Welcome to part two of my two-part series comparing American democracy with the rest of the world, based on the modern classic of comparative politics Patterns of Democracy (2nd edition) by Arend Lijphart (rhymes with pipe-heart), published in 2012. Yes, part one is very long (and very fascinating, I’m told), but you don’t need to read it unless you want to, because I’ll briefly summarize the parts you need to understand.
In his book, Lijphart classifies democracies into two broad categories, based on the question: who should the government be responsive to when the people are in disagreement? The answer provided by the majoritarian model of democracy is that government should be responsive to a majority of the people, or often in practice, a plurality of the people. In contrast, the consensus model of democracy accepts support from the majority as only a minimum requirement, and instead seeks to foster broad participation in government and broad agreement on policies.
There are two complementary approaches to building a consensus democracy (or building a majoritarian democracy, if the antithesis of each approach is used). The first, the joint-power approach, seeks to broadly share power within institutions, for example multiparty systems, proportional representation, and coalition cabinets. In contrast, the divided-power approach diffuses power across separate institutions, for example across central and regional governments (federalism), upper and lower houses of the legislature (bicameralism), independent central banks, and constitutional courts with the power of judicial review.
Note that these two approaches are complementary, not mutually exclusive. A democracy can embrace both joint-power and divided-power approaches, reject both, or embrace one while rejecting the other. As such, every democracy can be roughly divided into one of 4 quadrants. Here is a table displaying a prototypical democracy from each quadrant.

	joint-power	non-joint-power
non-divided-power	Israel	UK
divided-power	Switzerland	USA

The United States’ approach to democracy almost uniformly rejects joint-power, while embracing divided-power, so we sit somewhere between a majoritarian democracy like the UK and a consensus democracy like Switzerland. In the last post I discussed non-joint-power in the United States, and in this post I’ll be covering divided-power.
At the end, I’ll finish up with Lijphart’s conclusions on the effectiveness of consensus democracy vs. majoritarian democracy in general (spoiler: consensus democracy is better), and I’ll give my thoughts on the future of democratic institutional reform in the United States.

Divided-power in the United States

Let’s take another look at Lijphart’s conceptual map of democracy (democracies further to the left embrace the joint-power approach, while those toward the bottom embrace divided-power). As you can see from the conceptual map, out of the 36 sufficiently large and long-lived democracies in Lijphart’s sample, the United States ranks as a very close second to Germany in its strong approach to divided-power. Other notable divided-power democracies include Australia, Argentina, Canada, and Switzerland, with Switzerland being the joint-power black sheep of the group (Germany is also joint-power, but not to the same extent).
Lijphart describes five institutions that can be used to build a divided-power democracy, and the United States has fine examples of all of them.

A federal government instead of a unitary government
A bicameral legislature instead of a unicameral legislature.
A rigid constitution that can only be changed by an extraordinary majority, as opposed to a flexible constitution that can be changed by a simple majority.
A Supreme Court with the power to review legislation, rather than the legislature having the final say on the constitutionality of its own legislation.
A central bank that is independent from the executive, as opposed to a central bank that is controlled by the executive.

Let’s talk about each of these aspects of divided-power, and how they are implemented in the United States in comparison to the rest of the world.

An exceptionally strong federalism

At its most basic, federalism means that there is a guaranteed division of power between central and regional governments. But how do we guarantee that such a division of power remains stable? There are typically three institutions that serve that purpose. Notice that these are the same as 2, 3, and 4 in the list of divided-power institutions above.

A bicameral legislature with a strong second chamber dedicated to representing the regions of the federation.
A written constitution outlining the federal division of power. To keep the division of power stable this constitution needs to be rigid, meaning that it should be difficult to amend.
A supreme or constitutional court that can protect the constitution with the power of judicial review, meaning that the court has the final say on the constitutionality of executive and legislative actions.

