It is a new week, which means it is time for a new Windows 11 build. Today, Microsoft is releasing build 22468 to the Dev channel. As usual, this is part of the rs_prerelease branch, meaning that it is not tied to any specific Windows 11 release. Features and fixes made as part of builds from this branch may or may not make it to the OS in the upcoming release.
However, though the build is from a development branch, it still does not bring any major features. The firm is still fixing a bunch of bugs in the release – interestingly more than it is in the Beta and Release Preview channel builds. Of course, the company does add that some of these fixes will make it to the stable version of the OS post its October 5 launch, which is odd.
While bug fixes are welcome, what is yet to be made available is support for running Android apps. The firm promised to bring Android apps via the Amazon Appstore to Windows 11, back during the June launch event. However, the feature was not ready in time for version 21H2 that releases next month. The firm announced this week that the Epic Games Store will also be making it to the Microsoft Store, thanks to its new store policies.
As for today, build, as mentioned earlier, there are a bunch of bug fixes to improve the usability of the OS. Additionally, the firm has also updated the expiration date to later in 2022 with today’s release, so users must update to build 22468 or newer to avoid hitting the end of October expiration date. The redesigned Paint app is also rolling out to Dev channel users.
Here are all the fixes made in build 22468:
[Taskbar]
Mitigated a rare explorer.exe initialization hang related to loading the network icon.
[Search]
Improved reliability of showing the flyout when hovering over the Search icon in the Taskbar.
If you navigate to the Search icon in the Taskbar using the keyboard, navigating away will now dismiss the recent searches flyout.
The options when right clicking recent files displayed when searching for certain apps like Word should work now when you select them.
[File Explorer]
If you right click files in OneDrive locations in File Explorer, the context menu will no longer unexpectedly dismiss when you hover over entries that open sub-menus, like “Open with.”
Double clicking a network folder to open it will no longer unexpectedly try to pin it to Quick Access instead of opening it.
[Input]
Addressed an underlying font issue that was making the right hand of the shruggie kaomoji ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ not display in the correct position, as well as apostrophes in certain cases.
[Settings]
Your preferred microphone input format setting (as configured in Sound Settings) should persist upgrade now.
Addressed an issue where certain drives were unexpectedly not displaying in Defragment and Optimize Drives.
[Other]
We’ve resolved the issue preventing MDM enrolled PCs from successfully updating to the previous build. These devices are now unblocked from updating to the latest build.
Fixed an issue that could cause unexpected flickering in certain apps such as Microsoft Edge when using multiple monitors with different refresh rates.
Mitigated a display related issue that was causing some Insiders to experience an increase in bug checks in recent flights.
Did some work to address an issue where the Windows Update icon in the Taskbar might display but suddenly disappear when you hovered over it.
Addressed a rare issue with certain devices after sleep where Wi-Fi would get stuck in an off state and trying to toggle it back on wouldn’t work.
Mitigated an issue for certain devices that could cause the system to freeze in some scenarios.
As usual, there are a bunch of known issues to be aware of. Here is the complete list:
[General]
Users updating from Builds 22000.xxx, or earlier, to newer Dev Channel builds using the latest Dev Channel ISO, may receive the following warning message:
The build you are trying to install is Flight Signed. To continue installing, enable flight signing.
If you receive this message, press the Enable button, reboot the PC, and retry the update.
Some users may experience their screen and sleep timeouts being reduced. We’re investigating the potential impact that shorter screen and sleep timeouts could have on energy consumption.
[Start]
In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.
[Taskbar]
The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.
We’re investigating reports that Notification Center will get in a state in recent builds where it doesn’t launch. If you are impacted by this, restarting explorer.exe may resolve the issue for you.
[Search]
After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.
Search panel might appear as black and not display any content below the search box.
[Widgets]
The widgets board may appear empty. To work around the issue, you can sign out and then sign back in again.
Widgets may be displayed in the wrong size on external monitors. If you encounter this, you can launch the widgets via touch or WIN + W shortcut on your actual PC display first and then launch on your secondary monitors.
Those running Dev channel builds might soon begin receiving new features that are in development, so these builds can get rough around the edges for everyday use. If you wish to switch to a more stable build, build 22000.194 ISOs are now available which can be used to perform a clean install and move to the Beta or Release Preview channels.
Windows 11 begins rolling out in a staggered fashion starting October 5. Expect the OS to receive a ton of fixes as part of the first few servicing update, including those made via the Dev channel builds.
Donald Trump
wanted his July 2018 meeting in Helsinki with his Russian counterpart,
Vladimir Putin, to evoke memories of the momentous encounters that took
place in the 1980s between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Those arms control summits had yielded the
kind of iconic imagery that Trump loved: strong, serious men meeting in
distant places to hash out the great issues of the day. What better way,
in Trump’s view, to showcase his prowess at the art of the deal?
That was the kind of show Trump wanted to put on in Helsinki. What
emerged instead was an altogether different sort of spectacle.
