Peter L. Berger's Blog, page 532

Moody’s May Junk Brazil

Between a messy (if hopeful) leadership transition in Argentina and a potentially violent power struggle in Venezuela, South American politics are complicated and unpredictable these days—and the collapse in commodities prices has contributed to that circumstance. By far the biggest star to fall in these conditions is Brazil, where the news keeps getting worse. Bloomberg:

Brazilian stocks fell after Moody’s Investors Service signaled the country’s credit rating may be cut to junk, highlighting concern about forecasts calling for the longest recession since the 1930s.

State-controlled oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA, whose credit rating was reduced to three levels below investment grade by Moody’s on Wednesday, declined. Lender Itau Unibanco Holding SA contributed the most to the benchmark equity index’s drop. Moody’s cast doubt on Brazil’s ability to shore up its budget as political turmoil and a corruption scandal fuel gridlock in Congress.“It’s inevitable that we lose our investment grade status,” Alvaro Bandeira, an economist at Banco Modal, said from Rio de Janeiro. “It will be very hard to attract investors now to the country, considering the political and economic scenarios.”

Two months ago, Standard & Poor’s cut Brazil’s rating to junk, so this latest downgrade isn’t exactly surprising. But with a major corruption scandal and a looming impeachment trial for President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s political leadership doesn’t appear capable of stabilizing the economy. We expect things to get worse before they show signs of getting better.

At Harvard, Feelings Trump Knowledge

TAI staff writer Nicholas M. Gallagher is in the Federalist today, breaking down Harvard University’s decision to scrap the title “master” for faculty heads of residential colleges because of the term’s supposed “association with slavery.” As Gallagher shows, this decision, which rests on ignorant folk etymology, highlights American universities’ increasing tendency to prioritize their students’ feelings over actual academic knowledge:

Rather than being just a contraction, master in the sense of house master comes from the Latin magister, or teacher, from which schoolmaster and headmaster also derive. “Master” in this sense has nothing whatsoever to do with “master” in the sense of slavery, for which the Romans would have used dominus or domina. The supposed “association with slavery,” is therefore bunk. […]

The absence of laughter can indicate the presence of ignorance. It seems to here. It’s not that this ignorance of classical or European languages reflects a growth in admirable, rigorous study of more diverse tongues; few Harvard scholars replaced the Latin curriculum of the 1950s with an acute knowledge of classical Sanskrit. The top universities now employ a great many people who “study” subjects that would at one point not have been recognized as academic.

This has many effects, some a great deal more grave than some academics making asses of themselves. The same student who cannot understand master/magister is deaf to the entire classical world—to Virgil, Caesar, and Cicero— and to all those who knew and were in conversation with that world, such as Dante, Milton, and Goethe. If you think knowledge of that world was only useful to dead white guys, you know nothing of the educations of America’s great civil rights leaders.

It appears that at least some of the Harvard leadership was aware that the crusade against the term was based on a distorted and superficial understanding of the English language. And yet the university—like other Ivy League schools faced with questionable demands—swiftly caved, perhaps because of the sense that capitulating to protesting students is a sign of respect, or perhaps just out of a desire to make the witch hunt stop. They are wrong on both counts: Failing to stand up for academic values in the face of a misplaced ideological crusade does students a grave disservice, and it only emboldens them to keep pushing.

A More Ambitious Approach

Last month a U.S. congressional delegation led by Representative Nancy Pelosi visited Tibet on what appeared to be a last minute extension of planned trip to China. For Chinese officials, however, it was undoubtedly the product of assiduous preparation.

