EU energy head in Iran with businessmen to show support for nuke deal amid bellicose Trump rhetoric

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A general view of the Bushehr main nuclear reactor © Raheb Homavandi / Reuters

The EU’s energy commissioner is in Tehran to boost business ties and express Europe’s support for the country’s nuclear deal. With Iranian President Rouhani up for reelection within weeks, Brussels aims to boost trust in the landmark 2015 agreement.

Miguel Arias Canete, Europe’s commissioner for climate action and energy, came to the Islamic Republic for a two day visit to meet with senior Iranian officials, including the country’s atomic chief, vice-president, and ministers of oil and energy. He brought along representatives of some 50 companies and business associations from EU countries. The businessmen are attending a clean energy forum where some 40 Iranian companies are represented. The commissioner’s program also includes a climate change conference.

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This is the latest in a series of high-profile contacts between Iran and the EU, where leaders appear concerned with the hardline rhetoric coming from Washington. US President Donald Trump has accused Tehran of “violating the spirit” of the 2015 nuclear deal, which lifted economic sanctions from Iran in exchange for it restraining its nuclear program.

The nuclear sanctions had hurt the Iranian economy, but also affected the country’s European oil customers. The deal has allowed for a rapid re-establishment of business ties.

“After the nuclear deal came into effect, trade between the EU and Iran has risen by 79 percent, exports from Iran to the EU have jumped by 450 percent, and the two sides have established a dynamic energy partnership,” Canete told the business forum.

“Now we want to take this success story one step further. The energy sector will feature prominently in our future relations and we are committed to fully tap into its economic and social potential while contributing to achieve our climate commitments,” he said.

On meeting Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the EU commissioner reiterated Brussels’ support for the nuclear deal, while confirming that Tehran is in full compliance with its terms.

The two officials discussed a €5 million investment program, under which the EU would help Iran boost nuclear safety. Last week Tehran and the European Commission inked an agreement on creating a center dedicated to the issue in Iran. The EU will later help conduct a stress test of the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant as part of the deal.

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Russia to build 2 nuclear power plants in Iran

Two weeks ago, Tehran hosted another high-profile delegation from the EU headed by foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, which included half a dozen European commissioners, Canete among them.

The EU is making an effort to boost the position of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, according to Reuters. Hardliners in Tehran have criticized the moderate politician, who was Iran’s driving force behind the nuclear deal, saying the agreement should have delivered more significant economic relief, with the Trump administration’s accusations currently playing in their favor.

The deal did manage to bring some international businesses to Iran, including aircraft producers Airbus and Boeing, carmakers Peugeot–Citroen and Renault, and engineering giant Siemens. However, the country remains largely insulated from the international financial system, which depends much more on Washington’s regulatory decisions and control.

The US has criticized Iran on a number of issues, including its missile development program and support for the Syrian government. Washington also alleges that Tehran is funding terrorist groups. The bellicose rhetoric has some EU officials worrying that the breakthrough nuclear deal may fall victim to the bickering.

“We disagree that we have to address these issues by ditching the (nuclear) deal,” one EU diplomat told Reuters. “This will only empower those (in Iran) with a more confrontational stance – bring out the worst in the system,” they said.

“The Europeans want to at least create the optical impression they are politically invested in this deal working,” said Ellie Geranmayeh of the European Council on Foreign Relations, adding “even if from a commercial perspective, companies are essentially on hold.”

Rouhani is running for reelection on May 19, with the EU reportedly pressuring the US to delay a bill currently floating around on the Capitol Hill that would slap more sanctions in Iran.

In Norway, A Growing Movement Builds an Oil-Free Future

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Sunday, April 30, 2017

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The Leap: System Change on a Deadline

Are Norwegians happy, but stupid?

by

Truls Gulowsen

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"As we see it, new oil drilling in the Barents Sea is not only immoral, but also a violation of Article 112 of the Norwegian constitution, which says that the State shall protect the right of future generations to a safe and healthy environment," writes Gulowsen. (Photo: Stefan Cook/flickr/cc)

As a Norwegian, I admit to being kind of proud to see Norway at the top of the UN’s latest global happiness index. And the ranking makes sense: We’re blessed with snow, water, and mountains, effective public education and health care systems, plentiful jobs in a well-regulated economy, and a free and open democracy not too hobbled by fake news or Trumpian bluster.

