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Joe Biden unveils 2 big surprises sending a powerful signal he's pivoting to the left
January 19, 2021
The US president-elect Joe Biden did two spectacular things last week which may rewrite the assumption that his presidency would return America back to the Barack Obama era. One was the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan Biden rolled out Thursday and the other his choice of William Burns, veteran diplomat, to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.
Seemingly unrelated, these two things convey a powerful signal that Biden understands that the real pandemic danger in America is social collapse and what is needed is a national policy that prevents societal disintegration — and a foreign policy which reflects that top priority.
<p>Biden's advisors had let it be known back in October that if elected, even without waiting until Inauguration Day, he would right away provide an immediate fiscal relief the American economy needs and directed and targeted to middle-class and lower-class families, to the smallest businesses instead of just the big corporations that have the best connections to big banks, since "families need to put food on the table to pay their electricity bills, to keep roofs over their heads."</p><p>Biden has kept his word. His spending proposal sets aside $400 billion to address the coronavirus; $1 trillion in direct relief to families and individuals; and $440 billion to help communities and businesses hit the hardest by the pandemic. The proposal envisages: </p><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Topping up the $600 cash relief passed by Congress last month with $1400 payments additionally; </li><li>Hike in unemployment benefits from $300 to $400 per week through September; </li><li>Fourteen weeks of paid sick and family and medical leave;</li><li>Raise in national minimum wage to $15 per hour; </li><li>Eviction and foreclosure moratoriums; </li><li>$160 billion earmarked for a broad range of programs, including coronavirus vaccination, testing, therapeutics, contact tracing, personal protective equipment, etc.;</li><li>$ 170 billion for schools; </li><li>Billions of dollars earmarked for underserved populations (eg., African-Americans), including health services on tribal lands; </li><li>Billions of dollars more for helping long-term care workers and who have borne the brunt of the pandemic (and who are disproportionately Blacks.) </li></ul><p>It is an unabashedly progressive agenda that the left has been trying to advance for decades — and, arguably, the bulk of them do not even have anything to do with the health emergency as such but are social welfare measures. </p><p>Interestingly, Biden is not seeking to raise everybody's taxes to pay for this, but instead proposes to pay for this plan with a series of tax increases on the wealthy, including taxing capital gains as regular income and increasing the marginal tax rate for top earners to almost 40% which he'd announce in spring as a second long-term broader recovery package to "build back" the economy. </p><p>The writings of the renowned Serbian-American economist Branko Milanović come to mind. Milanović is famous for his work on income distribution, inequality and poverty. Formerly chief economist at the World Bank and currently teaching at the London School of Economics and the New York City University, his latest work <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2019/11/11/book-review-capitalism-alone-by-branko-milanovic/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System that Rules the World</em></a> figured in the Foreign Affairs list of Best Books and earned him acclaim as one among the top 50 thinkers in the year 2020. </p><p>Milanović wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs last year in March noticing the lengthening shadows of the pandemic stealthily advancing in America at that time. With extraordinary prescience, he forewarned that "the human toll of the disease will be the most important cost and the one that could lead to societal disintegration. Those who are left hopeless, jobless, and without assets could easily turn against those who are better off." </p><p>"Already, some 30 percent of Americans have zero or negative wealth. If more people emerge from the current crisis with neither money, nor jobs, nor access to health care, and if these people become desperate and angry… If governments have to resort to using paramilitary or military forces to quell, for example, riots or attacks on property, societies could begin to disintegrate. Thus the main (perhaps even the sole) objective of economic policy today should be to prevent social breakdown. Advanced societies must not allow economics, particularly the fortunes of financial markets, to blind them to the fact that the most important role economic policy can play now is to keep social bonds strong under this extraordinary pressure." </p><p>******</p><p>On the eve of Biden's address on