What is federalism good for though? Federalism is particularly well suited to very large countries (in terms of both population and geographic size), and to very diverse countries (in terms of religions, ethnic groups, languages spoken, etc.).
The United States is the second most populous democracy in the world, with the first being India, which is also federal. The least populous federation is Switzerland, though it is still relatively large, being approximately in the middle of Lijphart’s 36 countries ranked by population.
In terms of diversity, the US is only semi-diverse according to Lijphart’s classification, and in any case, state lines are not and probably could not be drawn with regard to separate racial, ethnic, and religious groups, as they can be in some other countries.
In the case of India, a highly diverse society, British colonial authorities drew administrative lines without regard for linguistic differences, an unfortunate situation which was not corrected until the 1950’s, providing additional representation for linguistic minorities. Canada and Switzerland are other examples of federations with regional lines drawn (at least roughly) to contain cultural and linguistic minorities.
It’s not common, but for diverse societies it’s also possible to have federal territories that are not defined geographically, for example Belgium’s three cultural communities.
There is another possible purpose of federalism, and that is to allow the regions to experiment with different forms of government. In practice, however, regional governments tend to be extremely similar to the central government. If you’ve ever wondered why almost every US state has a bicameral legislature, even though state governments are not federal and some states are extremely small, then there’s your answer: there is no good reason, except that it mirrors the form of the central government. Presidentialism, too, has leaked into the states, with governors essentially acting as presidents for each state, despite the flaws of presidentialism I went over in the first post.
There has been some experimentation with electoral systems among the states, for example ranked choice voting for congressional and presidential elections in Alaska and Maine and for local elections in many other states. There has only been one notable exception when it comes to majority/plurality electoral systems, in the state of Illinois, which used cumulative voting (a semi-proportional method) for its lower house from 1870 to 1980.
Another notable case outside of the USA is Australia, with the state of Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory using the single-transferable-vote form of proportional representation for electing their regional assemblies, unlike the Australian House of Representatives and the regional lower houses of every other Australian state which all use ranked choice voting, a majority/plurality voting method. However, single-transferable-vote is far from unheard of in Australia, as it is also used to elect the national Senate.
Of course, in the United States there has been a great degree of experimentation with state laws, including of taxation, drug prohibition, environmental regulations, etc. This has allowed some states to learn from the experiments of others, and at times has allowed certain states to lag far behind the others, depending on your perspective.

Bicameralism taken too far?

Bicameralism, meaning the division of the legislature into two differently constituted chambers, is closely associated with federalism, as the purpose of the second chamber is typically to give additional representation to the regions of the federation. In Lijphart’s sample, all 9 of the federal countries are bicameral, while only about half of the 27 remaining non-federal countries are bicameral. The unicameral countries tend to have smaller populations. Worldwide, about ⅔ of countries are unicameral.
Typically, the first chamber tends to be the more important of the two, with the second chamber in a subordinate role, though there are notable exceptions: the United States, Argentina, Italy, Switzerland, and Uruguay all have chambers with approximately equal powers, or arguably in the case of the United States, greater powers. Second chambers that are directly elected tend to be more powerful, as direct election gives the second chamber additional democratic legitimacy and thus greater political influence, which is true for the five countries with powerful second chambers except for Switzerland, where most but not all members of the second chamber are directly elected.
Some less important differences are that the first chamber also tends to be the larger one (with the only exception being the British House of Lords). Terms of office tend to be longer in second chambers, and second chambers tend to have staggered elections.
One of the most important differences is that second chambers are often designed to overrepresent certain minorities, the most common example being the overrepresentation of regions with smaller populations, as seen in federalism. In this table you can see the degree to which different countries overrepresent the smaller regions.
The three countries with the greatest degree of overrepresentation of smaller regions are Argentina, the United States, and Switzerland. These are also countries where all regions have equal representation in the second chamber regardless of population size. The same is true of Australia, which ranks 5th on the chart. In the United States, a staggering 10% of the best represented voters control 39.7% of the seats in the Senate. Other countries like Germany and Canada give greater, but not equal, representation to smaller regions, while Belgium gives only slight overrepresentation to its French and German-speaking minorities.
In the United States the second chamber has some unique powers, such as ratifying treaties and confirming members of the federal judiciary, that the first chamber does not have. This, combined with the Supreme Court being one of the most powerful activist courts in the world, has produced an unusual situation where a minority controls an arguably more powerful second chamber. And the situation is only getting worse: by 2040, two-thirds of Americans will be represented by only 30% of the Senate.
Having a bicameral legislature with special representation for smaller regions is an important guarantor of federalism, but as we can see from other countries like Canada, Australia, and Germany, the amount of overrepresentation seen in the United States is not necessary to maintain a strong form of federalism. Only time will tell whether the United States can maintain a stable and legitimate government in a state of continually strengthening minority rule.

