Group items tagged

discussions had been underway “for at least two years,” and the fact that both leaders planned to be in Latin America created the possibility of a “neutral place” for a meeting.

The two agreed to establish formal diplomatic relations only at the end of 2009, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met Francis in June 2015, in what was seen as a break of Russia’s isolation from the West over the crisis in Ukraine.

Francis has worked to reconcile divisions in Christianity that trace to the Great Schism of 1054, which formally divided the Eastern and Western churches.

Alberto Melloni, a Vatican historian, also noted that the Cuba meeting has meaningful geopolitical implications, because it comes at a time when the United States and Europe diplomats are working to isolate Russia.

After mid-century, Peter I of Castile invaded the Crown of Aragon, prompting Peter IV to back Henry of Trastámara’s claims to the Castilian throne, but Henry subsequently refused to reward him with any territorial concessions. That disappointment was offset to some extent by the reincorporation of Sicily into the dominions of the Crown of Aragon in 1377. Peter IV remained neutral during the Great Schism, but his son John I (1387–95) acknowledged the pope of Avignon. Both John and his younger brother and successor, Martin (1395–1410), had to attend constantly to agitation and unrest in Sardinia and Sicily.

Alfonso V (the Magnanimous; 1416–58) opted to pursue ambitions in Italy and generally neglected his peninsular domains.

Louis XI of France seized the opportunity to occupy Roussillon and Cerdagne, thereby laying the foundation for future enmity between France and Spain. By 1472 John II had suppressed the Catalan revolt; subsequently he aided his daughter-in-law Isabella in acquiring the Castilian crown. His son Ferdinand succeeded him as king of Aragon and Sardinia, and his daughter Eleanor inherited Navarre.

Liberals and conservatives could no longer think of themselves simply as political rivals competing within a common and settled American identity. That identity was no longer settled—or even legitimate—because it was stigmatized in the 1960s as racist, sexist, and imperialistic

It was no longer enough for the proponents of these perspectives merely to vie over the issues of the day. Both worldviews would now have to evolve into full-blown ideologies capable of projecting a new political and cultural vision of America.

This is how the mandate of the 1960s to reinvent America launched the infamous “culture war” between liberalism and conservatis

When we argue over health care or immigration or Middle East policy, it is as if two distinct Americas were arguing, each with a different idea of what it means to be an American. And these arguments are intense and often uncivil, because each side feels that its American identity is at risk from the other side. So the conflict is very much a culture war, with each side longing for “victory” over the other, and each side seeing itself as America’s last and best hope.

Since the 1960s, this war has divided up our culture into what might be called “identity territories.”

America’s universities are now almost exclusively left-leaning; most public-policy think tanks are right-leaning. Talk radio is conservative; National Public Radio and the major television networks are liberal. On cable television, almost every news and commentary channel is a recognizable identity territory—Fox/ right; MSNBC/left; CNN/left. In the print media our two great national newspapers are the liberal New York Times and the conservative Wall Street Journal (especially in the editorial pages). The Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Grants are left; the Bradley Prize is right. The blogosphere is notoriously divided by political stripe. And then there are “red” and “blue” states, cities, towns, and even neighborhoods. At election time, Americans can see on television a graphic of their culture war: those blue and red electoral maps that give us a virtual topography of political identity.

cable

In the America envisioned by both ideologies, there is no racism or sexism or imperialism to be embarrassed by. After all, ideologies project idealized images of the near-perfect America that they promise to deliver. Thus, in one’s ideological identity, one can find the innocence that is no longer possible—since the 1960s—in America’s defamed national identity.

To announce oneself as a liberal or a conservative is like announcing oneself as a Frenchman or a Brit. It is virtually an announcement of tribal identity, and it means something much larger than ideology

Nationalism—the nationalist impulse—is passion itself; it is atavistic, beyond the reach of reason, a secular sacredness. The nationalist is expected to be intolerant of all opposition to his nation’s sovereignty, and is most often willing to defend that sovereignty with his life.

when we let nationalism shape the form of our liberal or conservative identities—when we practice our ideological leaning as if it were a divine right, an atavism to be defended at all cost—then we put ourselves on a warlike footing. We feel an impunity toward our opposition, and we grant ourselves a scorched-earth license to fight back.

yes, like my young nemesis, I could experience my ideology as a nationalism. But unlike him I wanted to discipline that impulse, to subject my ideology—and all the policies it fostered—to every sort of test of truth and effectiveness. And I was ready to modify accordingly, to disabuse myself of even long-held beliefs that didn’t pan out in reality

these disparities— and many others—most certainly had their genesis in centuries of racial oppression. But post-1960s liberalism conflates the past with the present: it argues that today’s racial disparities are caused by precisely the same white racism that caused them in the past—thus the poetic truth that blacks today remain stymied and victimized by white racism.

