The UN General Assembly Vote Against Russia, and the Shifting Barometer of Power

The UN General Assembly voted to denounce Russia over its Ukraine invasion in early March 2022. 

The resolution, which reprimanded Russia and demanded that it cease its aggression and withdraw its forces, was supported by 141 of the assembly's 193 members. (The votes are shown below).

Media reports in the West asserted that the world had rallied to condemn Russian thuggery with this historic vote.

This, I think, is over-egging the pudding. 

While it is true that most of the world's nations voted to condemn Russia, the nations that voted against and/or abstained from voting make most of the world's population: 4.46 billion people - as well as roughly 25% of the world's GDP. 

* Source: worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/ 

(Nations with $0 GDP were unknown)

What are we to glean from this?

First these votes are non-binding, and second, these votes like this aren't historic at all. In fact, these voting outcomes are often seen at the UN, but instead are directed at Israel and its aggression towards the Palestinians. (Voting shown below).

If 'the world' is united against Russia, as per the UN vote, then so too is 'the world' united against Israel. 

But it isn't, because 'the world' isn't represented by the UN: the global liberal order, helmed by the US, is. As such, the vote doesn't matter in any tangible sense. Its symbolic.

In fact, such appeals to the world to amplify the moral righteousness of a cause are often manipulative instances of argumentum ad populum since, as gestured above, everything's made up and the votes don't matter. They are expressions of national interests couched by geo-political considerations.

Now, this isn't to say that the votes do not correspond to legitimate feelings and grievances. 

The point is that the institution wherein these votes are cast and context in which that institution is embedded is controlled and directed by powerful parties with their own interests. 

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must - and the global liberal order will only request adherence to rights, be they civil or fundamental, insofar as its in its interest to do so. 

This UN vote, instead of showing global unity, illustrates that there are not insignificant amounts of dissent on this war. 

Around the world, Leftists frequently blame NATO provocations while condemning Russia, and many on the Right do, as well. However, in the US, Canada and other NATO countries, the narrative is that 'the world' is united: even as the world's largest countries reject what the West is selling.

There is a world filled with illiberal peoples with illiberal governments, and the West thinks that it needs to spread liberalism and democracy around the globe in order to protect liberalism and democracy at home. After all we, too, have illiberal people in our midst and they can get support from illiberal peoples abroad – or so it is feared. (Just recall the boogeyman of Trump-Russia collusion, or the Freedom Convoy-Russia donation nonsense).

We can bowl over Iraq, Libya and Yemen, but we can't bowl over Russia or China.

Given how our elites have integrated China into our economies, they must be more accommodating to China’s illiberalism, and since China is allied with Russia, as is India, that is a not-insignificant bloc on the global stage. So, the shift is there, and our abilities or readiness or willingness to tamp it down is less potent than before. (Though the crackdowns at home are becoming more severe).

What is on display here is the shifting of the barometer of world power away from the Western post-war consensus - even if slightly. The unipolar world order is being shaken up, and 21st century thinking - based on liberalism, economics, rights and cosmopolitanism - is being confronted by 19th century thinking - based on nation, history, destiny, shame and honour. 

Only time will tell how this crisis in Ukraine will end up. 

It could end up like Syria or Afghanistan - wherein Ukraine is sacrificed in order to 'bleed Putin' by having the US arm the Ukrainian equivalent of 'insurgents' (ie. civilians and paramilitary) - however, unlike Syria and Afghanistan, Ukraine is more important for geo-political and economic reasons; let alone its ties to the West and the global liberal order. 

But no matter where it goes, the world will be different because of it. 

We best learn how to confront it. 

 

Doves and Hawks

Canada is a nation of doves that has had no idea of how to deal with hawks. In fact, most have been conditioned to not acknowledge the very real existence of hawkish peoples.  

To elaborate: there is a classic game theory model that positions two groups (hawks and doves) against each other. The hawks will fight and the doves retreat from the fight. The hawks always fight and if two hawks meet, there will always be a fight. If there is a fight, the loser picks up the costs of the fight and the winner gets the benefits. Since doves flee fights, they never get the benefit of the fight but also never incur the costs. However, if a dove meets another dove, then they both benefit since there is not fight. 