The most rigid constitution in the world

A rigid federal constitution is another important guarantor of federalism, and the United States has the least flexible constitution in the world, with two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate as well as the approval of 3/4ths of the states being required to pass a constitutional amendment. There are several other countries where supermajorities are required, as you can see in this table, but not to the same degree as in the United States. It is one of the reasons the United States has the shortest written constitution in the world at 4,400 words, despite being one of the oldest constitutions.
Having a constitution is not itself enough to guarantee federalism, an institution is also needed to defend the constitution. Independent courts with the power of judicial review fulfill that purpose, and the United States has one of the most vigorous federal courts, as you can see in this table. The German Constitutional Court arguably ranks in second place. Judicial review is particularly strong in several other countries besides the USA and Germany: India, and recently, Canada, Costa Rica, and Argentina. When it comes to the United States, Lijphart notes that, “The activist American courts and the Supreme Court in particular have been accused of forming an ‘imperial judiciary.’”
A rigid constitution and the courts with independent review to back it up are an important anti-majoritarian device, while having a flexible constitution and no judicial review allow unrestricted majority rule. The UK is a prime example of majority rule, and is also one of only 3 democracies of Lijphart’s 36 with no written constitution, the other 2 being New Zealand and Israel. Switzerland is an odd outlier, being an otherwise completely consensual democracy with no judicial review, despite having a strong form of federalism. Perhaps this demonstrates that judicial review is helpful, but not essential, to maintaining federalism.

The paradox of the US Supreme Court

As explained in the last section, activist courts with the power of judicial review are an anti-majoritarian device, but the US Supreme Court is majoritarian in its makeup in almost every respect, in contrast to the German Constitutional Court and the Indian Supreme Court which follow a more consensual pattern.
One example of the Supreme Court’s majoritarianism is its small number of justices, only 9, compared with 16 in Germany and 29 in India. This places a hard limit on the amount of broad representation of different population groups on the Supreme Court. A second majoritarian aspect is that justices are chosen by majority in the Senate, unlike the two-thirds majorities required in both German chambers. The court itself makes decisions by majority, which increases the power of the court to make decisions, but decreases the consensual nature of the decision-making.
There are a couple more reasons the Supreme Court is majoritarian in its makeup: one is that vacancies are filled as they occur, allowing majorities to sequentially pick their favorites, whereas if justices were chosen as a group it would be more likely for minorities to be chosen. A second reason is that US justices have very long terms, which tends to be an obstacle to broad representation in an evolving society. In Germany and India, justices have mandatory retirement ages of 68 and 65, respectively, and in Germany they are chosen to 12 year non-renewable terms.
This paradox of a consensual institution with majoritarian rules is seen not only in the Supreme Court, but in many other institutions of American democracy. The presidency, for example, represents a division of power between the executive and legislative, an expression of divided-power, while the presidency itself, a single person elected by majority, is the antithesis of consensus decision making.

One of the most independent central banks… at least until the 90’s.