Thursday, he announced that Ambassador William Burns will be the Director of the CIA in his administration. It is an unusual choice. Indeed, it is not unusual for an "outsider" to head the CIA. During the past quarter century, out of the ten CIA directors, seven came from "outside" — a smattering of generals and a string of politicians. Yet in CIA's 73-year history, this will be the first time that the agency is going to be led by a career diplomat. </p><p>Biden has made an optimal choice. Burns is widely praised as a "titan of the foreign-policy world" and also happens to belong to that breed of diplomats who believe that diplomacy and espionage are two sides of the same coin. In his wonderful book, <em>The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for its Renewal</em>, Burns wrote that in foreign policy, diplomats ought to "harness all the tools of American statecraft—from the soft power of ideas, culture, and public diplomacy, to…intelligence-gathering and covert action". </p><p>Interestingly, Burns disavows the so-called "militarisation" of foreign policy. When asked about it in an interview with the Foreign Service Journal, Burns estimated that "time and time again, we've seen how over-reliance on military tools can lead us into policy quicksand. Time and time again, we've fallen into the trap of overusing—or prematurely using—force. That comes at much greater cost in American blood and treasure, and tends to make diplomacy a distorted and under-resourced afterthought." </p><p>Without doubt, the choice of Burns is emblematic of where Biden is headed in the conduct of foreign policy. Biden sees Burns as eminently qualified to reinvigorate diplomacy as a critical tool of national power while charioting the intelligence community to devote more attention to its mission of complementing diplomacy. </p><p>Burns is also a rare diplomat-intellectual with a <a href="https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/william-burns-russia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">mind of his own</a> — who believes that active coordination with China and Russia is necessary to address global challenges to US foreign policy, who derisively looks at the Trump administration's maximum pressure strategy against Iran being a spectacular failure, who maintains that NATO's post-cold war expansion was a grave mistake that derailed relations with Russia, and who strongly argues for arms control talks with Russia in mutual interests. </p><p>In the <a href="http://www.afsa.org/diplomacy-imperative-qa-william-j-burns" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">interview</a> with the Foreign Service Journal, Burns spoke about the directions of US foreign policy in the contemporary world situation. He said: "The overarching challenge for U.S. foreign policy today, it seems to me, is to adapt to an international landscape in which American dominance is fading. To put it bluntly, America is no longer the only big kid on the geopolitical block. That's not meant to be a declinist argument. In fact, I'm still bullish about America's place in the century unfolding before us. We can't turn the clock back to the post–Cold War unipolar moment. But over at least the next few decades, we can remain the world's pivotal power—best placed among our friends and rivals to navigate a more crowded, complicated and competitive world. We still have a better hand to play than any of our main competitors, if we play it wisely."</p><p>Biden's choice of Burns as CIA director underscores his intention to put diplomacy first in the US foreign policies. It also means engagement, based on the realistic understanding that the US can no longer impose its will on other countries.</p><p>The pandemic has accelerated the shift in power and influence from West to East. Biden reposes confidence in Burns to lead the intelligence community into a brave new world where the post-cold war "unipolar moment" has vanished forever.</p><p>Fundamentally, Biden's expectation would be that the US foreign and security policies will reflect his national strategy, "which not only begins at home, in a strong political and economic system, but ends there, too, in more jobs, more prosperity, a healthier environment and better security" — to borrow Burns' words.</p><p><em>This article was produced in partnership by <a href="https://indianpunchline.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Indian Punchline</a> and <a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/globetrotter/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Globetrotter</a>. M.K. Bhadrakumar is a former Indian diplomat.</em></p>
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Experts explain how Trump’s language shifted in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot
January 19, 2021
On Jan. 6, the world witnessed how language can incite violence.
One after another, a series of speakers at the "Save America" rally at the Ellipse in Washington redoubled the messages of anger and outrage.