Canadians, thinking that they're doves, often choose to settle for the 'benefit'. However, these convoy protests are but an example of that dynamic shifting when doves go on the offensive and the hawks getting defensive. 

The hawks, also, have gotten used to dealing with doves and so are now resorting to some hitherto unused weaponry. 

I have no idea how this will end, but it should at least show the doves that they are ruled by potential hawks.

The Escalation of the De-escalation Continues

Trudeau has returned safe and sound to the House of Commons to whimper about the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa. 

Standing in the House, he stated that the protesters are 'trying to blockade our economy, our democracy and our fellow citizens' daily lives' and that '[i]t has to stop'.

The claims of a 'blockaded democracy' sounds bizarre at first, and it requires a few twists and turns before one can grasp what Trudeau and others mean. 

In short, Trudeau and his ilk are trying to characterise these protests as 'anti-democratic' because the protesters are anti-vaccine mandates and, apparently, the 2020 election was about vaccine mandates. So, since Canadians voted for parties that proposed/supported vaccine-mandates - though all parties except the People's Party of Canada (PPC) supported vaccine mandates in some fashion - and these protesters are anti-vax mandates, then the protesters are anti-democracy. In making this claim, Trudeau is trying to fashion the Freedom Convoy into his own coveted January 6th protest. 

This argument is ridiculous on its face.

 

First, political activism - of whatever stripe - isn't held captive by election results. After all, the election is a competition between competing political kinships with different views on matters of statecraft, provision, and ethics. Those differences precede the election as well as succeed it. Elections settle no such issues; they only conclude a formality. 

Second, Trudeau's claim that the 2021 election gave a green light to vaccine mandates is murkier than he'd like to admit. 

The top four concerns are the cost of living (13.5%), increasing funding for health care (11.5%), post-pandemic economic recovery (10.9%), and managing the pandemic (10.1%). Of those four issues, the top three are economic and fiscal. 

Additionally, election results do not provide a clear window into the national soul. People can vote strategically, compromise, take a lesser-of-two-evils approach, etc., and so there is never a truly transparent revelation of the minds of the electorate on any deep issue. 

Given that Trudeau only received 33% of the vote, there is hardly evidence that he and his approach to COVID management and vaccine mandates is beyond reproach.

So, no one in the Freedom Convoy protest is blockading democracy. In fact, if anyone has been guilty of 'blockading democracy' it'd be Trudeau back in 2015 when he ran on platform with an emphasis on electoral reform, only to strap the promise entirely once in power because his party benefits from the current electoral system.

Despite these humbling facts, and despite praising the importance of dialogue, Trudeau has stood strong in his refusal to engage with the convoy outside of condemnation. 

Not to be outdone, NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, has stated that 'the protest is no longer peaceful' and '[t]he situation has reached a crisis point. And in times of crisis, it is important for federal leaders to show leadership, to urge de-escalation and to work together to find solutions'.

Here is a solution, you smarty-pants: talk to the protesters.

But we know why the left politicians won't speak to the protesters: i) the government has been backed into a corner regarding their COVID orthodoxy, and ii) the protesters are white (both is the laymen's sense of having been descended from Europeans, and the technical critical race theory sense of being beneficiaries of system of social oppression that got its start in 17th century Anglo-American colonies).

To (i): the government must save face and will not allow its narrative to be challenged - that'd create an obvious crisis of legitimacy. 

To (ii): the government and media have already painted the convoy as 'fringe' and 'unacceptable' for holing 'white supremacist views'. So, to engage with the convoy in any substantive sense would be to give in to white supremacy. 

Both of these issues, however, could backfire. For (i): refusal to engage will cause people to get more entrenched, thus increasing the already existing crisis of legitimacy. If protesters are removed by force, that display will also signal a crisis of legitimacy. The government is in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scenario that they've created. For (ii): the claims of 'white supremacy' are false and overblown. People can see this and the lies create dissonance. 

The dishonesty runs deep.

What we're seeing is a gradual unfurling of the contradictions of Justin Trudeau's government and ideals, and as he gets pushed more he reacts more - this dynamic extends to the state, at large.

