The Isocracy Network

There are many reasons why Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 United States presidential election. Most of these proffered will be true, but only to a very limited extent. Because political events are unique and cannot be run again with different variables, simply highlighting one or multiple factors and assigning blame to them without looking at some of more long term and structural reasons will be insufficient. Given the scale of this defeat many smaller tactical errors can be considered essentially meaningless. For example, the charge that Harris picking Minnesota governor Tim Walz rather than Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro was a fatal mistake. Or not going on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast in the closing stretch. Or for her comments on "The View" that she couldn't think of an instance where she would have done something different to what President Joe Biden had done. Even if all three of those had a different outcome it's unlikely they would have been sufficient to have swung the election, and ditto for the next 30 factors one can name. Any of these might have moved thousands or even tens of thousands of votes, but this was a contest lost by millions and the consequence of conditions that evolved over a period of years.

Likewise, those blaming Biden and his late abandonment of his own re-election bid as the main reason for Harris' loss will not find a simple explanation there, though many will claim to. A lot of the same journalists now writing their "She didn't have enough time to build her own campaign and had to inherit the weaknesses of her boss's political operation" autopsies will have also their bylines attached to "This truncated campaign is likely to help Harris and the vibes are totally great now that Biden is out of the picture" think-pieces from July and August. Ever since the 2022 midterms the perception had been growing that Biden was too old and shouldn't run for re-election, and it was only his disastrous debate performance in June that convinced him to step aside, finally admitting (after much outside cajoling) he wasn't up to the job. However consider that with all else being equal, what if the president been convinced by his family, staff and party to announce he would not stand for re-election earlier; what would have been the most likely scenario to play out?

Over the past two decades the main story in international politics and the global economy has been the inexorable rise of China. Yet today it is almost certainly the case that Beijing's power and influence has already peaked, just as its population recently has, so the story of the next decades will be how the ruling Communist Party manages this decline if the Party survives. The demise of such a major power is not something the international community has had to reckon with since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and as the war in Ukraine illustrates, over 30 years later the world is still dealing with the fallout from this. China is much larger in terms of population and far more crucial to the global economy than the USSR ever was. And with the bipolar certainties of the Cold War just a fading memory, the world no longer automatically looks to the United States for global leadership, and given the state of American politics of late, Washington cannot be relied upon to provide it. But Chinese decline is not a mere possibility, it is a certainty, the only questions left are when it happens and the form it takes.

The first and most obvious sign of Chinese decline is its population. In 1976 Communist Party General Secretary Mao Zedong died, and after a brief struggle for power in 1978 Deng Xiaoping emerged as China's new paramount leader. His first priority was economic reform to encourage development and growth, but the right sort of growth. China was always a populous nation, in 1949 at the defeat of the Nationalist government and the establishment of communist rule there were already more than half a billion Chinese. (By comparison, at that same time the population of the United States was about 150 million people, and there were close to 180 million in the Soviet Union.) Despite disasters such as the Great Leap Forward and, to a lesser extent, the Cultural Revolution, improvements in the economy and in maternal health plus encouragement from the state for large families meant that China's birthrate accelerated (to over five children per woman from the 1950s to the early 70s), infant mortality greatly diminished and average life expectancy rose from just 35 years in 1949 to 63 by 1975. Within a single generation China had gone from a mostly rural and agrarian society with high mortality to an industrialised and urbanised one with a high birthrate and good basic healthcare. Consequently, the already large population experienced rapid, and to the government in the 1970s, alarming growth.

After a year of warfare between Israel and Hamas, with casualties at around fifty thousand, both sides have been accused of "terrorism". In order to make any sense of these claims, a definition is required by which the claims can be evaluated, whether the terrorist actions have any justification, and what the international community can do about the loss of civilian life, especially in an environment of partisan realism.

There is no universal definition of "terrorism". However, a synthesis of various statements found in international law, the United Nations, academic experts etc, can be made as follows: Terrorism is the systematic use of intimidating violence against civilian non-combatants for the purpose of inducing political change. By "systematic" what is meant is that the terrorist actions are a planned, organised, deliberate, and strategic decision. By "intimidating violence" it is noted the purpose of terrorism is to intimidate the population and to create a climate of fear. By "non-combatants", the target is identified.

Another component that must be mentioned is that "terrorism" can occur by state or non-state actors. The US FBI, for example, defines terrorism as the "unlawful use of unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives". In other words, the US state is excluding itself from being "terrorist" body. Such a claim is patently unjustifiable. States themselves have clearly engaged in terrorist acts against populations, and indeed some have become historically famous, such as the Reign of Terror (la Terreur) of the first French republic and the Great Terror (Большой террор) in the Soviet Union under Stalin and Yezhov.

