You can't have an over-populated, resource depleted world ravaged by climate change, under the heel of late-stage neoliberalism and not expect destabilization and people eager to exploit confusion, dislocation and chaos.
By now there can't be many who have no sense of the rise of authoritarianism, strongman rule, and the decline of democracy. But who, where and how bad? That's the business of the World Justice Project which has just released its latest rule of law index. You can also download the report in pdf.
Scandinavian countries took top honours. No surprises there. Canada came in 9th, behind New Zealand and a smidge ahead of Estonia. The US did surprisingly well, coming in 20th overall. Coming in 126th and last - you guessed it - Venezuela. Viktor Orban's Hungary placed in the 5th tier standings at 57th place, just ahead of Brazil.
Conspicuous by its absence is Israel. Given that ratings are presented for relatively small countries such as St. Kitts, Sri Lanka, St. Lucia and Barbados, the lack of any mention of Israel is curious but perhaps predictable.
It's important to bear in mind that the report is no more than a snapshot of where we are today. Autocracy is spreading, growing. We are really in the early-onset stage of this contagion.
9 comments:
And we ignore it at our peril, Mound.
Please don’t buy into the narrative on Venezuela, mound. Virtually everything we’re being told by our government and parroted uncritically by the media is a lie. This is not exaggeration. Abby Martin of the empire files has done excellent reporting in Venezuela, and you can find it online, as well as several very informative long-form interviews with joe rogan on his podcast.
That Israel is missing is problematic. One wonders why. Maybe it embarrassed someone.
Haiti is also missing. There are probably others.
Mound, have you heard of surveillance capitalism and its effect (mostly negative) on democracy? There have been lots of warnings which have mostly fallen on deaf ears because surveillance capitalism is out of sight and its tools are sooooo convenient.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/businesses-paid-to-have-pokemon-go-players-directed-to-their-locations-says-author-1.5036772
Anon, I don't buy into either side's narrative on Venezuela. There's very little truth from either camp or their foreign sponsors.
Yes, I've heard of it, Toby. These things are like squalls off the Pacific. They come in salvoes, each adding to the devastation of all that came before.
Lorne, yes we do ignore it. We look the other way at the rise of right wing populism that has begun to take hold in the Conservative Party of Andrew Scheer. As Scheer and Tkachuk demonstrated on Parliament Hill as they cheered on what had become a white nationalist protest, they have no interest in repudiating this bigotry and extremism. Yet that hasn't hurt the Tories in the slightest in the polls.
This brings to mind Bob Altemeyer's book, "The Authoritarians." The author makes the point that every democracy has a significant percentage of people who are inclined to support authoritarianism but lie low while that is socially unacceptable. They remain largely dormant until along comes a Trump, an Orban, a Erdogan, at which moment, like the Cicada, they come to the surface.
The sky is getting darker. Sunlight -- the kind that disinfects -- is harder and harder to find.
It is a challenging time, Owen. There's not much more we can do than wait.
Junior has plenty of sunlight. I think he calls it "sunny ways."
It's funny how all these neoliberal weasels preach their gospel of light: i.e., free-trade globalization and open-border rainbows and unicorns.
These birdbrains and meatheads will save the world by turning it into a Wild-West global oligarchy that continuously strips away the power of national democratic government creating a deregulating race to the bottom – destroying living standards every step along the way.
These cultural Marxists say racism is the root of all evil. Yet they relegate People of Color to inner-city ghettos, rural reservations and free-trade shanty towns across the world. Stealing their resources and the fruits of their labor by all manner of corruption and evil. Stealing their rights and freedoms and tossing them on the junk-heap of humanity.
These cultural Leftist say global warming is the root of all evil. So they play globalist GHG-emission shell games. A pretense of action in place of the real thing. They like to hedge their bets by diversifying in both carbon-market and dirty-energy securities. It's win-win! What an abomination of a fig-leaf of Fake Virtue!
What the Bible says is true: there are a lot of fiend-worshipers out there guided by the darkness of the void who live and love a lie. They're going all-in on a big fat nothing. They will be thrown into a fiery furnace of burning shame when the universe-made-of-truth lights them up.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth: it comes for us all!
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