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How and Why Lofty Ideologies Cohabit With Rampant Corruption

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china president putin russiaHow and why lofty ideologies cohabit with rampant corruption

Casual observers of Russian politics could be forgiven for feeling confused. On the one hand Vladimir Putin, the president, portrays himself as the helmsman of a hallowed civilisation and a moral bulwark against the metrosexual West; on the other, his cronies seem constantly to be pillaging the country. The news seems to divide between ideological (and military) grandstanding and allegations of graft.

Russia's government is not unique in combining lofty rhetoric with greasy palms. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, wants to restore the country's lost Ottoman grandeur and burnish public morality. He has restricted the sale of alcohol and tried to ban adultery. Yet confronted with evidence of ministers on the take, he purged the police and prosecutors instead of the government: not an obviously moral response.

China's Communist bosses rely on Maoist notions of ethical leadership and, implicitly, on a Confucian mandate supposedly bestowed by heaven for their righteousness. They pose as guarantors of order and stability--while their families amass Croesan wealth. A recent anti-corruption drive is snaring some big names without seriously disrupting the cash-flow. As Minxin Pei of Claremont McKenna College in California puts it, Chinese leaders manage to "move effortlessly between universes of extreme moralism and extreme corruption".

Every country has its charlatans and rogues, be they light-fingered British MPs or pork-happy American congressmen. Many, whether Latin American strongmen or African kleptocrats, claim to serve their people. Hardly any admit to thieving. But there is something especially grating about leaders who push moralistic causes, thus inviting judgment of their own behaviour, while overseeing scams. Casual observers may wonder why citizens put up with the hypocrisy--and how their rulers look at themselves in the mirror.

For all the difference between these regimes, there are some common answers. They cast light on the uses of ideology and the corrosive effects of power.

Fingers in the honey

Each of these governments tries to conceal its swindles. Tame media in Turkey portray corruption allegations as the work of coup-plotters and foreign saboteurs. (In fact Mr Erdogan's internal enemies are real--but so is the pilfering.) China punishes foreign newspapers for corruption scoops. Blowing the whistle on Russian officials can be dangerous, even fatal. In each of these countries, the citizens are mostly undeceived--and unsurprised. As in other put-upon nations, nest-feathering is widely regarded as inevitable, whatever the government's ideological stripe. The real question is whether the corruptioneers improve their people's living standards, too--as, for all their faults, these all have.

Elif Shafak, an eminent Turkish novelist, says that Turks "are so used to seeing officials who are both corrupt and lazy that those who embezzle from public funds, or misuse their authority to further their interests, but at the same time keep working are seen as a better alternative." She cites an apposite Turkish proverb: "He who holds the honey is bound to lick his fingers." Many Chinese are willing to forgive bigwigs' sins in exchange for prosperity. After the chaos of the 1990s many Russians have, until recently, seen economic stability as reason enough to back Mr Putin.

In a way, Mr Putin's messianic Russian nationalism, Mr Erdogan's Islamism and Chinese leaders' exhortations of sacrifice take the edge off the sleaze. It is degrading to live in a venal polity, but the idea of a special national mission or destiny can be consoling. Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a think-tank, says "Russians have been seduced to forget, temporarily, about Putin's corruption by the offer of compensation for their complexes and lost dreams"--in particular by the annexation of Crimea, a key part of Mr Putin's bid to restore Russian greatness.

Mr Erdogan's critics think his religious rhetoric serves a similar purpose. Analysts of Chinese politics note that its top brass sometimes undertake public shows of humility (visiting peasant hovels and so on) in deference to old notions of virtuous leadership. Thus, while they appear contradictory, moralising ideologies can provide useful cover for corruption.

There are overlaps, too, in the way officials rationalise their hypocrisy. The economies of China, Russia and Turkey have all, until recently, grown at an impressive lick; in each country, some see backhanders less as wrongdoing than as commissions merited for services to the nation. What looks like larceny is really a kind of justice. As Mr Pei, the China-watcher, notes, Chinese officials often work hard for low pay. Encountering the new rich, they think, "I'm smarter than you are, I work harder than you, and yet you're much wealthier than I am." Recompense is duly extracted.

And, in all of these countries, bribery is too widespread to be regarded by its beneficiaries as seriously unethical. Mr Pei describes a "buffet" dynamic among bureaucrats, whereby "if you restrain yourself, you won't get anything to eat." In such circumstances corruption can become a perverse obligation. Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, says that in China "if you don't take bribes, people will think you're crazy and you won't get promoted." In both China and Russia, incorruptible officials seem untrustworthy to their flexible peers: traitors to the caste.

Abdullah Bozkurt of Today's Zama n, an English-language newspaper in Turkey, imputes a warped sense of duty to some crooked Islamist politicians, too. They consider themselves a boon to Muslims in Turkey and beyond, he explains. Purloining the funds to keep themselves afloat is therefore defensible.

A common attitude to the state underpins both the corruption and the propagation of ideology. As Ms Shafak summarises, "the state is privileged, all-powerful and yet paradoxically safeguarded as if it were a fragile entity in need of protection." Between it and its citizens a gulf looms; conversely, officials elide its interests with their own. Elena Panfilova, of the Russian office of Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, explains that officials in Russia see themselves as servants of the state, rather than servants of the public. Since the state permits corruption, they do not regard it as an offence. And it is perfectly compatible with patriotism.

A bifocal view of their countries is also essential for the crooks. Russia is a light unto the nations; Turkey a jewel of Sunni Islam; China the world's once and future supremo--but only in theory. The earthly manifestations of these ideals are, in their eyes, a mess, populated by folk at whom they privately sneer. The flip side of lofty ideology is contempt, as lucrative for the rulers as it is insulting to the ruled.

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This Is Why America Keeps Getting More Conservative

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This post originally appeared at The Atlantic.

Even with the president’s approval rating showing signs of life and the Republicans busily bashing themselves over the head — “one is a practicing polygamist and he’s not even the Mormon,” retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently quipped about her party’s two frontrunners — America continues to track right, according to polling data released by the Gallup Organization last week.

Americans at this political moment are significantly more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal: Conservatives outnumber liberals by nearly two to one. Forty percent identify as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 21 percent liberal.

conservative ideology united states

The map above charts the ideological divide across America’s states. There are four states where conservatives make up more than half the population: Mississippi, Utah, Wyoming, and Alabama. Conservatives make up more than 40 percent in 20 more states. Liberals now outnumber conservatives in just one state, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia.

Last March, I took an in-depth look at the factors that might be associated with America’s increasingly conservative ideological cast; I update that analysis here with Gallup’s year-end data. The ongoing economic crisis only appears to have deepened conservatism's hold. America is becoming a more conservative nation, at least at the state level. 

My MPI colleague Charlotta Mellander ran a series of correlations on a range of political, economic, demographic and other factors. The associations we found, I hasten to add, are just that — associations; correlation does not show causation. Nonetheless, they reflect the deep cleavages of income, education, and class that divide America.

As before, conservative states are considerably more religious than liberal-leaning states. The correlation between conservative political affiliation and religion (the share of state population for which religion is an important part of daily life) has grown stronger, increasing from .63 to .70.

The correlation between religion and the increase in conservatism over the past year is also considerable. As American states become more religious, they also become more conservative.

Conservative states are also less educated than liberal ones. The correlation between conservative affiliation and the  percent of adults who are college graduates is also substantially higher than before (-.76 vs. -.53), as is the correlation between human capital and the increase in conservatism (-.79).

States with more conservatives are less diverse. Conservative political affiliation is highly negatively correlated with the percent of the population that are immigrants (–.56), or gay and lesbian ( -.60). There is no correlation to race or ethnicity, however, whether measured as percent white, percent black, or percent Hispanic.

Class continues to play a substantial role. Conservative political affiliation is strongly positively correlated with the percentage of a state's workforce in blue-collar occupations (.73), and highly negatively correlated with the proportion of the workforce engaged in knowledge-based professional and creative work (-.61). Both are also associated with the tilt toward conservatism in the past year. 

States with more conservatives are considerably less affluent than those with more liberals. Conservative political affiliation is highly negatively correlated with state income levels (-.73) and even more so with average hourly earnings (- .77).  This is in line with the findings of  Andrew Gelman's  Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State, which finds that while rich voters favor Republicans, rich states favor Democrats. 

That said, conservatives across America appear to be split along class and income lines when it comes to the issue of whether government should provide help for the poor. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, more than half (57 percent) of lower-income Republicans (those with family incomes of less than $30,000) said that government does not do enough for the poor, while less than one in five (18 percent) said it does too much. Richer Republicans (those with incomes of $75,000 or more), perhaps not surprisingly, overwhelmingly think government does too much.

The ongoing economic crisis only appears to have deepened America's conservative drift—a trend which is most pronounced in its least well-off, least educated, most blue collar, most economically hard-hit states. 

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Libertarianism Is A Fundamentally Flawed Ideology

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leviathan hobbes

Two recent studies in evolutionary biology (discussed in Scientific American) concern the problem of why not all individuals cheat: “A key problem when trying to understand the evolution of cooperation has been the issue of cheaters.”

In other words: cheating helps the cheater, so why doesn’t everyone cheat?

One finding (“Generalized Reciprocity”) has been that to the extent that individuals in a culture trust and help strangers, the culture itself thrives, but that to the opposite extent, in which it’s common to take from strangers without giving proportionally in return, the culture suffers and declines.

This means that cultures in which cheating is prevalent decline; that’s one reason not everyone cheats – the more cheating there is, the weaker the culture is.

Another finding is that “cooperation could be a viable evolutionary strategy when individuals within the group collectively punish cheaters who don’t pull their weight.”

In other words: The only type of culture that can thrive is one in which there is prevalent trust, and in which there is also prevalent contempt and rejection of cheaters.

But what happens when the person who is held in contempt is not the cheater, but the cheater is instead more often admired because cheaters (by definition) avoid the barrier, to their personal success, of adhering to the rules of decency and fairness – the rules against frauds and against all other types of theft from others? It’s by avoiding those barriers that cheaters win.

When success itself is admired, regardless of how it is won, then the result becomes what the philosopher Thomas Hobbes called “the state of nature,” in which there is “continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

This is what results when everyone places success above fairness or any other ethical objective. Some people call this “state of nature” “libertarianism,” or “anarchy,” and they think that this might-makes-right society is the ideal form of “government” (no government at all), towards which the world should strive.

However, the recent studies in evolutionary biology show that there is actually evolutionary benefit in “the state of nature” only if the culture happens to be one of trust of strangers, and of contempt for cheaters. But how can there continue to exist trust of strangers, and contempt for cheaters, in any “state of nature”?

It’s too dangerous to trust strangers in such a society. Furthermore, contempt for cheaters imposes ethical rules that remove the state of nature, and that replace it with the imposed ethical order.

This is the problem that libertarian believers must wrestle with, if they are at all serious, instead of just ideological kooks.

So, rejecting government solves nothing. It’s like rejecting food: The real issue isn’t to reject food, it’s to eat healthful food, and to avoid poisonous food. Similarly, the real issue isn’t to reject government, it’s to support good government, and to oppose bad government.

And so, too, the issue isn’t whether government should be “small,” or “big,” but rather that it should be the best size to serve the public, who must bear its costs.

In other words: Libertarianism entirely avoids the real question, which is: What type of government is good? As an “ideology,” libertarianism doesn’t even make it to first base: it’s fake, from the get-go. That’s why libertarianism fails.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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Everyone Needs To Accept The Facts About Climate Change

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Kiribati Climate Change Flood

Unfortunately, climate change has become a political issue that is too often distilled down and divided into ideological camps.

It is used to rally troops and discredit opposing parties, to further political agendas.

It is a political hand grenade that is thrown with reckless abandon to the point that the science itself is questioned.

When David Biello asked last week “what will it take to solve climate change?”, my initial reaction was that we should start by agreeing on what we know about climate change – facts as determined by scientists around the world.

After that, we can have rational discussions and spirited debates about how to most effectively curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Because we actually know a lot about climate change! We know that the climate warms and cools over time. We know that atmospheric carbon dioxide traps heat in the form of radiation from the sun.

We know that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen as mankind has been burning fossil resources and destroying carbon sinks (forests!). We know that the climate is changing, and that not all of the outcomes will be favorable.

But those with an interest in stalling progress on climate change have been successful by injecting uncertainty into the discussion to the point where you’re arguing these very facts over Thanksgiving dinner.

A new video by scientists Peter C. Frumhoff, an ecologist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Kerry Emanuel, a climate and hurricane researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a step in the right direction.

Frumhoff and Emanuel are from different political parties: Frumhoff is a liberal Democrat and Emanuel is currently an independent (formerly a Republican). They both agree on the science of climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

My point is: climate change is larger than any political party, any political agenda. Let’s agree on the facts so we can move on to finding solutions. Reclaim Thanksgiving dinner.