By the time of the meeting, I had spent just over a year serving in
the Trump administration as deputy assistant to the president and senior
director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security
Council. Like everyone else who worked in the White House, I had, by
then, learned a great deal about Trump’s idiosyncrasies. We all knew,
for instance, that Trump rarely read the detailed briefing materials his
staff prepared for him and that in meetings or calls with other
leaders, he could never stick to an agreed-on script or his cabinet
members’ recommendations. This had proved to be a major liability during
those conversations, since it often seemed to his foreign counterparts
as though Trump was hearing about the issues on the agenda for the first
time.
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When Trump was winging it, he could be persuaded of all kinds of
things. If a foreign visitor or caller was one of his favored strongmen,
Trump would always give the strongman’s views and version of events the
benefit of the doubt over those of his own advisers. During a cabinet
meeting with a visiting Hungarian delegation in May 2019, for example,
Trump cut off acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who was
trying to make a point about a critical European security issue. In
front of everyone, Trump told Shanahan that the autocratic Hungarian
prime minister, Viktor Orban, had already explained it all to him when
they had met in the Oval Office moments earlier—and that Orban knew the
issue better than Shanahan did, anyway. In Trump’s mind, the Hungarian
strongman simply had more authority than the American officials who
worked for Trump himself. The other leader was his equal, and his staff
members were not. For Trump, all pertinent information trickled down
from him, not up to him. This tendency of Trump’s was lamentable when it
played out behind closed doors, but it was inexcusable (and indeed
impossible to explain or justify) when it spilled out into public
view—which is precisely what happened during the now legendarily
disastrous press conference after Trump’s meeting with Putin in
Helsinki.
Before the press conference, Trump was pleased with how things had
gone in his one-on-one meeting with Putin. The optics in Finland’s
presidential palace were to Trump’s liking. The two men had agreed to
get U.S.-Russian arms control negotiations going again and to convene
meetings between their countries’ respective national security councils.
Trump was keen to show that he and Putin could have a productive,
normal relationship, partly to dispel the prevailing notion that there
was something perverse about his ties to the Russian president. Trump
was eager to brush away allegations that he had conspired with the
Kremlin in its interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election or
that the Russians had somehow compromised him—matters that at the time
of the meeting, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was actively
investigating.
Things went wrong as soon as the press conference began. Trump
expected public praise for meeting with Putin and tackling the nuclear
threat. But the U.S. journalists in attendance were not interested in
arms control. They wanted to know about the one-on-one meeting and what
Putin might have said or not said regarding 2016 and election
interference. Jonathan Lemire of the Associated Press asked Trump
whether he believed Putin, who had repeatedly denied that his country
had done anything to meddle in the election, or the U.S. intelligence
agencies, which had concluded the opposite. Lemire pressed Trump: “Would
you now, with the whole world watching, tell President Putin—would you
denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him to never do it
again?”
Trump balked. He really didn’t want to answer. The only way that
Trump could view Russia’s broad-based attack on the U.S. democratic
system was through the lens of his own ego and image. In my interactions
with Trump and his closest staff in the White House, it had become
clear to me that endorsing the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence
agencies would be tantamount to admitting that Trump had not won the
2016 election. The questions got right to the heart of his insecurities.
If Trump said, “Yes, the Russians interfered on my behalf,” then he
might as well have said outright, “I am illegitimate.”
So as he often did in such situations, Trump tried to divert
attention elsewhere. He went off on a tangent about a convoluted
conspiracy theory involving Ukraine and the emails of his 2016 opponent,
Hillary Clinton, and then produced a muddled, rambling answer to
Lemire’s question, the crux of which was this:
My people came to me. . . . They said they think it’s Russia. I have
President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t
see any reason why it would be. . . . But I have confidence in both
parties. . . . I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I
will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in
his denial today.
The outcome of the Helsinki press conference was entirely
predictable, which was why I and others had counseled against holding it
at all. But it was still agonizing to watch. I was sitting in front of
the podium as Trump spoke, immediately behind the U.S. national security
adviser and the secretary of state. I saw them stiffen slightly, and I
contemplated throwing a fit or faking a seizure and hurling myself
backward into the row of journalists behind me. I just wanted to end the
whole thing. Perhaps contrary to the expectations of many American
observers, even Putin was somewhat dismayed. He reveled in the national
and personal humiliation that Trump was courting, but he also knew that
Trump’s careless remarks would provoke a backlash in the United States
and thus further constrain the U.S. president’s already limited room to
maneuver on Russia policy. The modest agreements for further high-level
meetings were already out the window. As he exited the room, Putin told
his press secretary, within earshot of our interpreter, that the press
conference had been “bullshit.”
Trump’s critics immediately pounced on his bizarre conduct in
Helsinki. It was more evidence that Trump was in league with Putin and
that the Kremlin held sway over the American president. The following
year, Mueller’s final investigative report determined that during the
2016 U.S. presidential election, the Trump campaign had in fact been
willing to exploit any derogatory information about Clinton that came
its way from whatever source, including Russia. In seeking to thwart
Clinton’s bid to become the first female American president, the Trump
campaign and the Kremlin had been acting in parallel; their goals had
aligned. Mueller concluded that although this did not amount to a
criminal conspiracy, there was plenty of evidence of an extensive and
sophisticated Russian political influence operation against the United
States.
Russia and the United States were not so different—and Putin, for one, knew it.