China’s approach to Tibet—both inside and on the international stage—is tough and uncompromising. Most official requests to visit are denied. When granted, there is a reason. “What they wanted us to see was housing. And we did,” Pelosi noted in a press conference following the group’s return to the United States. “Did we see families? I’m not sure.”Pelosi is far from the “political pilgrim” unable to distinguish between reality and propaganda that Paul Hollander described in his book of the same name. She is the undisputed heroine of an earlier era of congressional leadership on human rights in Tibet and China in the 1990s. However, in light of what we know about conditions in Tibet, and the way Beijing controls access for propaganda purposes, the congressional delegation’s visit is probably not the “giant step forward” she hopes. In any case, it must not be allowed to distract from the development of a broad, substantive, and ambitious strategy for U.S. policy on Tibet.Chinese leaders have their own strategy, made and executed at the highest levels, most recently at a conclave in August presided over by General Secretary Xi Jinping. They are aimed at retaining control domestically and gaining acceptance abroad of Beijing’s policies toward Tibet, including by delegitimizing the Dalai Lama. While the West likes to imagine that China is no longer truly communist, its Tibet policies remain underpinned by Marxist-Leninist tenets on religion and ethnic minorities. (Of course, Tibetans only became a “minority” after the Chinese invasion.)American policy meanwhile is focused narrowly on preserving Tibetan religion and culture and promoting “dialogue” between China and the Dalai Lama’s representatives. (There have been no talks between them since 2010.) Meanwhile, U.S. policymakers have not addressed other important developments that indicate Tibet’s strategic importance.In 2011, Tibetans in exile completed the democratization of the government based in Dharamsala, India, and the Dalai Lama transferred his political authority to an elected Prime Minister. This deserves a greater degree of incorporation into U.S. policy.To do this, the United States would not need to change its position on Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, no matter how historically ill founded it is. Such a position would bring Tibet policy into line with policy toward Taiwan and Hong Kong, where the United States also supports democracy as both the right of the people and the outcome that best serves U.S. interests. The U.S. position on Taiwan was adapted over time as Taiwan itself democratized. Washington now considers the consent of the people on Taiwan as a prerequisite for U.S. support for the merger with the mainland. Greater emphasis on democracy for Tibet would help China’s beleaguered dissidents, including the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo and New Citizens Movement leader Xu Zhiyong, who have also criticized their government’s policies on Tibet.The United States should also draw the line at further aggression by China on matters related to Tibet. PLA incursions across the former Tibetan border with India have increased in recent years. Chinese leaders claim considerable areas of India as “Southern Tibet.” India’s military preparedness lags far behind that of China’s, but on the Indian side are large Indian Tibetan Buddhist communities and historic religious sites, one of which, the monastery at Tawang, might play a role in the selection of the next Dalai Lama. China is also disrupting Nepal’s historic role as a haven and way station for Tibetan refugees.The United States can go much further in fulfilling the current mandate of U.S. law on preserving Tibet’s unique religion and culture. China plans to install the next Dalai Lama according to “guidelines” on reincarnation. The Dalai Lama has unequivocally rejected a Chinese role in the selection of his successor. He explained how, consistent with Buddhist precepts, the next Dalai Lama may be found outside Tibet, and that some other figures may play a role in the period between the identification of the reincarnation in a young boy and his age of majority. As a matter of religious freedom, the United States and other democratic governments should accept the Dalai Lama’s plan and reject a Communist-imposed Dalai Lama. Among other things, letting Tibetans know the world supports them on this vital matter of identity might help to lessen unrest in Tibet.Even as Pelosi and her congressional colleagues were in Tibet, China was spinning the visit in party-controlled media, claiming she had praised Chinese rule. That was predictable. Now that they have returned to the United States, they have the opportunity to update U.S. Tibet policy by broadening its strategic and moral objectives.

OPEC Ups Output as Prices Plunge Below $40

OPEC’s decision last week not to coordinate production cuts has sent global oil prices spiraling downwards from already remarkably low levels, and today Europe’s Brent crude benchmark is trading below $40 per barrel while America’s West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark sits just below $37. Prices are at their lowest point since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, but while the oil market staggers, OPEC is acting like it’s business as usual, even upping production last month. The FT reports:

The producer group’s monthly oil market report on Thursday said output increased to 31.7m barrels a day last month, up from 31.5 the previous month, according to secondary sources who track member output. […]

The cartel’s November increase was led by output from Iraq, which has hit record levels in recent months. Iraqi production rose to 4.3m b/d in November from 4.1m b/d the month before as it pumps hard to raise funds to fight Isis and provide some support to its fragile economy.

The cartel hopes that non-OPEC producers (like American shale companies) will be forced to close up shop any day now when their relatively high-cost projects become no longer profitable in a bearish market made even more so by their policies. And to an extent, that plan is working: monthly U.S. crude production is down roughly 200,000 barrels per day from an April high, and while non-OPEC supplies are still expected to grow this year, forecasts for that growth are being revised downwards in light of these new price realities.

But these quasi-victories for OPEC won’t mollify its poorer members, many of whom have long agitated for the cartel to cut production and set a price floor. OPEC expects an increase in demand next year, but even that hope rests on shaky ground, as historically these sorts of predictions rarely get it right. We’re heading into 2016 awash in oil, and there’s no clear sign that movement on either the demand or the supply side of the market will drive prices up. Welcome to the brave new world of $40 crude.

South Korea Fires Warning Shots at Chinese Vessel

South Korea regularly confronts Chinese ships crossing the disputed Northern Limit Line off South Korea’s western coast. Yet the situation escalated further yesterday after the South Korean navy fired several warning shots at a Chinese vessel. Reuters:

China said on Wednesday it had asked South Korea to ensure the safety of Chinese ships after South Korea’s navy fired warning shots at a Chinese vessel which crossed into waters disputed by North and South Korea.

The South Korean navy told Yonhap news agency it had fired 10 warning shots at a Chinese boat which it said crossed the Northern Limit Line – a disputed inter-Korean maritime border on the west coast.

The ship was initially thought to be North Korean, but was later identified as Chinese, according to Yonhap.

“We are concerned about the relevant situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.

Relations between South Korea and China have been warming lately, with South Korea President Park Geun-hye making high-profile appearances in Beijing and with Seoul hosting a trilateral summit with China and Japan. But, as we’ve reported, South Korea and China have a lot to work through before their relationship can fundamentally change.

More broadly, this flare-up—which will likely cool off this time—highlights yet another Asian maritime territorial dispute worth watching.

The Luxury of Renewables

Green energy isn’t cheap energy, and government programs put in place to help get wind and solar off the ground are drawing the ire of advocacy groups concerned that poor households share none of the programs’ benefits and a disproportionate amount of their costs. Reuters reports:

[Green subsidy schemes] come with certain credit requirements and are ill-suited for apartment dwellers, homes with low monthly bills or low-income households that qualify for reduced power rates. […]

In Arizona, the solar industry’s growth has slowed since 2013, when regulators approved a fee for solar customers after the state utility argued that lower-income and minority communities were left burdened with grid maintenance costs.Solar power advocates say its share is too small to have any impact on costs faced by conventional energy consumers, but the setback made them work harder to win over minority communities.

Some groups have even taken to calling owning solar panels another example of white privilege. 73 percent of one online solar seller’s customers identified themselves as white, while just 4 percent identified themselves as black. As Reuters remarks, “[s]ince minorities make up a disproportionate number of low-income households, some advocacy groups have opposed certain solar power initiatives arguing that they deepen social and racial inequality.”

This isn’t a trivial point. Consider the example of Germany, which has recklessly pursued the development of wind and solar power by guaranteeing producers long-term above-market rates. The costs of these feed-in tariffs, as they’re called, are inevitably borne by consumers in the form of a green surcharge on electricity bills. If you’re wealthy, you might not notice the resulting spike in your monthly bill, but for lower-income households this can make a real, unwelcome difference. In that respect, it’s a form of regressive taxation.The current crop of solar panels can’t compete with fossil fuels on its own merits, which is why state and federal governments have to step in with subsidies to help prop it up. These subsidies don’t just divert money away from the research and development of breakthroughs that could actually allow renewables to float on their own. They also cost consumers—the poor chief among them.