Central banks are crucial policy-making institutions, particularly when they are strong and independent. Having a strong and independent central bank is an important aspect of the divided-power approach to building a consensus democracy (recall that an independent central bank is one of the five divided-power institutions enumerated above).
The most important duty of central banks is making monetary policy – the regulation of interest rates and the supply of money, which in turn has effects on price stability, inflation, unemployment, economic growth, and the business cycle.
According to the Cukierman Index of Independence, central banks are at their most independent when they have exclusive jurisdiction over monetary policy and their only or primary task is to maintain price stability. Central banks may be less strong when they have multiple, possibly conflicting goals, such as both price stability and full employment. Other important aspects of bank independence are the independence of the bank’s governor from the executive, and when the bank is in full control of the terms of lending to the central government.
Until around 1994, central bank independence was strongly correlated with federalism, another important divided-power institution, and the five central banks with the greatest independence were all federal systems: Germany, Switzerland, the United States, Austria, and Canada. As you can see in this table (continued here), these five banks reigned supreme as the most independent central banks in the world for 50 years, from 1945 to 1994.
After 1994, many European central banks became remarkably more independent as a condition for participating in the euro, per the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, for example the Spanish, French, and Italian central banks which all increased by approximately .5 on the Cukierman Index in 1994, easily surpassing the United States. The establishment of the European Central Bank in 1998 and the adoption of the euro transformed the central bank for those countries into an element of the international system. After that, the correlation between federalism and central bank independence shrank considerably, as the central bank was no longer a domestic institution, following the same divided-power approach as the rest of the domestic government.
The United States, in contrast, has remained completely static from 1945 until the present day, with a Cukierman Index of .56, putting it in 17th place among Lijphart’s 36 major democracies as of 2010. It’s beyond the scope of Lijphart’s book, and my own expertise, to say whether this has had any effect on economic growth or the ability of the Federal Reserve to maintain price stability, compared to EU countries.

Categorizing democracies using joint-power and divided-power

I want to talk about how majoritarian and consensus democracies perform in practice in the next section, but first, I would be amiss if I didn’t mention what Liphart describes as “one of the most important general findings of this book”, which is that the five variables representing divided-power tend to be clustered with one another, and also the five variables representing joint-power tend to be clustered with one another.
For example, democracies which are federalist also tend to have bicameralism, constitutional rigidity, judicial review, and central bank independence (that last one only prior to 1994), all examples of divided-power institutions. Likewise, democracies with a lower percentage of minimal winning one-party cabinets also tend to have more political parties, less executive dominance, more proportional election systems, and greater interest group pluralism, all important divided-power institutions. Take a look at this factor analysis for a more precise picture. The numbers may be thought of as the correlation coefficient between the variable and factor 1 and 2, which represent joint-power and divided-power, respectively.
Meanwhile, between the two approaches, joint-power and divided-power, there is very little correlation, for example federalism is not well correlated with the number of political parties. The United States is a perfect example of mixing the two approaches, as it closely adheres to the divided-power approach, while rejecting joint-power. These correlations are of immense interest to comparative political scientists, because it represents a useful way to categorize democracies along two dimensions.
How is it that democracies end up embracing either of the two approaches? Taking another look at the conceptual map, one of the most striking patterns is that countries on the right side, the non-joint-power side, tend to be former British colonies, with some exceptions such as Argentina, Costa Rica, Greece, Spain, South Korea, and France. As Lijphart notes: “France is an especially interesting exceptional case: in view of French president de Gaulle’s deeply felt and frequently expressed antagonism towards les anglo-saxons, it is ironic that the republic he created is the most Anglo-Saxon of any of the continental European democracies.” The left side of the map, in contrast, includes most of the continental European democracies, and all five of the Nordic countries, which have a common Scandinavian cultural heritage of consensus decision making and arbitration.
There are some exceptions on the left side as well (the joint-power side): Ireland, India, Israel, and Mauritius all were formerly under British colonial rule, the difference is that these are highly plural societies, where majoritarianism and its associated non-joint-power approach just do not work well in practice, often leading to sectarian violence, as I explained in the first post.
What about the divided-power approach, signified by the bottom of the conceptual map? As explained earlier in this post, the size of the country (both in terms of population and geographic size), as well as diversity, are significantly correlated with the divided-power approach. In other words, the countries embracing divided-power tend to be larger and more diverse.