The story of Timor-Leste is one that is close to my heart. A former Portuguese colony, it declared independence in November 1975, only to be invaded by Suharto's Indonesia less than two weeks later. The subsequent occupation was brutal, to put it mildly. The population of East Timor in 1975 was estimated to be 688,000 people; an estimated 150,000 lost their lives in the years that would follow due to direct violent killings, conflict-induced famine, and so forth. Imprisonment, torture, rape etc was rampant. All during this time, successive Australian governments considered the occupation fait accompli. But the Timorese and their allies for self-determination across the world did not give up, and in 1999 the population overwhelmingly indicated their support for independence and voted overwhelmingly (78.5%) against "autonomy" within Indonesia.

The results led to mass violence by pro-Indonesian militia. As the government dragged its feet, Australians protested and eventually - through a rather concerted mass effort where unions were once again at the forefront - the Australian government reluctantly led a UN military mission, INTERFET to ensure peace (an excellent book on how this occurred is by Clinton Fernandes, "Reluctant Saviour: Australia, Indonesia, and the Liberation of East Timor". INTERFET would be converted into UNTAET, the United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor, which prepared the country for independence.

For my own part in was in late 1990s, prior to the independence referendum, that Timor became an area of activism for me when I worked as an electorate officer for the Victorian Parliament. In 2002 I visited the country for the first time as the only nominee of the Australian political party appointed as an observer to the UNTAET-run Presidential elections. Whilst I was there I met with representatives of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and later in the year I would find myself working as a volunteer for said ministry as the "Information and Communications Technology Policy Advisor" for a year. It is fair to say I worked pretty hard during that year on policy documents, training manuals (translated by the United Nations Development Programme), general network and system maintenance, and even building the first government website. When I left, the Minister (and Nobel Peace Prize recipient) Jose Ramos-Horta provided a rather positive summary of my work. The Australian government's behaviour toward the new country, as Juice Media has pointed out, has not exactly been good.

The snap election called by President Emmanuel Macron for the French National Assembly has resulted in a surprising plurality for the left-wing electoral alliance, Nouveau Front populaire ("New Popular Front") with 180 seats (up 49), followed by the centrist Ensemble coalition ("Together") with 159 (down 86), and the far-right populist and nationalist Rassemblement National ("National Rally") with 142 seats (up 53). The centre-right party, Les Républicains ("The Republicans"), which has a direct lineage from the Gaullist tradition, won a mere 22 seats (down 22), with other left-wing candidates winning 15 seats.

The 577 deputies of the National Assembly are elected for a five-year term by a two-round system in single-member constituencies. A candidate is elected if they receive an absolute majority in the first round and a vote total greater than 25% of the registered electorate. If no candidate reaches this threshold, a runoff election is held between any other candidate who received a vote total greater than 12.5% of registered voters. With an unusual tripolarised electorate and a very high voter turnout (up 20%), the 311 electorates saw three and four-candidate run-off elections ("triangulaires" and "quadrangulaires"), a situation not seen since the 1973 election. By way of comparison, the 2022 election only had 8 such contests, and the 2017 election, had only 1.

If nothing else, the UK election of July 4, 2024 will go down in history as the single biggest loss for any sitting government in that country. Losing almost half their vote (43.6% down to 23.7% from the previous election) and two-thirds of their seats (365 to 121), Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party has landed a landslide victory to Keir Starmer's Labour Party in terms of seats (202 to 412), albeit with only a modest improvement in their primary vote (32.1% to 33.7%). Another big winner was the Liberal-Democrats who, also with a small change in percentage (11.6% to 12.2%) nevertheless gained many seats (11 to 72), their highest since 1923, as the Tory vote collapsed. For their part, the Scottish Nationalist Party have fallen into an existential crisis, losing fourth-fifths of their seats (48 to 9). Also of note was the rapid and late-rise of the populist UK Reform under Nigel Farage, which whilst gaining a few seats (0 to 5), achieved a notable 14.3% of the vote.

Each of these results should be viewed carefully to provide an understanding of the event. For the Tories, the rot began to set in with the Brexit referendum of 2016. Prior to that the neoliberal (socially and economically liberal) Tory Prime Minister, David Cameron, had delivered a largely successful government, albeit one which could only manage the effects of the Global Financial Crisis through austerity measures. However, he critically under-estimated the rise of a populist right which would find an outlet with Nigel Farage's UK Independence Party which gained 12.6% of the vote in the 2015 election. After Cameron's resignation, Theresa May's Prime Ministership was dominated over Brexit negotiations, scraping through in the 2017 election, surviving two 'no confidence' motions, and having her Brexit proposal rejected by parliament three times. Resigning in July 2019, she was succeeded by the prominent and "colourful" supporter of Brexit, Boris Johnson.