However, it seems our beautiful country has become complacent in its happiness. In spite of the climate crisis and the ever-growing need to keep fossil fuels in the ground, last year the Norwegian government—for the first time in 20 years—opened up a new oil frontier in the melting and vulnerable Barents Sea above the Arctic Circle. And last month, the government announced yet another push for Arctic oil, inviting oil companies to bid for 93 new licenses.

The happy Norwegian government knows that burning oil causes climate change. They know there’s already more oil in existing fields than we can afford to burn. They know that burning oil melts Arctic ice and fuels extreme weather events like typhoons and droughts, causing immense suffering around the world.

Unfortunately, happy Norway has become a nation of petroholics. We tend to believe that our oil is so much cleaner than all other oil on the planet. Therefore, we believe that new, Norwegian Arctic oil will be good for the climate. While we signed and ratified the Paris Agreement before almost anyone else, we don’t think that should have any consequences for our quest for more Arctic extraction.

This happy logic has also been shaped by the fact that most Norwegians don’t think we can do well in other industries—an idea that is quite broadly shared, even though only 10% of the workforce is in the oil sector, and Norway was already an advanced welfare state in 1968 when we first struck oil.

Luckily, a new movement to challenge these ideas is growing. Unions, environmentalists, and religious leaders have formed an alliance to get Norway out of its oil addiction before it is too late. Launched in 2013, the “Bridge to the Future” movement could become a forceful player in the upcoming elections in September. The alliance demands a halt to new oil fields and a controlled phase-out of the oil industry, combined with efforts to ramp up green jobs, a fossil-free investment strategy for the Norwegian Oil Fund, and radically bigger emission cuts.

As International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Sharan Burrow pointed out, in her address to the alliance’s annual gathering in Oslo two years ago, there are no jobs on a dead planet. However, new industries don’t appear out of nowhere either—particularly not in a nation that has been swimming in oil wealth and would like to keep swimming. That’s why we need fierce movement pressure and robust political efforts to create new jobs. All of this will take time, but the Leap Manifesto has been a big inspiration.

As we help to build this new movement, environmentalists are also mobilizing to stop the new round of oil drilling. Statoil plans to drill 5 new wells in the Barents Sea this summer, several of them way too close to sensitive areas like the marginal ice zone and Bear Island’s impressive bird cliffs.

As we see it, new oil drilling in the Barents Sea is not only immoral, but also a violation of Article 112 of the Norwegian constitution, which says that the State shall protect the right of future generations to a safe and healthy environment. With help from our friends Nature and Youth, we have launched a legal challenge, and will meet the Norwegian government in the Oslo District Court in November. (Last month, British actress and Greenpeace activist Emma Thompson backed the lawsuit on Skavlan, the biggest talk show in Norway and Sweden. The interview can be seen here.)

The science is clear: To meet the Paris goals, we have to keep 80 percent of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground. That must be understood as prohibiting the leasing of any new oilfields, and certainly not in the vulnerable Arctic. When politicians refuse to accept this fact, our hope is that the courts can be bold enough, as our Constitution requires.

And recent climate victories in court, from the Netherlands to South Africa and Austria, give me confidence that they can. We believe this lawsuit—together with the growing wave of climate cases around the world—has the potential to become a rallying point for people resisting fossil fuel exploration everywhere. This is about holding back the oil industry at the final frontier, and holding governments accountable for their climate pledges.

The more global pressure that social movements can put on Norway, the more likely it is that the judge on the case will be brave enough to rule in our favor. So please, spread the message about the lawsuit against Arctic oil, engage your friends, challenge any Norwegian you meet along the way, and join thousands of others in telling Norway to take the climate crisis seriously.

