Month: July 2019

Nicos Poulantzas argues on the last page of State, Power, Socialism that “History has not yet given us a successful experience of the democratic road to socialism: what it has provided – and that is not insignificant – is some negative examples to avoid and some mistakes upon which to reflect. […] But one thing is certain: socialism will be democratic or it will not be at all.”

It is a historical irony that Poulantzas, the Marxist theorist who tirelessly argued that the political strategy of the left should not be exhausted at the level of the state apparatus, is arguably the official intellectual of Syriza. The Nicos Poulantzas Institute (NPI) was founded in 1997 in Athens and yet the party seems more trapped than ever in a strategy that invests the total of its political energy in the goal of winning governmental power. Even on the eve of the electoral defeat of Syriza on July 7, 2019, Alexis Tsipras described the party’s strategic goal as that of the preparation for regaining governmental power, when the time comes, through a transformation of the party in the direction of European social democracy.

The raison d'être of such left parties today can be claimed to orbit around recognition and redistribution. Recognition is the normative term used to describe social struggles protesting against exclusion and discrimination on the basis of difference in terms of gender, culture, sexuality or other identities, and fighting for the recognition of the subjects in question as free and equal members of a politically organised society. Redistribution is its counterpart when it comes to the distribution of the economic resources necessary for the actualisation of one’s status as free and equal. In the ‘real world’, though, recognition and redistribution are intertwined. Cultural disrespectand economic injustices are like smoke and fire; whenever you see one, you can expect to find the other.

Viewed from the perspective of recognition and redistribution, the Syriza government did a commendable job regarding the goal of creating an institutional framework that would advance the struggles for recognition by oppressed social groups, such as homosexuals, migrants etc. Law 4356/2015, for the first time permitted same sex couples to sign civil partnerships, while the legal equalisation of marriage to civil partnership followed in 2016. These legal steps seem to illustrate that Syriza’s acquisition of governmental power within the context of a nation state apparatus fulfilled the conditions for the implementation of a political programme based on such identity recognition. Syriza’s electoral defeat in the general elections of 7 July 2019, however, suggest that doing a commendable job in the dimension of recognition is insufficient for a left political party wishing to build winning political majorities.

To read the results of the elections of July 7, we need to focus on the dialectic between the political programme Syriza put forward when it was elected in 2015 and the political programme that it has implemented since. Syriza was elected in a crisis-ridden Greek society by capitalising on the frustration of the Greek citizens with the so-called Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) which aimed to sustain the confidence of the financial markets by cutting public spending and increasing taxation (the so-called ‘confidence fairy’). Briefly put, given the degree to which inequalities increased in Greece during the ‘austerity programmes era’ 2010 – 2015, Syriza rejected the recessionary policy of internal devaluation, in favour of an alternative programme informed by redistributive policies.

To summarise, one of the most significant factors – not to say the most significant – that led to SYRIZA’s electoral victory in 2015 was the fact that its political programme was a redistributive one. However, it soon became apparent that holding governmental power was an insufficient condition for the implementation of such a programme. In this context, Syriza attempted to compensate to its political constituency for the lack of redistributive policies by prioritising recognitive policies.

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I maintain that both categories should be treated as equally weighty ends by any left. What I would like to go on to argue isthat both Syriza’s political programme before 2015 and the political direction implied by Alexis Tsipras’s speech on the eve of the elections of July 7 were informed by a dated theory of the state and legitimacy.

The Greek left – the same could be argued for the majority of the European left in general – still thinks in terms of concepts and categories from the early postwar decades, the ‘Trente Glorieuses’. The background presuppositions of such political proposals conceive of the legitimacy of political power as being exclusively a function of the attitudes of a state’s citizens. To describe the same coin from the other side, crises of legitimacy of the state are expected to emerge only as a result of its citizens’ dissatisfaction, and therefore they are said to embody a transcending potential. As Wolfgang Streeck argues in Buying Time, this is a dated perspective that fails to take into account the consecutive transformation of wealthy western states and their economies since the hegemonic times of social democracy and welfare state economics.

Streeck puts forward a legitimation crisis theory that includes three players: ‘the state, capital and wage-earners’. Contemporary states’ legitimacy is a function of their ability to address and satisfy the expectations of both the ‘Staatsvolk‘ (i.e., its general citizenry) and the ‘Marktvolk’ (i.e., the people of the market). The Marktvolk or capital is conceived as an internationally integrated actor with the ability to act as a collective agent and the increasing capacity to shape the success of a government, in so far as the latter’s success depends on its ability to deliver goods and services to the Staatsvolk, which in turn depends on the willingness of the Marktvolk to finance or not finance governmental political programmes. Streek goes so far as to speak of the emergence of a ‘second constituency’. The premise of this argument is that in the current historical moment, the internationalisation of markets and production systems has gradually led to the relative inability of individual states to finance themselves through taxation. The result is their increasing reliance on the auctioning of public debt. So the failure of Syriza to deliver the redistributive policies that facilitated its electoral victory in the first place is, in the final analysis, a manifestation at the political level of the asymmetry between internationally integrated capital and nationally structured political systems.

In the light of this, two alternative strategies seem to suggest themselves for a left political party whose normative compass revolves around recognition and redistribution. The first strategy would be to attempt to ‘undo’ globalisation. The second strategy would be to attempt to build supranational alliances with the potential of transforming the existing supranational institutions and establishing new, democratic ones, with the aim of bringing internationalised capital under democratic control. To be sure, political action at the domestic and the supranational level are not mutually exclusive alternatives. And in the world of real politics it is more than likely that any left will need to rely strategically on both.

One might try to evaluate the viability of these alternatives through the empirical insights of economics or sociology. But scholarly debate in this field is far from resolved, as the Habermas-Streeck debate over the European Union amply demonstrates.

Transforming the supranational

I would like to propose aconception of progressive politics inspired by one of Poulantzas’s main influences, György Lukács, which illustrates why the strategic goal of the left today should be the constitution of democratic supranational institutions.

Lukács bases his essay ‘Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat’ (1923) on Karl Marx’s concept of ‘commodity fetishism’ and defines the resulting phenomenon of reification as “a relation between people [that] takes on the character of a thing and thus acquires a ‘phantom objectivity’, an autonomy that seems so strictly rational and all-embracing as to conceal every traceof its fundamental nature: the relation between people”. A reified social relation, then, is a relation which appears to be a given, a-historical, ‘thing-like’, unchangeable and independent from the human will.