Wrapping up: majoritarian vs. consensus democracy

So how do majoritarian and consensus democracies stack up in practice? The conventional wisdom is that majoritarian democracies are less representative of the population, but are more decisive, and therefore better at governing effectively. Lijphart argues that faster decisions are not always wiser decisions, in fact the opposite is often true, and policies that are supported by broad consensus are more likely to be successfully implemented. He also observes that non-joint-power democracies like the United States have the disadvantage of frequently flip-flopping between contrasting policies whenever government control changes hands from one party to the other.
Lijphart runs a regression on 17 indicators of government performance, such as government effectiveness, rule of law, and control of corruption, and finds that the joint-power approach is favorably correlated to a statistically significant degree with 9 out of 17 of them, while non-joint-power is only correlated with economic growth, but not to a statistically significant degree. In general, all of the correlations with economic variables are weak, such as with unemployment, budget balance, and economic freedom. Divided-power, meanwhile, has such weak correlations with all of the government performance variables that no firm conclusions can be drawn.
Lijphart concludes that while joint-power democracies are not necessarily proven better than majoritarian democracies at all aspects of governing, they are almost certainly not worse, as the conventional wisdom goes, and along many aspects they are significantly better.
One major exception is that when it comes to the control of violence, joint-power is very strongly correlated with a lower degree of violence, an intuitive result considering the discussion in my first post of the incompatibility between majoritarianism and diverse societies, as exemplified by Northern Ireland.

Consensus democracy: the “kinder, gentler” democracy

Consensus democracies may not always be superior decision makers, but Lijphart is able to draw other conclusions on the tendencies of joint-power democracies, but not so much on divided-power. He finds that joint-power democracies are more likely to be welfare states, have a better record of protecting the environment, put fewer people in prison and are less likely to have the death penalty, and are more generous with economic assistance to developing nations.
When it comes to putting people in prison, the United States is such an extreme outlier among other democracies that Lijphart found it necessary to remove it from the analysis, but still, the effect of joint-power on incarceration rates was strongly negative and statistically significant. The USA has 743 prisoners per hundred thousand people, twice as many as the next democracy in Lijphart’s analysis, the Bahamas. Even extending the analysis to non-democracies, the USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with either Russia or China in second place, depending on the survey.
When it comes to government effectiveness and “kinder, gentler” policies in general, the problem with all of these correlations, as Lijphart points out, is that culture may be a confounding variable, and “consensus democracy may not be able to take root and thrive unless it is supported by a consensual political culture.” But he offers hope that the cause-and-effect may go both ways: consensual democratic institutions may have the effect of making an adversarial political culture more consensual. Switzerland and Austria have not always had a consensual culture, their histories being marked by violent strife, while today Belgium, India, and Israel have adversarial cultures and consensual institutions. One hopes that over time those country’s institutions will have a positive effect on their contentious political cultures.

Where does the United States go from here?

The bad news is that the United States is probably not going to change one bit along the joint-power and divided-power dimensions. Some few countries have made a move towards federalism over time, and even more rarely a handful of countries such as New Zealand have moved towards proportional representation and a joint-power approach, but in general all democracies have been extremely stable along the joint-power and divided-power dimensions from 1945 to 2010, especially the United States, with its exceptionally rigid constitution. The bottom line: if you’re an American looking for a relatively “kinder, gentler” democracy with more proportional political representation, your best bet is to pack your bags.
However, if you are ever in the extraordinary position of framing a new constitution or amending one, my advice is to learn from our experience and the experience of other democracies around the world: avoid presidentialism like the plague, embrace the parliamentary system, and adopt a proportional electoral system. This advice is doubly important for highly diverse societies, where majoritarianism (particularly of the non-joint-power variety) frequently leads to violence.