"At work in the ruins, finding our place in the time of science climate change pandemics & all the other emergencies" by Dougland Hine (2023) is an excellent book for our times. The author is an extremely aware and courageous person, it is not easy facing hard truths let alone try to get others to face them. There are layers of confronting complexity, many things we currently do are unsustainable and even without global warming our destruction of soils, vegetation, ground water, surface water, atmospheric water systems and ecohydrological cycles, and animal driven nutrient cycles - will destroy our life support system and us. People don't like to understand those things which is part of the problems that are already profoundly impacting our lives and will effectively destroy all futures, soon, unless addressed.

The narrow framing of the "problem" while ignoring ~3/4 of the larger problems is producing perverse outcomes and will hasten our demise. Before one can "solve" a complex problem one must first understand the problem as completely as possible - and also understand the limits of their understanding and the limits of our science and technologies and human minds to a utilitarian degree. Civilisation operates on the equivalent of "the answer given to a 4 year old" by an indigenous elder, for analogy, in an excellent talk by Phillip Zylstra on decolonialising fire mismanagement in Australia.

The phrase "cash is king" first appeared with McLean in 1890 under the maxim: ""Avoid credit, remembering that cash is king, credit is a slave" [1]. More recently, the maxim has been repurposed to a propaganda slogan for the most recent culture war with, as is often the case, a notable generational divide. In Australia for example, the Facebook group "Cash Is King" is a wild collection of anecdotal stories, conspiracy theories, plain ignorance, and even the occasional genuine concern. Right-wing populist parties, ever hopeful of public funding in elections and competing over the sizeable witless vote, are earnest in promoting their credentials. For example, Katter's Australia Party states: "Moves towards a fully cashless society must be immediately stopped, and the right to use cash must be safeguarded" [2].

The trajectory of history does not favour such opinions. With increased electronic network density, speed of transactions, increased security, and lower economic transaction costs, electronic transactions are increasingly simply more convenient. Of course, electronic transactions have existed since the early 1900s in some form, but it has been in the 21st century that both the quantity and aggregate value of electronic transactions reached majority status in advanced economies; as early as 2016, only 20% of retail transactions were conducted by cash in Sweden, and only 2% of the value [3]. Even in Australia, in the three years to 2022, cash payments declined from 32% to 16% in number and 8% of value [4]. It is notable that high-cash transaction economies are invariably among the poorest in the world, whereas the higher number of cashless transactions is correlated with advanced technological and economic development.

Position Paper by Labor Against War

The AUKUS military agreement and acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines is a major strategic foreign policy commitment and will be the most expensive defence procurement in Australian history. The Australian use of nuclear technology for military purposes is unprecedented and represents a sharp break with previous policy. The agreement was announced by the Morrison Government in September 2021 and endorsed with haste by the then opposition Labor shadow cabinet.

Given the unprecedent nature of the agreement, there has been little coherent rationale provided as to how AUKUS nuclear submarines will actually contribute to the defence of Australia. There has also been remarkably little proper public analysis, scrutiny and democratic debate about the immense costs and risks of the AUKUS agreement.

The AUKUS agreement is presented as a fait accompli, beyond the realm of genuine democratic consideration and decision making. Often a series of essentially political arguments are made to assert that there can be no challenge or change made. Apparently, we must commit to a deeply flawed plan because it would reflect poorly on the Government or Australia's standing to admit a mistake or decide a change of course.

The death of Henry Kissinger in November 2023 was, as could be expected, met with a combination of disappointment and relief. Disappointment that this war criminal had lived so long (Verso have managed to just release a book on Kissinger appropriately entitled: "The Good Die Young"), and disappointment that he never was given the well-deserved opportunity to defend his actions at The Hague. There was a relief too, relief that finally this stain on the human species had been rubbed out and fortunately, before medical advances provided the opportunity for life extension and rejuvenation. Another emotion can be added here; concern that Kissinger's actions and the foreign policy decisions that he implemented and influenced will be forgotten with the passing of time. This remembrance hopefully will contribute to his lasting notoriety.

Kissinger's major appointments were as Secretary of State and National Secretary Adviser for the US Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. His approach was one of partisan international realism, that is, he argued that the United States should act in the interest of the United States in the lawless environment of international relations without regard to the cost to the lives of real, flesh-and-blood, human beings. In the eight years that he served in these positions, it is estimated that he was, directly and indirectly, responsible for the deaths of millions of people. As war crimes prosecutor and human rights advocate, Reed Brody has remarked; "few people who have had a hand in as much death and destruction, as much human suffering, in so many places around the world as Henry Kissinger". Now circulating as a popular meme, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain has some very blunt words: