In a recent speech at the first annual National Conservatism Conference, internet pioneer Peter Thiel said he worries about possible high-level infiltration of companies like Google by the Chinese. Given the fact that the importance of artificial intelligence will be comparable to the nuclear revolution of the 1940s, knowing who has access to this technology and by what means is of critical importance.
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In the face of growing anti-Semitism in the West, we should pay attention to a recent vote in the German parliament.
On March 14, the Free Democrats, a mildly economic-libertarian party in the Bundestag, submitted a resolution that called out the anti-Israel bias of United Nations institutions and urged the German government to oppose this ongoing practice. It highlighted the one-sidedness within the U.N. in recent years — for example, that the U.N. General Assembly passed 26 resolutions criticizing specific states in 2018, and 21 times these resolutions were aimed against Israel. Continue to full article. US Retreat from Syria Reveals Europe’s Weakness as a Global Actor – Jerusalem Post, January 8, 20199/4/2022 The US retreat from Syria has led to speculations who will fill the emerging power vacuum, but the most likely candidates are Russia, Turkey and Iran. One player, however, is conspicuously absent in these discussions: The European Union. Although the EU has geopolitical interests in the Middle East that are equal to those of the aforementioned countries, nobody is seriously expecting Brussels to deepen its footprint in the region.
Continue to full article. Europe's consensus on migration is suddenly breaking up – Washington Examiner, November 8, 20189/4/2022 Sometimes small things indicate great change. The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, also referred to as the United Nations Migration Pact, is a nonbinding document addressing the governance of global migration and is to be adopted at an intergovernmental conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, in December.
The document is deeply pro-migration. It calls it a source of innovation and growth, while also proposing measures to allow more migration and integration of migrants into developed nations. Yet its nonbinding nature has created a perception that it is humanistic boilerplate with no real political consequences. First tensions appeared when the United States opted out of the pact by the end of 2017, citing security concerns. It was followed by the conservative nationalist government of Hungary in summer of 2018. But interpreted as a nod to domestic constituencies, the actions by Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban appeared to be exceptions that would not seriously derail the adoption of the pact. But things have since become much more complicated. The Austrian government, led by a center-right coalition of the conservative People’s Party and the nationalist Freedom Party, surprised fellow EU member states at the end of October by announcing that it will also not sign the pact, describing the content as potentially leading to a dangerous “human right to migration.” What makes this move particularly extraordinary is that Austria is currently holding the rotating presidency of the European Union, yet Vienna is directly contradicting the official position held by the European Commission. This is a highly unusual break with precedent, and signals that when it comes to questions of migration, national interests now even supplant a perceived European consensus. What's more, within hours of the Austrian announcement, the levies started to break all around Europe. The Czech Republic, Poland, Switzerland, and Italy suddenly began reconsidering their support for the document. Siding with the United States and Hungary, Austria has declared that even the slightest possibility of losing full sovereignty over its migration policy is unacceptable. The experiences of the last three years are outweighing the desire for consensus: Driven by the massive influx of refugees as a consequence of German chancellor Merkel’s open borders policy in 2015, Austria was faced with 90,000 applications for asylum, more per capita than in any other EU member state. It was on this wave that the current government was swept into power in the fall of 2017 and immediately started to take a tougher stance on migration. This change of direction is nothing short of a political earthquake. Until 2017, Hungary's government was seen as a lone neo-nationalist state in Europe, a country whose nationalism was supposed to be restrained by public condemnation and the threat of soft sanctions. The Austrian decision to ally itself with Orban is a significant move toward making nationalism acceptable again in Europe. Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz and his vice-chancellor Heinz Christian Strache have been working in tandem to mainstream a new form of nationalism in Europe that lacks the usual nationalistic antics reeking of xenophobia and outright racism. The Austrian version of nationalism is almost light-footed, constantly invoking the will of the people and, most importantly, winning at every local election that could be seen as a referendum on government policy. This new nationalism is getting increasingly popular not only in Eastern, but also Western Europe. Germany, supposedly a bulwark against new nationalism, is in a deep crisis, with governing parties having to deal with losses in the double digits in the most recent regional elections. Angela Merkel’s decision not to seek re-election in 2021 has been mourned by many in the political establishment throughout Europe, but the voters abandoned her agenda a while ago. For the first time since the Second World War, a far-right party was able to gain seats not only in the federal parliament, but all regional parliaments as well. The nationalist pressure has been increasing in elections from France to Sweden, but this was the first time that an openly nationalist policy will potentially prevent the adoption of a U.N. document. It is likely that we will see more of this in the future. Ralph Schoellhammer is a lecturer in economics and political science at Webster University Vienna in Austria. Original Link: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/europes-consensus-on-migration-is-suddenly-breaking-up German Ideological Revival Polarizes Western Politics - The Atlantic Sentinel, March 5, 20139/4/2022 “Now Europe speaks German,” declared Volker Kauder, a member of Germany’s ruling conservative party, in late 2011. Despite the scolding he earned for his remarks, he was only slightly off. Not only Europe, indeed the world speaks increasingly with a German voice. Not literally, of course, but philosophically. German ideas are emerging as powerful forces all around the globe, ringing the bell for the end of the Anglo-Saxon moment in history.