© 2016 This Changes Everything

Truls Gulowsen is the head of Greenpeace Norway.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/04/30/norway-growing-movement-builds-oil-free-future

100 Days of Media Hoping for a New, Improved Trump

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Sunday, April 30, 2017

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Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

by

Reed Richardson

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Danielle Pletka's April 26 Washington Post op-ed was "a desperate attempt at projecting onto a radical, reckless and dishonest Trump the favored policies and norms of the media establishment," writes Richardson. (Screenshot: FAIR)

Nearly 100 days into the Trump presidency, corporate media are still struggling to reckon with the man that occupies the White House. An administration so proudly reckless in its actions and so brazenly detached from the truth has routinely overwhelmed political reporters whose accountability muscles have atrophied. And from cable news panels to newspaper op-ed pages, Trump’s aberrant behavior has so traumatized the media establishment that it often seems to operate in a state of collective shock.

Normalizing and currying favor with power—no matter how abnormal or extreme—is an occupational hazard.

This disconnect with the White House, however, presents a fundamental problem for elite pundits. Their “serious” stature and editorial relevance—their livelihoods, in other words—rest upon their proximity to and influence on power. Normalizing and currying favor with power—no matter how abnormal or extreme—is an occupational hazard.

So too is a calculated unpredictability. That columnist or talking head who relentlessly hammers upon Trump’s open bigotry and meticulously documents Trump’s many lies is likely to get fewer pageviews or see fewer green rooms than the one who offers up the occasional contrarian take or dose of approval.

Frustrated by the president’s obvious ignorance, juvenile impetuousness and endless norm-breaking, elite commentators have started resorting to a kind of Pygmalion punditry. To show how smart they are, these pundits have begun considering Trump in much the same way Professor Henry Higgins did Eliza Doolittle—as mostly a problem of manners and refinement to solve.

This fan fiction is little more than an intellectual dodge, however, where the press helpfully reimagines Trump as he might be, rather than analyzing him for what he really is. Less than three weeks before the election, for example, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan (10/20/16) produced her own pretentious entry in this genre under the headline “Imagine a Sane Donald Trump.” Her ostensibly critical piece was really an act of rhetorical jiu jitsu—praising Trump with faint damnation. Her Higginsesque focus rests almost exclusively on remaking Trump’s style and messaging, which often suffers from turning conservative subtext into too-obvious text. Notably, Noonan doesn’t bother much with recasting Trump’s actual policies into “sanity.”

“Sane Donald Trump would have explained his immigration proposals with a kind of loving logic.” Yes, Noonan actually wrote that sentence. (Even more inexplicably, she won a Pulitzer Prize for it.) Yet she never dared to confront the bigoted, xenophobic framework of those proposals, or offered details on how something like a Muslim ban could ever be lovingly explained. Similarly, in her telling, a “sane” Donald Trump campaign “cannot begin as or devolve into a nationalist, identity-politics movement,” and it would reject “those who look down on other groups, races or religions.” That’s the great thing about creating a wholly fictional Trump: It lets you totally disappear inconvenient facts like his very political career being founded upon the racist, Islamophobic “birther” conspiracy theory.

Time and again, the media firmament has looked for excuses to refashion Trump into someone he is not.

Time and again, the media firmament has looked for excuses to refashion Trump into someone he is not. On the eve of the inauguration, the New York Times’ Tom Friedman (1/18/17) spent an entire column posing a series of “What if?” questions to create an alternate universe of Trump’s tweets. A few weeks later, Friedman’s op-ed colleague Russ Douthat (2/11/17), in a column headlined “Can This Presidency Be Saved?,”  duly noted that Trump has “free will” and that “there is no necessary reason he could not wake up tomorrow and decide” to change essentially everything about his approach to politics. “This isn’t complicated. In fact, it’s kind of easy,” Douthat concluded—two weeks before Trump made the stunning claim: “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.”

A day after Douthat, Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt (2/12/17) weighed in with his own thought experiment: “Imagining a Successful Trump Presidency.” Hiatt ran through a long list of possible outcomes on US domestic and foreign policy, before asking the self-evident question of “whether the administration has the discipline and finesse to pull off these difficult balancing acts.” But it is Hiatt’s disclaimer, tucked in the middle of the column, that perfectly captures the shallow detachment of so much of this Pygmalion punditry: “In any case, you can see something like a best-case scenario taking place. I should make clear: I don’t mean best-case in the sense of good policy.”