These convoy protesters have gone from being a fringe group with unacceptable views to a hostile occupying force that is threatening Canada's democracy. Such claims are to be taken advantage of and as the policing responses begin to intensify - whether they be municipal or corporate - I reckon that the tools developed and methods used will be threats to democracy as well as the dignity and autonomy of Canadians. 

Currently in Ottawa, the police of starving the protesters of fuel and arresting people who are donating fuel and food to the protesters. They're reasoning being that such donations are abetting unlawful activity. Additionally, the Ottawa mayor has admitted to intervening in the protest's donation campaign to have it shut down: this could have Charter violation concerns. 

It is likely that segregation will be created, and not just for the unvaccinated. If you have non-liberal politics; if you are sufficiently right-wing, or if you happen to agree with some group that does, then you'll be denied access to financial systems, websites, physical spaces, and even charities. 

Recent revelations discovered that the Canadian government has been spying on 33 million Canadian mobile devices in order to gauge the effectiveness of public lockdown measures. The Canadian military has also engaged in propaganda and public dis-information campaigns during the COVID pandemic, and also gathering information on Canadian online activity - all without formal approval, apparently. 

These are all parts of the escalating de-escalation: the attempts to keep the public manageable. 

We could be going down a dark path, indeed.

Canada's 'Freedom Convoy', Holocaust Imagery, and the Long 20th Century

On January 29th, 2022, a protest convoy of long-haul truckers and their supporters converged on Ottawa, Canada to display their rejection of a vaccine mandate imposed upon truckers crossing the US-Canada border into Canada. 

The protest had picked up steam in the preceding weeks and tens of thousands of people from around Canada and the world rallied in support of the cause and to reject the ever-expanding medical authoritarianism that has metastasized during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As predicted, the media and left-wing politicians denounced or attempted to minimise the convoy and related protests. Some even suggested that the Russians were involved in the convoy, whilst spokesmen for the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), including its chair, Bernie Farber, stated that the movement had been hijacked by neo-Nazis and that swastikas were being flown at the protest.

Now, I can only find evidence of one swastika being flown by one person who was also flying a 'F*ck Trudeau' flag, and the reaction is somewhat telling.

You see, despite the apparent presence of this one flag, most news reports make  vague comments about 'symbols of hate' which included everything from a single Confederate flag to signs displaying swastikas, as well as yellow stars, and a sign that read ‘Assassin Trudeau’ with the letters S in 'assassin' are replaced with the SS runes of the Schutzstaffel (elite guards of the Third Reich). Though the media is making hay out of the instances it can, they do not seem to be taking full advantage of this apparent bias-confirming instance: there was no attempt to interview the flag flier, and the photos of him were from a great distance from the much larger crowd. Perhaps the flying of a Nazi flag was too good to be true. After all, there are a few possibilities here: the man flying the swastika was either a) a sincere symapthiser with the NSDAP and national socialist principles, b) a troll, c) an undercover agent, or d) just a guy comparing Trudeau to Hitler. One's answer here will likely depend on one's political priors, but the reality of a) seems unlikely.

Though it is useful to look at the facts on the ground, there are broader philosophical questions about the nature of symbolism, interpretation and meaning.

We can guess, with a fair degree of accuracy, how the aforementioned imagery will be interpreted by people like Bernie Farber: he is the son of a Holocaust survivor, after all. But Farber isn't alone: most Canadians are highly sensitised to such imagery, the history it evokes, and the suffering that is associated with it. As such, those symbols are not taken lightly. But if the symbols are so controversial, why do people feel like they can use them? What message is being sent by the use of such symbols?

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen its fair share of protests, and in some cases Nazi imagery has been used to demonise the subject of the protest in question. 

Across the US in 2020-2021, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported that anti-lockdown protesters used Nazi imagery to analogise their own governments' policies. In Michigan, protesters likened their governor Gretchen Whitmer to Adolf Hitler - often with her image vandalised with the iconic 'Hitler-stache' and coupled with swastikas. Similar instances were seen in New Mexico, Ohio, Alaska, and other states wherein people wore 'yellow stars' and made Anne Frank references.

Even before the pandemic, however, Nazi imagery has been used in Hong Kong by pro-democracy protesters to liken the Chinese government to the Nazis and pro-Palestinian protests have used swastika bedecked Israeli flags, too.

