Mediaboss Marketing

Last month, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called Gaza a graveyard for tens of thousands of people and also a graveyard for many of the most important principles of humanitarian law".

The reality may be even worse. I fear it may become the graveyard of liberalism itself.

Three decades ago, liberalism was the lead chariot in the procession of the liberal democratic project. New democracies were emerging in Europe; the Soviet Union had crumbled, and Russia was in transition; the Berlin Wall had fallen; and South Africa's apartheid regime was collapsing. Even China exhibited signs of change.

Liberal democracy appeared invincible, both in practice and in theory. There appeared to be no real competition as it stood out as a triumphant and principled form of governance.

Ask any well-versed liberal arts student and they will recite that liberalism is a political and philosophical ideology centred on the principles of individual liberty, equality and limited government.

They will point out that it emphasises the protection of individual rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech, religion and assembly, as well as the rule of law and democratic governance.

While advocating for a market-based economy with private property rights, free trade and minimal government regulation, liberalism also promotes social welfare programmes to alleviate disadvantages and ensure equal opportunities for all citizens.

Additionally, liberalism supports the idea of pluralism, tolerance and diversity, aiming to create societies where individuals can pursue their own interests and live according to their own beliefs without undue interference from the state.

The essence of liberalism lies in its commitment to the rule of law and human rights.

Sounds amazing, so whats the problem, you may be asking?

Those observing the plausible genocide without a propaganda lens over the last six months have had front-row seats on a systematic erosion of liberal values and ideals. Gaza has exposed western hypocrisy and double standards, and it has shaken liberalism to its core.

Both domestic and international commitment to the rule of law, human rights and a rules-based order are being undermined by, arguably, the most powerful lobby in the world. Pro-Israeli lobbies have hijacked most western liberal democracies.

Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of the Israel-Palestine war

The whole world is now privy to the shameless pimping of western politicians previously documented in Congressman Paul Findley's 1985 book They Dare to Speak Out and reinforced by the 2007 book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, by political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

As an anonymous commentator wrote: People think Gaza is occupied, but in reality, Gaza is free but the whole world is occupied.

Liberal elites and leaders who joined millions in support of free speech and proclaimed Je suis Charlie in solidarity with the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo after terrorists killed 12 people at its Paris offices in 2015 to try to shut it down, are now calling for suppression of free speech.

War on Gaza: Western powers never believed in a rules-based order

By a vote of 377-44-1, the US House passed a resolution that the "slogan, 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' is antisemitic and its use must be condemned". Of course, the statement is not threatening or condemnable if you substitute Palestine'' with Israel, as you see being done by many Israeli supporters and in the Likud manifesto.

The University of Southern California, in an unprecedented move, cancelled its Muslim valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, who minored in genocide studies, from delivering her address because of alleged threats from pro-Israeli groups. They cited unspecified security concerns.

I thought the idea was to never give in to what are clearly terrorist demands.

To make matters worse, due to the fallout, in another unprecedented move, the university subsequently cancelled all other speakers and honorary doctorate presentations during convocation. Where are the Je suis Asna calls from liberal elites and institutions?

Hundreds of students and faculty at Columbia, Yale and New York University have been arrested peacefully (in the words of the police chief) protesting against the killings by Israel. Another 200 mostly Jewish protesters were arrested in front of Senate majority leader Chuck Schumers Brooklyn residence, where they gathered for the seder, a ritual that marks the second night of the Passover holiday celebrated as a festival of freedom by Jews worldwide. No free speech mobilisation by liberal elites anywhere to be seen.

Those who championed freedom of expression are now banning the keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian headdress, because it is making some people uncomfortable. Last week, the Ontario legislature banned the headdress, forcing a scheduled meeting between legislators and pro-Palestinian protesters to be held outside the legislative buildings because the activists had donned their keffiyehs.

Israeli military dog tags, Israeli flags and other political symbols, of course, are not political in the same way.

The situation is no different in many European countries.

Who thought that liberalism was so fragile and malleable by those who seek to subvert it for their own illiberal goals, namely promoting ethnic cleansing by the ethno-nationalist and racist state of Israel.

In the wake of the mass killings of the Second World War and the Holocaust, the new liberal world order enacted human rights treaties and enacted humanitarian laws to make sure that such massacres and abuses were "never again" repeated.