Lukács adds that the naturalisation of concrete social relations and the concealment of their historical character has both a subjective and an objective dimension. Reification is not merely false consciousness. Rather the organisation of a capitalist society gives rise to a system of social laws that confronts individuals in the form of ‘quasi-natural necessities’ – this is the objective dimension of the phenomenon. Subjectively, this process of reification obscures the fact that these social laws arise from a nexus of social practices and institutional arrangements, and are therefore, by their nature, alterable.

What I would like to propose is a conception of progressive politics as the striving towards the actualisation of the historical possibilities for de-reification; and a conception of regression as the undoing of social practices and institutional arrangements that leads to a re-reification of definite social relations. Today, regression is observable in the retreat to conceptions of the globalised economy as a quasi-natural system, as a system beyond human control.

To explain, think of the leverage of internationalised financial capital on the success of a governmental programme as described above. The financial markets control the very preconditions for the truth-value of the statement “redistributive social policies lead to recessions”. In so far as recessions can occur as a result of the financial markets’ unwillingness to ‘refinance’ a government’s debt, a real system of social laws is at play, confronting individuals in the form of quasi-natural necessities.

To elaborate, think of the negotiations between the first Syriza government (January to September 2015) and the so-called Troika. During the negotiations between the Greek Minister of Finance, Yanis Varoufakis, and the Troika, the reaction of the financial markets and their political representatives to every redistributive proposal of the Greek government was that ‘there is no alternative’ to austerity. What is important is that the neoliberal power block possessed sufficient means of illustrating that indeed there was no alternative to austerity, when only one country questions its predominance within the current institutional infrastructure.

It should suffice to mention the European Central Bank’s decision to end the provision of liquidity to the Greek banking system that eventually led to the implementation of capital controls in Greece. These developments confronted the Greek citizens in the form of quasi-natural social laws. The complexity of the institutional nexus and the inability to bring under democratic control the social agents and the mechanisms behind these developments, elevated them to the form of given and unalterable truths in the collective consciousness.

To conclude, I began with Nicos Poulantzas' famous thesis that the left will be democratic or it will not be at all. Poulantzas’ position came as a reflection on the history of the left in the twentieth century. My first aim was to show that if we employ the theoretical insights of contemporary crisis theories and the categories of recognition and redistribution to reflect upon the example of the first European party of the radical left to win governmental power, we reach the conclusion that the left finds itself at a crossroads – either to renationalise the economy or to supranationalise the political infrastructure.

My second aim was to show that, if we conceptualise progress as de-reification, then what is characteristic about the unfolding of the Greek debt crisis is its regressive, because reificatory, nature. Therefore, today, one of the major historical roles of a progressive left whose normative compass revolves around recognition and redistribution is to explicate the need and pursue the end of supranationalising the current political infrastructure. In other words, ‘the left will be international, or it won’t be at all’.

“What if everyone in the world was suddenly a vegetarian—what effect would it have on our lives and on the planet?”

The team over at AsapScience break this question down in a new video. 

• Without any demand for meat, entire herds of domestically raised animals would disappear. That would free up the 33 million square kilometers of land used for pasture. 
   
• Loss of trees to soak up CO2 is one of the major factors in global warming, and the freed-up land (collectively, the size of Africa) would help balance CO2 levels. Cows alone account for a great amount of methane (CH4) gas production, and the decrease in dependence on livestock—which produces as much as 15 percent of greenhouse gases—would greatly reduce CH4 levels.
   
• It would also greatly reduce water consumption. For example, it takes 15,000 liters of water to make one kilogram of beef, compared to the 300 liters it takes for a kilogram garden vegetables.
   
• The costs? No leather production, and no animal fats—which are used in cosmetics, detergents, and many other products. Also, livestock production is the job of 1 billion people. 

With vegetarians numbering as low as 4 to 5 percent of the population in the United States (and 30 percent in India), this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. But the scenario helps us get our minds around how much our planet has been transformed by our meat eating.

 

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Earlier in July, the results of the most recent British Social Attitudes Survey were released. Beleaguered journalists were busy reporting on Boris Johnson’s unfailing talent at evading questions, so coverage was unusually lite. Where there was any comment, it tended to focus on the survey’s headline insight about the decline of religiosity, with the results showing that the number of British people describing themselves as religious has dropped by more than 20% in the last decade.

There was, however, very little mainstream commentary on one of the survey’s other key discoveries – that tolerance towards gay sex is falling for the first time since the Aids crisis.

One reason for this lack of coverage might be its ostensible incongruence with conventional wisdom surrounding the liberalisation of social attitudes, which is usually attributed to the growth of secularism.

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Yet recent events suggest that the findings are not so inconsistent after all, since – at least in the case of LGBTQ+ normalisation, equality and visibility – the presumed relationship between secularism and liberalisation has already been thrown into question by a string of recent backlashes.

The BSA survey is just one example of this trend, coming in a Pride Month in which MEP Ann Widdecombe assured a national TV audience that “science may yet produce an answer to being gay,” a lesbian couple were viciously attacked on a London bus, and plans for nationwide school protests against “No Outsiders” were announced – a primary school programme designed to teach children about the characteristics protected by the Equality Act, and featuring LGBTQ+ inclusive lesson materials.

Though admittedly anecdotal, these incidents give us pause to examine the tendency to treat secularism as the driving force in favour of liberal progressivism. They point to a divided social landscape in which the majority in favour of LGBTQ+ acceptance stand diametrically opposed to a small yet increasingly emboldened minority who vocally resist it.

This is a binary which is undoubtedly inflected by religion, but it isn’t one which will be resolved by further passive drifts towards secularism. If we want to bridge this gulf and ensure that social views continue to shift forwards, then we must challenge the psychology that underscores all regressive attitudes, whether motivated by religion or not.

That means introspecting on the ways in which we construct culture and engender normative beliefs, and taking active steps to enshrine the liberal values of the majority into the institutions of secular society.

We are the stories we are told about ourselves.

Being a gay member of the Jewish community has made me acutely aware of the role of religious and cultural narratives in shaping social identity and supporting or stifling subjectivity.

Unlike many LGBTQ+ people, I am fortunate never to have suffered direct homophobia – having benefited from an accepting home and attending a liberal synagogue. But like every other LGBTQ+ person, I have been regularly exposed to dialogue which presents homosexuality as incapacitating at worst and manageable at best.