That people use these symbols is one thing, but why? It is because of its political cache. 

Nazis represent threats to the open society, and their symbols are used to tarnish people and groups who are deemed to be such threats - either real or imagined. The Left does this to the Right, and the Right does this to the Left. 

The point here isn't to go down the laundry list of grievances and tally up the numbers to see which side is worse at name-calling. You see, calling your political opponents 'Nazis' or 'fascists' is just what political opponents do in the Anglosphere. The point is to acknowledge that the Right lacks cultural dominance and thus cannot use symbols in the way that the Left can. Furthermore, the Right is viewed to be forever on the 'wrong side of history' and as the embodiment of the very thing those symbols are said to attack. That is why the flying of a Nazi flag/making Holocaust references at a protest against COVID tyranny is immediately viewed by the Left as an endorsement of Nazism and not as a symbol of condemnation of said tyranny. 

What people who use such symbols have done is detect a narrative weapon that gets wielded against the opponents of the ‘open society’. They view phenomenon X as a threat to the open society, and thus think that they can wield the symbols in the service of their own cause. But since the Right is deemed by the Left to be prima facie 'anti-open society', and the Left is in power, any right-wing use of Nazi/Holocaust imagery, even in an accusatory fashion, will invite immediate condemnation. The whole thing backfires. Its like they're characters in a sci-fi film who try to use the alien technology against the aliens - they just don't know how its used. 

The Left can condemn Trump's handling of the US-Mexico border as neo-fascist and compared the detainment of minors to 'concentration camps', only to receive moralistic praise for doing so - even by Holocaust survivors themselves. But when the Right claims that there are 'COVID concentration camps', they're called conspiracy theorists exploiting the Holocaust. 

(Ditto for using the term 'racist'. For more, please check out this earlier post on the meaning of racism in the West.) 

Right-wing protesters who use yellow stars, swastikas, concentration camp references, etc. are charged with exploiting or co-opting the memory of the Holocaust - whether by people like Bernie Farber and CAHN, or Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL or the Auschwitz Memorial Museum. But what does that mean? Does that imagery belong to any one group in particular? It is true that Jews suffered greatly during the Holocaust and that millions of them died, but it is also true that roughly 70 million people died. Some estimates reckon that about 3% of the world's population perished in World War II - 50 million during the war and 20 million afterwards from war-related famine and disease. Many Canadians and Americans - at least of European descent - know people who fought and/or died during World War II, and so many people feel a connection to that grand conflagration. They feel as though they’ve inherited some of the memory of that period as well as internalised its lessons – and so they think they can use the symbols.

We're told that the Allies fought the Nazis, and the Nazis were killing Jews. Therefore, the Allies fought to save the Jews. This, of course, is an inaccurate and simplistic account, but its a very popular one. Which is why World War II is associated heavily with the Holocaust, and so people use symbols associated with each as part of a larger overarching narrative of good-versus-evil. 

Despite this, folks like Farber and Greenblatt say that using the imagery ‘is insulting to the memory of all those who were persecuted and murdered’. I don’t see how this is the case. To my understanding, these protesters are finding common cause in the suffering of the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust by drawing comparisons to that suffering and their own lives (even if it is misguided). The Farbers and Greenblatts of the world instead see cynical people who are willing to weaponise history for political gain. (They’d never do that, right?)

But I don’t see how Farber and Greenblatt can have it both ways: they want robust Holocaust education that educates all people about the consequences of bigotry and hatred and to critically reflect upon and internalise the lessons of the Holocaust. But they don’t want people to utilise Holocaust imagery for their own purposes. So which is it? Is the Holocaust and World War II, in general, a rich and tragic trove of informative analogies through which we could understand our time and caution us against slipping into barbarism? Or is it just a dogma to be genuflected towards?

Its neither. 

Its a weapon. And you don’t get to use it.

Now, to be clear there are the facts that make up what the Holocaust ‘is’ (I’m not talking about those), and there are the symbols and tropes that the Holocaust ‘represents’. When we talk about ‘the Holocaust’, we are often not just relaying facts – many people, in fact, are thin on the facts. Instead, we are talking about the grander meta-narrative that the Holocaust signifies, and that meta-narrative has largely replaced the history. This partly explains the incongruence between persistent 'Holocaust education' and actual knowledge of its history. And what does the Holocaust signify? Well, the answer is a boring, ‘it depends’.