I had stated a hard fact: that since the 1960s, white racism had lost so much of its authority, power, and legitimacy that it was no longer, in itself, a prohibitive barrier to black advancement. Blacks have now risen to every level of American society, including the presidency. If you are black and you want to be a poet, or a doctor, or a corporate executive, or a movie star, there will surely be barriers to overcome, but white racism will be among the least of them. You will be far more likely to receive racial preferences than to suffer racial discrimination.

But past oppression cannot be conflated into present-day oppression. It is likely, for example, that today’s racial disparities are due more to dysfunctions within the black community, and—I would argue—to liberal social policies that have encouraged us to trade more on our past victimization than to overcome the damage done by that victimization through dint of our own pride and will

The young man at Aspen demanded to speak so that he could corral people back into a prescribed correctness and away from a more open-minded approach to the complex problems that our racial history has left us to deal with—problems that the former victims of this history will certainly bear the greatest responsibility for overcoming

there also comes a time when he must stop thinking of himself as a victim by acknowledging that—existentially—his fate is always in his own hands. One of the more pernicious cor- ruptions of post-1960s liberalism is that it undermined the spirit of self-help and individual responsibility in precisely the people it sought to uplif

he truth—that  blacks had now achieved a level of freedom comparable to that of all others

what was not true—that racism was still the greatest barrier to black advancement

Poetic truth—this assertion of a broad characteristic “truth” that invalidates actual truth—is contemporary liberalism’s greatest source of power. It is also liberalism’s most fundamental corruption.

the great trick of modern liberalism is to link its poetic truths (false as they may be) with innocence from all the great sins of America’s past—racism, sexism, imperial- ism, capitalist greed

if you want to be politically correct, if you want to be seen as someone who is cleansed of America’s past ugliness, you will go along with the poetic truth that racism is still a great barrier for blacks.

A distinction must be made. During and immediately after the 1960s, racism and sexism were still more literal truth than poetic truth. As we moved through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, America morally evolved so that these old American evils became more “poetic” than literal

Yet redeeming America from these evils has become liberalism’s rationale for demanding real power in the real world—the political and cultural power to create social programs, to socially engineer on a national scale, to expand welfare, to entrench group preferences in American institutions, and so on

what happens to liberal power when America actually earns considerable redemption—when there are more women than men in the nation’s medical schools, when a black can serve as the president, when public accommodations are open to anyone with the price of the ticket?

My young antagonist in Aspen was not agitated by some racial injustice. He would have only relished a bit of good old-fashioned racial injustice, since it would have justified his entire political identit

a divide like this suggests that America has in fact become two Americas, two political cultures forever locked in a “cold war” within a single society. This implies a spiritual schism within America itself, and, following from that, the prospect of perpetual and hopeless debate—the kind of ego-driven debate in which both sides want the other side to “think like us.

Today, liberal and conservative Americans are often contemptuous of each other with a passion that would more logically be reserved for foreign enemies.

Our national debate over foreign and domestic issues has come to be framed as much by poetic truths as by dispassionate assessments of the realities we face

the poetic truth that blacks are still held back from full equality by ongoing “structural” racism carries more authority than the objective truth: that today racism is not remotely the barrier to black advancement in American life that it once was.

In foreign affairs, the poetic truth that we Americans are essentially imperialistic cowboys bent on exploiting the world has more credibility than the obvious truth, which is that our wealth and power (accumulated over centuries of unprecedented innovation in a context of freedom) has often drawn us into the unwanted role of policing a turbulent world—and, it must be added, to the world’s immense benefit.

Today the actual facts fail to support the notion that racial victimization is a prevailing truth of American life. So today, a poetic truth, like “black victimization,” or the ongoing “repression of women,” or the systematic “abuse of the environment,” must be imposed on society not by fact and reason but by some regime of political correctness

Poetic license occurs when poets take a certain liberty with the conventional rules of grammar and syntax in order to achieve an effect. They break the rules in order to create a more beautiful or more powerful effect than would otherwise be possible. Adapting this idea of license and rule breaking to the realm of ideology, we might say that “poetic truth” disregards the actual truth in order to assert a larger essential truth that supports one’s ideological position

He could subscribe to “diversity,” “inclusiveness,” and “social justice” and think himself solidly on the side of the good. The problem is that these prescriptions only throw fuzzy and unattainable idealisms at profound problems

What is “diversity” beyond a vague apologia, an amorphous expression of goodwill that offers no objective assessment whatsoever of the actual problems that minority groups face?

The danger here is that the nation’s innocence— its redemption from past sins—becomes linked to a kind of know-nothingism

We can’t afford to know, for example, that America’s military might—a vulgarity in the minds of many—has stabilized vast stretches of Asia and Europe since World War II, so that nations under the umbrella of our power have become prosperous trading partners today

Today’s great divide comes from a shallowness of understanding. We don’t altogether know what to do with our history

many of our institutions are being held in thrall to the idea of moral intimidation as power. Try to get a job today as an unapologetic conservative in the average American university, or in the State Department, or on public radio.