<p>This rhetoric culminated <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/09/three-key-factors-that-drive-far-right-political-violence-two-that-dont/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">with a directive</a> by the president to go to the Capitol building to embolden Republicans in Congress to overturn the results of the 2020 election.</p><p>"Fight like hell," President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/trump-speech-riot.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">implored his supporters</a>. "And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."</p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/12/us/capitol-mob-timeline.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Shortly thereafter</a>, some of Trump's supporters breached the Capitol.</p><p>Throughout his presidency, Trump's unorthodox use of language <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/two-linguists-use-their-skills-to-inspect-21-739-trump-tweets/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">has fascinated linguists and social scientists</a>. But it wasn't just his words that day that led to the violence.</p><p>Starting with <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?506975-1/president-trump-statement-2020-election-results" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a speech he made on Dec. 2</a> – in which he made his case for election fraud – we analyzed six public addresses Trump made before and after the riot at the Capitol building. The others were <a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-rally-speech-transcript-dalton-georgia-senate-runoff-election" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the campaign rally</a> ahead of the runoff elections in Georgia, <a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the speech</a> he made at the "Save America" rally on Jan. 6, the videotaped message that aired later that same day, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/video-trump.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">his denouncement of the violence on Jan. 7</a> and <a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trumps-first-comments-since-capitol-riots-says-he-wants-no-violence" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">his speech</a> en route to Texas on Jan. 12.</p><p>Together, they reveal how the president's language escalated in intensity in the weeks and days leading up to the riots.</p><p><strong>Finding patterns in language</strong></p><p>Textual analysis – converting words into numbers that can be analyzed as data – can identify patterns in the types of words people use, including their syntax, semantics and vocabulary choice. Linguistic analysis can reveal latent trends in the speaker's <a href="https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/31333" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">psychological, emotional and physical states</a> beneath the surface of what's being heard or read.</p><p>This sort of analysis has led to a number of discoveries.</p><p>For example, researchers have used it to identify the authors of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2283270?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Federalist Papers</a>, the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/22/545122205/fbi-profiler-says-linguistic-work-was-pivotal-in-capture-of-unabomber" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Unabomber manifesto</a> and a novel written by <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-a-computer-program-helped-show-jk-rowling-write-a-cuckoos-calling/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">J.K. Rowling under a pseudonym</a>.</p><p>Textual analysis continues to offer fresh political insights, such as its use to advance the theory that social media posts attributed to QAnon are actually written by <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qanon-is-two-different-people-shows-machine-learning-analysis-from-orphanalytics-301192981.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">two different people</a>.</p><p><strong>The "official" sounding Trump</strong></p><p>Contrary to popular thinking, Trump does not universally use inflammatory rhetoric. While he is well known for his <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/11/14238274/trumps-speaking-style-press-conference-linguists-explain" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">unique speaking style</a> and his once-frequent social media posts, in official settings his language has been quite similar to that of other presidents.</p><p>Researchers have noted how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2015.1010191" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">people routinely alter their speaking</a> and writing depending on whether a setting is formal or informal. In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17467586.2015.1038286" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">formal venues</a>, like the State of the Union speeches, <a href="https://rogerkreuz.com/SOTU.png" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">textual analysis</a> has found Trump to use language in ways that echo his predecessors.</p><p>In addition, a <a href="https://businessfinancing.co.uk/leader-vocabulary/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">recent study</a> analyzed 10,000 words from Trump's and President-elect Joe Biden's campaign speeches. It concluded – perhaps surprisingly – that Trump and Biden's language was similar.</p><p>Both men used ample emotional language – the kind that aims to persuade people to vote – at roughly the same rates. They also used comparable rates of positive language, as well as language related to trust, anticipation and surprise. One possible reason for this could be the audience, and the persuasive and evocative nature of campaign speeches themselves, rather than individual differences between speakers.</p><p><strong>The road to incitement</strong></p><p>Of course, Trump has, at times, <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-inaugural-speech-is-it-morning-or-mourning-in-america-71656" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">used</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/21506029/trump-violence-tweets-racist-hate-speech" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">overtly dire and violent language</a>.