Rising out of the horrors of the Second World War we saw the establishment of the United Nations and the drafting of the international bill of human rights that would obligate "every state to recognise the equal right of every individual on its territory to life, liberty and property, religious freedom and the use of his own language".

The bill consisted of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

We also saw the enactment of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which sought to improve the legal protection of non-combatants, medical personnel, medical facilities and equipment, and wounded and sick civilians.

Despite these advances claimed by liberals, today we are witnessing war crimes, crimes against humanity and plausible genocide, according to the International Court of Justice, being live-streamed to our devices.

If liberalism cannot offer a moral and ethical form of governance, then what good is it? What are the grandiose declarations, pronouncements and treaties good for?

In the midst of such an unprecedented attack on a corralled civilian population by a western colonial implant and ally, if liberalism shows no will, ability or desire to protect civilian life, regional security, a nation's own national interests and global order, then its mission-defining claims of principle and competence collapse.

Liberal intellectuals have long claimed the moral high ground by championing justice whether it be in favour or against western interests. Why is the Israeli situation different? When blind loyalty becomes the sole or primary consideration, then what makes liberalism different from tribalism?

Why is the Israeli situation different? When blind loyalty becomes the sole or primary consideration, then what makes liberalism different from tribalism?

When global security and safety can be sacrificed at the altar of friendship and similarity, then what becomes of the Wests claim to authority as a political and military custodian of a rules-based international order?

Might and dominance can be mistaken for right, but let's not forget that dissenting minorities, the oppressed and colonised may conclude that their only choice is to resist by any means necessary, and revolution is always a higher likelihood.

Even domestically, history has proven that societies that combine responsiveness to the will of their people with robust protections for individuals and minority groups are in the best position to strike a flexible and sustainable balance among these competing forces.

We can only hope and pray (sorry are we still allowed to do that?) that this is some sort of glitch or malfunction, and liberal elites and intellectuals will wake up from their slumber and remind liberal politicians that the very raison detre of the liberal democratic project is under threat of collapse.

It is almost too late, but there may be a sliver of hope.

How liberal elites respond to the Gaza challenge and salvage whatever shreds of credibility remain will dictate the legacy of liberalism.

Liberals must stand up for their principles or forever hang their heads in shame.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Read the original post:
Gaza is the greatest test liberalism has faced since 1945. And it is failing - Middle East Eye

OTTAWA NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is slamming the federal Liberals for giving nearly $26 million to Costco and Loblaw for energy-efficient appliances.

In 2019, the Liberals faced heat from Conservatives after the government announced it was giving $12 million to Loblaw for energy-efficient refrigerators and freezers.

Newly released data from Environment and Climate Change Canada shows Costco was also given more than $15 million for fridges and to reduce emissions.

Loblaw was given more than $10 million.

The payments were made to the two grocery chains between 2019 and 2023.

Singh says while people are deciding what they can afford in grocery aisles, the Liberals are deciding how many millions of dollars to hand out to grocery giants.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press

View original post here:
NDP leader slams Liberals for giving nearly $26M to Costco, Loblaw in recent years - Yahoo News Canada

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is slamming the federal Liberals for giving nearly $26 million to Costco COST-Q and Loblaw L-T for energy-efficient appliances.

The money came from the Liberal governments low-carbon economy fund, which is meant to support projects that will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

In 2019, the Liberals faced heat from Conservatives after the government announced it was giving up to $12 million to Loblaw for energy-efficient refrigerators and freezers at 370 of its stores.

Newly released data from Environment and Climate Change Canada show Costco was also given more than $15 million for efforts to reduce emissions, including new fridges.

Loblaw was ultimately given more than $10 million.

The payments were made to the two grocery chains between 2019 and 2023.

While people are deciding what they can afford in grocery aisles the Liberals are deciding how many millions of dollars to hand out to grocery giants, Singh said Wednesday.

Just stop giving millions of dollars of our public money to highly profitable companies, he said.

Stop giving million of dollars to a for-profit corporation instead of helping people who are struggling to afford food.

The Opposition Conservatives accused Singh of faking outrage over the issue.

The party argued that New Democrats are supporting subsidies going to corporations because they continue to prop up the minority Liberal government through a political pact.

Its shocking albeit unsurprising that Jagmeet Singh, the junior coalition partner in Justin Trudeaus costly Liberal-NDP majority government, provided tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to massive grocery chains that are making billions off Canadians while they are struggling to put food on the table, said Sebastian Skamski, a spokesperson for Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre.

Facing questions in the House of Commons over the issue, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lauded government initiatives that he said will help Canadians with affordability, including the national food lunch program announced in this years federal budget.

He also pointed to what the Liberals branded a grocery rebate, a doubling of the GST tax credit for low-income families delivered last year.

Excerpt from:
NDP leader slams Liberals for giving nearly $26-million to Costco, Loblaw in recent years - The Globe and Mail

Good evening, lets start with todays top stories:

Federal legislation aimed at combatting foreign interference in Canada includes a new a registry of foreign agents and proposes giving Canadas spy agency more authority to combat threats.

Long-awaited legislation unveiled by the Liberal government today would create a Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, who would be appointed after consultation with House of Commons and Senate leadership.

The individual would hold investigative powers and oversee a new mandatory registry of names for people conducting influence activity for foreign entities in provincial and federal politics and governments, as well as in Indigenous governments or councils.

The Countering Foreign Interference Act follows a federal inquiry into the issue that found foreign interference may have impeded the last two federal elections in Canada, though it didnt change the overall outcome. Commissioner Marie-Jose Hogue in a report last week called in foreign meddling a threat to Canadian democracy, and called for measures to tackle it.

Its unlikely the foreign registry announced Monday will be in place for the next federal election in 2025, the government said.

Israel appeared poised to launch a long-threatened invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, against the urging of humanitarian aid groups and allies, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government rejected the terms of a ceasefire accepted by the Hamas leadership.

Videos and photos show long lines of Palestinians departing the city that had previous been declared a safe zone after the Israeli military used text messages and leaflets to warn residents in eastern Rafah to leave the area.

Hours after Israel sent the evacuation warning, Ismail Haniyeh, the Qatar-based political leader of Hamas, said he had accepted a ceasefire brokered by Egypt and Qatar. Any deal would involve the release of some of the 100 hostages Hamas has been holding in Gaza since Oct. 7. Netanyahus office said it would carry out the military operation in Rafah in parallel with negotiations.

Humanitarian groups have reacted with alarm to the evacuation order. Meanwhile, families some of the Israeli hostages are calling on their government to explain why the ceasefire negotiations fell apart.

Displaced Palestinians who fled Rafah after the Israeli military began evacuating civilians from the eastern parts of the southern Gazan city travel on a vehicle in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 6, 2024.Ramadan Abed/Reuters

The Winnipeg trial of a man accused of killing four First Nations women and dumping their bodies in a landfill will hinge on his mental state and the intention behind the killings.

Jeremy Skibickis lawyers told a Manitoba superior court today that their client killed the women in 2022, and they intend to argue he was not criminally responsible because of mental illness. The defences legal strategy means the trial will be heard in front of a judge alone, rather than a jury, when arguments get under way on Wednesday. The 12-person jury selected to hear the case will be dismissed.

Police have alleged that Skibicki is a serial killer who murdered 26-year-old Marcedes Myran, 39-year-old Morgan Harris, 24-year-old Rebecca Contois, and an unidentified woman whom Indigenous elders have named Mashkode Bizhikiikwe, or Buffalo Woman. Skibicki was arrested in 2022 for the killings.

The development in the high-profile case comes a day after Red Dress Day, marked annually to bring awareness to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada.

The federal government set a record high for fines related to non-compliance with Canadas temporary foreign worker rules in 2023 and this year is shaping up to be even worse, according to a Globe analysis of government figures.

Infractions include wage theft and workplace abuse. Ottawa handed out $2.7-million in penalties against non-compliant employers last year, with an average fine of $13,800 per decision.

So far in 2024, the average fine is nearly $29,000, according to data reviewed by The Globe as of late April. Thats significantly higher than the roughly $3,200 average fine from 2019.

Canadian companies have been hiring temporary foreign workers in greater numbers in recent years, aided by policy changes aimed at addressing labour shortages. But the trend has sparked concerns about the potential for worker exploitation.

Campus protests: Columbia University is cancelling its main graduation ceremony after weeks of protests over the war in Gaza. The Ivy League school, one of several postsecondary campuses across Canada and the United States where pro-Palestinian protests have popped up, says it will hold smaller, school-based graduation events. Meanwhile, Ontarios premier says universities should start clearing protest encampments.

Government procurement: Ottawa went years without launching after-the-fact audits of companies that received contracts from an Indigenous procurement program.

Mining: Panama elected a pro-business president over the weekend and the outcome is raising hopes for Canadian mining company First Quantum. The companys financial situation has deteriorated after its Cobre Panama copper mine which used to account for half its revenue was ordered closed by the countrys departing president last year.

Fish farms: Canadas Public Sector Integrity Commissioner is launching an investigation into allegations that federal fisheries officials tried to silence scientists who were researching environmental threats related to open-net fish farms in the Pacific Ocean.

Keffiyeh ban: The Speaker of the Ontario legislature has partially eased a ban on the keffiyeh, allowing it to be worn inside Queens Park, but not in the legislative chamber. The Speaker banned the checkered scarf this year, arguing it is being worn to make a political statement about the Israel-Gaza war. Independent member Sarah Jama was asked to leave Question Period today after putting on the scarf inside the chamber.

MARKET WATCH

North American stock markets rise on renewed U.S. rate cut bets

Markets in Canada and the U.S. closed higher on Monday on fresh hopes of a potential U.S. rate cut.

Canadas main stock index closed its highest in over three weeks, boosted by energy stocks and renewed bets from investors on U.S. rate cuts some time this year.

U.S. stock indexes also ended higher on their third straight session of advances, though they underperformed the S&P/TSX composite index, which closed up 312.06 points, or 1.42 per cent, at 22,259.47.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 176.59 points or 0.46 per cent to 38,852.27, the S&P 500 gained 52.95 points or 1.03 per cent to 5,180.74 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 192.92 points or 1.19 per cent to 16,349.25.

The Canadian dollar was trading at 73.18 US cents.

Got a news tip that youd like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop.

TALKING POINTS

In the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, no ones a winner

This beef is no longer about whos at the top of the rap game. Its about who can race to the bottom fastest. - Adrian Lee

Ontarios keffiyeh ban dares to define the scarfs meaning for everyone

Asking a Palestinian to remove the keffiyeh is like asking a Muslim woman to remove her hijab or an Indigenous person to remove their headdress. It is an article of clothing deeply embedded with ones culture and identity. - Sheema Khan

Putting migrants in federal prisons is unjustified and unjust

Rather than using more humane (and less expensive) alternatives to detention that allow for people to live in the community, the CBSA opted to detain thousands of migrants, even though every year, the agency monitors thousands of people in the community, and it is rare that any of them abscond. - Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock

In Canada, we bank where we buy

Participating in slick marketing programs that allow you to engage in lite banking activity seems contradictory and foolish. Its a little bit silly, just like Canadian Tire money was. - Vass Bednar

Ukraines push to conscript men abroad wont do much to win the war

Ukrainians living abroad who are opposed to fighting are unlikely to be lured back, in particular those who were already in other countries before the war started and children who are coming of age abroad. Instead, many may choose to cut ties with Ukraine entirely. - Lidiia Karpenko

LIVING BETTER

Need more fibre? Add these six high-fibre foods to your diet

There are two types of fibre: soluble and insoluble. Both are present in varying proportions in different foods, but some foods can be rich in one or the other.Ted Johns/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Fibre is an oft overlooked nutrient that comes with a whole host of health benefits. A diet high in fibre is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, breast cancer and diverticulitis. Research suggests that eating fibre-rich food can help you live a longer life in good health. Read more here on how to up the fibre in your daily meals.

TODAYS LONG READ

At war with the censors

Late at night on Sept. 3, 1939, crowds of Torontonians waited outside the Globe and Mail building to read the latest news about Britains declaration of war on Nazi Germany. Canada followed suit a week later, with a war proclamation from Ottawa that appeared in the Sept. 11 Globe.The Globe and Mail

In the Second World War, the first global war of a truly mass-media era, The Globe and Mail took some of the first steps in defying the federal governments censorship machinery. The Globes publisher at the time, George McCullagh, even risked a prison sentence in the papers fight for the right to report on military blunders. Read more about the chapter of history here.

This is an excerpt from A Nations Paper: The Globe and Mail in the Life of Canada, a collection of history essays from Globe writers past and present, coming this fall from Signal/McClelland & Stewart.

Evening Update is written by Holly McKenzie-Sutter and Maryam Shah. If youd like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.

Continued here:
Evening Update: Liberals unveil foreign interference registry - The Globe and Mail

Americans of all stripes across the political spectrum have been understandably transfixed by the wave of student protests against the Gaza war that has spread from elite Ivy League campuses to numerous other schools, some more surprising than others. Police have been called in to break up student encampments not just at Columbia Universitys iconic Manhattan campus, which was both ground zero and a natural media target, but at USC in Los Angeles (once upon a time a famously white-bread conservative school), Emory University in Atlanta, the University of Texas at Austin, Ohio State, Indiana University and Cal Poly Humboldt in rural Northern California, among other places.

I intend to work my way back around to the instructive case of Columbia president Minouche Shafik, who apparently believed she could galaxy-brain her way around the protest crisis and avoid the fate of ousted Harvard president Claudine Gay, among others by capitulating in advance to the House Republicans witch-trial caucus, taking a hard line against alleged or actual antisemitism, and finally calling the cops on her own students. Spoiler alert: None of that was a good idea, and she probably didnt save her job anyway.

First of all, its more accurate to say that the media-consuming public is riveted by the contentious political drama surrounding those scenes of campus discord than by the protests themselves, which are a striking sign of the times but hardly a brand new phenomenon. My own college graduation, in the mid-1980s, was disrupted by a student walkout over the universitys involvement in nuclear weapons research and its non-divestment from the apartheid regime in South Africa. Strident moral positions and overheated rhetoric are features of student activism, which is sometimes effective and at other times purely symbolic; every generation, its fair to say, inherits or creates its own iteration.

Its also worth noting that Americas extraordinary narcissism another quality shared across the political spectrum creates a global distortion effect whereby the deaths of at least 34,000 people in a conflict on the other side of the world are transformed into a domestic political and cultural crisis. Nobody actually dies in this domestic crisis, but everyone feels injured: Public discourse is boiled down to idiotic clichs and identity politics is reduced to its dumbest possible self-caricature. When the apparent issues are about who has said the most hateful things, who feels more unsafe and in what context, and which political party can get away with twisting events to suit its preferred narrative, then were stuck in the TikTok reboot of Platos cave, staring at flickering shadows long since severed from reality.

None of that is the student protesters fault, exactly, although they have played an instrumental role in reprocessing the Gaza war launched, of course, in response to the horrifying Hamas attack on Israel last October as a theatrical spectacle or simulation, full of signs and symbols whose meanings are subject to endless debate. Most of them are expressing genuine (if histrionic) outrage that the U.S. government, self-appointed avatar of democracy and defender of the rules-based order, is funding and supporting Israels campaign of mass killing, wanton destruction and systematic deprivation against a virtually imprisoned civilian population.

Exactly how much this student movement has been contaminated by intemperate, hotheaded or outright antisemitic rhetoric is, shall we say, a question of interpretation but not one that can be credibly answered by Bibi Netanyahu, Elise Stefanik or Mike Johnson. As for those who seek to what-about the current wave of protests by observing that worse things have happened in recent history without driving the students of Emerson College to risk mass arrest in the Boston streets, they are correct while deliberately missing the point.

Whatever world-historical culpability the U.S. may have had for the genocidal conflicts in Darfur or Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia, for Russias massively destructive war in Chechnya or Chinas brutal oppression of the Uyghurs or whatever atrocity youd like to name, those events were not the direct results of U.S. policy and did not carry the White House seal of approval. The Gaza war is, and does.

As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, a longtime friend and admirer of Joe Biden, wrote last week, Gaza has become the albatross around Bidens neck. It is his war, not just Benjamin Netanyahus. It will be part of his legacy, an element of his obituary, a blot on his campaign, in much the same way as the Vietnam War permanently stained the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, who was undermined by the massive antiwar demonstrations of 1968 including the student rebellion at Columbia, exactly 56 years ago this week, as it happens.

Americas extraordinary narcissism creates a global distortion effect whereby the massacre of at least 34,000 people in a conflict on the other side of the world is transformed into a domestic political and cultural crisis.

Biden made a series of catastrophic miscalculations in the wake of the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, Kristof argues, and the net effect has been to make the U.S. look weak, hypocritical and profoundly cynical. Longtime British politician and diplomat Chris Patten, a pillar of center-right establishment thinking, told Kristof that Biden had made a terrible, terrible error that fed into Chinese and Russian narratives that the West employs double standards and doesnt really care about principles.