The commentariat’s hopes for a kinder, gentler Trump persona skyrocketed after Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in late February. The media swooned over how familiar his rhetoric was, prompting one liberal pundit to absurdly declare Trump had “become president” that night (FAIR.org, 3/1/17).

At The Week (3/1/17), conservative Ed Morrissey gushed (emphasis in original) that Trump “was measured. He was a statesman. He was…normal.” “Before Tuesday’s address,” Morrissey continued,

some [Republicans] had to be wondering whether the new White House could get its act together on process as well as policy, and if Trump had a temperament that would allow them to work together. Tuesday’s speech shows that Trump can choose to modulate his approach when needed.

Of course, reality spoiled the plot. A mere two days after Morrissey’s sunny column ran, Trump tweeted (3/2/17) that the Democrats have “lost their grip on reality” and were conducting a “witch hunt” of his campaign’s possible ties to Russia. By the end of the month, the president (3/27/17) was insulting people he needed to pass one of his signature campaign promises—repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Later in March, the New York Times provided a Sunday two-fer from Frank Bruni and Tom Friedman. Bruni (3/22/17) focused on the president’s Twitter account and grandly threw down the gauntlet: “Donald Trump faces a stark choice. He can tweet, or he can govern,” he wrote. “He can vent his emotions or exercise his responsibilities.” That a lifetime of choosing the former and ducking the latter seems to have already answered this question doesn’t seem to register with Bruni.\

In his second go-round with this genre, Friedman (3/22/17), in true globalist form, decided to outsource the job of remaking Trump to the “five adults” on the president’s staff. Sounding every bit like a world-weary Higgins lecturing the president from the confines of a posh, wood-paneled club, Friedman demands these “few good men” reverse the “moral rot” of Trump’s administration and “sit the president down” so he can “do the right thing.” The “world is watching,” he makes sure to add, after informing us of his travel itinerary: “I’m now in Paris, after almost a week in the United Arab Emirates.”

This anachronistic tone of serious men speaking seriously to other men also colored a David Ignatius column in the Washington Post (4/18/17). “Trump Needs a Dose of ‘Manly Virtues’” is chock full of brow-furrowed, “Trump would help himself” and “Trump should stop” remonstrations, but gives the game away in how out of touch it is with this precious line: “These boasts only diminish him.”

Still, one almost hear Ignatius sigh in relief as he writes: “On foreign policy, Trump has shown a flexibility and pragmatism that contradict some of his inflammatory campaign rhetoric” toward China and Russia. Ignatius quietly ignores that Trump is actually proving to be, as advertised, unrepentantly hawkish toward military intervention in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

But then, this is the Post, whose editorial page has seemingly never seen a cruise missile that didn’t need a good launching at the latest purported threat in the Middle East. Tellingly, the warming of the corporate media to Trump’s “pragmatism” became wholly evident after their near unanimous encomiums for his abrupt bombing of Syria three weeks ago (FAIR.org, 4/7/17).

This show of potential establishment thinking by Trump moved the Wall Street Journal‘s Gerald Seib (4/24/17) to write a cri de coeur of the Beltway centrist pundit earlier this week. In “How an Alternative Donald Trump Opening Act Might Have Unfolded,” Seib surreally tries to claim the president as one of his own, a “radical centrist” whose populist appeal “should transcend partisanship and ideology.”

Even for opinion-writing, this is journalistic malpractice. Trump has demonstrated his reactionary, right-wing nature on any number of issues—climate change, reproductive rights, government transparency, healthcare reform, immigration, etc.—in the first 100 days.

Even for opinion-writing, this is journalistic malpractice. Trump has demonstrated his reactionary, right-wing nature on any number of issues—climate change, reproductive rights, government transparency, healthcare reform, immigration, etc.—in the first 100 days. Nevertheless, Seib concocts a naive caricature of a nonexistent moderate Trump, someone who he thinks could have immediately abandoned the inflammatory Islamophobia that fueled his base and balanced out his cabinet by appointing Democrats. It’s a Bizarro World portrait so divorced from political reality that even Aaron Sorkin would find it unbelievable.