Hat tip to Andy Revkin over at Dot Earth.

SEE ALSO: Global Warming Is Changing Life In the US

SEE ALSO: 16 Irrefutable Signs That Climate Change Is Real

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Why The Republican Party Needs A Huge Makeover

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Mitt Romney

As 2013 unfolds, Republicans are still recovering from the results of last November’s election.

The outcome, worse than even most GOP pessimists had predicted, created a shockwave in the party that is still reverberating.

This condition isn’t unusual for the party out of power.

The Democrats experienced similar time in the desert during George W. Bush’s presidency.

They found cohesion in the form of Barack Obama and have used his time in office to build an enviable infrastructure and a strategy for going forward.

Today the GOP is like the Detroit auto industry of the mid-1980s. It produces ugly cars, poorly designed and built. Worse, only legacy buyers want them. When I was a kid, my family had a 1985 Oldsmobile Firenza. It was the typically hideous metallic powder-blue box on wheels.

One day it stopped running. The mechanic said there was a crack in the engine block — GM’s engines of that era were notorious for such complete structural failures, he said.

We Republicans need to go back to the drawing board and come up with new engineering and a new production line. As much as we like to look back on Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” from 1984, that country doesn’t exist anymore.

The imagery — an old man raising the American flag, a straight white couple getting married in a church, a farmer on his tractor — is still valid. But those kinds of tableaux aren’t enough for Republicans to tell our story in the 21st century.

The hagiography with which we discuss Reagan is comforting, as it allows us to look back on a time when everything seemed to make sense. The Soviets were bad, church was good, the American way of life was heroic. We finally felt good about ourselves again. Reagan was a great president, but a key ingredient in his success was that he that brought his vision — his positive vision — to an electorate desperately looking for one.

Republicans have become too negative and exclusive. In too many cases we’re trying too hard to hold onto something that now exists only in our memories and YouTube videos.

In a recent discussion with a socially conservative colleague, I posited that the real role of political parties is, primarily, to elect candidates. He took issue with this, countering that parties are meant to espouse a specific ideology.

A cohesive ideology is necessary and helpful for winning an election. However, if those beliefs don’t attract voters — and that party refuses to change its ways — it might as well be a church — the kind in which the leaders are content to see their membership dwindle rather than adapt to the times.

Our problem is not how we “frame” our arguments. It’s that our arguments don’t fit the views of the national electorate: A majority of Americans found our solutions uncompelling. All the data mining, social media interaction and television advertising won’t do a bit of good if our messages and messengers aren’t powerful and believable.

If we don’t give voters a proactive, positive and hopeful alternative to the current state of affairs, there’s no reason for them to give us a first look, let alone a second. The way we discuss issues — from abortion to immigration — are so negative that women, minorities and younger voters want little, if anything, to do with us.

There is hope, though. Although Mitt Romney lost nearly all of the battleground states last year, the GOP currently holds governorships in 10 of them.

Wisconsin’s Scott Walker survived a recall effort led by well-funded labor interests. Susana Martinez in New Mexico and Brian Sandoval in Nevada have shown that a Republican can win in states with large and growing Latino populations.

These governors, and leaders in blue states like Chris Christie of New Jersey, have the crossover appeal Republicans need. Nationally, the GOP must do two things: First we must understand how these governors built the coalitions that helped them win and, secondly, work with them to create new opportunities to draw voters into the fold for their own re-elections in 2013, ’14, and for 2016.

The party enjoys a deep bench of potential national leaders. We need to marry their success with a larger national effort to develop a value proposition for independent voters, and we need to build on the honesty of governors like Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal.

The alternative to this fundamental shift in how we communicate, to whom we speak and how we run campaigns is to simply wait for systemic failure, as is the case in states like California. That isn’t a strategy. It’s cynicism. And it is the last thing the party or the country needs more of.

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The Republican Party Needs To Reinvent Itself Completely

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GOP Republicans Tea Party RNCIt’s worth repeating that all political parties are coalitions of people with diverse interests and priorities.

What holds them together is one thing and one thing only – a desire to achieve political power so as to implement their agenda.

Among the problems with coalition politics is a continual tension between ideologues for whom all compromise is heresy and pragmatists who simply want to win. 

Occasionally, a party may win with a no-compromise position – the Republican Party came into existence and gained victory precisely because it took a no-compromise position on slavery.

RELATED:  How to Reboot the GOP with a New Winning Strategy

On issues of less weight than slavery, however, a no-compromise position is neither desirable nor tenable.

Even when ideologues are successful and get all they want, the victory is never permanent. In the case of slavery, racial segregation continued for a century after the war and at its worst was little different for African Americans than slavery had been.

One problem that parties must continually wrestle with is that even when members of its coalition may agree on a particular goal they may differ sharply on their rationale and their intensity of support. This is important when and if a policy becomes an item on the legislative agenda.

Certain options that may seem very similar superficially may have radically different impacts depending on the region, industry or population characteristic. It is the job of lobbyists to exploit these disparate impacts for the benefit of their clients, who may include state and local governments or interest groups such as the AARP as well as corporations.

In recent years, Republicans have had particular difficulty managing their coalition. Since the rise of the Tea Party in 2009 and the election of Barack Obama, our first black president, purists and ideologues have held more than the usual sway.

Through the 2010 elections, Republicans benefitted because ideologues are more likely to turn out in congressional and elections for state legislatures. This allowed the GOP to retake the House of Representatives and, perhaps more importantly, gain control of many legislatures that redrew congressional district lines following the 2010 census. They gerrymandered the process to the enormous benefit of Republicans, virtually assuring them of holding the House through 2020.

The problem is that these same ideologues dominated the primaries for the Republican presidential nomination. They imposed severe litmus tests on all the candidates and repeatedly switched their allegiance depending on which candidate appeared purer, more principled, more conservative.

The ultimate winner, Mitt Romney, was so saddled with extreme positions that he had been forced to adopt to gain the nomination that he couldn’t win the general election despite having considerably more money on his side. Of particular difficulty for him were comments he made at a private fund raiser, secretly recorded, in which he appeared to disparage 47 percent of the population for being dependent on government handouts.

There’s not a single Republican I know of who doesn’t believe in the substantive truth of what Romney said. But at the same time, it is obvious that it was something that never should have been made public. Some ideas critical to political coalitions must stay below the radar, be implied rather exposed to outsiders, alluded to with seemingly innocuous code words that only resonate with members of the coalition or perhaps only to certain ideologues.