Affirmative Action on the Brink

The Supreme Court heard arguments for and against race-based preferences in college admissions this morning, and it doesn’t look good for the pro-affirmative action side. The New York Times‘ Adam Liptak reports:

A majority of the Supreme Court justices seemed unpersuaded on Wednesday that an affirmative action plan at the University of Texas was constitutional. But the member of the Supreme Court who almost certainly holds the crucial vote, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, devoted almost all of his questions to exploring whether the case should be returned to the trial court to allow the university to submit more evidence to justify its use of race in deciding which students to admit.

By the end of the unusually long and tense argument, Justice Kennedy indicated that the Supreme Court might have all the evidence needed to decide the case. That could mean that the Texas admissions plan is in peril and that affirmative action at colleges and universities around the nation may be in trouble as well.

We aren’t legal scholars here at Via Meadia, so we don’t have much to add to the constitutional arguments surrounding this case. Suffice it to say that while we are skeptical of the ability of the Court to craft a one-size-fits-all solution that works for all 50 U.S. states and all 3,000 U.S. colleges, we also believe that “dealing with historical injustice is a hugely difficult task, and there is little sign that today’s bureaucratic diversity industry is up to the job—or really even very interested in the job.”

In any case, focusing narrowly on race in admissions distracts from some of the broader injustices in the American higher education system. College tuition is skyrocketing, thanks to heavy-handed federal regulations, overly generous subsidies, and the perpetually enlarging academic bureaucracy. Prohibitive costs may do more to prevent underprivileged students from getting an education than admissions policies. Moreover, we have set up a grotesquely unfair system in which elite schools are the gatekeepers to elite status, handicapping millions of talented students who didn’t want to go to elite schools, or who weren’t focused on academics at age 17. If our society were less obsessed with the value of fancy college degrees, the stakes in the affirmative action debate would be lower.

Regardless of how the Court ultimately rules in this case, policymakers and education professionals need to start thinking about ways to overhaul our higher education system so that it is fairer to all young Americans, regardless of their skin color.

Rethinking the Reformation

Projects of rethinking historical events are often linked to a debunking of old myths or to the creation of new ones, both prone to be motivated by practical interests in the present rather than disinterested exercises of historical scholarship. The year 2017 will mark the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. As the date gets closer, all kinds of activities are already gearing up to commemorate it, some intellectually sophisticated, some blatantly profane. There is a flurry of theological reflections about past and present Catholic-Protestant relations. The tourist agencies of states in eastern Germany are already advertising tours through “Luther land,” while American Lutherans are invited to renew their spiritual roots by following the footsteps of their revered founder. Most of the official ecumenical activities are animated by expressions of mutual respect and affections between the two big branches of Western Christendom. These events stand in splendid contrast to the violent conflicts between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, continuing a dispute between the followers of Muhammad in 7th-century Arabia (more than 800 years before Protestants and Catholics started the wars of religion that devastated large areas of Europe).