Like all societal symbols – whether from monuments to myths – the Holocaust represents or expresses certain dominant ideas that are intended to be passed on from generation to generation. As such, individuals in society will often internalise the dominant ideas in the construction their own identity, and this process brings into existence an individual's 'subjectivity': how one experiences one's self in the larger scheme of society and its rules, stories, history, and destiny. This can give one a sense of superiority as one sees one's self as connected to the dominant culture and its ideas, or one can feel alienated from it.

Given that the Holocaust is so engrained in our society it is no mystery why its symbolism is used in social and political discourses.  It also isn’t a mystery that the use of Holocaust imagery is controlled and relegated to certain groups. As stated before, the Right isn’t in power, the Left is, and the Holocaust is used to express certain dominant ideas. Since those dominant ideas are at odds with how the Right is viewed, or even at odds with what the Right wants, the symbolism is denied to it.

This shows one of the conceits of the discourse surrounding the Holocaust: generally speaking, the Holocaust is supposed to represent the depths of human depravity – Man’s inhumanity to Man. It represents the horrors of authoritarian politics predicated on the unjustified hierarchisation of human groups and the resulting dehumanisation. However, one can see how this general description is at odds with how the Holocaust functions – one glaring example is found in the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s (IHRA) Working Definition of Anti-Semitism. (Feel free to check out a previous post on this definition and its problems).

In this definition, there are eleven (11) examples of what the IHRA sees as anti-Semitic. While some examples are uncontroversial – being instances of violence, vandalism, and abuse – there are some debateable examples.

First, there is Example 8 which is ‘applying double standards by requiring of [the State of Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.’ There is also Example 10: ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’.

These two examples clash in an obvious way: if Israel is to be held to the same standards of any other nation (as per Example: 8), and, if like any other nation, Israel could fall into fascism and/or racism, a la Nazi Germany, then why is it anti-Semitic when such comparisons are applied to Israel? Surely other democratic nations are held to standards that proscribe racism, genocide, targeting of civilians, expanding territory through war, and the like – and so Israel should be held to such standards and criticised for transgressing them when it does. If not, as it seems the IHRA definition contends, then the IHRA is allowing the Jewish State of Israel to be an unjustified exemption from the principles it proports to be subject to.

These are but a couple examples of the use and abuse of the Holocaust and its power.

It is something that is universal in that is universally imposes guilt, but it can only ever be used exclusively in the service of some favoured group or other. We're supposed to see it as a window into the darkness of our hearts, but we cannot use it as a lens to view our own victimisation.

This dead end is evidence that the new approach is in order. We should really ditch the use of such symbols since they are not only inaccurate for representing our time, but the use of such symbols by us provides nothing but opportunities for abuse by our political and cultural opponents.

We are not in the 20^th century anymore and being corralled its ambitions, pretensions, and symbols hampers our ability to think clearly about our current state and the future. (Sure, we can and ought to still learn from history – I’m not suggesting that we ditch anything and everything prior to 2000AD. I’m saying that we can find ourselves uncritically accepting narratives, symbols, and assumptions that hamstring political action and messaging.)

Trudeau isn't like Hitler: Trudeau is a worker bee for neo-liberal techno-capital and global homogenisation. He is a destructive force in his own way, but a pro-LGBT, cosmopolitan feminist and anti-White egalitarian isn't Hitler, Stalin, or any other of the dictatorial leaders of the 20th century. He is a spokesman for a whole new system of totalitarianism that we’ll have to grapple with.

The protesters are right point out the authoritarianism of our elites, but they are confused on the history and are wrong to think that their opponents will listen.  They are not only using inaccurate imagery, but they’re also using imagery that is denied to them. They don't know how the system is tilted and in whose favour it operates. 

 We need to get out of the 20th century.  