</p><p>After studying Trump's speeches before the storming of the Capitol building, we found some underlying patterns. If it seemed there was a growing sense of momentum and action in his speeches, it's because there was.</p><p>From early December to early January, there was an increase in the use of words that convey <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X09351676" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">movement and motion</a> – terms like "change," "follow" and "lead."</p><p>This is important, because it signals that the undertone of the speeches, beyond the overt directives, was goading his supporters to take action. By contrast, passive voice is often used to distance oneself from something or someone. In addition, research on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167203029005010" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">linguistic indicators of deception</a> has found that people who are lying often use more motion words.</p><p>We also looked at Trump's use of presidential language during the same time frame. Researchers have identified the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2006.01.006" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">hallmark features of presidential language</a>. These include using more articles – "the," "an," "a" – prepositions, positive emotion, long words and, interestingly, swear words.</p><p>Trump used the most presidential language <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSNvtqUuqc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">in the video recorded the day after the riots</a>, in which he denounced the violence, and in his Dec. 2 election fraud speech. His other four speeches more closely match the level of presidential language reflected in his State of the Union speeches.</p><p>The violence at the Capitol building and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/13/us/trump-impeachment" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">impeachment of the president</a> have only added fuel to a contentious period marked by a pandemic, an economic crisis, widespread protests over racial inequality, a heated presidential election and citizens divided over real and fake news.</p><p>In this context, the role of language to calm, reassure and unify is more important than ever – and in this task, Biden has a steep challenge ahead of him.</p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/roger-j-kreuz-817382" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Roger J. Kreuz</a>, Associate Dean and Professor of Psychology, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-memphis-2147" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">University of Memphis</a></em> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/leah-cathryn-windsor-1187912" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Leah Cathryn Windsor</a>, Research Assistant Professor, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-memphis-2147" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">University of Memphis</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license.</p>
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How William Barr's work 'laid the groundwork' for the Capitol siege
January 19, 2021
In December, then-Attorney General William Barr infuriated many diehard supporters of President Donald Trump when he acknowledged Joe Biden as president-elect and told the Associated Press that he saw no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. And following the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Barr was sharply critical of Trump's role in inspiring his followers, saying he orchestrated "a mob to pressure Congress" and calling it a "betrayal of his office."
Commentators should be careful before giving Barr too much credit, though. Barr was long among Trump's most vigorous defenders, and journalist Marcy Wheeler — in an article published on her Empty Wheel blog this week — argues that he has a great deal of "complicity" in the violence that occurred in Washington, D.C. on January 6.
<p>Barr, according to Wheeler, promoted "policies that laid the groundwork for the January 6 insurrection" — for example, he spent "months prioritizing the criminalization of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, even as his own department showed that right-wing terrorism was a far more serious problem and the Boogaloos were deliberately attempting to launch false flag operations pinned on Antifa."</p><p>The former U.S. attorney general, according to Wheeler, made "speeches arguing that progressive politics were a threat to the nation" and treated "overt threats against a judge from the Proud Boys as a technicality unworthy of a sentencing enhancement" in the Roger Stone case. Moreover, Wheeler writes, Barr "repeatedly" claimed that "mail-in ballots were prone to fraud in defiance of the evidence — a key part of Trump's later attempts to undermine the outcome of the election."</p><p>Journalist Jonathan Swan, in an <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-barr-relationship-off-the-rails-b33b3788-e7e9-47fa-84c5-3a0016559eb5.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">article published by Axios</a> this week, reports that Trump was quite disappointed when Barr described the president's belief in a "stolen election" as "bullshit." But Wheeler strongly disagrees with media accounts of a "wise old Attorney General Bill Barr who stood up against the president's worst instincts, wisely resisting the urge to politicize investigations, trump up claims of voter fraud, chase the theories of Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, and back a violent crackdown against Trump's opponents."</p><p>That description of Barr, according to Wheeler, is a "fictional character" now being promoted in the mainstream media — and the fact remains that Barr spent months defending Trump at every turn, she stresses.</p><p>"The reality is that (for) over two years…. Billy Barr helped to create this monster — even though he was one of the people with the obligation to stop it," Wheeler writes. "With his corruption as attorney general, Bill Barr fostered this monster. He should get no credit for skipping out before the predictable outcomes of his own actions blew up on January 6."</p>
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