Presently, the GOP is debating how to reshape itself in order to win. A number of high-profile Republicans have complained that too many of its candidates in 2012 made stupid comments in public about rape and other issues that hurt the party up and down the ticket. The problem, as with Romney’s 47 percent comment, is that there is little disagreement among Republicans substantively – the vast bulk opposes abortion even in cases of rape – but they know that a majority of Americans disagree with their position.

Some within the party want it to change its policy positions on certain issues such as abortion, the environment, taxes and others, but most simply want Republicans to be smarter about picking candidates who can finesse the issues, keep the coalition together and not scare off winnable moderates and independents. The problem is that many ideologues interpret this as a rebuke to their position, which threatens party unity.

Legislatively, Republicans have an immediate problem in dealing with immigration reform, a top priority for Obama and the Democratic Party. Republicans know that the large and fast-growing Latino population decisively rejected them in the last election in large part because of its opposition to any measure that would allow illegal aliens to gain either permanent resident status or citizenship. Many members of the Republican base will accept nothing less than deportation of all illegal aliens, the bulk of which are Latino.

RELATED:  GOP Plan B: Embrace the Non-White American Future

Corporate interests and the GOP’s libertarian wing, however, favor more immigration. Pragmatists simply want to get this divisive issue behind them so that Republicans can reach out to Latinos or at least stop alienating them. But some pragmatists also believe that any law that increases the pool of Latino voters represents political suicide for the GOP.

At the same time, there is already debate among Republicans about who can represent them in 2016 and have a realistic chance of winning. Some think neither party can hold the White House for more than 8 years at a time, making 2016 a Republican year regardless of who the nominee is. Others think 2016 may be a year like 1988 when that general rule didn’t hold.

The emerging favorite of pragmatists is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has earned the ire of right wing Republicans on several issues, such as federal aid to repair damage from hurricane Sandy. Assuming that the ideologues divide their votes among multiple candidates, as they did in 2012, it may be possible for him to capture the nomination with a plurality of the primary vote without digging himself into a hole as Romney did.

The model, again, is 1988, when George H.W. Bush, who had long been associated with the moderate wing of the GOP, was able to capture the nomination because conservatives divided their support among Jack Kemp, Pete Dupont, Pat Robertson and others.

The Republican party is down but certainly not out. But the GOP must prove that it is more than a coalition of anti-abortion absolutists, anti-tax fanatics, libertarians who want to decimate government, gun nuts and other extremists. Either that or it must find a leader with more political skill than any Republican presently on the national stage.

More from The Fiscal Times:

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America Is More Polarized Than Ever — And It's Hurting The Country

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tea party washington dc republicans

WASHINGTON (AP) — Political polarization in America has broken out of the voting booth.

A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds Americans are divided by ideology and partisanship not only when they cast ballots, but also in choosing where to live, where to get their news and with whom to associate.

And peaceful coexistence is increasingly difficult.

According to the poll, the share of Americans who hold across-the-board conservative or liberal views has doubled in the last decade, from 10 percent in 2004 to 21 percent today. Only 39 percent of Americans have an even mix of liberal and conservative positions, down from 49 percent 10 years ago.

The numbers of ideological purists are larger among the politically engaged than the general public, suggesting the ideological stalemates that have become more common in Washington and statehouses around the country are likely to continue. A third of those who say they regularly vote in primaries have all-or-nothing ideological views, as do 41 percent who say they have donated money to a campaign.

And among partisans, ideological purity is now the standard. Majorities in both parties hold either uniformly liberal (on the Democratic side) or conservative (among the GOP) views.

The shift toward ideological purity has been more visible among Republicans due to the popularity of the tea party, seen most recently this week in House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's loss to a tea party-based challenger in Virginia, but the survey found it's happening in nearly equal measure among Democrats.

Those differences in visibility are partly due to the Democratic hold on the White House, according to Pew Research Center Vice President Michael Dimock.

"Levels of alarm about the direction of the nation, and about the 'threat' the other party poses to the country, are substantially higher on the right than on the left right now, and at least in part this reflects the fact that Barack Obama is in the White House," Dimock said.

But Democrats have expressed their share of distrust in the past, he noted in an email. "Democrats felt pretty passionately about George W. Bush and the GOP in his second term," he said.

The survey used a battery of 10 questions on issues such as regulation of business, use of the military, the environment and immigration to assess ideological leanings. Across nine of the 10 issues tested, the views of Democrats and Republicans have grown further apart since 1994.

These ideological shifts have been accompanied by increasing animosity across party lines, and those on opposite sides of the partisan and ideological divide are now more apt to separate themselves in their personal lives as well.

About 8 in 10 Democrats say they have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party, and for 82 percent of Republicans, the feeling is mutual. This cross-party dislike has increased by double digits on both sides.

Among those with ideologically consistent views in each party, many go further than dislike and say they see the other side as a threat to the nation's well-being. Republicans with consistently conservative views are more apt than Democrats with a strictly liberal view to see the opposite party as a threat, however, 66 percent to 50 percent.Amid all this rancor, partisans and those with clear ideological leanings are more often choosing to associate only with those who hold views similar to their own. Two-thirds of consistent conservatives and half of consistent liberals say most of their close friends share their political views. Three in 10 on each side of the divide say it's important to them to live in a place where most people share their political views.

And one-quarter of consistent liberals say they'd be unhappy if an immediate family member married a Republican, 30 percent of consistent conservatives say the same about a union with a Democrat.

The findings are based on a telephone survey of 10,013 randomly selected adults nationwide, conducted between Jan. 23 and March 16. Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 1.1 percentage points.

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Online:

Pew Research Center: http://www.pewresearch.org

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This Chart Explains Every Culture In The World

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Cultures are complicated, and anyone attempting to explain or group them will struggle to avoid giving offense.

Political scientists Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan and Christian Welzel of Luephana University in Germany put forth their best effort by analyzing data and plotting countries on a "culture map." Their system stems from the World Values Survey (WVS), the largest "non-commercial, cross-national, time series investigation of human beliefs and values ever executed," which dates to 1981 and includes nearly 400,000 respondents from 100 countries.

The latest chart, published several years ago, includes data from surveys conducted from 1995 to 1999, 2000 to 2004, and 2005 to 2009.

Check it out:

Inglehart World Values Map

So what's going on in this chart?

On the y-axis, traditional values emphasize the importance of religion, parent-child relationships, and authority, according to WVS. People who embrace these tend to reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia, and suicide. These societies usually exhibit high levels of nationalism and national pride, too. In the U.S., these values would likely align more with conservative ideologies. Oppositely, secular-rational values represent the other extreme and tend to relate to liberal ways of thinking.