The truth is that, no matter how privileged their background, every LGBTQ+ person will at some point be subjected to language and assumptions which implicitly reinforce a set of negative stereotypes.

The impact of this prejudice on childhood development was confirmed by last years’ pioneering Adverse Childhood Experience study, which found that the most damaging childhood experience was “recurrent chronic humiliation” – in other words, being consistently invalidated, pitied and critically judged.

Such negative judgement may pale in comparison with being attacked or imprisoned, but the repressive effects of growing up hearing that your life will be more difficult, or that you’ll never have a family of your own, or that – if you’re lucky – your formative relationships may turn out to be nothing more than a “phase,” should not be underestimated. These narratives all create shame, and shame leaves scars, as the higher-than-average rates of self-harm and suicide in the LGBTQ+ community attest.

The universalism of this experience suggests that it has more to do with the gendered and heteronormative ways in which we are socialised, and patriarchal traditions of sex, family and marriage, and less to do with religion per-se.

Of course, religion can’t be extricated from this picture. The toxicity of much homophobic discourse is situated in the oppressive, “othering” character of the beliefs which underscore it. These are beliefs which religious teaching – at least where it is ideologically orthodox – plays a key role in disseminating.

Conservative theists’ have a right to advance these ideas as part of their religious freedom, but this freedom always carries a cost: whenever anyone advances a negative moralistic view of any type of identity, the psychological effects are borne personally – not by LGBTQ+ ‘the group’ but by the living, breathing and feeling individuals who comprise it.

This was the first thing that came to mind when I read the Christian Institute’s comments on the BSA findings, which described the regressive attitudinal trend as pushback from people of faith “who are happy to tolerate relations between adults of the same sex” but have come under “increasing pressure” to “endorse or celebrate it.”

Tolerance may be all that is legally required of religious groups, but I know from experience that for LGBTQ+ people, acceptance and celebration it is an emotional necessity, and the very best expression of equality.

That is why it is disingenuous for activists opposing “No Outsiders” to claim that their arguments are simply about state overreach and have no relationship to homophobia. When pious believers seek to obstruct future generations from becoming enlightened to the impact of illicit characterisations of homosexuality – and from being offered access to a more egalitarian discourse – they jeopardise social justice for everyone, not least members of religious communities who then unfairly suffer generic accusations of bigotry.

Telling new stories.

The values that we espouse through our politics, legal system and institutions – and which form the basis of our social and community structures – are at the heart of this conversation. One of the reasons that Christianity has retained its influence across many societies is because the public systemisation of religious ethics has continued long after the separation of church, state and judiciary. To find evidence of this in Britain, we need only look to the presence of bishops in the House of Lords, and religious schools.

Of secularism, the opposite is true. While non-belief in religion has grown exponentially over the past half century, efforts to replace religion with liberal values in key institutions have been far less successful. This suggests that our ability to continue along the arc of justice depends on stepping up our efforts across society to enshrine and defend the principles of equality that have underscored hard-fought social progress.

The British High Court’s decision last week to place an injunction on the “No Outsiders” protests was a welcome move to clarify the responsibility of government and education professionals to do just this and, in the process, to assert the limits of parental autonomy. But it can’t stop there.

If we are to counteract the tide of illiberalism that has begun to rise in the West, then we must be prepared to create a clearer and more expansive code of national ethics, and promote these ethics stringently through law, communication and policy.

This need not constitute a further drift away from religion. Indeed, it may even provide an opportunity to reassert the many positive religious conventions that I’ve benefited from myself – like bonds of community and a sense of duty and responsibility, neighbourliness and self-sacrifice. We already have models for these kinds of ethics in terms of religion’s role in driving charitable giving and supporting social and humanitarian work. If we leverage it properly, religion could help to provide further antidotes to the rampant individualism which has been the source of so much cultural alienation and polarisation in Britain and elsewhere.

But to get to a position where such traditions can be synthesised into state structures, we must first be clear and uncompromising about the shape of secular society – the principles on which it is founded, and the boundaries it proscribes in regard to individual rights and freedoms. Only then will we be able to agree a model for national values which prioritises the self-attainment of the individual whilst also respecting the traditions of the group, and promoting empathy between these two perspectives. That is a precondition for developing a common language which doesn’t merely describe what this model should be, but rather, constructs it into being collectively.

In June 2019, the Republic of Moldova was shaken by a severe and unprecedented constitutional and political crisis – one that was ended by an unlikely coalition of pro-Russian and pro-European political forces, which proceeded to oust the country’s mono-oligarchic system.

These forces – the Socialist Party and ACUM bloc – had come to an agreement to govern after months of coalition talks. But Moldova’s Constitutional Court declared this new governing coalition illegitimate. As a result, this small state situated between Ukraine and Romania found itself with two governments, with each blaming the other of usurping state power. In a rare act of international consensus in the region, the EU and Russia recognised the new government and took a stance against oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc’s incumbent regime. His Democratic Party decided to give up power shortly after, ending Moldova’s constitutional stand-off.

In these changed political and geopolitical conditions, the EU faces new challenges. Public expectations towards the pro-European political forces to cleanse the country’s corrupt system are very high. At the same time, Russia’s influence on Moldova’s pro-Russian forces, e.g. the Socialists, has proven to be decisive for ending oligarchic rule. The orientation of EU foreign policy will be crucial for the future trajectory of Moldova.

While the EU’s and Russia’s common position was essential in ending Vladimir Plahotniuc’s oligarchic reign, there can be no talk of a new era of cooperation between the two international actors due to diverging interests and the political situation in the country. If the EU is serious about its alleged objective of being a transformative power in Moldova, it must be clearer on future strategic perspectives and a narrative that would accommodate the European aspirations of its reform-minded partners on the ground. Continuing the EU’s focus mainly on politically non-sensitive sector-specific cooperation would lead to a loss of momentum for the ascending pro-European political forces and favour Russia’s increasing influence in the country.

The trials and tribulations of the Moldovan Constitutional Court

The constitutional crisis in Moldova was triggered by controversial decisions of the Moldovan Constitutional Court (CC) in the aftermath of parliamentary elections of February 2019.

