[This piece will be appearing as an op/ed in newspapers in the very red congressional district in which I was the Democratic nominee for Congress in 2012 (the former — pre-redistricting -- VA-06)).
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Three Nations I Hate to See Going So Far Off Track
The U.K.
One of the nations that I follow most closely, and have felt most affection for, has been the United Kingdom (or Great Britain, or England).
But what a dreadful condition it has fallen into, thanks largely to its bad political choices.
The main disaster was the 2016 decision where, with a vote of 52-48 percent, the British electorate voted for Brexit, i.e. to leave the European Union into which its economy had been integrated for decades.
(True, the political scene was dismal for some years before that. The Tory government foolishly applied “Austerity” in the face of the financial crisis that beset the world in 2008-9—a crisis of the kind that called for the opposite of Austerity (as economists had understood since Keynes’ work during the Great Depression.)
But the big catastrophe was Brexit, which
- was irresponsibly put to a popular vote by Prime Minister Cameron;
- was sold to the people with false promises;
- proved – as predicted -- a self-inflicted disaster for Britain.
What an embarrassment for this great nation, with its proud history, to blunder its way so awkwardly that their former friends in the EU ended up disgusted with them.
(Then there’s the further embarrassment that this great nation had a blowhard and a clown like Boris Johnson rise to be the leader of the Conservative Party that Winston Churchill once led.)
I’ve been reading the British Press a few times a week for years, and the deteriorated condition of the British people has been sad to behold. Regular reports indicate that a great many families in the UK have been sinking into a mire of poverty – uncertain food, unavailable health care – too reminiscent of the grim England -- of more than a century and a half ago -- that Dickens depicted.
Israel
Israel is another nation I’ve previously found admirable, and whose politics I have followed closely.
Those politics have turned darker under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu—a man brilliant and articulate, but also deeply flawed.
For years, it has been disturbing to behold how -- under Netanyahu’s leadership – Israel has dealt with the Palestinians. Granted: the problem of finding peace and justice for both Jews and Palestinians was bound to be hugely challenging. But Netanyahu showed no interest in getting to such a solution -- even eventually.
(Tellingly also, Netanyahu left a trail behind him of other Israeli leaders who stopped serving under him after discovering that Netanyahu could not be trusted.)
But it is the past year that has been catastrophic.
It began with Netanyahu sacrificing the good of his nation to keep himself in power (and thus perhaps out of jail). This he could accomplish only by assembling a disastrous coalition, which included extremists who’d previously been excluded from the ruling order.
Almost immediately, Netanyahu’s terrible coalition started tearing the nation apart by threatening Israeli democracy like never before. It initiated measures to eliminate the independence of the judiciary, making the courts subservient to the ruling powers. This provoked huge crowds to take to the streets every week in massive protests.
For months, there were warnings that this profound conflict over “judicial overhaul” was weakening the nation: damaging the economy (as some high-tech corporations left the country), and undermining Israel’s military structures (as hundreds of reservists protested that they were not prepared to fight for a dictatorship).
The government disregarded those warnings.
It was upon this already damaged nation that Hamas inflicted its traumatizing atrocities. And then came the course of action Netanyahu’s government chose for its response.
The challenge facing the Israeli decision-makers was enormously complex, and it is far from clear what Israel’s optimal response would have been.
But, as things have unfolded, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to believe the course chosen by Netanyahu’s government has been anything other than a huge blunder: catastrophic not only for all the dead in Gaza, but for Israel’s own long-term survival.
The Netanyahu gang appears to have plunged headlong into the trap that Hamas set for them.
If I’m right – and I’d rather be wrong – it’s nonetheless unclear how much that’s due to:
- The inability of people with a fascistic mindset to make balanced decisions about war-making and peace-making.
- The leadership of Netanyahu, who has an incentive to perpetuate the war because polls show that he’d likely be removed from power as soon as the crisis is past.
- The Israeli nation as a whole being so consumed by trauma -- and the resulting lust for vengeance -- that reasonable strategy is beyond their grasp.
Whichever, Israel seems to be inflicting great damage on itself and strengthening an enemy dedicated to destroying the Jewish state.
The U.S.
The nation I care the most about, of course, is my own -- the United States – and I’ve been raising the alarm about the deterioration of American democracy for twenty years, including here in hundreds of columns. Suffice it to say here now:
- Conflict has so replaced cooperation that Congress is disabled and has just completed its least productive year in modern history.
- Obvious falsehoods are wielding great power in the public mind, with millions feeling passionately about things that clearly never happened.
- A leader openly promising a fascistic regime may be elected President.
The very survival of American Democracy in in serious jeopardy.