The Mueller report also sketched the contours of a different,
arguably more pernicious kind of “Russian connection.” In some crucial
ways, Russia and the United States were not so different—and Putin, for
one, knew it. In the very early years of the post–Cold War era, many
analysts and observers had hoped that Russia would slowly but surely
converge in some ways with the United States. They predicted that once
the Soviet Union and communism had fallen away, Russia would move toward
a form of liberal democracy. By the late 1990s, it was clear that such
an outcome was not on the horizon. And in more recent years, quite the
opposite has happened: the United States has begun to move closer to
Russia, as populism, cronyism, and corruption have sapped the strength
of American democracy. This is a development that few would have
foreseen 20 years ago, but one that American leaders should be doing
everything in their power to halt and reverse.
Indeed, over time, the United States and Russia have become
subject to the same economic and social forces. Their populations have
proved equally susceptible to political manipulation. Prior to the 2016
U.S. election, Putin recognized that the United States was on a path
similar to the one that Russia took in the 1990s, when economic
dislocation and political upheaval after the collapse of the Soviet
Union had left the Russian state weak and insolvent. In the United
States, decades of fast-paced social and demographic changes and the
Great Recession of 2008–9 had weakened the country and increased its
vulnerability to subversion. Putin realized that despite the lofty
rhetoric that flowed from Washington about democratic values and liberal
norms, beneath the surface, the United States was beginning to resemble
his own country: a place where self-dealing elites had hollowed out
vital institutions and where alienated, frustrated people were
increasingly open to populist and authoritarian appeals. The fire was
already burning; all Putin had to do was pour on some gasoline.
A special relationship
When Trump was elected, Putin and the Kremlin made no attempt to
conceal their glee. They had thought that Clinton would become president
and that she would focus on criticizing Putin’s style of governance and
constraining Russia. They had steeled themselves and prepared for the
worst. Instead, they got the best possible outcome from their
perspective—a populist, nativistic president with no prior experience in
foreign policy and a huge, fragile ego. Putin recognized Trump as a
type and grasped his political predilections immediately: Trump, after
all, fit a mold that Putin himself had helped forge as the first
populist leader to take power in a major country in the twenty-first
century. Putin had blazed the trail that Trump would follow during his
four years in office.
The essence of populism is creating a direct link with “the people”
or with specific groups within a population, then offering them quick
fixes for complex problems and bypassing or eliminating intermediaries
such as political parties, parliamentary representatives, and
established institutions. Referendums, plebiscites, and executive orders
are the preferred tools of the populist leader, and Putin has used them
all over the past 20 years. When he came to power on December 31, 1999,
at the end of a decade of crisis and strife in Russia, Putin promised
to fix everything. Unlike his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Putin did not
belong to a formal political party. He was the champion of a looser,
personalized movement. After 2000, Putin turned Russian presidential
elections into national referendums on himself by making sure his rivals
were obscure (or wholly manufactured) opposition candidates. And at
every critical juncture during his time in power, Putin has adjusted
Russia’s political system to entrench himself in the Kremlin. Finally,
in 2020, he formally amended the constitution so that in theory (and
health permitting), he can run for reelection and stay in power until
2036.
Putin blazed the trail that Trump would follow during his four years in office.
All of Putin’s machinations greatly impressed Trump. He wanted to
“get along” with Russia and with Putin personally. Practically the only
thing Trump ever said to me during my time in his administration was to
ask, in reference to Putin, “Am I going to like him?” Before I could
answer, the other officials in the room got up to leave, and the
president’s attention shifted; such was life as a female adviser in the
Trump White House.
Trump took at face value rumors that Putin was the richest man in the
world and told close associates that he admired Putin for his presumed
wealth and for the way he ran Russia as if it were his own private
company. As Trump freely admitted, he wanted to do the same thing. He
saw the United States as an extension of his other private enterprises:
the Trump Organization, but with the world’s largest military at its
disposal. This was a troubling perspective for a U.S. president, and
indeed, over the course of his time in office, Trump came to more
closely resemble Putin in political practice than he resembled any of
his American predecessors.
At times, the similarities between Trump and Putin were glaringly
obvious: their shared manipulation and exploitation of the domestic
media, their appeals to their own versions of their countries’ “golden
age,” their compilation of personal lists of “national heroes” to appeal
to their voters’ nostalgia and conservatism—and their attendant
compilation of personal lists of enemies to do the same for their
voters’ darker sides. Putin put statues of Soviet-era figures back on
their pedestals and restored Soviet memorials that had been toppled
under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Trump tried to prevent the removal of
statues of Confederate leaders and the renaming of American military
bases honoring Confederate generals. The two men also shared many of the
same enemies: cosmopolitan, liberal elites; the American financier,
philanthropist, and open society promoter George Soros; and anyone
trying to expand voting rights, improve electoral systems, or cast a
harsh light on corruption in their countries’ respective executive
branches.
Trump also aped Putin’s willingness to abuse his executive power by
going after his political adversaries; Trump’s first impeachment was
provoked in part by his attempt to coerce the government of Ukraine into
smearing one of his most formidable opponents, Joe Biden, ahead of the
2020 presidential election. And Trump imported Putin’s style of
personalist rule, bypassing the professional civil servants in the
federal government—a nefarious “deep state,” in Trump’s eyes—to rely
instead on the counsel and interventions of cronies. Foreign politicians
called in chits with celebrities who had personal connections to the
president and his family, avoiding their own embassies in the process.