We all know, to the point of cliché, what the solutions are: mutual respect, empathy, flexibility, compromise

We can’t admit today that the lives of minorities are no longer stunted by either prejudice or “white privilege.

hose who doubt this will always point to today’s long litany of racial disparities. Blacks are still behind virtually all other groups by the most important measures of social and economic well-being: educational achievement, home ownership, employment levels, academic test scores, marriage rates, household net worth, and so on. The fact that seven out of ten black women are single, along with the fact that 70 percent of first black marriages fail (47 percent for whites), means that black women are married at roughly half the rate of white women and divorced at twice the rate. Thus it is not surprising that nearly three-quarters of all black children are born out of wedlock. In 2008, black college students were three times more likely than whites to graduate with a grade point average below a meager 2.5—this on top of a graduation rate for blacks of only 42 percent, according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Consequently, blacks in general have the highest college dropout rate and the lowest grade point average of any student group in America

"We need to put aside internal disagreements at this tragic time and join efforts to save Christians in the regions where they are subject to the most atrocious persecution,"

in those countries, it’s only gotten worse. Part of the damage in the years since has been the hardening of the lines and divisions between these tribes, between red and blue.

A man in a suit was outside talking into his phone and crying: “This country’s breaking my heart,” he said

There had always been the thought that such a schism couldn’t happen in Australia. If anything, we gravitate towards the middle, and for years both Liberal and Labor had such similar offerings that it hardly seemed to matter who was governing

this election was different. There was a clear choice about the future, and for the many people in the room on Saturday night, the fact that their vision for Australia’s future was not affirmed, made them feel estranged and alienated from their own country.

Their fury was not with the Liberals but with Australia. That their fellow citizens had chosen their investment properties over climate action.

“Are we doomed? Are we just like all the other countries where one half hates the other half’s guts?” I asked my dad. Dad said no way, and quoted Bob Hawke at me: “I want to be remembered as a bloke who loved his country and still does.”

Their average age is 68 years old and they have a lot in common. The collapse of the Soviet Union, which Mr Putin famously described as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, was the defining episode of their adult lives

Four out of five have a KGB background, with three, including the president himself, coming from the ranks of counterintelligence. It is these hardened men, not polished diplomats like Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who run the country’s foreign policy.

In recent years members of this group have become very vocal. Messrs Patrushev and Naryshkin frequently give lengthy interviews articulating their views on global developments and Russia’s international role.

According to them, the American-led order is in deep crisis thanks to the failure of Western democracy and internal conflicts spurred by the promotion of tolerance, multiculturalism and respect for the rights of minorities. A new multipolar order is taking shape that reflects an unstoppable shift in power to authoritarian regimes that support traditional values.

Given the state of affairs in Western countries, the pair contend, it's only natural that they seek to contain Russia and to install pro-Western regimes in former Soviet republics. The West’s ultimate goal of a colour revolution in Russia itself would lead to the country’s conclusive collapse.

Washington sees unfinished business in Russia’s persistence and success, according to Mr Putin’s entourage. As America’s power wanes, its methods are becoming more aggressive. This is why the West cannot be trusted

Import substitution efforts have generated large flows of budget funds that are controlled by the coterie and their proxies, including through Rostec. The massive state conglomerate is run by a friend of Mr Putin’s from his KGB days in East Germany, Sergey Chemezov

Seen this way, Ukraine is the central battleground of the struggle. The stakes could not be higher. Should Moscow allow that country to be fully absorbed into a western sphere of influence, Russia’s endurance as a great power will itself be under threat

The fact that the new elite in Kyiv glorifies the Ukrainian nationalists of the 20th century and thumb their noses at Moscow is a huge personal affront.

Messrs Patrushev, Bortnikov and Naryshkin all find themselves on the US Treasury’s blacklist already, along with many other members of Mr Putin’s inner circle. There is no way back for them to the West’s creature comforts. They are destined to end their lives in Fortress Russia, with their assets and their relatives alongside them.

As for sanctions by sector, including those that President Joe Biden’s team plans to impose should Russia invade Ukraine, these may end up largely strengthening the hard men’s grip on the national economy

The best way to ensure the safety of Russia’s existing political regime and to advance its national interests is to keep America off balance.

In a similar vein, a ban on food imports from countries that have sanctioned Russia has led to spectacular growth in Russian agribusiness. The sector is overseen by Mr Patrushev’s elder son Dmitry, who is Mr Putin’s agriculture minister.

further sanctions wouldn’t just fail to hurt Mr Putin’s war cabinet, they would secure its members' place as the top beneficiaries of Russia’s deepening economic autarky.

The same logic is true of domestic politics: as the country descends into a near-permanent state of siege, the security services will be the most important pillar of the regime. That further cements the hard men’s grip on the country

Russia’s interests are increasingly becoming conflated with the personal interests of the people at the very top of the system.