____

Like the Freedom Convoy, this post started with a more directed message and has unfurled into something more general. I think that this shows the interconnected nature of the authoritarianism we are currently beginning to experience. We are seeing how medical science interlocks with politics, how the media and Big Tech come together to confine the messages, and how new orthodoxies are being formed around an elite of people who, until two years ago, no one knew and no one cared about. Big Pharma is valourised by those who once demonised it. Impositions of medical procedures against the will of millions is now touted as a valid price to pay for 'normalcy'. Mass surveillance of personal medical data is seen to be totally reasonable. Rights being contingent on the policies of public health officials is acceptable. Keeping children away from their peers, and masking them up or even injecting them with vaccines that have been shown to present no net benefit to them is seen as virtuous. And people are complaining about 'divisive and hateful rhetoric'? 

For heaven's sake: Justin Trudeau was lecturing us on how to 'get back to the things we love' and the benefits of vaccination whilst he, thrice vaxxed, is again infected with COVID-19, and isolating as a result. He is lecturing us on hate and division despite the fact that he excused the dozens of church burnings and vandalisms across Canada in response to a still-yet-to-be-verified 'mass grave' of indigenous children. He is decrying the 'desecration of monuments' despite minimising or even supporting the actual public destruction of monuments to ancestral heroes, as well. 

There are myriad issues here, and resistance to one often leads to resistance of others. 

Anti-Semitism and the IHRA's Unacceptable Definition

Is anti-Semitism really on the rise? 

There are instances that are undeniably anti-Semitic – the recent Texas synagogue hostage situation is an obvious case. There are also instances of vandalism, as well as physical and verbal assault that have apparently spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. But what about making comparisons between COVID-19 restrictions and certain aspects of the Holocaust? What about making Holocaust analogies towards Zionism? How about being a functionalist in the functionality-intentionality debate in Holocaust historiography? Well, under an increasing predominant definition of anti-Semitism, these latter cases would be so, too. 

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) ‘Working Definition of Anti-Semitism’ is being ever more accepted by countries around the world. 

Since being developed in 2004, the IHRA definition has been adopted by 33 countries, the European Union, and the United Nations, as well as hundreds local governments and institutions around the world. Its goal: to provide a clear definition of anti-Semitism in order to guide governments, organisations, and individuals in their efforts to identify and combat it. 

The definition reads: 

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. 

This is rather vague, and since one of its stated goals is to provide clarity, the IHRA has tripped over the first hurdle. Nonetheless, it tries to pick itself up, dust itself off, and soldier on by providing eleven illustrative examples of what would constitute anti-Semitism under its rubric.

Some examples are uncontroversial such as: 

Example 1: Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion. 

Example 3: Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

But other examples are far more debatable: 

Example 4: Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

The problem with this example is that its scope isn’t clearly demarcated, and as such, it could very well de-legitimise an entire field of historical inquiry. 

Though denying the existence and purpose of the 'gas chambers' is generally unacceptable, the disjunction in Example 4 includes a far less controversial position: the intentionality of the Holocaust. 

As mentioned at the outset, there is an ongoing historical debate about how much of the Holocaust was an intentional top-down plan by Hitler and his top officials, or whether it arose from functioning of the lower ranks of Nazi state bureaucracy. If taking the latter side in this debate is evidence of ‘denying the intentionality of the Holocaust’ then numerous respected historians would be tarnished as anti-Semites for their structuralist assumptions and historical methodologies. That is beyond acceptable.

Another debatable case is Example 10: Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

A major problem with this example is that it equates criticism - or at least a form of criticism - of Israeli policy with anti-Semitism by conflating the state of Israel with Jewish people. 

While this example restricts itself to Israeli policy – supposedly Israeli policy towards the Palestinians – it seems that the COVID-19 pandemic has widened the scope of applicable comparisons and thus applicable condemnations. For example, anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine mandate protests have offered up some rather silly and misguided theatrics whereby some protestors would make various analogies between Jewish mistreatment under the Nazi regime and COVID-19 restrictions and mandates. 

Such displays have been deemed ‘disgusting’, and ‘anti-Semitic’; and there have been calls for making the utilisation of Holocaust terms is ‘off limits’. 

These Holocaust comparisons are misguided, but they are hardly anti-Semitic. Additionally, why are Holocaust terms off limits in this case when such terms were used and abused liberally for four years under the Trump administration? The comparisons of ‘kids in cages’ with literal Nazi concentration camps, Trump being like Hitler, etc., were hurled non-stop by frenzied progressives – including numerous Jewish commentators – and yet they were accepted as informative analogies through which we could understand our time and caution us against slipping into barbarism; not as cynical attempts to weaponise history for political gain... right?