Following fruitless political negotiations to form a governing coalition, in its decision from 7 June the Constitutional Court declared that the President is obliged to dissolve the Parliament if within a period of three months, starting from the date on which the elections were validated, its members fail to form a Government. En passant and in contradiction with its previous decisions and domestic law, the Constitutional Court added that the “three months” stipulated by the Constitution are to be understood as 90 (calendar) days. The Court concluded that, since the elections were validated on 9 March, the three month period passed on 7 June, and not – as generally expected – on 9 June. The Constitutional Court, previously criticised for issuing decisions in favor of the incumbent Democratic Party (PDM), published its decision on the same day that the deadline for forming a government expired and the political negotiations between the PDM of Vladimir Plahotniuc and Igor Dodon’s PSRM (Socialist Party) ultimately failed. On 8 June, the Constitutional Court decided that all decisions and actions henceforth taken by Parliament were null ab initio and would constitute a severe violation of the Constitution.

Against the Court’s decision, on 8 June, an unlikely coalition between the pro-Russian Socialist Party and pro-European ACUM (“Now”) emerged. In a move that was legally inadmissible, yet morally justified, this coalition elected a new government headed by ACUM’s Maia Sandu. Within a period of a few hours, raising suspicions over adherence to procedural norms, the Court declared this new government illegitimate and appointed Pavel Filip, the Democrat Prime Minister, as interim President. It then dissolved the Parliament and declared snap elections.

Peaceful transition of power

In the wake of this constitutional crisis, Moldova found itself with two governments and two parallel political narratives, but no functioning state apparatus.

The newly formed executive, led by an unprecedented coalition of pro-Russian and pro-European political forces, was united by the single purpose of getting rid of the mafia-like and oligarchic structures of Vladimir Plahotniuc, the country’s most influential figure who managed to capture the main state institutions over the last ten years. The interim government led by the Democratic Party, on the other hand, presented the new government as a coup d’etat and used Russia as a deterrent against the new coalition, accusing the Socialists of treason and violating party law. Immediately after the failed Socialist-Democrat coalition talks, two pieces of video footage were released, in which Socialist leader and Moldovan president Igor Dodon allegedly disclosed that his party is being financed by Russia and proposed a coalition with the Democrats on the condition of introducing federalisation, an unpopular initiative.

Blind-sided by the Socialist-ACUM coalition, the Democratic Party blocked the entrances to the most important state institutions with the help of state police and paramilitary forces, preventing members of the newly elected government and central administration from carrying out official functions. Yet ultimately, due to a growing support of the population, state institutions and international actors for the new government, the Democrats announced their relinquishing of power on 14 June, and that they would go into opposition, thus preventing further escalations.

A day after Vladimir Plahotniuc left Moldova, the Constitutional Court invalidated its decisions from 7-9 June “as a result of the de facto situation in the country”. A week of constitutional and political crisis found its solution in the peaceful transition of power and surprising retreat of Moldova’s most controversial figure.

A temporary agreement of mutual interests

Throughout his informal rule, Plahotniuc managed to antagonise the EU and Russia alike. Immediately after the appointment of the new Socialist-ACUM government in Chișinău, in a rare example of international unity, the EU and Russia declared their will to cooperate with Moldova’s new government, thus giving international legitimacy to an otherwise constitutionally illegitimate coalition.

The Democrats and their controversial leader lost all goodwill in Brussels long ago amid the banking fraud scandal of late 2014, mimicking of reforms and constant violations of the rule of law. Moscow, on the other hand, was no longer able to "manage" the oligarch, whose personal interests made him difficult to control. The revelations around the implications of Plahotniuc’s confidants in the “Russian laundromat” scheme, whereby around 70 billion US dollars were extracted from Russia and ultimately laundered in European banks, was the last straw.

Dmitry Kozak, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, who mediated the last-minute coalition talks between the Socialists and ACUM, ultimately paved the way for the formation of the new government across geopolitical lines. The anti-Plahotniuc coalition has surprised observers in Moldova and abroad alike. In light of the frequently formed Democrat-Socialist coalitions in order to pass legal acts of paramount importance, such as changing the electoral code or the constitutional change allowing the direct election of the president, a continuation of the power monopoly seemed likely. Plahotniuc’s reputation as the omnipotent oligarch who captured the whole country made it unthinkable that he would not play a decisive role in the coalition talks. Also, the pro-European ACUM repeatedly excluded a coalition with the Socialists as well as the Democrats.

While this domestic and external unity has ultimately led to the necessary political change, it is nothing more than a temporary agreement of mutual convenience.

After the sole aim of ending the omnipotent influence of a single man, Plahotniuc, and the oligarchic, mafia-like system he created will be achieved, a “back to geopolitical business” situation is most likely. The crisis in Moldova has seen Russia’s continuing efforts to maintain its sphere of influence in the post-soviet country. After the failed coalition talks, the political mudslinging between the Democrats and the Socialists revealed the magnitude of Russia’s influence in Moldova.

The Socialist Party faces serious allegations concerning external party financing which violates domestic laws. Moreover, the open engagement of Dmitry Kozak has brought back the issue of the country’s federalisation into public debate. The Kozak Memorandum of 2003 foresaw a final settlement between Moldova and the Russian-controlled breakaway region of Transnistria through the instalment of an asymmetric federal state, which would have increased Russia’s influence in the country. Due to poor popular support the Moldovan government ultimately refused the plan. After the Socialists emerged victorious in the parliamentary elections, Russia will most likely not miss the chance of showing its uncompromising assertiveness.

The local oligarch is gone, long live the imperial ruler?

On the domestic front, Igor Dodon’s Socialist Party has proposed a moratorium on geopolitical and ideological issues. The strongest political force in the country has sacrificed key ministerial positions in favor of ACUM and assured its full support for Sandu’s course. Under the catchphrase of “de-oligarchisation”, the new government is rolling back the predecessor’s major legislative projects and slowly gaining control over the state apparatus by replacing the corrupt senior leadership of crucial state institutions.

For the time being, the initial euphoria, the drive to engage in the cleansing process and the perceived threat of Plahotniuc’s return, which remains a realistic scenario, keeps this community of interests together. Both the Socialists and ACUM are able to justify to their electorate a coalition with their “geopolitical enemy” as a lesser evil than the perpetuation of the hated criminal regime. In the long run, however, the facade of unity will most likely tumble due to the irreconcilable geopolitical differences. The first cracks already made appearances when ACUM party members filed charges against the Socialist Party following accusations regarding external party financing. Sooner or later, the partnership of convenience between the Socialists and ACUM will dissolve in early elections.