Rewatch Impressions

Rewatched Veep recently for what I think was the third time? Either way, it left me with some thoughts
- Sue was a lot less featured than I thought. Most episodes had her with minor dialogue in a few scenes only, and there were only a handful that had her with a largish part in the plot (the hostage episode, and the garbage one too), whereas most characters had their day in the limelight, at minimum. Of course some characters will always be minor, but she probably has less total screentime than Furlong. Glad she was back for the finale.
- Testimony was interesting because of the outside view of all of this, and shows the public perception of all the characters. Ben in particular presented as especially charismatic, which was quite something.
- I don't know if this was an Easter egg or not, but Montez goofed up the oath - its '...office of president...' but she said '...the office of the president...', which I thought was odd that it wasn't explicitly mentioned, but I'm willing to be it was difficult to put into the 5-minutes of tightly packed plot conclusion
- I found it odd that Tom James asked to be Treasury Secretary when he did, on election night, whereas it would've made sense to ask Selena after she wins (as she'd be at her happiest), as opposed to when the most powerful woman in the world is at her most tense
- I'm also surprised there wasn't a large deal made over the Electoral College itself, given literally one faithless elector could've been bribed to swap votes and decide the presidency, whereas it wasn't mentioned at all at all.
- Selena's actual political acumen is rarely mentioned, and we only get glipses of it (her postal commission reducing waste in the postal service, her 'successful' raid on the wedding that killed the target). As TV Tropes puts it, its more of an informed ability than anything directly displayed, which unfortunately contributes to it seeming like a 'comedy of errors' at times than an incisive look into the political backrooms. Each of her major attempts are defeated - both Clean Jobs and the (Mommy) Meyer Bill effectively leave her with no major legacy in her first four years in the West Wing.
- One of her issues is having no office in the West Wing (something we're told in a flashback around S6 or S7, I believe?), though Seasons 2 and 3 have her team operating out of an (albeit smaller) office in the West Wing from time to time, which is sort of confusing.
- Given the timeline of politics puts Selena as entering politics in the mid-1990s, she was probably elected to Congress first around the Year of the Woman in 1992. This isn't meant to sound crude or dismissive, but her description of her experience of sexism in politics (such as in the S7 debate) would likely be something more associated with a career in politics in the 70s or 80s. Though not to dismiss a lived experience or anything.
- The progression of women in politics is pretty interesting to comprehend - given this version of 2020s America has had two (three?) female presidents and a female vice president, and every election since 2012 has had a woman on the ticket. Even their 2020 election had two women at the top of the ticket. This has progressed to the point that having a two-woman ticket isn't entirely unthinkable, which is a pretty remarkable step up.
- I live in a country that is not the USA, so our scandals are more of the 'politician leaked a document' or 'minister fell asleep in parliament' type, as opposed to the far, far larger threats current America has, so it may have aged better for my own viewing than for other people's viewing.
- Catherine is at her most interesting when its shown that she's far more like her mother than we'd be led to believe; this is at its best in the second last episode when her and Majorie decide to get married in Europe after all, which sort of rerails her character a bit. She's really easy to feel sorry for, and usually hits a lot of those moments where you just want Selena to do the right thing for once (she doesn't).
- It's rather hilarious seeing that Selena's friends are all as stuck-up as she is; insulting her political skills to her face, not inviting her to a wedding, etc. Its not a stretch to imagine all of them were merely friends because the pressures of Law School brought them together, and find it difficult to maintain a friendship outside of that.
- The show, in my opinion, moves into the flow of 'Election TV' far to quickly, and moves away from an interesting premise too early in its run, to something that is often seen in other shows (Scandal, House of Cards, etc). Not that it isn't still top-tier television, but its just a bit off, looking back in retrospect.
- Helsinki and London visits are rather interesting episodes, and show off the common Vice Presidential duty of foreign visits and funerals that the president doesn't want to attend. (Also, though I could be wrong on the specifics, the USA is attempting to negotiate a trade agreement with Finland, where as an EU member state, the USA would only be able to reach an agreement with the EU as a whole, not individual member states. Plot hole?)
- Could the 'squeaks' from her shoes in the inaugural address even be audible to the general public? They were no louder than her voice, so surely would be less detectable from far away from the microphone. Also, would the technician guys not have a lick of sense and at least mute the microphones until she actually got to the podium?