Lobbyists complained to whomever they could reach in the West Wing or
the Trump family circle. They were quick to set attack dogs on anyone
perceived as an obstacle and to rile up pro-Trump trolls on the
Internet, because this always seemed to work. Influence peddlers both
domestic and foreign courted the president to pursue their own
priorities; the policymaking process became, in essence, privatized.
Trump and Putin shake hands in Helsinki, Finland, July 2018
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
The event that most clearly revealed the convergence of
politics in the United States and Russia during Trump’s term was his
disorganized but deadly serious attempt to stage a self-coup and halt
the peaceful transfer of executive power after he lost the 2020 election
to Biden. Russia, after all, has a long history of coups and succession
crises, dating back to the tsarist era, including three during the past
30 years. In August 1991, hard-liners opposed to Gorbachev’s reforms
staged a brief putsch, declaring a state of emergency and placing
Gorbachev under house arrest at his vacation home. The effort fizzled,
and the coup was a debacle, but it helped bring down the Soviet Union.
Two years later, violence erupted from a bitter dispute between the
Russian parliament and Yeltsin over the respective powers of the
legislature and the president in competing drafts of a new constitution.
Yeltsin moved to dissolve parliament after it refused to confirm his
choice for prime minister. His vice president and the Speaker of the
parliament, in response, sought to impeach him. In the end, Yeltsin
invoked “extraordinary powers” and called out the Russian army to shell
the parliament building, thus settling the argument with brute force.
The next coup was a legal one and came in 2020, when Putin wanted to
amend Yeltsin’s version of the constitution to beef up his presidential
powers—and, more important, to remove the existing term limits so that
he could potentially stay on as president until 2036. As a proxy to
propose the necessary constitutional amendments, Putin tapped Valentina
Tereshkova, a loyal supporter in parliament and, as a cosmonaut and the
first woman to travel to outer space, an iconic figure in Russian
society. Putin’s means were subtler than Yeltsin’s in 1993, but his
methods were no less effective.
It would have been impossible for any close observer of recent
Russian history to not recall those episodes on January 6, when a mob
whipped up by Trump and his allies—who had spent weeks claiming that the
2020 election had been stolen from him—stormed the U.S. Capitol and
tried to stop the formal certification of the election results. The
attack on the Capitol was the culmination of four years of conspiracies
and lies that Trump and his allies had fed to his supporters on social
media platforms, in speeches, and on television. The “Big Lie” that
Trump had won the election was built on the backs of the thousands of
little lies that Trump uttered nearly every time he spoke and that were
then nurtured within the dense ecosystem of Trumpist media outlets. This
was yet one more way in which, under Trump, the United States came to
resemble Russia, where Putin has long solidified his grip on power by
manipulating the Russian media, fueling nationalist grievances, and
peddling conspiracy theories.
i alone
Trump put the United States on a path to autocracy, all the while
promising to “make America great again.” Likewise, Putin took Russia
back toward the authoritarianism of the Soviet Union under the guise of
strengthening the state and restoring the country’s global position.
This striking convergence casts U.S.-Russian relations and the
exigencies of Washington’s approach to Moscow in a new light.
Historically, U.S. policies toward Russia have been premised on the
idea that the two countries’ paths and expectations diverged at the end
of the Cold War. In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the
Soviet Union, Western analysts had initially thought that Russia might
embrace some of the international institutional arrangements that
Washington and its allies had long championed. That, of course, did not
happen. And under Putin, U.S.-Russian relations have become more
frazzled and fraught than at any point in the 1990s.
There is something confounding about the ongoing confrontation
between the two countries, which seems like an artifact from another
era. During the Cold War, the stakes of the conflict were undeniable.
The Soviet Union posed an existential threat to the United States and
its allies, and vice versa. The two superpowers faced off in an
ideological clash between capitalism and communism and a geopolitical
tussle over spheres of influence in Europe. Today, Russia maintains the
capacity to obliterate the United States, but the Soviet Union and the
communist system are gone. And even though foreign policy circles in
Washington and Moscow still view U.S.-Russian relations through the lens
of great-power competition,
the struggle for Europe is over. For the United States, China, not
Russia, poses the greatest foreign policy challenge of the twenty-first
century, along with the urgent existential threats of climate change and
global pandemics.
The ongoing confrontation between the two countries seems like an artifact from another era.
Yet a sense of confrontation and competition persists. Americans
point to a pattern of Russian aggression and provocation: Russia’s
invasion of Georgia in 2008, its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its
subsequent assaults on Ukraine’s territory and sovereignty, its
intervention in Syria in 2015, the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016
U.S. presidential election, and the frequent ransomware attacks and
email hacks attributed to Russian actors. Russians, for their part,
point to the expansion of NATO into eastern Europe and the Baltic
states, the U.S. bombing of Belgrade during the Kosovo war in 1999,
Washington’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, U.S. support for the
“color revolutions” that took place in post-Soviet states such as
Georgia and Ukraine in the first decade of this century, and the
uprisings in the Middle East during the Arab Spring. In Moscow, all of
these serve as proof that Washington is hell-bent on invasion and regime
change and also has Russia and Putin in its cross hairs.