The corporate media’s compulsion to legitimize power remains almost impossible to stop, however. Which is how, 97 days into perhaps the most radical presidency of modern times, we got a Washington Post headline (4/26/17): “On Foreign Policy, Trump Has Become — Gasp — a Normal President.” Written by Danielle Pletka of the right-wing AEI think tank, the op-ed reads like a bemused first report card. Writing off the very real concerns and hardships of millions of immigrants and refugees from Muslim countries, Pletka proclaims: “President Trump has been far more conventional than many dared hope.” Her conclusion sums up not just her column, but perhaps the whole enterprise of Pygmalion punditry—a desperate attempt at projecting onto a radical, reckless and dishonest Trump the favored policies and norms of the media establishment:

All we know now is what we see and don’t see. What we have seen from Trump in his early days as president is a man who is owning his burdens, one who wants to rebuild the deterrent power of the United States, one who is shocked by the horrors of war and one who is game to push back on enemies. All to the good.

This credulous bonhomie belies the much more shocking truth about Trump, of course. But, appropriately, it sounds a lot George Bernard Shaw’s final stage direction at the end of Pygmalion, where the well-off teacher, though thoroughly rejected by the student, indulges a naive self-delusion that she’ll eventually come around to his way of thinking: “Higgins, left alone, rattles his cash in his pocket; chuckles; and disports himself in a highly self-satisfied manner.”

© 2017 Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

Reed Richardson is a media critic whose work has appeared in The Nation, Harvard University’s Nieman Reports and the textbook Media Ethics (Current Controversies). Follow him on Twitter: @reedfrich

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/04/30/100-days-media-hoping-new-improved-trump

by Eric Margolis 

Maybe the president believes he’s won a great victory over the wicked Syrians by lobbing cruise missiles at one of their underused air bases. Maybe Trump believes that he’s scared the evil Russians and the too big for their sampans Chinese into obedience.

His 22,000 lb MOAB terror bomb on Afghanistan should keep those pesky Taliban quiet for a while even though the Pentagon claimed the intended target was a group- Khorosan – that may not actually exist.

Those major malefactors, the crazy North Koreans, could be about to feel America’s full military might if they so much as twitch.

Not content with nearly stirring up a new war with North Korea, President Donald Trump is now waving the big stick at another of Washington’s favorite bogeymen, Iran. For the Trumps, Iran is poison.

In recent days, President Trump has threatened to renounce the six-power nuclear agreement to freeze or shrink Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. This sensible pact was signed during the Obama administration by the great powers: US, Britain, France, Russia, Germany and China. Trump appears willing to abrogate the treaty and outrage the other great powers just because he hates Iran for some reason and, it appears, Muslims in general.

The Trump administration seems increasingly influenced by Israel’s far right Netanyahu government. In fact, PM Netanyahu often appears the most moderate member of his rightist coalition which is dominated by militant West Bank settlers.

Trump has surrounded himself with ardent supporters of Israel’s right. One of his major bankrollers is casino mogul Sheldon Adelson who is a key supporter of Jewish expansion on the illegally occupied West Bank.

Israel’s right has made a hate fetish of Iran and incessantly calls for war against the Islamic Republic. However, the mighty US Israel lobby twice failed to push the Obama administration to attack Iran. The US Congress, by contrast, is totally under the thumb of Israel’s American lobby and pays more respect to PM Netanyahu than the president. He who pays the piper….

In fact, Congress sought to block sales of Boeing civilian airliners to Iran worth $16.6 billion even though it would have cost thousands of American jobs. Congress has been trying to sabotage the Iran nuclear deal ever since it was signed, putting American national interests on a collision course with those of Israel’s right.

But now President Trump says he’s found a new reason to sabotage the six-power deal: Iran, insists Trump, supports ‘terrorism’ and has bad intentions. This charge has been around for decades, cited by Israel as a compelling reason to attack Iran because Tehran supports the ‘terrorist’ Lebanese movement Hezbollah and the Palestinian movement Hamas.