Given the changed political and geopolitical scope conditions, the EU’s foreign policy towards Moldova faces new challenges. ACUM, which has proven over the last nine years that it is a credible pro-European reform-minded political force, took on an extremely difficult political agenda. Its enthusiastic electorate expects the cleansing of corrupt officials in state institutions, democratic and anti-corruption reforms, an increase of salaries and pensions and a clear pro-European orientation of the country.

Yet, at the same time, as evidently corrupt officials still refuse to leave office, Moldova remains a captured state, even if its godfather-in-chief has relinquished his grip on power. Similar to the Hydra from the Greek mythology, Plahotniuc’s retreat exposed the shocking face of the corrupt system at the highest level of government. The EU’s past shift towards focusing mainly on politically non-sensitive sector-specific cooperation, most recently portrayed at the 5th Eastern Partnership Summit of 2017, has some potential. This so-called “governance model” of democracy promotion may translate into quick wins, have an actual impact on people’s daily lives and, in the absence of membership-related incentives, complement traditional mechanisms of conditionality.

Given that the region finds itself in a contested normative space, being faced with the serious dilemma to choose between the West or the East, technical regulatory convergence reflects a geopolitically neutral way for EU engagement. This pragmatic and less ambitious approach, however, seems outdated considering the difficult transition phase Moldova is in at this moment. The EU must adapt to the new situation in Moldova and take advantage of the current momentum. Visits of EU officials and lip services will hardly be enough.

What will be required is an initial shift to an ex-post conditionality-based approach which would serve as a catalyst for the ambitious reform agenda. Besides relaunching the macro-financial assistance that was frozen last year due to the worsening political situation, Brussels must come up with a clearly structured and politically sustainable strategy. If it truly desires to be a transformative power and preserve its role as a key player in the region, the EU needs to show unequivocal support for ACUM and take a clearer stance regarding the European future of Moldova. Otherwise, the EU risks to surrender the power vacuum created by Plahotniuc’s retreat, to Russia and its proxy – the PSRM. Without the EU’s support, there are serious doubts whether the ACUM is able to act as a serious counterbalance.

Future perspectives

Moldova’s unprecedented constitutional and political crisis, triggered by the trials and tribulations of the Constitutional Court, found its solution in a peaceful transition of power and the provisional end of Plahotniuc’s oligarchic reign. Its removal from power constituted a common ground in terms of the interests of the EU and Russia on the one hand, and the Socialists and ACUM on the other hand. Now that this objective has been reached, the facade of unity will slowly start tumbling down.

It would be an illusion to talk about a change of paradigm, let alone the beginning of a new era of de-geopoliticisation in the region. For the unlikely coalition of pro-European and pro-Russian forces in Moldova, which are guided by the common goal of cleansing the corrupt state structures, the future road is paved with domestic and geopolitical challenges. Moldova remains a captured state as Plahotniuc’s system did not cease to exist after his retreat. At the same time, Russia already started increasing its presence in the country and will use the Socialists as its proxy to demonstrate its assertiveness.

As Moldova stands at the crossroads and finds itself in a difficult transition phase, the direction of the EU foreign policy will be crucial for the country’s future trajectory. While the EU’s focus on politically non-sensitive sector-specific cooperation might have been the right strategy towards the previous oligarchic regime, now, in the changed political context, the EU must rethink its pragmatic approach. “Muddling through” is not an option anymore. The EU needs to become more assertive in the country and also come up with a new strategy where it defines what it wants from its pro-European partners and what it is ready to offer in advance. Otherwise, one local dictator might quickly be replaced with another.

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The narrative surrounding the Green New Deal championed by climate activists in the US and the UK is one of sweeping action to address the climate crisis, huge government investment in public infrastructure, and repairing the historical harms of communities disproportionately affected by pollution and climate change.

But how specifically does the Green New Deal unleash itself from the imperatives of our current political economy—the constant need for growth, the resource (and often colonialist) extraction, the firm corporate grip on the body politic—and move towards an economy based on democracy, justice, and sustainability? That’s what we sought to investigate in our recent report on internationalism and the Green New Deal out with the think tank Common Wealth.

One strategy is clear: the transformation of the energy sector through public ownership. Specifically, this means tackling the issue of fossil fuel extraction by prompting a federal buyout of the fossil fuel majors, engaging in regional planning and enterprise to shepherd a just transition for communities and workers, and kicking out a fossilized investor-driven energy system and replacing it with a system of energy democracy.

Despite the bold ambitions of the Green New Deal resolution presented in Congress earlier in 2019 by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the crucial missing piece is a supply-side plan to stop fossil fuel extraction. This is by no means exclusive to the Green New Deal: the Paris Agreement fails to mention fossil fuels altogether.

To stay within a 1.5 degrees Celsius world and avoid climate catastrophe, close to 85% of all known fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground. That would require securing public control of existing private (and already leased public) fossil fuel reserves.

The most timely way to do that is through a national buyout of the top publicly traded fossil fuel companies, using the tool deployed during the 2008 financial crisis known as quantitative easing (QE). Through QE, the Federal Reserve was able to create over $3.5 trillion between 2008 and 2014, which was then used to bail out banks, insurers, and even the automobile industry—all without burdening taxpayers or spurring runaway inflation. Likewise, the Bank of England created almost half a billion pounds in order to stabilize its banking sector.

For less than a third of the cost, these central banks could accomplish something much more transformative by buying out the majority of fossil fuel companies’ publicly traded shares and securing control. Answerable to the public and without the growth imperative, the government would be much better poised to manage the winding down of existing and planned fossil fuel extraction and production, as well as stopping new developments that are clearly outside the carbon budget. This would also deliver a much-needed knockout blow to the entrenched political interests of fossil-fuel CEOs and shareholders that would reverberate across the globe, clearing the path for governments—in direct consultation with affected workers and communities—to design, build, and govern a genuinely just transition.

We can find a historical example in the original New Deal. Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933 to electrify rural America and to serve as a major jobs initiative. Today the TVA is the largest public power company in the US, still serving many of the surrounding states with electricity. The TVA’s history is tied to racial discrimination, but we could imagine a series of locally controlled regional authorities with a different outcome: communities co-creating plans for decarbonizing and revitalizing their local economies, with racial equity at the center.