In truth, most American policymakers simply wish that Russia would
just go away so they can refocus their attention on what really matters.
For their Russian counterparts, however, the United States still
represents the main opponent. That is because, as a populist leader,
Putin sees the United States not just as a geopolitical threat to Russia
but also as a personal threat to himself. For Putin, foreign policy and
domestic policy have fused. His attempt to retain Russia’s grip on the
independent countries that were once part of the Soviet Union and to
reassert Moscow’s influence in other global arenas is inseparable from
his effort to consolidate and expand his authority at home.
Putin sits at the apex
of a personalized and semi-privatized kleptocratic system that
straddles the Russian state and its institutions and population. He has
embedded loyalists in every important Russian institution, enterprise,
and industry. If Putin wants to retain the presidency until 2036—by
which time he will be 84 years old and will have become the
longest-serving modern Russian ruler—he will have to maintain this level
of control or even increase it, since any slippage might be perceived
as weakness. To do so, Putin has to deter or defeat any opponents,
foreign or domestic, who have the capacity to undermine his regime. His
hope is that leaders in the United States will get so bogged down with
problems at home that they will cease criticizing his personalization of
power and will eschew any efforts to transform Russia similar to those
the U.S. government carried out in the 1990s.
Putin observing Russian military exercises in the Nizhny Novgorod region, Russia, September 2021
Sputnik Photo Agency / Reuters
Putin also blurs the line between domestic and foreign policy to
distract the Russian population from the distortions and deficiencies of
his rule. On the one hand, he stresses how decadent and dissolute the
United States has become and how ill suited its leaders are to teach
anyone a lesson on how to run a country. On the other hand, he stresses
that the United States still poses a military threat and that it aims to
bring Russia to its knees. Putin’s constant refrain is that the contest
between Russia and the United States is a perpetual Darwinian struggle
and that without his leadership, Russia will not survive. Without Putin,
there is no Russia. He does not want things to get completely out of
hand and lead to war. But he also does not want the standoff to fade
away or get resolved. As the sole true champion of his country and his
people, he can never be seen to stand down or compromise when it comes
to the Americans.
Similarly, Putin must intimidate, marginalize, defuse, or defeat any
opposition to his rule. Anyone who might stand in his way must be
crushed. In this sense, the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei
Navalny and Clinton fall into the same category. In Putin’s view, if
Clinton had become U.S. president, she would have continued to hound him
and hold him to task, just as she did when she served as secretary of
state in the Obama administration, by promoting democracy and civil
society to root out corruption in Russia.
Of course, Navalny is far more dangerous to Putin than Clinton would
have been. Navalny is a Russian, not a foreigner. He is a
next-generation alternative to Putin: young, handsome, charismatic,
patriotic, and defiant. He poses a threat to Putin not only owing to
their differences but also because of a few key similarities: like
Putin, Navalny is a populist who heads a movement rather than a party,
and he has not been averse to playing on nationalist sentiments to
appeal to the same Russian voters who form Putin’s base. Navalny has
survived an audacious assassination attempt and has humiliated Putin on
numerous occasions. By skillfully using digital media and slick video
skills to highlight the excesses of the Russian leader’s kleptocratic
system, Navalny has gotten under Putin’s skin. He has forced the Kremlin
to pay attention to him. This is why Navalny is in jail and why Putin
has moved swiftly to roll up his movement, forestalling any chance that
Navalny might compete for the presidency in 2024.
the task at hand
The current U.S.-Russian relationship no longer mirrors
the Cold War challenge, even if some geopolitical contours and
antagonisms persist. The old U.S. foreign policy approach of balancing
deterrence with limited engagement is ill suited to the present task of
dealing with Putin’s insecurities. And after Trump’s disastrous
performance at Helsinki, it is also clear that the arms control summitry
that took the edge off the acute phase of the Cold War and nuclear
confrontation can provide little guidance for how to anchor the future
relationship. The primary problem for the Biden administration in dealing with Russia
is rooted in the domestic politics of the United States and Russia
rather than their foreign policies. The two countries have been heading
in the same political direction for some of the same reasons over the
last several years. They have similar political susceptibilities. The
United States will never change Putin and his threat perceptions,
because they are deeply personal. Americans will have to change
themselves to blunt the effects of Russian political interference
campaigns for the foreseeable future. Achieving that goal will require
Biden and his team to integrate their approach to Russia with their
efforts to shore up American democracy, tackle inequality and racism,
and lead the country out of a period of intense division.
The polarization of American society has become a national security
threat, acting as a barrier to the collective action necessary for
combating catastrophes and thwarting external dangers. Partisan
spectacles during the global covid-19 pandemic have undermined the
country’s international standing as a model of liberal democracy and
eroded its authority on public health. The United States’ inability to
get its act together has hindered the projection of American soft power,
or what Biden has called “the power of our example.” During my time in
the Trump administration, I watched as every peril was politicized and
turned into fodder for personal gain and partisan games.
Successive national security advisers, cabinet members, and their
professional staffs were unable to mount coherent responses or defenses
to security issues in the face of personalized, chaotic, and
opportunistic conduct at the top.
In this regard, Putin actually offers an instructive contrast. Trump
railed against a mythological American deep state, whereas Putin—who
spent decades as an intelligence operative before ascending to office—is
a product of Russia’s very real deep state. Unlike Trump, who saw the
U.S. state apparatus as his enemy and wanted to rule the country as an
outsider, Putin rules Russia as a state insider. Also unlike Trump,
Putin rarely dives into Russia’s social, class, racial, or religious
divisions to gain political traction. Instead, although he targets
individuals and social groups that enjoy little popular support, Putin
tends to promote a single, synthetic Russian culture and identity to
overcome the domestic conflicts of the past that destabilized and helped
bring down both the Russian empire and the Soviet Union. That Putin
seeks one Russia while Trump wanted many Americas during his time in
office is more than just a difference in political styles: it is a
critical data point. It highlights the fact that a successful U.S. policy
approach to Russia will rest in part on denying Putin and Russian
operatives the possibility to exploit divisions in American society.
The Biden administration must integrate its approach to Russia with its efforts to shore up American democracy.
The United States’ vulnerability to the Kremlin’s subversion has been
amplified by social media. American-made technology has magnified the
impact of once fringe ideas and subversive actors around the world and
become a tool in the hands of hostile states and criminal groups.
Extremists can network and reach audiences as never before on platforms
such as Facebook and Twitter, which are designed to attract people’s
attention and divide them into affinity groups. Putin has weaponized
this technology against the United States, taking advantage of the ways
that social media undermines social cohesion and erodes Americans’ sense
of a shared purpose. Policymakers should step up their cooperation with
the private sector in order to cast light on and deter Russian
intelligence operations and other efforts to exploit social media
platforms. They also need to figure out ways to educate the American
public about the perils of posting personal and political information
online.
Making the United States and its society more resilient and
less vulnerable to manipulation by tackling inequality, corruption, and
polarization will require innovative policies across a huge range of
issues. Perhaps the highest priority should be given to investing in
people where they reside, particularly through education. Education can
lower the barriers to opportunity and accurate information in a way that
nothing else can. It can help people recognize the difference between
fact and fiction. And it offers all people the chance not only to
develop knowledge and learn skills but also to continue to transform
themselves and their communities.
One thing U.S. leaders should avoid in seeking to foster domestic
unity is attempting to mobilize Americans around the idea of a common
enemy, such as China. Doing so risks backfiring by stirring up
xenophobic anger toward Americans and immigrants of Asian heritage and
thus fueling more divisions at home. Instead of trying to rally
Americans against China, Biden should rally them in support of the
democratic U.S. allies that Trump spurned and derided. Many of those
countries, especially in Europe, find themselves in the same political
predicament as the United States, as authoritarian leaders and powers
seek to exploit socioeconomic strife and populist proclivities among
their citizens. Biden should base a new transatlantic agenda on the
mutual fight against populism at home and authoritarianism abroad
through economic rebuilding and democratic renewal.
Most important, Biden must do everything in his power to restore
trust in government and to promote fairness, equity, and justice. As
many Americans learned during Trump’s presidency, no country, no matter
how advanced, is immune to flawed leadership, the erosion of political
checks and balances, and the degradation of its institutions. Democracy
is not self-repairing. It requires constant attention
Il “costo psichico e monetario” dei tamponi secondo il ministro per la Pubblica Amministrazione Renato Brunetta. Fa discutere un intervento dell’esponente di Forza Italia nel quale spiega “come aumentare agli opportunisti il costo della non vaccinazione”. In questa ottica il politico considera “geniale” lo strumento del Green Pass, auspicando poi ciò che sarebbe avvenuto: l’introduzione dell’obbligo sia per i lavoratori del pubblico che del privato.
Il
discorso di Brunetta rientra in una casistica sempre più diffusa,
quella delle manifestazioni di odio contro chi ha liberamente scelto di
non vaccinarsi. Un sadismo che rivela l’opacità dei nostri tempi, in cui
un atto legale (visto che l’obbligo vaccinale non è ancora una legge
dello Stato) viene fatto passare come illecito.
Di questo odio
nei confronti di chi non ha calato la testa agli obblighi del Governo ha
fatto le spese anche la vicequestore della Polizia Nunzia Alessandra Schilirò.
Il dirigente finito nell’occhio del ciclone per il suo discorso di
protesta sul palco della manifestazione di sabato 25 settembre, ha
commentato in diretta le parole di Brunetta con Fabio Duranti. Ecco l’intervento a Un Giorno Speciale.
Apprendiamo dal Il Sole 24 Ore, che è l’osservatore
romano della globalizzazione turbocapitalistica sradicata e sradicante,
qualcosa che veramente merita una pur breve considerazione. Lo
apprendiamo, invero, senza nemmeno troppo stupore. Il Sole 24 Ore ci
segnala che la Francia di Macron è pronta già a
prolungare l’uso dell’infame tessere verde, che la neo-lingua chiama
Green pass, fino all’estate 2022. Come ho provato a sottolineare nel mio
libro Golpe Globale, l’infame tessera verde sarà il nuovo lasciapassare del suddito dell’ordine terapeutico. Si tratta di un pericolosissimo strumento politico
ed ideologico, non già medico-scientifico. Parafrasando Giorgio Agamben
anche in questo caso il discorso medico-scientifico offre ottimi
pretesti per introdurre forme sempre più pervasive e sempre più
sorveglianti di controllo sociale e di controllo autoritario delle cose e
delle persone.
