom and diversity drives authoritarians not to the limits of their tolerance but to their intolerant extremes
Ed Webb

Neo-Nazi attack survivors create tool to track racist extremists | Germany| News and in... - 0 views

www.dw.com/...a-55959989

Germany USA US NewZealand farright fascism bigotry violence terrorism online internet

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Dec 20 - Cached
  • The two white supremacists didn't know each other personally, and there is no evidence that they ever communicated directly. But they shared an ideology and frequented the same online forums and often unmoderated "imageboards," where a globe-spanning network of young men regularly air racism and misogyny and feed each other's anger and resentment about society.
  • The sheer frequency of these otherwise "unconnected" attacks mean they are often lost in the ocean of daily news: In the two months between the El Paso shooting and the Halle attack alone, there were two more attacks by young men in Dayton, Ohio, and Baerum, Norway, which together left 10 more people dead. And in Germany, the death toll in Halle has already been superseded by a more recent racist atrocity: this February another man attacked a cafe and a hookah bar in Hanau, western Germany, killing 10 people of immigrant background.
  • a new online project that allows users to trace on a "timemap" how one attack is being prepared while another is being carried out elsewhere in the world
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  • could make future attackers visible before they carry out their attacks.
  • Members might not know each other, but they recognize common memes and symbols, and would-be perpetrators post selfies with their guns and manifestos moments before launching attacks. They also publish their plans, along with game-like "goals" to set themselves, expecting to be rated by others for their success or failure in murdering people.
  • the attacker told the judge under questioning that setting up the Twitch live stream had been vital to his plans — in fact, it was "the whole point," he told the judge. He wanted to encourage others just as he had been encouraged by the Christchurch mosque attack. He added that he had chosen Twitch because he had learned from the Christchurch attacker that Facebook would take the stream down too quickly
  • When questioned in court, many of the police officers said it simply wasn't their job to investigate the background of the crime. After all, from a narrow legal point of view, this seemed reasonable. The case was clear: There was a confession and a video recording the act — why dig any deeper? "So often I heard them say: It's not my job to understand the context," said Feldman. "Which leads me to ask, well then whose job is it?"
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