On the x-axis, survival values revere economic and physical security and safety and are linked to low levels of trust and tolerance. On the other side, self-expression values give high priority to protecting the environment, promoting gender equality, and tolerating foreigners and gays and lesbians.

The chart also groups nearby countries with shared characteristics such as "Islamic" or "English Speaking," showing how much things like language and religion shape culture.

Here's how WVS explains the main trends:

A somewhat simplified analysis is that following an increase in standards of living, and a transit from development country via industrialization to post-industrial knowledge society, a country tends to move diagonally in the direction from lower-left corner (poor) to upper-right corner (rich), indicating a transit in both dimensions.

However, the attitudes among the population are also highly correlated with the philosophical, political and religious ideas that have been dominating in the country. Secular-rational values and materialism were formulated by philosophers and the left-wing politics side in the French revolution, and can consequently be observed especially in countries with a long history of social democratic or socialistic policy, and in countries where a large portion of the population have studied philosophy and science at universities. Survival values are characteristic for eastern-world countries and self-expression values for western-world countries. In a liberal post-industrial economy, an increasing share of the population has grown up taking survival and freedom of thought for granted, resulting in that self-expression is highly valued.

For example, Morocco, Jordan, and Bangladesh (all Islamic countries) score high in traditional and survival values, while the U.S., Canada, and Ireland (all English-speaking countries) score high in traditional and self-expression values.

Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Moldova (all Orthodox countries) score high in secular-rational and survival values, while Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland (all protestant Europe countries) score high in secular-rational and self-expression values.

In their 2005 book "Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy," Inglehart and Welzel argue that "socioeconomic development tends to bring predictable changes in people's worldviews." Notably, these developments tend to democratize countries, and modernization — "a syndrome of social changes linked to industrialization," as the duo define in a 2005 Foreign Policy article — kick-starts the process.

For example, Inglehart and Welzel link industrialization with a move from traditional to secular-rational values, leading to separation of religion and authority. Next the post-industrial phase of modernization produces a shift from survival to self-expression values, which brings greater freedom from authority.

But cultural and historical traditions, like Protestantism or communism, matter, too. They "reflect an interaction between driving forces of modernization and the retarding influence of tradition," Inglehart and Welzel write in their book.

WVS is currently preparing data from wave six with surveys conducted from 2010 to 2014.

Another attempt to explain world cultures, the Lewis Model based on observations from linguist Richard Lewis, charts countries in terms of "reactive," "linear-active," and "multi-active" tendencies. 

SEE ALSO: How Different Cultures Understand Time

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How and Why Lofty Ideologies Cohabit With Rampant Corruption

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china president putin russiaHow and why lofty ideologies cohabit with rampant corruption

Casual observers of Russian politics could be forgiven for feeling confused. On the one hand Vladimir Putin, the president, portrays himself as the helmsman of a hallowed civilisation and a moral bulwark against the metrosexual West; on the other, his cronies seem constantly to be pillaging the country. The news seems to divide between ideological (and military) grandstanding and allegations of graft.

Russia's government is not unique in combining lofty rhetoric with greasy palms. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, wants to restore the country's lost Ottoman grandeur and burnish public morality. He has restricted the sale of alcohol and tried to ban adultery. Yet confronted with evidence of ministers on the take, he purged the police and prosecutors instead of the government: not an obviously moral response.

China's Communist bosses rely on Maoist notions of ethical leadership and, implicitly, on a Confucian mandate supposedly bestowed by heaven for their righteousness. They pose as guarantors of order and stability--while their families amass Croesan wealth. A recent anti-corruption drive is snaring some big names without seriously disrupting the cash-flow. As Minxin Pei of Claremont McKenna College in California puts it, Chinese leaders manage to "move effortlessly between universes of extreme moralism and extreme corruption".

Every country has its charlatans and rogues, be they light-fingered British MPs or pork-happy American congressmen. Many, whether Latin American strongmen or African kleptocrats, claim to serve their people. Hardly any admit to thieving. But there is something especially grating about leaders who push moralistic causes, thus inviting judgment of their own behaviour, while overseeing scams. Casual observers may wonder why citizens put up with the hypocrisy--and how their rulers look at themselves in the mirror.

For all the difference between these regimes, there are some common answers. They cast light on the uses of ideology and the corrosive effects of power.

Fingers in the honey

Each of these governments tries to conceal its swindles. Tame media in Turkey portray corruption allegations as the work of coup-plotters and foreign saboteurs. (In fact Mr Erdogan's internal enemies are real--but so is the pilfering.) China punishes foreign newspapers for corruption scoops. Blowing the whistle on Russian officials can be dangerous, even fatal. In each of these countries, the citizens are mostly undeceived--and unsurprised. As in other put-upon nations, nest-feathering is widely regarded as inevitable, whatever the government's ideological stripe. The real question is whether the corruptioneers improve their people's living standards, too--as, for all their faults, these all have.

Elif Shafak, an eminent Turkish novelist, says that Turks "are so used to seeing officials who are both corrupt and lazy that those who embezzle from public funds, or misuse their authority to further their interests, but at the same time keep working are seen as a better alternative." She cites an apposite Turkish proverb: "He who holds the honey is bound to lick his fingers." Many Chinese are willing to forgive bigwigs' sins in exchange for prosperity. After the chaos of the 1990s many Russians have, until recently, seen economic stability as reason enough to back Mr Putin.

In a way, Mr Putin's messianic Russian nationalism, Mr Erdogan's Islamism and Chinese leaders' exhortations of sacrifice take the edge off the sleaze. It is degrading to live in a venal polity, but the idea of a special national mission or destiny can be consoling. Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a think-tank, says "Russians have been seduced to forget, temporarily, about Putin's corruption by the offer of compensation for their complexes and lost dreams"--in particular by the annexation of Crimea, a key part of Mr Putin's bid to restore Russian greatness.

Mr Erdogan's critics think his religious rhetoric serves a similar purpose. Analysts of Chinese politics note that its top brass sometimes undertake public shows of humility (visiting peasant hovels and so on) in deference to old notions of virtuous leadership. Thus, while they appear contradictory, moralising ideologies can provide useful cover for corruption.

There are overlaps, too, in the way officials rationalise their hypocrisy. The economies of China, Russia and Turkey have all, until recently, grown at an impressive lick; in each country, some see backhanders less as wrongdoing than as commissions merited for services to the nation. What looks like larceny is really a kind of justice. As Mr Pei, the China-watcher, notes, Chinese officials often work hard for low pay. Encountering the new rich, they think, "I'm smarter than you are, I work harder than you, and yet you're much wealthier than I am." Recompense is duly extracted.

