Russia, Putin and the 2020 Election

 As the 2020 US election draws near, one of the oddest and most dysfunctional debates I'm witnessing is in regards to Russia and its alleged election interference.

Liberals and centrists insist that not only did Russia interfere with the 2016 election on behalf of Trump, the campaign and possibly Trump himself colluded with them.  They see the interference as an attack by a foreign power.  

Leftists, on the other hand, refer dismissively to "Russiagate" as just furtherance of US imperialism and a ready-made excuse for how Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election.  They see the lack of a conclusive finding in the Mueller report as proof that the affair was overblown.  Many (rightly) point to the the history of US interference in other country's elections (including Russia) as proof that this is all hypocritical posturing. 

I find the whole debate odd from a plethora of perspectives:

1. Both sides refer to "Russia" as if the Russian people have some role in this.  Russia stopped functioning as a democracy years ago so any actions like election interference would be solely the responsibility of the oligarchy and the intelligence agencies
   
2. As soon as intelligence agencies get involved, it's hard to know the truth about anything.  Supporting information gets locked behind the wall of "classified information".  So, while it's certainly plausible that Putin interfered in the election, it's hard to be sure.
3. Putin is the very last person that leftists should defend.  He's a crony capitalist who robbed his country blind and has somehow become one of the richest men in the world while on a politician's salary.  Labor rights in Russia have declined under his rule.
4. Under the Clinton administration, the US interfered in a Russian election on behalf of Boris Yeltsin while Putin backed one of Yeltsin's opponents.  Yeltsin then handed power to Putin who's wielded it ever since. So, if Putin is now interfering with US elections, you could call it karma.  Or blowback. Liberals and centrists never seem to acknowledge this.
5. Through all of this neither side makes much mention of the fact that the integrity of the entire election rests on voting machines with multiple vulnerabilities.  According to attorney and election advocate Jennifer Cohn, 80% of the country's voting machines are supplied by two private companies, meaning who owns them isn't public knowledge.  Further, Cohn has reported that in some battleground states (Florida, Illinois, Wisconsin), these voting machines are connected, via cellular modems, to the internet.  She says they could be hacked.  Maybe by a state actor.

So, here's what I make of this whole messy debate:

Leftists would be well advised to check their sneering when it comes to interference from Putin's Russia.  He's ex KGB, has a reason to hold a grudge and it doesn't take an enormous amount of money to mount a cyber war.  His interference in democratic elections in many countries has been widely documented.

Before liberals point the finger at Russia or anyone else, they should look at the actions of their own government.   The US has a long and unsavory record of interfering in elections around the world going back decades.

Both sides should worry less about Russia and focus on their own voting machines.  They've already been implicated in potentially being the deciding factors in each of the past 3 Republican victories.  When I read Jennifer Cohn's research, I find it crazy that more action isn't being taken.  Where is the Democratic Party on this issue??

It's a crazy time in world politics and particularly so in the US.  Hype and rhetoric win out over nuance and detail.  Under those conditions, it's hard for an intricate issue like this one to get due consideration.

I hope democracy wins in November.

Planetary Health Index - a better way to measure progress

 "You get what you measure".  This old business aphorism is an essential truism.  Whether your goal is personal, organizational or national, that which you measure regularly will get your focus.  

Too often, we measure the wrong things.   People measure their weight, which is a poor indicator of health. Corporations are often focused on the quarterly results, which could be detrimental to the overall health of the company. 

 As societies, we obsess over gross domestic product (GDP), which is a largely arbitrary figure, consisting of the total goods and services produced in a country during a given time period.  When the media talks about the economy, they're talking about GDP.  If the economy is doing "well", GDP is growing.  If a country is in recession, GDP is shrinking.  Since the economy is a matter covered by general mainstream media and obsessed over by business media, it's foremost in everyone's mind.  It also means that if a government is judged to have managed the economy poorly, the chances of being elected are minimal.  A large GDP also provides a country with more geopolitical clout.  So, governments obsess over the GDP, elevating its importance over almost everything else.

What's wrong with that?  After all, GDP is a measure of how well off we are, right?  Well, it's not a very good one.  GDP is an aggregate measure, meaning that if some people are extremely wealthy, it says little about the experience of most people.  It counts bad things as well as good so if there's a plane crash and a lot of money is spent on cleanup, lawsuits and funerals, that's part of the GDP.  It only counts what you pay for.  If you pay for someone to cut your lawn, fix your car, look after your kids or paint your house, you're "helping" the economy by increasing the GDP.  Most worrying, though, is that GDP says nothing about the degradation of our planet, the ultimate resource on which we all rely for life itself.  When you remove plant life that was producing oxygen, when you kill microorganisms that are the basis of life, when you pollute the air and water, when you degrade the soil, when you destroy biodiversity that sustains the web of life, it takes a long time for that to be noticed in the form of GDP.  And by time it does, it's too late.  It's not exaggeration to say that our single minded pursuit of GDP is jeopardizing the ability of the planet to sustain life.

We need a new measure, one that reflects the ability of the planet to sustain life.  It needs to be an aggregate measure, including biodiversity, climate stability, air pollution, water pollution soil health and ocean health.  We could call it the planetary health index.  It needs to be top of mind for everyone, everywhere.  Free browsers should come with bookmarks to it.  News aggregators like Google need to include links to it.  Social media sites need to promote it.  Public broadcasters should host shows about it.

This needs to trump the GDP as the top priority of governments.

Some Unsolicited Advice to Democrats from an Outside Observer

At this point, there is a very good chance that in 9 months, we will be "celebrating" Trump 2.0.  That's a sobering thought for people who believe in climate science.  Or any science.  Or intelligent discourse. Or honesty.  Or justice of any sort. Or democracy.

Do you think that's an exaggeration? According to Sarah Kendzior, expert on the authoritarian states that emerged after the dissolution of he USSR, Trump has been following a well-documented pattern of undermining democracy since he was elected.  In fact, the situation with the Trump family is eerily similar to that of Uzbekistan.

Still, Trump is historically unpopular.  Shouldn't we take comfort in the fact that polls say that almost any Democratic candidate would be 8-10 points ahead of him in an election? Maybe.  The problem is the increasingly vitriolic infighting that is going on between supporters of various Democratic candidates - particular between Bernie supporters and people I will refer to as Bernie-phobics (including those who say they will bring a barf bag to the ballot box if they have to vote for him).

If I were a Trump strategist, an obvious strategy presents itself.  When you need to re-elect a divisive, unpopular leader, you need to aggressively deploy voter suppression techniques.  Release damaging information (true or not) and make it appear that the candidates are cheating or employing unethical tactics to win.  For Republicans, the path to victory is to get Democrats engaged in a bitter battle to the point where the loser's supporters stay home on election day.

If I could address Democratic supporters, I'd say this.  First of all, stay clear of conspiracy theories.  If you are spreading rumours about other candidates that even your own candidate doesn't repeat,  you're not helping.  If you're announcing that you will never vote for candidate x, you're not helping.

For the Obama/Clinton/Biden crowd who seem to be desperate for any centrist alternative to Bernie Sanders, I have to ask: what's so bad about universal healthcare and free post-secondary education?  It seems to work pretty well for the Finns. If you're convinced that Bernie can't win, I invite you to read this insightful analysis that claims the opposite.  If you think Sanders is a radical, here's what French economist Thomas Piketty had to say on the matter:

 I think, first, that [Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth] Warren and Sanders are not radicals," said Piketty in response to one interviewer's question. "They are moderate social democrats by European standards....

Like many other economists, Piketty insists that, as happened in Sweden, sharing wealth more broadly will make the U.S. economy stronger, not weaker, and richer overall.

And for those of you who consider Michael Bloomberg some sort of saviour who can stand up to Trump, I invite you to look at his own, very troubling past, particularly when it comes to racial issues.  No, he's not Trump but he's not great either.

For Bernie supporters, I would say this.  Yes, this is a historic chance to finally get a progressive in the White House and it will be a bitter blow if it doesn't happen.  Still, there is no basis for the claim that Biden, Klobuchar, or even Bloomberg is "worse than Trump".  Publicly declaring "Bernie or bust" is divisive and will encourage centrists to stay home or worse, defect to Trump.  Your best play is to support Bernie but stay positive.

To everyone, I would say support your candidate.  Keep it clean and remember that the ultimate goal in November is to have  president whose name doesn't rhyme with "dump". 

Good luck to the US and to the world.