Critics and defenders of contemporary capitalism in the United States both speak the language of German history. Those who seek to emulate the European welfare state regularly invoke the German model while those who condemn these leftist ideas emphasize the necessity of self-reliance and labor as the fundamental glue of society and the indispensable source of individual dignity. The irony of this debate is that while the former claim to be ideological descendants of Karl Marx, it is the latter who use his arguments in the truest sense. For Marx, labor was the essence of human existence. Men could only be men through work which enabled him to interact with nature and create a world according to his imagination. Modern ideological concepts such as environmentalism or the creation of a stable dependency class would be anathema to Marx. He accused the bourgeois of dehumanizing the working class because they robbed it of the fruits of their own labor, thereby only granting them a limited potential to be fully human. A lifestyle consisting of barely working at all, to which a growing number of people in the United Kingdom and other Western nations subscribe, would be abhorrent to the socialist thinker. He would see it as tantamount to the deliberate renouncing of an individual’s humanity. John Locke, one of the most important philosophical founders of Anglo-Saxon culture, argued that the individual should strive for material wealth and renounce nonmaterial aspirations like glory and pride which were viewed as major causes of war and violence. Indeed, the German tradition of preferring the metaphysical over the material played a central role in all the destruction it caused in the first half of the twentieth century. Yet it also played a role in German reconstruction after World War II. The German self-perception of being an industrial nation and the lasting belief in the people as an organic community were the intellectual underpinnings for the creation of the Soziale Marktwirtschaft, Germany’s distinctive version of the mixed economy. It is not a coincidence that up to the beginning of this century, German citizenship was defined by ancestry rather than one’s place of birth as is the case in the United States. These distinctively German features helped to keep a substantial part of industry within domestic borders while the Anglo-Saxon powers shipped more and more jobs overseas. While the rediscovery of work not only as a means to survive but as a source of individual dignity might be a development worth approval, the German moment is spreading beyond this element. The recent election in Italy is just the latest expression of an increasingly populist anger on both the left and the right throughout the modern capitalist democracies. Writing about the United States in his most recent book, The Origins of Political Order (2011), Francis Fukuyama observes that “for the first time in modern history, the most conservative Democrat in Congress is more liberal than the most liberal Republican,” reflecting an unprecedented ideological polarization. The consequences of this reideologization of political decisionmaking are becoming more and more palpable. The differences between Germany and France are not simple policy disagreements but partly different worldviews that narrow the opportunity for compromise. The idea of reforming the welfare state in order to create a globally competitive economy comes much more naturally to Germany that still prides itself on the legacy of the 1950s Wirtschaftswunder than to instinctively protectionist France. President François Hollande made clear that the French social system is a cornerstone of the state’s legitimacy and that he has no intention of becoming France’s Gerhard Schröder, Angela Merkel’s reform-minded Social Democratic predecessor. Idealism can be a powerful force but clashing ideals can become dangerously destructive. For a long time, the core of Anglo-Saxon philosophical reasoning was a form of pragmatic utilitarianism that had a strong moral, albeit regularly denied, founding in the Protestant work ethic. Continental and German thinking, on the other hand, had a stronger inclination toward emphasizing the role of politics and economics as a collective endeavor. While the truth is to be found somewhere between the human desire for individualism and belonging to a group, the contemporary political discourse is once again defined by the juxtaposition of these two views. The undertones of this debate, however, are strongly ideological in nature. Neither side claims that their main focus is materialistic. For the political right, individual dignity springs from economic independence while for the left, it arises from the avoidance of being viewed as economically disadvantaged by the rest of society. These opposite views run currently through the American and European political landscapes and it remains to be seen if a compromise that satisfies both sides can be reached. A first step to do so will be to acknowledge the increasingly ideological character of the debate. This fall’s election is likely to strengthen Angela Merkel’s position as German chancellor.