The ‘terrorist’ label is slapped onto all enemies of Israel and the United States. It’s a handy, meaningless sobriquet that automatically denies those so named political or moral justice.

I was with the Israel army when it invaded Lebanon in 1982 and saw first-hand how its arrogance turned formerly pro-Israel Shia Lebanese in the south into anti-Israel fighters. Israel actually encouraged and may have secretly financed the growth of Hezbollah and Hamas hoping they would drain support from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Lebanon’s Amal militia.

Israel hates Hamas and Hezbollah and is determined to eradicate them. The principal supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah has long been Syria. Large parts of Syria have now been destroyed by a US-engineered uprising and bands of Saudi-financed mercenaries. That has left Iran as the main supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, and a principal backer of Syria’s Assad government. The PLO has become a puppet of Israel and the US.

So Israel is now determined to destroy Hezbollah in its strongholds in Lebanon and then crush Hamas with Trump’s blessing, so ending any dreams of a Palestinian state. Iran is now being blamed for all Washington’s problems in the Mideast. So war fever against Iran is again mounting.

Interestingly, Iran, which has 79.1 million people, is not cowering before this threat. Like North Korea, Iran’s air force and navy are sitting ducks.

 But Iran has strong infantry, some 500,000 men including Revolutionary Guards. They are armed with outdated weapons but showed redoubtable fighting spirit in the Iran-Iraq War. Any US invasion would be met by fierce resistance.

An Iranian commander told me, ‘let the Americans come and invade. They will break their teeth on Iran. Then we will drive them out of the Mideast.”

Boastful, yes, but not impossible. Iran could prove more than the US can handle. President Trump does not know this yet and is still having fun with his new military toys. Problem is, he just can’t decide where to attack first.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2017

This post is in: Iran, USA 

https://ericmargolis.com/2017/04/prez-trump-you-cant-fight-the-whole-world/

Age of Anger: A History of the Present

Author(s): 

Pankaj Mishra

Reviewed by: 

William Hawes

What are the forces at play behind the referendum for Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, the rise of political extremism and polarization, and the outbursts of violence we see in the world today? In Age of Anger: A History of the Present, author Pankaj Mishra searches through the minefield of modernity to find the answers.

Mishra shows that the nationalistic, populist, and xenophobic undercurrents of today’s politics are driven largely by ressentiment, a term from Kierkegaard and explored in depth later by Nietzsche. Ressentiment is simply a word for a combination of anger, envy, and a sense of inferiority—a smoldering form of resentment, really. What drives these emotions of anger and negativity, as Mishra notes, are the gleaming, false promises of global capitalism, which have gone unfulfilled for the majority of the world’s population, and the related uprooting of traditional modes of life, leaving many spiritually and physically unmoored in an unfamiliar world.

Despite the well-told story of liberal democracy as the greatest economic system ever invented, Mishra documents how the ideals of democracy, increasing material affluence, and progress have been unevenly shared around the globe. Many millions of peoples’ lives have worsened from the expansion of globalization and technological advancements.

As Mishra deftly weaves between obscure Eastern European novels, French philosophers, and even Dostoevsky’s prophetic Notes from Underground, he exposes the modern myth of a new era of expanding material possessions and intellectual, work-related, and cultural advancement as a false promise, sold to us by our financial masters and politicians.

As our economic elites and technocrats gained money and power, the general population has been missing out on the benefits of modernizations for centuries. Building up underneath the surface of society is an immense anger, fueled by a permanent, structural underclass dealing with broken dreams and lowered expectations for a better life and future.

Mishra explains the similarities between the drives of many of today’s Islamist terrorists, contemporary hate groups, Hindu supremacists, and lone-wolf attackers, with past killers such as Russian nihilists, the Italian fascists, and the Nazis, and the anarchist violence of the late 19th century. All these examples consist of groups of people united due to an intense frustration regarding their economic and cultural situations, whose answer was, and is still for many, to immorally dehumanize and commit violence against people with different ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds.

In modern times, these emotions are directed at our economic and political elites, thus the backlash and the support for demagogues and neo-fascists around the world, such as Turkey’s Erdogan and India’s Modi. In the West, Mishra explains, we have lighter versions, but still, overall populist/authoritarian-type leadership, with Trump, May, and National Front candidate Le Pen in France, among others.

For Mishra, today’s debate between the populist, bigoted nationalists and the privileged, cosmopolitan globalist elite mirrors the war of ideology between Jean Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire in the 18th century. Rousseau instinctively distrusted the siren songs of the global capitalists, and in Paris he got to see up close the contrasts between a pampered and spoiled elite and the entrenched misery of the poor and working classes.

Voltaire, on the other hand, profited immensely from his private businesses and defended the stock markets as rational and scientific, providing intellectual heft to the mendacious field of economics and liberal, pro-capitalist ideology. Voltaire’s slavish and unflinching support for Russia’s Catherine the Great was further evidence for Rousseau of the financial elite’s ideological blinders, and foresaw the confluence of capitalism and bloody authoritarian leadership that we are dealing with to this day.

Living in an age of diminishing expectations leads the disaffected, dispossessed, and disenchanted toward irrational outbursts of violence, affecting fundamentalists of all religious persuasions. Whether writing about Hindu nationalists or Timothy McVeigh, Mishra explains how:

“Two phenomena much noted in nineteenth-century European society – anomie, or the malaise of the free-floating individual who is only loosely attached to surrounding social norms, and anarchist violence – are now strikingly widespread.”

Mishra’s book is a roller-coaster ride, and well worth the time spent. Mishra is extremely well read, and readers may find some references dizzying and overwrought, while others may find them fascinating and erudite. There are a few slow spots discussing esoteric European novels, but Mishra’s talent for storytelling pushes the reader through fairly easily.

The low point occurs at the end of the book. Mishra does clarify quite well that the rest of the world can only be expected to go through the birth pangs that Western Europe and the U.S. has had to go through to arrive in the “modern world.” However, he does little to explain how today’s anger and resentment are all that different from past centuries and millennia of violence, hatred, and racism. Hasn’t civilization always faced such barbaric and bloody conflicts between the haves and the have-not’s?

Mishra’s critique is extensive and systematic, yet not overly revelatory. Many people instinctively understand that today’s populist leaders are driven by the masses’ wish for a return to authoritarianism, religious fundamentalist dogma, and racist ideology.

In Age of Anger, Mishra leaves us with the impression that rising powers such as India and China are doomed to follow in the West’s footprints. Yet sociocultural dynamics are never so monolithic as to create a destiny for developing nations to exactly follow. There is a possibility that poorer, emerging countries can avoid the rising tides of intolerance and cruelty that the West has stoked.

Mishra, toward the very end, does note that:

“We need to examine our own role in the culture stokes unappeasable vanity and shallow narcissism. We not only need to interpret, in order to make the future less grim, a world bereft of moral certitudes and metaphysical guarantees. Above all, we need to reflect more penetratingly on our complicity in everyday forms of violence and dispossession, and our callousness before the spectacle of suffering.”

Yet one wishes he would expand more on this, and offer more detailed guidance and solutions to these issues. Mishra gives no blueprint for social change and no message for hope, regarding:

“the great chasm . . . between an elite that seizes modernity’s choicest fruits while disdaining older truths and uprooted masses, who, on finding themselves cheated of the same fruits, recoil into cultural supremacism, populism, and rancorous brutality.”

While Mishra offers an excellent critique of liberal democracy’s inconsistencies and unequal nature, as well as providing a magnificent backdrop for understanding the currents of rage in modern society, one is left wishing for more practical advice and specific answers to help build a better future.

William Hawes' articles on politics and the environment have appeared in such venues as CounterPunch, Global Research, The World Financial Review, Dissident Voice, The Ecologist, Gods & Radicals, and Countercurrents. He is author of the ebook Planetary Vision: Essays on Freedom and Empire.

http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/age-anger