That requires laying the groundwork for the next renewable energy paradigm of “energy democracy.” The commitment to a community-controlled and just renewable energy system is gaining momentum. The major structural impediment is for-profit energy utilities. In the last couple of years, however, communities fed up with political power plays and climate inaction have led a surge of utility takeover campaigns. They range from local, such as an effort in Boulder, Colorado to take the utility into the city’s hands and the Switched On London campaign, to transatlantic, such as the “#NationalizeGrid” campaign against National Grid, a UK for-profit company operating in both “New” and “Old” England. The Labour party has taken this vision even a step further with a proposed full takeover of “the Big Six” energy utilities in the UK.

These efforts also have a precedent in the original New Deal. When investor-owned utilities refused to bring electricity to rural areas, the Rural Electrification Administration provided patient capital along with legal and technical expertise so farmers and communities could band together and start their own electric utility cooperatives or public enterprises.

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A similar national-level entity—the Community Ownership of Power Administration—could be created today to deploy much-needed financing and capacity-building to design and build publicly run energy utilities. Municipalities, regions, or whole states or provinces could take the reins from their for-profit utilities and, based on energy democracy, invest on such priorities as energy efficiency, shared sustainable energy infrastructure, and good jobs to do it all.

The UK, which birthed the coal-fueled Industrial Revolution, and the US, historically the world’s leading carbon emitter, must recognize their duty to rapidly decarbonize and untangle the web of historical harms caused by the exploitative economic conditions that they imposed around the world.

Choosing incrementalism over radical action is to choose a path of economic and climate chaos. The alternative, a US-UK transatlantic coordination on Green New Deal policies that move toward energy democracy, could positively change the foundations of both economies.

Recently, Javier Ortega Smith, the leader of Vox, the populist radical right party in Spain, came under scrutiny for language that Spanish Attorney General Luis Navajas called ‘abominable’ and ‘repulsive’ but not a hate crime. Ortega Smith claimed: ‘Our common enemy, the enemy of Europe, the enemy of liberty, the enemy of progress, the enemy of democracy, the enemy of family, the enemy of life, the enemy of the future is an invasion, an Islamic invasion… What we know and understand as civilization is at risk’. Ortega Smith called upon old concepts of ‘western civilization’ that have long been used to mask hate and excuse violence.

Most semesters, I teach a class titled ‘Western Civilization II’, a survey of European history that covers from the Enlightenment to the present. The course, which has been taught under that title for decades, is typically taken after students finish Western Civilization I, which covers antiquity to the Middle Ages. Instead of beginning with the Enlightenment, I like to start with the beginning of Spanish colonisation of the Americas and the expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Spain in 1492 – an important year in the construction of ‘The West’. We talk about ‘the West’ as a social construct – something that is not a natural fact, but a concept invented by humans. Indeed, before 1492, ‘the West’ existed differently in the imagination of peoples living in Europe than it does today. With colonisation and global trade, the idea of the West literally expanded. Using this framework, we end the course discussing refugees, antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe today – bringing it full circle.

Historically, being ‘western’ or ‘civilised’ was a powerful weapon used to legitimate the domination of others who were outside Europe. Despite the fact that the first recorded civilizations or settled groups of people began in ancient Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, the promise of ‘civilisation’ somehow became the provenance of Europe. The promise of ‘Western civilization’ became an excuse to dominate – to ‘civilize’ others. In the Spanish case, this was readily made apparent in the encomienda system that systematically enslaved native populations in the Americas. Other European colonial powers adopted similar rationales for their empires; it came ‘the white man’s burden’ to spread western civilization. Of course, native populations in the Americas and elsewhere already had civilizations long before Europeans arrived, and were rarely admitted as part of the Western club.

In the aftermath of the First World War, the German academic Oswald Spengler wrote The Decline of the West, a work that demonstrated racist and proto-fascist tropes as it decried the fall of Western Civilization and underlined the importance of strengthening blood ties in order to save the West. This fear of the fall of the West later popped up again during the Cold War and even in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks in the United States. Powerful countries seem to need to summon up a millenarianism, sounding the death of the West in moments of anxiety about the loss of power, while also using it to legitimate their power.

The Proud Boys

More recently, in 2016, Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of Vice Media, began a men’s exclusive group called ‘The Proud Boys’. On the Proud Boys’ website, they declare that they accept people of ‘all races’, ‘all religions’, ‘gay or straight’. However, to join the Proud Boys one must ‘be a man’ and ‘must love the west’. One video featured on their website claims that all the Proud Boys care about is that one believes ‘the West is the best’.

The group is composed of self-proclaimed ‘Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world’. McInnes, has described a chauvinist as simply being ‘a nationalist, a patriot’. While, McInnes is right to describe chauvinism as also being applicable to those categories in addition to other types of chauvinism such as male chauvinism, he conflates nationalism and patriotism – pride in ones’ country as opposed to the belief in the superiority of that nation. McInnes’s broad category of ‘Western chauvinism’ translates to a type of western nationalism akin to ‘European nationalism’ – a concept that might read as ‘White Nationalism’– without being entirely obvious. Indeed, these chauvinistic ideals are a direct product of western ideologies. They represent the west’s most horrendous legacies: fascism, patriarchy and colonialism.

This sort of uncritical lauding of ‘the West’ and its history is why western civilization courses that analyse the concept of ‘the West’ are particularly important. Such ethnocentric, sexist and racist ideologies demonstrate why it is important to de-colonise the study and teaching of European culture and history – to combat the types of ideas the Proud Boys expound. As co-chair of the Council for European Studies at Columbia University’s new Critical European Studies Research Network, I have the privilege of working with students and scholars particularly interested in engaging in these types of questions.

So, what does it mean to be ‘Western’? It’s a nebulous concept at best. At the beginning of my course, I give students a blank map with no geo-political boundaries. Individually, students are to circle the parts of the map they consider part of ‘the West’. Some students circle only North America, other students only Europe. Some circle a combination of Europe, the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Some throw in Latin America, and others Japan – or even other countries which have been colonised. Students compare the differences in their maps, highlight disputed territories and then, as a class, we compare those hazier boundaries and how they define ‘the West’ more generally. In these discussions, many students tie the West to ideas of liberty, equality and democracy. Others bring up questions of religion, slavery and whiteness. We continue the discussion throughout the semester while studying a survey of modern European history, always bringing it back to questions about orientalism as well as the appropriation and abuse of history argued by the likes of Edward Said, Johanna Hanink and Donna Zuckerberg.

The Proud Boys’ website also claims the group confuses ‘the media because the group is anti-SJW without being alt-right’. This claim to be ‘anti-Social Justice Warrior’, is curious, as it most often refers to those who are interested in promoting civil rights, and pointing out injustices, regardless of one’s race, gender, class, nationality or embodiment. When the so-called SJWs point to social inequality because of discrimination, it is an attempt to have human rights recognised – an ideal embedded in Enlightenment thought. Even, the Proud Boys desire to dubiously claim to not discriminate because of race, sexuality, or religion is a product of the Enlightenment. Of course, for the group, there seems to be a complete lack of understanding about what the Enlightenment was, including the importance of seeking redress for injustice from a democratic government, as well as a complete lack of interest in what equality means today. The so-called SJWs, in reality, represent what might be the most important ideals of western thought that stretch from Rousseau to Angela Davis.

Meanwhile, the ‘men-only’ exclusivity of the Proud Boys is a clear demonstration of chauvinism against women. The Proud Boys’ reactionary website is against women and denies the existence of transgender people, stating: ‘Our group is and will always be MEN ONLY (born with a penis if that wasn’t clear enough for you leftists)!’ Women can, however, join the group as ‘Proud Boys’ Girls’. But even in the women’s group’s name they are subordinate, belonging not to their own group, but to the boys.

Both Ortega Smith and the Proud Boys versions of western civilization reject the western ideals that are worth defending – a belief in equality, the value of individual and the responsibility of the government to its people. Their visions of the West simply cannot co-exist along with the best hopes for the Enlightenment project. Of course, the best parts of Enlightenment ideals have rarely been a reality, but they are still goals for which to strive.

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“What if everyone in the world was suddenly a vegetarian—what effect would it have on our lives and on the planet?”

The team over at AsapScience break this question down in a new video. 

• Without any demand for meat, entire herds of domestically raised animals would disappear. That would free up the 33 million square kilometers of land used for pasture. 
   
• Loss of trees to soak up CO2 is one of the major factors in global warming, and the freed-up land (collectively, the size of Africa) would help balance CO2 levels. Cows alone account for a great amount of methane (CH4) gas production, and the decrease in dependence on livestock—which produces as much as 15 percent of greenhouse gases—would greatly reduce CH4 levels.
   
• It would also greatly reduce water consumption. For example, it takes 15,000 liters of water to make one kilogram of beef, compared to the 300 liters it takes for a kilogram garden vegetables.
   
• The costs? No leather production, and no animal fats—which are used in cosmetics, detergents, and many other products. Also, livestock production is the job of 1 billion people. 

With vegetarians numbering as low as 4 to 5 percent of the population in the United States (and 30 percent in India), this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. But the scenario helps us get our minds around how much our planet has been transformed by our meat eating.

 

Recently, Javier Ortega Smith, the leader of Vox, the populist radical right party in Spain, came under scrutiny for language that Spanish Attorney General Luis Navajas called ‘abominable’ and ‘repulsive’ but not a hate crime. Ortega Smith claimed: ‘Our common enemy, the enemy of Europe, the enemy of liberty, the enemy of progress, the enemy of democracy, the enemy of family, the enemy of life, the enemy of the future is an invasion, an Islamic invasion… What we know and understand as civilization is at risk’. Ortega Smith called upon old concepts of ‘western civilization’ that have long been used to mask hate and excuse violence.

Most semesters, I teach a class titled ‘Western Civilization II’, a survey of European history that covers from the Enlightenment to the present. The course, which has been taught under that title for decades, is typically taken after students finish Western Civilization I, which covers antiquity to the Middle Ages. Instead of beginning with the Enlightenment, I like to start with the beginning of Spanish colonisation of the Americas and the expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Spain in 1492 – an important year in the construction of ‘The West’. We talk about ‘the West’ as a social construct – something that is not a natural fact, but a concept invented by humans. Indeed, before 1492, ‘the West’ existed differently in the imagination of peoples living in Europe than it does today. With colonisation and global trade, the idea of the West literally expanded. Using this framework, we end the course discussing refugees, antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe today – bringing it full circle.

Historically, being ‘western’ or ‘civilised’ was a powerful weapon used to legitimate the domination of others who were outside Europe. Despite the fact that the first recorded civilizations or settled groups of people began in ancient Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, the promise of ‘civilisation’ somehow became the provenance of Europe. The promise of ‘Western civilization’ became an excuse to dominate – to ‘civilize’ others. In the Spanish case, this was readily made apparent in the encomienda system that systematically enslaved native populations in the Americas. Other European colonial powers adopted similar rationales for their empires; it came ‘the white man’s burden’ to spread western civilization. Of course, native populations in the Americas and elsewhere already had civilizations long before Europeans arrived, and were rarely admitted as part of the Western club.

In the aftermath of the First World War, the German academic Oswald Spengler wrote The Decline of the West, a work that demonstrated racist and proto-fascist tropes as it decried the fall of Western Civilization and underlined the importance of strengthening blood ties in order to save the West. This fear of the fall of the West later popped up again during the Cold War and even in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks in the United States. Powerful countries seem to need to summon up a millenarianism, sounding the death of the West in moments of anxiety about the loss of power, while also using it to legitimate their power.

The Proud Boys

More recently, in 2016, Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of Vice Media, began a men’s exclusive group called ‘The Proud Boys’. On the Proud Boys’ website, they declare that they accept people of ‘all races’, ‘all religions’, ‘gay or straight’. However, to join the Proud Boys one must ‘be a man’ and ‘must love the west’. One video featured on their website claims that all the Proud Boys care about is that one believes ‘the West is the best’.

The group is composed of self-proclaimed ‘Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world’. McInnes, has described a chauvinist as simply being ‘a nationalist, a patriot’. While, McInnes is right to describe chauvinism as also being applicable to those categories in addition to other types of chauvinism such as male chauvinism, he conflates nationalism and patriotism – pride in ones’ country as opposed to the belief in the superiority of that nation. McInnes’s broad category of ‘Western chauvinism’ translates to a type of western nationalism akin to ‘European nationalism’ – a concept that might read as ‘White Nationalism’– without being entirely obvious. Indeed, these chauvinistic ideals are a direct product of western ideologies. They represent the west’s most horrendous legacies: fascism, patriarchy and colonialism.

This sort of uncritical lauding of ‘the West’ and its history is why western civilization courses that analyse the concept of ‘the West’ are particularly important. Such ethnocentric, sexist and racist ideologies demonstrate why it is important to de-colonise the study and teaching of European culture and history – to combat the types of ideas the Proud Boys expound. As co-chair of the Council for European Studies at Columbia University’s new Critical European Studies Research Network, I have the privilege of working with students and scholars particularly interested in engaging in these types of questions.