I would describe Bidens predicament as a symptom of the moral and political failures of liberalism, as well as the peculiar status of the United States, a still-dominant global superpower now in irreversible decline. The president did not or could not grasp how rapidly and decisively world opinion would turn against Israel and the U.S., or how little the world trusts American foreign policy after the last six decades or so of misbegotten wars and disastrous blunders.

Furthermore, and this one is amazing too: Neither Biden nor anyone in his inner circle seemed aware that core Democratic constituencies Black voters, younger people, progressives already sympathized with the Palestinian cause and viewed the current Israeli government as a criminal rogue state (or worse). Or perhaps they didn't care: Mainstream Democrats tend to dismiss the significance of the youth vote, assume that Black voters will stick with them no matter what, and are eager to purge or bulldoze the activist left on any available pretext.

But those failures, all damaging enough on their own terms, were amplified and undergirded by Bidens inexplicable faith that Bibi Netanyahu would somehow turn out to be a responsible leader and partner in a time of crisis, rather than a power-mad racist zealot with years of experience at manipulating American presidents. This miscalculation may seem mystifying when you consider Bidens long years of public service and his vaunted expertise in foreign policy; Kristof certainly finds it so.

It makes more sense if we understand liberalism, of the 21st-century Biden variety, as faith in the power of human reason, and specifically in its power to bridge differences between competing interests and establish common ground for civil discourse and political compromise. If we lived in a world of rational, self-interested beings willing to acknowledge the perspectives of others a world of liberals, in other words that might work out. But we dont, and in the real world Bidens miscalculation regarding Netanyahu was a potentially fatal mistake fatal for Bidens presidency, fatal for Israel, fatal for the future of the Middle East.

That brings us back at last to Dr. Renat Shafik, who prefers the nickname Minouche, and whose full title in the British House of Lords is the Right Honorable Baroness Shafik DBE. She arrived at Columbia last July, with no experience in American academic life, touted as a champion of diversity and inclusion. (By birth and parentage, she is both Arab and Muslim.) Less than a year later, she summoned the NYPD to the Morningside Heights campus for the first time since the legendary student takeover of 1968. If Joe Biden represents the tragedy of liberalism in its pathetic form no reasonable person can doubt his good intentions Shafik represents something darker, and almost farcical.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

If you wanted to choose one individual as the face of neoliberalism for an encyclopedia entry, you could do a lot worse. Shafik holds an economics PhD from Oxford and a rsum of high-ranking positions at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England, three institutions that have been instrumental in driving developing nations into unsustainable debt in pursuit of a disastrously failed model of progress. She came to Columbia after six years of pushing fiscal austerity as director of the London School of Economics, where just last spring she helped defeat a student/faculty strike, reportedly by slashing salary payments and lowering graduation requirements to hustle student protesters out the door.

If you wanted to choose one individual as the face of neoliberalism for an encyclopedia entry, you could do a lot worse than Minouche Shafik.

After the Gaza protests erupted at Columbia, Shafik evidently surrounded herself with high-priced lawyers and consultants drawn from the orbit of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who persuaded her that she could save her job by abasing herself before the Republican witch-hunters in Congress and giving them everything they wanted, up to and including confidential university documents they had no right to see.

This spectacular abdication of any pretense of academic integrity made her look like a liberal of the most craven and spineless kind, the kind who would rather surrender to a police state than stand up for the frequently uncomfortable principles of free speech. To the surprise of absolutely no one, or at least no one outside Shafiks neoliberal policy bubble, that did nothing to placate Stefanik and Johnson and the rest of the House Republicans, who did not want to be placated and had no interest in reasonable dialogue.

They wanted to watch Shafik squirm and grovel and then they wanted her head on a spike, while amplifying a largely invented crisis that delights their base and divides core liberal constituencies against each other. They have already achieved two of those three goals, and after alienating nearly everyone on the Columbia campus through her appalling cowardice, Shafik is surely numbering the days.

Given her record, no one could have expected her to behave differently than she did. The real question is what we might learn from Shafiks failure, and from the larger set of cultural and political failures it represents. After this disastrous week, one might be tempted to conclude that the slow, agonizing decline of American higher education has finally reached its nadir, and that American liberals will finally be forced to recognize that reason is useless against the enemies of reason. Im not holding my breath.

Read more

from Andrew O'Hehir

Go here to see the original:
Columbia crisis: Another massive failure of liberalism - Salon