La lezione l’abbiamo appresa ampiamente, almeno quanti di non non vegetino nello stato del lockdown cognitivo permanente. L’infame tessera verde
non serve affatto a produrre ambiente sicuri, non genera ambienti
Covid-free. Ciò non fosse altro che per la ragione incontrovertibile e
palese che anche i muniti dell’infame tessera, in quanto benedetti dal
siero sempre laudando in saecula saeculorum, possono contagiare,
contagiarsi, finire in ospedale e in taluni casi estremi passare al
“Regno dei più”. Insomma diciamolo apertis verbis l’infame tessera verde
tutto è tranne che uno strumento medico-scientifico e
che venga presentato come tale strumento fa parte appieno del nuovo
ordine del discorso. Il nuovo ordine del discorso infatti copre e
legittima la struttura sociale, politica ed economica con un’ideologia
che prende in prestito il lessico della medicina e della scienza. Tale
lessico permette di contrabbandare interessi particolari di gruppi
legati alle classi dominanti: quello che ho chiamato nel mio libro Golpe
Globale, quello che forse Antonio Gramsci avrebbe appellato rivoluzione passiva.
La rivoluzione passiva è la rivoluzione che i gruppi dominanti fanno
per consolidare l’asimmetrico rapporto di forza vantaggioso per loro e
ora ancora più vantaggioso. I dispositivi che si
attivano per fronteggiare l’emergenza presentano quasi sempre la
spiacevole tendenza a durare, a cristallizzarsi in una nuova normalità.
Secondo l’esempio francese sembra che ciò che stia
accadendo anche per quel che concerne l’infame tessera verde, vale a
dire il nuovo strumento panottico di controllo disciplinare dei sudditi
del nuovo leviatano tecno-sanitario. Il nuovo leviatano tecno-sanitario
è la fase estrema del capitalismo della sorveglianza. Totalmente fuori
strada mi sembra che sia chi continua a ritenere che la tessera verde
sia una misura straordinaria, destinata a sparire in poco tempo. La
tessera verde durerà come molte altre misure che si sono attivate per l’emergenza
e che già da tempo paiono essersi consolidate in una nuova, stabile e
duratura normalità all’insegna del post-umano, ma come preferisco
chiamarlo del disumano.
In Australia c’è chi vuole creare un social network
gestito e finanziato dallo Stato, in antitesi ai servizi di Facebook e
Google. Sarebbe amministrato dall’azienda che oggi si occupa della
televisione pubblica.
Mentre
il Ministro Dario Franceschini annuncia in pompa magna i piani per una
“Netflix Italiana” finanziata con i fondi del Recovery Fund (che almeno in teoria dovrebbero servire a tutt’altro), in Australia c’è chi pensa ad un social network di Stato.
L’idea è quella di creare una piattaforma finanziata dai contribuenti e gestita dall’Australian Broadcasting Corporation, l’azienda pubblica che si occupa di diffusione radio-televisiva in Australia. Insomma, l’equivalente della Rai.
I motivi di una corsa al social di Stato poggiano tutti nella
campagna di lobby dei colossi americani per dissuadere la politica
australiana dall’approvare una legge che imporrebbe il pagamento di commissioni agli editori
ogni volta che una notizia viene condivisa sui social o su piattaforme
come Google News. L’indennizzo, concettualmente, è simile a quello
previsto dall’Art 11 della legge europea sul copyright — che non a caso
aveva raccolto simili obiezioni anche da noi.
Facebook —ne avevamo parlato qua—
ha lanciato un ultimatum: se ci obbligate a pagare gli editori, di
fatto mandando all’aria il nostro business model, saremmo costretti a sospendere la condivisione di news in Australia. Altro che aiuto all’editoria, sarebbe un boomerang estremamente doloroso per ogni sito d’informazione.
Anche Google ha manifestato il suo scetticismo nei confronti della
mossa salva-editori, finanziando una massiccia campagna di lobby
attraverso le sue piattaforme, a partire da Youtube. Anche in questo
caso, è una storia che ci suona molto familiare.
Così torniamo ad una possibile reazione della politica, l’idea di una
piattaforma social pubblica, operata dal Governo e senza finalità di
profitto. La proposta arriva da un think tank chiamato Responsible
Technology: “L’Australia può sopravvivere senza Google e Facebook?” si
chiede un report che chiede a gran voce un anti-Facebook di Stato.
Il
think tank sostiene che la loro proposta permetterebbe non soltanto di
liberare il Governo e l’editoria dai ricatti delle grosse piattaforme,
ma anche di dare un duro colpo alla data-crazia e a quello che i
movimenti di sinistra chiamano “capitalismo della sorveglianza”.
Le due corporation globali che esercitano un ruolo di
dominanza nei confronti delle nostre istituzioni commerciali e civiche
hanno dato prova di poter arrivare alla minaccia di ritirare
completamente i loro servizi per proteggere il loro personale tornaconto
economico
si legge sempre nel report-manifesto di Responsible Technology.
Per molti australiani Google e Facebook sono sinonimo di
internet. È quasi impossibile pensare ad un mondo senza i servizi dei
due colossi.
Non è la prima volta che qualcuno propone di creare delle alternative
pubbliche ai servizi tech e rimane da verificare se la politica abbia
la voglia e gli strumenti necessari per raccogliere la proposta del
think tank.
Cos’è il “Social Media Boycott”: il significato della protesta di Premier League, FIGC e UEFA
Dopo l’iniziativa dei club inglesi, la campagna “Social Media Boycott” ha visto l’adesione prima di UEFA e FIGC, di Hamilton e di tante altre associazioni e organi di informazione. Di cosa si tratta? È una campagna di sensibilizzazione contro tutti i tipi di offese e discriminazioni che vengono perpetrate sui social network e vedrà il boicottaggio social da parte di tante federazioni e associazioni. Partita dalle società oltre la Manica, ha trovato due alleati importanti come l’organismo che governa il calcio europeo e la federcalcio italiana.
La trasmissione è Agorà, il tema è “Green pass, ci vuole un referendum?“. La parola passa in collegamento ad Alberto Contri, che con la sua risposta rompe lo schema della narrativa imposta nei canali mainstream. Le sue parole gelano lo studio: “Io sono stato per 20 anni il presidente di Pubblicità Progresso“, dice Contri, “mi
sono occupato di etica pubblica per ben vent’anni: perché, mi chiedo,
dobbiamo procurare tutto questo sfascio se sappiamo bene che il 97% di
tutti quelli che sono morti di Covid avevano tre patologie croniche e
che solo il 2,9% non aveva altre patologie?“
“Mi chiedo: perché è permesso andare ad infilarsi come una
scatola di sardine in metro, ma non si può andare a sedersi in un bar al
chiuso? Il Green pass è un illogico sanitario“. “Poi si parla di vaccini“, continua, “ma
questi non sono vaccini. Io mi domando: perché non si danno da fare
affinché venga approvato il vaccino della Novavax che è in dirittura
d’arrivo (ma viene continuamente rallentato), però al vaccino della
Pfizer e agli altri vengono dati dei percorsi di accelerazione? Ci sono troppe domande senza risposta, per questo la gente ha paura di questi vaccini. Non del vaccino in generale, ma di questi“.
Intanto la conduttrice Luisella Costamagna prova ad interrompere il
suo ospite in collegamento scuotendo la testa in segno di
disapprovazione. Da remoto, impietrito, è presente anche il dottor
Galli, dal viso trafelato. Ma Contri non si lascia bloccare, anzi, alza
la voce: “Non si può rinunciare a delle libertà importanti per una
serie di ragioni risibili, perché risibili sono queste ragioni. lo
sapete quante morti per fumo ci sono ogni giorno? Oltre 250“. La conduttrice tenta di nuovo di interromperlo: “Basta, ora devo far rispondere Galli“, ma Contri la gela nuovamente: “Faccia
rispondere chi vuole, ma c’è poco da rispondere, perché a questo punto
io sento sempre affermazioni apodittiche e non vedo riferimento
scientifico. E approfitto di questo minuto per dire un’altra cosa:
primo, io non sono impazzito e non butto a mare una reputazione di
cinquant’anni; secondo, sarebbe opportuno che d’ora in avanti chiunque
faccia delle affermazioni – soprattutto i medici – dica chiaramente se
ha dei conflitti d’interesse con le case farmaceutiche. Per favore,
questo deve avvenire perché a quel punto capiremmo molto di più. Non si
può rovinare così la vita degli italiani“.
La conduttrice prova ad alta voce a richiedere l’intervento di Galli
provando a soverchiare il discorso di Alberto Contri. Addirittura si
scusa per le parole del suo ospite che evidentemente non si aspettava.
Contri però non arretra e ripete con forza: “Non si può rovinare la vita degli italiani per una cosa che non sta in piedi“. Anche Contri in TV non lo vedremo più.
La Matrix Europea, la verità dietro i giochi di potere – Con Francesco Amodeo
Secondo l’avvocato Mauro Sandri per demolire il discriminatorio green pass italiano, bisogna prima ottenere la sospensione e poi l’annullamento dell’equivalente strumento europeo, noto con il nome di certificato Covid digitale dell’Unione europea. Nel
Regolamento europeo istitutivo di questo certificato è messo nero su
bianco che i vaccinati possono contagiare in misura inferiore rispetto
ai non vaccinati. “Se li lascia passare questa affermazione che non ha
alcuna chiara evidenza scientifica, sarà difficile contrastare il green
pass italiano”, sostiene Mauro Sandri che ha intentato un ricorso presso
il Tribunale dell’Unione europea. Nel corso dell’intervista, con
l’avvocato, commentiamo anche la recente sentenza del Tribunale di
Milano che ha riconosciuto come illegittima la sospensione diretta di
un’operatrice da parte della cooperativa privata, sua datrice di lavoro.
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