Attention to the Unseen

Michael Scammell writes: When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, pundits offered a variety of reasons for its failure: economic, political, military. Few thought to add a fourth, more elusive cause: the regime’s total loss of credibility. This hard-to-measure process had started in 1956, when Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave his so-called secret speech to party leaders, in which he denounced Josef Stalin’s purges and officially revealed the existence of the gulag prison system. Not long afterward, Boris Pasternak allowed his…

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George Monbiot writes: Dark money is among the greatest current threats to democracy. It means money spent below the public radar, that seeks to change political outcomes. It enables very rich people and corporations to influence politics without showing their hands. Among the world’s biggest political spenders are Charles and David Koch, co-owners of Koch Industries, a vast private conglomerate of oil pipelines and refineries, chemicals, timber and paper companies, commodity trading firms and cattle ranches. If their two fortunes…

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The Guardian reports: Not just France but Europe should hope the tax concessions and minimum wage rise Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday will prove sufficient to quell more than a month of violent and destabilising anti-government protests. With more than 1,250 people arrested, 400 injured and an economic cost running into billions, the gilets jaunes revolt represents a formidable challenge to the authority of the centrist president, widely seen by his critics as arrogant and out of touch. If he…

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The New Republic reports: Nearly 2,000 people were arrested during anti-government protests in France over the weekend, the fourth in a row that the Yellow Vest demonstrations have turned violent. French President Emmanuel Macron has not yet addressed his country’s growing crisis. (He is expected to do so on Monday.) But America’s president did so on Saturday, arguing that the violence is proof that no one wants to fight climate change. The Paris Agreement isn’t working out so well for…

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The Guardian reports: The UK can unilaterally stop the Brexit process, the European court of justice has said in a ruling that will boost demands for a second EU referendum. The court concluded that any EU member state can revoke an article 50 process without needing approval from every other member state, but only before its withdrawal comes into force. “The United Kingdom is free to revoke unilaterally the notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU,” the ECJ…

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The Washington Post reports: The initial plan was a Cold War classic — brutal yet simple. Two Russian agents would slip onto the property of a turncoat spy in Britain and daub his front door with a rare military-grade poison designed to produce an agonizing and untraceable death. But when the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal was botched, the mission quickly shifted. Within hours, according to British and U.S. officials who closely followed the events, a very different kind of…

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The Guardian reports: A group of progressive Europeans led by the economist and author Thomas Piketty has drawn up a bold new blueprint for a fairer Europe to address the division, disenchantment, inequality and rightwing populism sweeping the continent. The plan, crafted by more than 50 economists, historians and former politicians from half a dozen countries, includes huge levies on multinationals, millionaires and carbon emissions to generate funds to tackle the most urgent issues of the day, including poverty, migration,…

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David Ignatius writes: When Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, he didn’t know he was walking into a killing zone. He had become the prime target in a 21st-century information war — one that involved hacking, kidnapping and ultimately murder — waged by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his courtiers against dissenters. How did a battle of ideas, triggered by Khashoggi’s outspoken journalism for The Post, become so deadly? That’s the riddle at…

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The Washington Post reports: A growing number of Republicans fear that a battery of new revelations in the far-reaching Russia investigation has dramatically heightened the legal and political danger to Donald Trump’s presidency — and threatens to consume the rest of the party, as well. President Trump added to the tumult Saturday by announcing the abrupt exit of his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, whom he sees as lacking the political judgment and finesse to steer the White House…

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