Of course more partisan interpretations of what began in 1517 occur in both communities. More conservative Catholics may still hold Luther responsible for the great schism, even while official Rome has been decidedly philo-Protestant since the Second Vatican Council. Protestants and Anglicans in Europe have largely given up their traditional anti-Catholic hostility. American Protestants are split, their attitudes to Catholicism often determined by their political rather than their theological views: conservatives side with Rome on issues south of the navel, progressives resonate with the Leftish noises coming from Latin American Catholicism (and lately from Rome itself).On October 30, 2015, a joint Lutheran-Catholic statement was issued after a protracted consultation by theologians of both confessions: “On the Way: Church, Ministry and the Eucharist.” The opening phrase means on the way to full mutual recognition and intercommunion, which both sides acknowledge as having been the will of Jesus and as being the intended final relationship between the two communities. [As a sociologist I must observe that there is also a tacit empirical assumption here—that the disunity between churches weakens the credibility of the Christian faith. This may be true in Europe, where both Lutherans and Catholics come out of a history of state churches—and where secularization, as a decline of religion, has gone farther than on any other continent. In the United States this alleged nexus between Christian unity and the plausibility of the faith is less persuasive.]“On the Way” was published jointly by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest and more liberal wing of Lutheranism in this country (known, not always affectionately, as Aunt Elka), and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. There has also been input from the Lutheran World Federation, the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, and the World Council of Churches (to which most Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches at least nominally belong despite cacophonous disagreements). This document builds on an earlier joint statement in 1993 on the doctrine of justification, which has been a major disagreement between Lutherans and Catholics: The statement concluded in a somewhat tortured argument that there really were (or were no longer) any fundamental disagreements. It therefore decided, logically enough, to withdraw the solemn mutual condemnations (so-called anathemas, “accursed be…”) between Rome and its “separated brethren” (a phrase now considered impolite).The gist of “On the Way” is a list of “32 agreements” (there is also an honest acknowledgment of issues on which there still is disagreement). Coming to the document as a non-theologian one is likely to be less than overwhelmed by what is supposedly agreed upon; a professional theologian will of course get the subtle nuances which signal continuing disputes. One must remember that this is the work of a committee in which each member, with good will, tried to get as far as possible to sign on to a consensus without losing the “home base” (in the Catholic case that is defined by the appropriate agencies of the Vatican). Some examples: Agreement 4—the Church is apostolic because its mandate comes from the apostles of Jesus—a bow to Rome, which has that adjective in its full title. [Not a word here about the apostolic succession claimed by the Roman Catholic Church and not by the churches coming from the Reformation. When the ELCA signed an agreement some years ago with the Episcopal Church, which also makes this claim, it agreed that an Episcopal bishop would always join in the consecration of Lutheran bishops—the Lutherans, I suppose, would accept this with a wink.] Agreement 14—all baptized Christians exercise a common priesthood—a bow to Wittenberg, with its doctrine of the priesthood of all believers—here the Catholics would sign with a wink—but Catholics can defend their signing on by Agreement 21: Entry into ministry is not through baptism but by ordination—here Lutherans must wink at the de-emphasis of their cherished priesthood of all believers. Agreement 24: The office of bishop is a special form of ministry—the Greek synonym, episcope, is used here. I suppose both Catholics and Lutherans can formally sign on to a New Testament term that does not mention the (minor?) difference in understanding the status of the Bishop of Rome. Agreement 29: Christ is present in the eucharist (the sacrament of the altar). Another bow to Wittenberg: The “real presence” of Christ in the eucharist was the favored Lutheran term in opposition to the merely commemorative understanding by much of the rest of Protestantism and the traditional Catholic view of the miracle of the mass. The latter has been modified in more recent Catholic formulations, but here it is Catholics again who must wink at the implication that no differences remain.I could go on with the list of “32 agreements”, but that would be tedious outside a divinity school seminar. I would rather ask whether, in view of all