So, what does it mean to be ‘Western’? It’s a nebulous concept at best. At the beginning of my course, I give students a blank map with no geo-political boundaries. Individually, students are to circle the parts of the map they consider part of ‘the West’. Some students circle only North America, other students only Europe. Some circle a combination of Europe, the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Some throw in Latin America, and others Japan – or even other countries which have been colonised. Students compare the differences in their maps, highlight disputed territories and then, as a class, we compare those hazier boundaries and how they define ‘the West’ more generally. In these discussions, many students tie the West to ideas of liberty, equality and democracy. Others bring up questions of religion, slavery and whiteness. We continue the discussion throughout the semester while studying a survey of modern European history, always bringing it back to questions about orientalism as well as the appropriation and abuse of history argued by the likes of Edward Said, Johanna Hanink and Donna Zuckerberg.

The Proud Boys’ website also claims the group confuses ‘the media because the group is anti-SJW without being alt-right’. This claim to be ‘anti-Social Justice Warrior’, is curious, as it most often refers to those who are interested in promoting civil rights, and pointing out injustices, regardless of one’s race, gender, class, nationality or embodiment. When the so-called SJWs point to social inequality because of discrimination, it is an attempt to have human rights recognised – an ideal embedded in Enlightenment thought. Even, the Proud Boys desire to dubiously claim to not discriminate because of race, sexuality, or religion is a product of the Enlightenment. Of course, for the group, there seems to be a complete lack of understanding about what the Enlightenment was, including the importance of seeking redress for injustice from a democratic government, as well as a complete lack of interest in what equality means today. The so-called SJWs, in reality, represent what might be the most important ideals of western thought that stretch from Rousseau to Angela Davis.

Meanwhile, the ‘men-only’ exclusivity of the Proud Boys is a clear demonstration of chauvinism against women. The Proud Boys’ reactionary website is against women and denies the existence of transgender people, stating: ‘Our group is and will always be MEN ONLY (born with a penis if that wasn’t clear enough for you leftists)!’ Women can, however, join the group as ‘Proud Boys’ Girls’. But even in the women’s group’s name they are subordinate, belonging not to their own group, but to the boys.

Both Ortega Smith and the Proud Boys versions of western civilization reject the western ideals that are worth defending – a belief in equality, the value of individual and the responsibility of the government to its people. Their visions of the West simply cannot co-exist along with the best hopes for the Enlightenment project. Of course, the best parts of Enlightenment ideals have rarely been a reality, but they are still goals for which to strive.

In these horrifying times, it’s sadly comforting to hear a story of racism in the U.S. that ends with karmic justice being served (and that doesn’t end with the President encouraging and endorsing the hateful rhetoric). Yes, that’s the silver lining we have to work with in 2019.

Earlier this week, a writer named Jaime Primak was on a plane to NYC when a racist passenger, perhaps empowered by Trump’s racist rhetoric, told her to “please stop speaking Spanish.” Immediately, she says the man sitting next to him came to her defense by speaking in Spanish, and then the flight attendant joined in. She says the gestures made her so happy, she wanted to “get up and dance.”

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There isn’t much room on a plane for dancing, but there is always room for gifs! Primak followed up with this celebratory tweet:

After her tweet went viral, people started offering their support in the replies, saying they would’ve joined the anti-racism efforts.

Even people who don’t speak Spanish are saying they would’ve done their best to join in.

This person pointed out that a person who hates foreign language speakers is headed to the wrong city (although they should probably just avoid all U.S. cities, and the U.S. in general, and maybe go live alone on a deserted island somewhere and only eat wonder bread).

Someone else pointed out that in Europe, it’s actually considered shameful to only speak one language.

And this person shared about having a similar experience in line at Costco.

It’s pretty freaking tragic that this kind of racist behavior is still happening in 2019. But at least this story is a reminder that for every racist on a plane, there’s a whole bunch of people who are vehemently opposed to everything that racist stands for. It’s also a reminder to stick up for your fellow humans. If you see someone being racist, take a stand. Say something. Do something. You’ll help make the world a little less crappy and you might even make someone so happy they’ll want to get up and dance.

Selling your used bathwater might just get you into some hot water with Instagram (pun intended.) YouTube star and social media personality Belle Delphine recently stirred up a bit of controversy when she posted a video online about how she would sell her used bath water to “thirsty gamer boy” followers for $30 a pop. 

The product sold out in three days, but Belle’s Instagram mysteriously disappeared, so what happened? 

Was Belle Delphine banned from Instagram?

With nearly 500,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and 4.5 million followers on Instagram, the19-year-old has made a mark on social media. Her videos and photos have been suggestive in nature, with instances of nudity alarming users who felt as though the content was inappropriate for a public account. 

Now, Belle’s Instagram page is unavailable, leading many to wonder what exactly happened and if the influencer has any chance of reactivating her account.

Searching Belle Delphine’s handle and name on Instagram only yields a result page for hashtags now. Some users have posted screenshots of them anonymously reporting Belle’s posts and account, citing nudity or pornography. 

Belle Delphine violated Instagram’s Community Guidelines. 

Instagram responded, stating that her account was removed for violating Community Guidelines. This comes on the heels of Instagram’s new policy to warn users before their accounts get taken down. Belle has yet to confirm or deny if she was given this warning.

Some of the content in question of being too risqué for Instagram is partial nudity and adult anime practices that are seen as sexually explicit. One of the signature—and bizarre— moves in her videos is to play with a dead octopus, which often rests on her lap. She also had promised to release pornography if one of her Instagram posts got more than one million likes, but did not do so when the post was successful. 

Did her bathwater sale lead to the Instagram delete?

Belle has certainly gained more buzz since she decided to sell her Gamer Girl bathwater. After allegedly selling more than 500 units of the product, she restocked and sold even bigger containers of the used water. She claimed that she decided to sell it when people kept commenting on her Instagram page — which often included content featuring her in the bath — that they would love to buy her bathwater. 

Belle’s Twitter account has not been removed, but she hasn’t Tweeted since July 10th, when her bathwater first sold out. A link to her Patreon, which she warns has NSFW content, is also still on her page. 

It’s unclear when Belle’s Instagram account will be reactivated, or if it will at all. Maybe she will take this social media hiatus as a time to figure out her next business venture. 

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