And, in all of these countries, bribery is too widespread to be regarded by its beneficiaries as seriously unethical. Mr Pei describes a "buffet" dynamic among bureaucrats, whereby "if you restrain yourself, you won't get anything to eat." In such circumstances corruption can become a perverse obligation. Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, says that in China "if you don't take bribes, people will think you're crazy and you won't get promoted." In both China and Russia, incorruptible officials seem untrustworthy to their flexible peers: traitors to the caste.

Abdullah Bozkurt of Today's Zama n, an English-language newspaper in Turkey, imputes a warped sense of duty to some crooked Islamist politicians, too. They consider themselves a boon to Muslims in Turkey and beyond, he explains. Purloining the funds to keep themselves afloat is therefore defensible.

A common attitude to the state underpins both the corruption and the propagation of ideology. As Ms Shafak summarises, "the state is privileged, all-powerful and yet paradoxically safeguarded as if it were a fragile entity in need of protection." Between it and its citizens a gulf looms; conversely, officials elide its interests with their own. Elena Panfilova, of the Russian office of Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, explains that officials in Russia see themselves as servants of the state, rather than servants of the public. Since the state permits corruption, they do not regard it as an offence. And it is perfectly compatible with patriotism.

A bifocal view of their countries is also essential for the crooks. Russia is a light unto the nations; Turkey a jewel of Sunni Islam; China the world's once and future supremo--but only in theory. The earthly manifestations of these ideals are, in their eyes, a mess, populated by folk at whom they privately sneer. The flip side of lofty ideology is contempt, as lucrative for the rulers as it is insulting to the ruled.

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Here's What It's Like Living Under ISIS Rule In Fallujah, Iraq

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Fallujah in March Al Qaeda

After Islamic State seized Falluja in January it persuaded a man making covers for cars to sell suicide vests instead, one of many changes in the Iraqi city as it adapts to life under the ultra-hardline Sunni militants.

Islamic State is notorious for beheading or executing anyone who stands in its way when seizing cities and towns in Iraq and Syria that form its self-proclaimed caliphate, often using suicide bombers to make advances.

The militants have issued guidelines on life with their ideology, requiring all women to wear face veils, and banning the cigarettes and Western-style haircuts that were popular in Falluja before.

Many residents feel alienated by the changes. But in order to keep the "empire" and its holy war against governments and armies going, Islamic State also strikes deals with people like the tailor, according to recent visitors to Falluja who spoke to Reuters in Baghdad by telephone.

Islamic State provided a generator and free fuel, enabling him to boost profits and churn out suicide vests, belts and trousers from a building pockmarked by U.S. bullets used against al Qaeda nearly a decade ago.

"I passed through hard times. I have children to feed. I chose this new profession willingly and I take responsibility for the outcome," the tailor said.

Like other people quoted in this story, his name has not been included for security reasons.

Falluja was the first Iraqi city to fall to Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot comprised of Arabs and foreign fighters who have threatened to march on nearby Baghdad.

During the U.S. occupation of Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003, it emerged as the main bastion of the Sunni insurgency in western Anbar province and swiftly became an al Qaeda stronghold. The U.S. Marines fought over it with al Qaeda in 2004 in two of the biggest battles of the American war.

A decade later, Islamic State is deeply entrenched in Falluja, making it one of the main examples of what life could soon be like across swathes of Syria and Iraq under its ultra-hardline ideology.

The mainly tribal town in the Euphrates valley just west of Baghdad has long been a bastion of traditional religious and cultural practice. Even Saddam's secular dictatorship was alarmed by Islamists there. But even its deeply conservative population has often been uneasy with life under Islamic State.

All women who appear at the entrances of Falluja are given a free head-to-toe niqab, or veil, that they are forced to put on in a booth with tinted glass so that men can't see them.

Islamic State has guidelines on what is forbidden in pamphlets pasted on buildings and mosques across Falluja: no cigarettes or shisha water pipes as they might distract people from worship, no Western-style haircuts, no T-shirts with English writing or images of women.

Women are not allowed to leave home unaccompanied by a male relative, a rule that has deepened frustrations.

Iraq ISIS FightersOne witness recalled how a crowd gathered as a woman in her fifties who used to sell women's underwear, clothes and nail polish shouted outside the Falluja Islamic State court, which rules on everything from crimes to disputes between neighbors.

The woman was heading to the court to argue she should be allowed to walk alone because she is a widow and did not want to burden her brothers. She yelled at Islamic State militants just outside the courthouse.

“You say God does not accept a woman going outside her house alone. Then how could God accept you killing people?,” a witness quoted the woman as saying.

A militant responded. "We would decapitate you if you were a man." The court ruled that she should be expelled from Falluja. She left with her belongings in a pickup truck and Islamic State took over her home.

Young girls under 12, the cut off age for enforcing the niqab, must wear a headscarf.

"Why do they force us to do something against our will? We were born free and it’s unfair to be treated like this,” said one woman whose six-year-old daughter was forced to wear a head scarf. Even shopfront mannequins must wear the niqab.

Strict Guidelines

In the once smoke-filled cafes where residents would puff on water pipes, discuss the day's events and watch television, Islamic State now permits only sipping tea and viewing religious programs, said a cafe owner.

One man inside a crowded city market said he had been caught smoking a shisha.

“Gunmen from Islamic State arrested me and took me to a cleric who warned me not to repeat this wrong act; otherwise I will be whipped,” he said. “At this point I am resigned to the fact that we should carry arms and fight Islamic State in Falluja or we will end up as their slaves."

Young people who once escaped from Iraq's tragedies by working out at Falluja's Golan Sports Hall have watched Islamic State turn it into an auction house which offers furniture, refrigerators and carpets taken from government employees.

But while Islamic State has alienated some people with its methods, the group has also tried to win others over by providing basic services.

Militants driving trucks with Islamic State banners water trees by the roadside. The group employs cleaners to remove garbage from streets with pavements painted to match Islamic State's black and white flags.

In Fallujah, even the subsidized flour at state shops comes in sacks bearing Islamic State's logo.

Aside from their efforts to run Falluja like a state, Islamic State militants see it as a strategic asset in their drive to redraw the map of the Middle East.

U.S. airstrikes, which have failed to slow Islamic State's advance in Anbar, have targeted the area around Falluja.

Islamic State militants have changed their movements to avoid detection, as special security teams in black ski masks search for infiltrators.

Iraq ISIS FightersOne witness said anyone caught filming is immediately surrounded, arrested and interrogated by Islamic State militants, mostly long-haired men who wear gray Taliban-style outfits, who are senior to men in beige.

Fighters on the frontline wear black.

Witnesses said the militants now travel in ordinary vehicles and motorcycles instead of pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns.

Tanks and armored vehicles seized from defeated Iraqi troops are covered by tree branches and hidden in strategic areas, the witnesses said.

Despite the pressure of U.S. airstrikes launched after Islamic State made fresh advances in recent months and began beheading Western hostages, the Sunni militants seem firmly in control of Falluja.

That means the tailor's dwindling business should keep flourishing. He has bought a second sewing machine.

The suicide outfits are made of tough waterproof material and come in black and beige. There are several kinds: one has chest pockets for explosives while another has pockets along the chest and upper back. The third has pockets hidden in trousers.

All three are piled high on the pavement for lack of space. The militants load the material on to a truck and set off to prepare for the next mission.

"I know that one day I may get arrested by (Iraqi) security forces. But they should know that I am doing this for the sake of my family," said the tailor.

(Editing by Anna Willard and Peter Graff)

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It Might Be Foolish For ISIS To Attempt To Take Baghdad, But Here's Why They'll Try Anyway

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Abassid Statue Baghdad Destroyed

The Islamic State claims to have reestablished a caliphate in accordance with the prophetic method, misleading at least one historian, Edward Luttwak, to conclude that the Islamic State only seeks “its inspiration from the first four caliphates” that followed Muhammad.

According to Luttwak, not even the mightiest of the caliphates that followed, the Abbasid caliphate, is a model for the Islamic State.

But take a look at the Islamic State’s propaganda, and you will see that from its founding the group has sought to restore the glory days of the Abbasid caliphate based in Baghdad, especially the era of Harun al-Rashid of 1,001 Nights fame.

"Know that the Baghdad of al-Rashid is the home of the caliphate that our ancestors built,” proclaimed an Islamic State spokesman in 2007. “It will not appear by our hands but by our carcasses and skulls. We will once again plant the flag of monotheism, the flag of the Islamic State, in it."

That same year, the Islamic State’s first ruler, the aptly-named Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, announced IS’s claim to the city: “Today, we are in the very home of the caliphate, the Baghdad of al-Rashid." Even after the Islamic State established its primary base of operations in Syria’s Raqqa province, once home to Harun al-Rashid for several years, and captured Mosul in Iraq, its spokesman still referred to “the Baghdad of the Caliphate” and “the Baghdad of al-Rashid."

The Islamic State’s plan to revive the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad has two problems.

The first is ideological: Harun al-Rashid was not terribly pious. He enjoyed poetry about wine and young boys, and his court valued unfettered intellectual debate and pagan Greek learning, boht of which are anathema to ultraconservative Salafis like those running the Islamic State.

But it is al-Rashid’s power the jihadists remember, not his impieties.

The second problem is demographic, which cannot be resolved by selective memory: most of Baghdad’s inhabitants are Shi’a. They will not give it up without a fight. Neither will Baghdad’s patrons in Iran.

In light of this, outsiders might reasonably conclude the Islamic State is foolish to aim for Baghdad rather than consolidate its gains in the Sunni-majority areas it now holds. But sometimes historical imperatives override strategic ones.

SEE ALSO: Baghdadi realeses another audio message amid death rumors

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Putin Is Terrified Of A Successful Ukraine

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putin

There’s question how much the revolution in Ukraine would inspire Russians.

A successful Ukraine would become a shining example to Russians that a life without Putin is not only possible, but desirable.

Putin is certainly aware of this and his comments on extremism to his Security Council shows that the threat of “colored revolutions” occupies his mind.

“In the modern world extremism is used as a geopolitical tool for redistribution of spheres of interest. We can see the tragic consequences of the wave of the so-called color revolutions, the shock experienced by people in the countries that had went through the irresponsible experiments of hidden, or sometimes brute and direct interference with their lives,” Putin told his Security Council.

“This is a lesson and a warning for us,” he added. “We will do everything to never let this take place in Russia.”

It is no irony that he made these statements on the anniversary of the Maidan and on the heels of stating at an All-Russia Peoples’ Front forum that the United States is trying to subdue Russia.

What is extremism according to Putin? “People should understand that instigating conflict between people of different ethnic and religious background, the promotion of nationalist ideology, mass violations of public order and calls for forceful overthrow of the existing regime are all direct manifestations of anti-national thought and direct manifestations of extremism,” he said.

The most dangerous for Russia, Putin added, were “nationalism, religious intolerance, and political extremism.”

For some, adding “political extremism” along with his warnings about “colored revolutions” set a clear signal.

Speaking to Vedemosti, political scientist Dmitrii Oreshkin said that “The hysteria is growing and it is a direct result of Putin’s policies when they imagine 45 million Ukrainians as zhidobanderovtsy and fascists and invade the territory of another sovereign state, telling us, that it is lawful.”

Putin comments, Oreshkin continued, mean that he “gave the understanding that will not permit attempts at disturbing political stability, everything will be declared extremism that is directed to changing the regime. Putin de-facto said: they surround us and we will be on the defensive.”

SEE ALSO: Russian foreign minister calls NATO expansion 'reckless'

SEE ALSO: The US should walk away from arming Ukraine

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How The Failure Of Lebanon's 'Cedar Revolution' Explains The Middle East's Sectarian Chaos

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RTXNAZ3March 14, 2007 was the only time I joined one of those massive protests in downtown Beirut.

As I walked with friends through the crowds, a group of men with drums chanted: “All the Shia are dying because of [former Sunni Prime Minister] Fouad Siniora.”

A friend from the Sunni Future Movement, who passed by us, knew that three of us were Shiite-born March 14 supporters. He apologized. We said we had not taken offense, only for him to respond: “But where are all the good Shia like you?”

I smiled and intuitively said: “Had we considered ourselves Shia, we’d have been in the other square (Riad Solh, where March 8 and allies had organized a sit-in).” Thus was the story of the Shiite-born March 14ers.

They were welcome as defectors and expected to put a national face on what was fundamentally a sectarian anti-Hezbollah alliance of Sunnis, Druze and Christians.

Like liberals from other sects, the Shiite-born March 14ers understood that they had to be realistic and pick between the lesser of two evils. They reasoned that March 14 were the underdogs, that their leaders were being killed, and that even though Lebanon under March 14 rule would not be a liberal democracy, it would still be better than the fascist theories of the “resistance society and state.”

Meanwhile, March 14 never ceased to underperform and disappoint. With every cabinet formation, March 14 leaders poked each other’s eyes for portfolios.

With every election, their tickets would be formed at the last minute after endless bickering.

To top it all, whenever they won a parliamentary majority, they raced to sell their advantage to March 8, often in return for insignificant concessions.

March 14 never presented a governing platform with a five or a 10-year vision of how to grow the economy, create jobs, minimize corruption, push toward secularism or reform the constitution and state institutions.

Now is the time to learn from the Iraqi, Lebanese and Syrian experiences: Non-sectarian, liberal citizens are few, helpless and irrelevant.

The climax of March 14’s tribal nature came with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s visit to Damascus, where he made up with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

After the visit, and overnight, scores of March 14 leaders and pundits abandoned their rhetoric on democracy and sovereignty and started preaching about the need to be realistic.

What March 14 never realized was that nationalism and democracy take time, patience and perseverance to gel.

Shiite-born March 14ers like us had paid a higher price for our position: we had walked out on our tribe; we had exposed our families to immense social pressure in our villages and circles of relatives.

And then, all of sudden, we were expected to go back to all those we had broken with over matters of principle and just say it had been a misunderstanding.

Personally, March 14 was not the first disappointment. As half-Iraqi, I had bet on Iraqis — the nation of 1 million engineers — and invested emotionally and intellectually in the toppling of Saddam Hussein, hoping democracy would take root.

But democracy needs democrats and all we got in Iraq was a wave of looters followed by a wave of Shiite militia thugs, prompting Sunni terrorists to open shop in Iraq. The result was the creation of the most failing federal state in history.

I then put my old world, Lebanon and Iraq, behind and happily endorsed my American dream, only for the Syrians to take to the streets in defiance of one of the world’s most brutal regimes.

I thus shelved my Iraqi and Lebanese disappointments. Because in its first months the Arab media had kept a lid on the Syrian revolution, I spent endless hours montaging footage of protests in Syrian cities, blogging and advocating for Syrian democracy.Assad Rally March 2011 Fingers

But not to be outbid by the Iraqis or the Lebanese, Syria’s rebels took sectarianism to a new level.

Their social media activity turned into anti-Shiite vitriol, which never offended or interested me. When Ahmed Al-Jarba, president of Syrian National Coalition, visited Washington, he instructed everyone to call him “Sheikh Ahmed.”

So here I found myself — after a decade of advocating for secularism, democracy and justice in the Middle East — still in the trenches with medieval sectarian and tribal leaders. I continue to support change in Syria and everywhere else. But I have no hope that anything good will come out of the Syrian inferno, regardless of Assad’s fate.  

Now is the time to be realistic. Now is the time to learn from the Iraqi, Lebanese and Syrian experiences: Non-sectarian, liberal citizens are few, helpless and irrelevant. The majority of individuals in the Middle East are members of tribes vying for control in a zero-sum game.

Now is the time to look at groups the way they look at themselves: Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Alawite, Druze and the like. While some of them think coexistence is a solution, coexistence in fact deepens fault lines, which have been flaring up over the past millennia.

Now is the time to suggest realistic solutions that might mitigate violence. Let all these communities disengage. Let each one live alone.

The only regret is that, with sectarian states, non-sectarian people like me will find no place to call home. That is a problem we have get used to.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai. He tweets @hahussain

SEE ALSO: ISIS is pushing to take another major city in Iraq

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China is waging a 'hidden war' against the West

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european business group slams chinas internet controls

The Internet is the most important front in China's ideological battle against "Western anti-China forces," the country's military newspaper said on Wednesday, adding that online controls were essential to the government's survival.

Calls to reject Western thought and values have grown stronger under President Xi Jinping, who has urged more "ideological guidance" at universities and the study of Marxism.

Like many officials before him, Xi is steeped in the long-held belief of the ruling Communist Party that loosening control could bring chaos and the break-up of China.

China must defend its "sovereignty" in cyberspace with ideological purity, or "the public will be led astray by the enemy," the People's Liberation Army Daily said in a commentary reposted on the website of Seeking Truth, a leading Communist Party journal.

"Western hostile forces, as well as a few 'ideological traitors' in our country, are using the Internet on their computers and mobile phones to viciously attack our party," it added.

"The fundamental purpose is to use 'universal values' to confuse us, and 'constitutional democracy' to disturb us."

The Communist Party has long railed against Western values, including concepts such as multiparty democracy, judicial independence, and universal human rights.

The commentary called for a massive "Red Army" of "seed-planters and propaganda teams" to defend the "online Great Wall."

China operates one of the world's most sophisticated online-censorship mechanisms, known abroad as the Great Firewall. Censors keep a grip on what can be published online, particularly content seen as potentially undermining the party.

"Western anti-China forces have consistently sought in vain to make use of the Internet to topple China," the commentary added, calling control of the internet a "hidden war" for the hearts and minds of the public.

SEE ALSO: China will spend $182 billion to boost internet speed by the end of 2017

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NOW WATCH: This is one of the most dangerous parts of China's Great Wall

Here's how liberal or conservative consumers of major news outlets are

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The New York Times headquarters.

  • A new report found that major American news outlets have more politically polarized audiences than their counterparts in any other country. 
  • Notably, liberal audiences consume news from a wide variety of outlets, while just one outlet — Fox News — captures the vast majority of conservative news consumers. 
  • And right-leaning Americans are twice as likely to mistrust the news than those on the left, the report found.

As the news media face intensifying accusations of "fake news" and American trust in media sits at just 38%, left-leaning and right-leaning audiences continue to gather their news from different sources.

On the left, audiences are shared among a wide variety of the most popular news outlets, including The New York Times and CNN, but on the right, Fox News dominates, according to a new report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

The data also shows that there are more left-leaning consumers of major online news sources than there are right-leaning — all but two of the top 15 news sources have left-leaning audiences. (The size of the bubble indicates the outlet's weekly reach.)

Polarization in American news audiences

Political polarization news media

Right-leaning Americans are twice as likely to say they mistrust the news than those on the left, the report found. And, overall, just 38% of Americans say they trust the news media in general (53% say they trust the news they consume). 

Reuters also found that American audiences are the most politically polarized in the world. 

Polarization score

SEE ALSO: Here's How Liberal Or Conservative Major News Sources Really Are

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NOW WATCH: North Korean defector: Kim Jong Un 'is a terrorist'






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