these ambiguities, this sort of statement makes any sense at all. I would answer that it definitely makes sense, if only for the purpose of strengthening amicable relations between these religious communities. But one must be clear about what goes on here and what does not.Theological conversations between religions (usually called interfaith dialogue) and between different versions of the same religion (in the Christian case called ecumenical dialogue) can be very productive in themselves. One not only gains understanding of other faiths but of one’s own. And amicable communication between ordinary people with different religions or worldviews is an important element of civic peace, especially in a democracy. The underlying cause of all of this interaction is pluralism (which has been my major interest as a sociologist in recent years). Increasingly everyone talks with everyone else, about religion and everything else. One convenient event from which to date the veritable explosion of such conversation is the World Parliament of Religion which met in Chicago in 1893 (which was repeated with less dramatic results in 1993); among other things it marked the strong public appearance of Asian religions in America, far beyond academic circles. The ecumenical movement was institutionalized with the creation of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948. The Second Vatican Council in the 1960s gave birth to a proliferation of Vatican agencies devoted to dialogue—with non-Catholic Christians, with Jews, with all other religions and finally with the hard-to-define category of “non-believers.” All of these continue today, with different names.One important fact to keep in mind is the wide gap between dialogue among religious professionals who are typically understood (and understand themselves) as speaking as representatives of clearly defined bodies of belief, while ordinary lay members of the communities are often quite ignorant of or uninterested in the doctrines being negotiated between the professionals. That is the difference between saying “we believe” and “I believe”: Imagine a Jewish teenager being asked what your folks believe. The Jewish kid may reply “we believe that one must separate meats and milk products in meals”; this reply may be given by a teenager who loves breakfast with bacon and eggs and who has hardly ever set foot in a synagogue. The “we” in his answer refers to a consensus out there somewhere, leaving open who shares the consensus and who does not. An observant Orthodox kid may reply “I believe that God has commanded us to eat kosher”, implying personal belief and commitment. Thus religious dialogue between theologians often resembles border negotiations between non-existent countries.Religious pluralism compels individuals, on whatever level of intellectual sophistication, to differentiate between the core of their own faith and more negotiable elements. If one regards freedom of choice as a moral good, this result of pluralism is a benefit for faith, even for someone who chooses to abide with the tradition into which he was born. Can one make this distinction between core and periphery in the economy of faith? A good example of a spontaneous distinction, coming long before detailed theological doctrines in two Christian groups, occurred during the so-called Marburg Colloquium in 1529. It was convened by Philip of Hessen, one of the early Protestant princes who wanted a united front of the followers of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland. The conversation was focused on different understandings of the eucharist, led by Martin Luther of Wittenberg and Ulrich Zwingli of Basel. Luther, exasperated by the failure to reach agreement, exclaimed “Out of you speaks a different spirit!” I think the term “spirit” refers precisely to what I have called “core” here. Luther could certainly have used the same term to describe his Catholic opponents. “Core” or “spirit”, as I understand it, does not imply that each religious tradition is a fixed, unchangeable entity. Another useful term here is that of “motif” – originally a term, used in music—a recurring signature theme, weaving in and out of variant sub-themes. Think, for instance, of Beethoven”s Ninth Symphony, with its core theme weaving in and out of variable sub-themes, until the last movement explodes in the pure core motif of the Ode to Joy. There was an interesting school called “motif research” in Swedish theology and phenomenology of religion. Its best known representatives were Anders Nygren (1890-1982), author of Agape and Eros, and Gustaf Aulen (1879—1978), author of Christus Victor. I would say that this is a question that could be asked in the aforementioned conversation between two teenagers: “But what is your faith really about?” It is similar to the question asked of Rabbi Hillel the Elder (first century BCE)—“Could you explain the meaning of Torah while standing on one foot?” After giving his answer (the Golden Rule, quoted by Jesus some decades later), Hillel added a priceless postscript: “The rest is commentary!”