Ralph SchoellhammerJanuary 15, 2013When German voters decide the new composition of the Bundestag in the fall of this year, one thing seems almost inevitable: Angela Merkel will remain chancellor, unless all three parties left of center agree to form a coalition government of their own. Although the scenario seems highly improbable, Merkel will be presented with a tough choice of her own. While it is too early to put too much faith in opinion polls, the current numbers are startling: Merkel’s conservatives are consistently breaking the 40 percent mark while the Social Democrats led by Peer Steinbrück can barely meet 30 percent of voter approval. But Merkel’s present coalition partners, the liberal Free Democrats, are caught in a battle for political survival, failing to meet the necessary 5 percent mark to be represented in parliament in almost every poll. In recent weeks it has become clear that the Christian Democrats are already taking the possibility of a new coalition partner into their calculations, showing a dwindling support for the liberals in upcoming provincial elections. This strategy is painful for the liberals but makes sense from Angela Merkel’s point of view. Why rely on a razor’s edge majority on the right when a more comfortable margin could be reached with the Social Democrats or the Greens? The fact that the Merkel’s Bavarian sister party, the Christlich-Soziale Union, is also losing in the polls shows that the strong position of the conservatives is to a large degree a consequence of the chancellor’s personal charisma. Such a description would have struck many observers as absurd in the past, for Merkel was never known to be a charismatic speaker, but her calm handling of the European sovereign debt crisis is seen as appropriate by many Germans. Even the fiercest critics of the chancellor’s economic and European policy have not had a lasting impact on voters who view the crisis not just as one of economics, rather one of mentality. Supported by the still strong German economy, the government is reaping the fruits of a new German self-esteem. Such considerations will play a crucial role in coalition talks following the election. Steinbrück is trailing behind in popularity. 71 percent of voters has a positive view of Merkel compared to his 54 percent. Regardless of the future ruling coalition, the impact of Merkel’s personality will make it difficult for any partner to overcome being dominated by the conservatives. Indeed, having the Social Democrats as the junior partners would considerably strengthen the conservatives’ position. Not only is such a grand coalition the most trusted form of government in Germany; in combination with Merkel’s present popularity, there is a chance to push through far-reaching reforms into a more conservative direction. It does not come as a surprise that the Green party is distancing itself from the prospect of being a coalition partner because it fears being depicted as a simple majority provider for Merkel’s political agenda. If current trends should turn out to be robust, the impact on European policies in 2014 could be substantial. A vote for Merkel would also be a vote for increased German leadership in Europe which could cause increased tension not only between Berlin and Paris but between Berlin, Rome and Madrid. Additionally, a more assertive Germany could further alienate the United Kingdom from the European Union. It is too early to tell whether such a scenario would have a positive or negative impact on the future of the European project but one thing is clear: Germans this fall not only vote on the future of their own country but its role in Europe as well. |
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