All of this having been said, even if Example 10 is strictly contained to Israeli policy, it is particularly bizarre since it seems to clash with another example the IHRA offers: 

Example 8: Applying double standards by requiring of [the State of Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

If Israel is to be held to the same standards of any other nation (as per Example: 8), and, if like any other nation, Israel could fall into fascism and/or racism, then why is it anti-Semitic when such comparisons are applied to Israel alone? Surely other democratic nations are held to standards that proscribe racism, genocide, targeting of civilians, expanding territory through war, and the like – and so Israel should be held to such standards and criticised for transgressing them with it does. If not, as it seems the IHRA definition contends, then the IHRA is allowing the Jewish State of Israel to be an unjustified exemption from the principles it proports to be subject to. 

Overall, the IHRA definition, as stated, is unclear, and the attempts to clarify it through its eleven examples offer up not insignificant problems of special pleading and scope creep. Since it is unclear, it fails in its mission to accurately identify anti-Semitic instances, and this lack of clarity will likely lead to abuses of power by the law enforcement the IHRA wishes to inform. 

Perhaps this is a price the IHRA and its allies are willing to pay since the cost of a rising anti-Semitic threat would be far worse than over-policing those who cross the IHRA's arbitrary lines. But such a mentality seems to be an inversion of the famed William Blackstone’s ratio: it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. Behold the IHRA ratio: it is better that ten suspected anti-Semites be captured than that one bona fide anti-Semite evade it. 

So it seems like they're stuck in a hard place: the IHRA either uses this definition and, as a result, get a bunch of false positives giving the appearance that the supply of anti-Semites is meeting the demand - which may, in turn, generate suspicion and hostility; or tighten up the definition that excludes the special pleading and relinquishes some of its applications. So, it either includes more than it should, or excludes more than it wants. 

Personally, I think that that IHRA definition should be scrapped, but since it is likely here to stay, it should be challenged and resisted as it poses a danger to intellectual freedom, speech, and liberty. 

Marxist Critique of Sex Work

I was listening to some podcast that was talking about Only Fans, sex work and emancipation, and it got me thinking... Perhaps there is a Marxist critique of sex work. The sketch of the argument is below. 

1) Our sexual capacities and practices are an integral part human nature, as men and women.

2) Because (1), a person’s sexual autonomy should be non-alienable because to alienate it is to destroy a person’s wholeness/integrity.

3) Work, within the capitalist mode of production, alienates the worker from his ability to fully determine their goals, actions, and production of their own labour.

4) Sex work is a form of work within the capitalist mode of production.

5) Sex work, like all work within the capitalist mode of production, alienates the sex worker, though sex work, by definition, involves one’s sexual capacities and practices.

6) Because of (5) and (2), sex work destroys a person’s wholeness/integrity.

So, if this is correct, then sex work should be discouraged - at least in a capitalist context. Additionally, promoting sex work as a part of a sex positive feminism entrenches a form of capitalist-sexuality wherein women place their bodies in the market. (This latter claim will have to be developed in the future). 

Torture

Is torture ever permissible? 

It is generally assumed that torture is impermissible. It is an artefact of a more barbaric age and enlightened societies should reject it outright. 

‘Torture’ is a somewhat vague term as it includes various purposes such as: 1) the extracting confessions of guilt; 2) legally authorized punishment for criminals; 3) for extracting information; and 4) illegally, for sheer vengeance, sadistic pleasure, or intimidation.

To most people, (1), (2), and (4) are outright prohibited, though some will allow (3) in some cases – namely the extreme ‘ticking time bomb’ scenarios. 

It seems to me that once you concede that torture is justified in extreme cases, you have admitted that the decision to use torture is a matter of balancing innocent lives against the means needed to save them. 

Some think that torture is wrong because it violates the human rights of the one being tortured. Though that may be true in most cases, in cases like 3) it seems that letting innocents die in deference to one who flaunts his guilt is moral cowardice. Sometimes one has to get their hands dirty in order to do the right thing.