The Globalization of the Right?

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry has a fascinating piece in the Week on Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the 25-year old niece of Marine Le Pen whom many commentators call the rising star of the French Right. At age 22, Marion was the youngest person elected to the French parliament; she occupies a prominent place in the Front National’s public imaging and is poised to win a regional seat for the party in Sunday’s elections. What makes Marion remarkable, Gobry says, is not just her rapid ascent, but that she has risen to celebrity on a new kind of rightwing platform:

Marion is outspoken about her Catholic worldview, in a country where that is strange for any politician; even the FN’s official line is that it is a defender not of Christian values, but of French laïcité against Muslim influence. Marion is unapologetic about her stance on social issues: She opposes abortion, even as the FN has softened its (never very hard) stance on the issue, and has stated forthrightly that if elected to head her region, she would cut off funding to Planned Parenthood (Marine disavowed those comments).

She has also bucked her party on economics. She is unashamed of being pro-business and pro-free markets, again a tremendous oddity in France. She founded a group called Cardinal to solicit policy proposals from business owners.She is, in other words, the closest thing to a U.S.-style conservative in France.

Interestingly, Marion is not the only political figure pitching a strain of right-wing politics that may seem better-suited to a different continent. Here in the U.S., Donald Trump is dominating headlines for his revival of proto-fascist politics (a rightwing nationalism that perhaps has more in common with Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front than the detoxified, ostensibly modernized party run by his daughter). As Ben Domenech wrote over the summer, “what Trump represents is the potential for a significant shift in the Republican Party toward white identity politics for the American right, and toward a coalition more in keeping with the European right than with the American.” Like many leaders of European rightwing parties, but unlike any other major figures that have gained prominence on the American right in the last several decades, Trump has little time for free markets, small government, religious conservatism, or federalism, instead building a campaign around his cult of personality and strident, exclusionary nationalism.

It seems unlikely that European-style rightwing politics will prevail in the United States. The American conservative movement, as Domenech noted, has always been a “fusionist ideological coalition” relying not just on Jacksonians, but also on free marketers, evangelicals, and foreign policy internationalists—constituencies to whom Trumpism does not offer much. Similarly, there are tremendous obstacles to the adoption of a more Americanized conservatism in France, such as the country’s post-war faith in the welfare state and the antipathy toward religion in the public square.But even if Trumpism is ultimately (somehow) kicked to the curb in the U.S., and even if Marion’s brand of conservatism never gains a real foothold in the FN, we may be living at a time when rightwing political traditions are cross-pollinating. We used to think of the “global left” as a unified phenomenon, while rightwing political parties (which rely more on place and tradition) looked dramatically different on either side of the Atlantic. Today, a variety of forces may be pushing rightwing parties together. This cross-Atlantic conservative dialogue could be fruitful if it brought market-oriented reforms to Europe’s decrepit, blue model bureaucracy, or if it helped American conservatives offer a more inclusive economic vision. But it is also dangerous, as evidenced by the rise to prominence of the red-haired bigot who is currently humiliating America on the world stage.

DC Exports Corruption

Vice President Joseph Biden is in Ukraine this week, encouraging the government in Kyiv to reform and root out corruption. But there’s a complication, according to the New York Times:

The credibility of the vice president’s anticorruption message may have been undermined by the association of his son, Hunter Biden, with one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies, Burisma Holdings, and with its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, who was Ukraine’s ecology minister under former President Viktor F. Yanukovych before he was forced into exile.

Hunter Biden, 45, a former Washington lobbyist, joined the Burisma board in April 2014. That month, as part of an investigation into money laundering, British officials froze London bank accounts containing $23 million that allegedly belonged to Mr. Zlochevsky.

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, an independent government agency, specifically forbade Mr. Zlochevksy, as well as Burisma Holdings, the company’s chief legal officer and another company owned by Mr. Zlochevsky, to have any access to the accounts.

Edward C. Chow, who follows Ukraine policy at CSIS, worries that this connection “sends the message that a lot of foreign countries want to believe about America, that we are hypocritical about these issues.”

He’s right, but, sadly, this is standard operating procedure in DC. Our nation’s capital is full of lobbyists, influence peddlers, and kids trying to glom onto their more talented parents’ success (often with the help of those same parents). It happens in both parties, and the phenomenon of people stepping down from Congressional or regulatory posts into an extremely lucrative post-government life is widespread. Worse, the system doesn’t look likely to get better soon. On the contrary, as money from Chinese and Russian oligarchs flows into the system, things could get worse.