- I feel like using the party colors was a bit of an unnecessary giveaway, I would've liked to see the election map lit up with orange and cyan or something interesting. Also, I do believe they mention the GOP at one point, just as an aside. My own view on the parties, which explains things like Jonah's base and Montez wanting to ban for-profit prisons is that politics are akin to Ireland's, where one party (Selena's) is a liberal party with a large conservative/traditionalist wing, and the other is a party of the neoliberal center. This would also explain the scope of the president to be able to woo members of the opposing political party in the House vote, which otherwise is a bit immersion-breaking.
- I understand this point is a bit of looking back and scoffing, but how and why was the economy so dramatically upset because of uncertainty in the race? Fundamentally both parties are different flavors of the same soup, so I wouldn't expect the markets to be as spooked as they were, especially given that its weathered greater storms (like the present). It's probably nowhere near comparable to their given analogue of the 2008 crash, which was caused by fundamental issues with lending practices, not 'uncertainty'.
- The scene with Congresswoman Nickerson is one of the best takedowns in television, and I'm glad they channeled that energy into the scene in the finale with Tom's Amy.
- I watched the cut scenes of Catherine's Documentary on the YouTube, and I sorta wish they made a long-form version of that episode, as its simply brilliant, and an interesting shift away from their usual format.
- I forgot how funny the 'Hey Grimace' line is from Furlong.
- Freeing Tibet is one of the major actual successes which she engages in (and which almost justifies her typical bad behavior to Catherine). However, Montez getting the Peace Prize is a bit mad given she had no involvement (I understand, its a plot point), but she had no part in signing the actual agreement. After Selena leaves office, there's no benefit to her from keeping it secret anymore, especially when such a major legacy achievement is on the line; given that one (Tibet) significantly outweighs the other (leaking her tweet coverup), there's no real reason why she'd keep it a secret while remaining in-office either, or go to such extremes in her post-presidency either. I understand a throwaway line from Jane McCabe on how it was very big of her to keep quiet at such a critical juncture, I still can't see any reason she kept it hidden so long.
- Another plot question - if Mina was in a sexual relationship with a candidate in the Georgian election, how was she allowed to not only be a supervisor, but a direct overseer from the UN? Do they not have self-declaration forms for this kinda thing?
- I bet Montez wishes she appointed Selena to the Supreme Court after all.
- Shawnee Tanz is a fantastic character, and represents an interesting Ellen Wilson-style figure of when the more powerful half of a political couple isn't the politician, an archetype totally absent from the show before S6.
- Season 7 is noticably rushed, which is a shame, but is understandable given the health problems JLD had. Plot elements are dropped, like Amy's abortion, which could've been rather interesting if properly fleshed out (wonder are there any extended fan-written interpretations out there?). Others, like Richard's political rise, are solid plotlines, but just happen far too rapidly. Otherwise its a pretty interesting season, even if it does tread a lot of the same ground that Seasons 3 and 4 do. Most of Selena's attitudes are very scorched earth, which doubtless made it more of a tense campaign than is depicted; with election rigging to Selena even using a slogan that is a direct attack on a fellow candidate.
- The finale also poses the question of Selena being too proud to ask Kemi to be her running mate (assuming Kemi would go for it; she was pretty close to Selena in delegate totals), and only considering her immediately before Kemi goes nuclear on CNN. This is aided by the fact two-female tickets are a bit more feasible in this America, of course.
- After Selena and Jeff Kane successfully browbeat Jonah into accepting the VP position, it does raise the question as to why they didn't just try browbeat him into accepting AgSec or something minor; he doesn't have Shawnee Tanz to back him up anymore, though I do wish she had stuck around.
- I understand people make criticisms of Veep S7 looking too much like a direct Trump parallel, though I think it's because we've largely forgotten the parallels to the Obama administration that early seasons have - from questioning Chung's citizenship, to the Michelle Obama-Selena link of being a powerful and capable woman stuck with dealing with obesity, not a major issue. My only issue would be Amy physically resembles Kellyanne Conway too much, but though I suspect once the Trump administration fades into obscurity, it'll end up being seeming less of a direct parody.
- I wish someone did a 'fashion analysis' of Veep, as I've seen some good ones of Mean Girls and the like, so that would be entertaining to watch.
- Selena's personality evolves throughout the series, going from 'abrasive and jilted, yet well-meaning public servant' to 'someone desperate for a last grasp at power'. In that, the ending scene of S6 works incredibly well as a 'the gang is back for one last blast' type scene. The ending part of the convention scene works incredibly well to that regard, where she individually sells out each and every ideal and person that's important to her. What really gets me, is that its nothing she hasn't done before either, its just a really condensed and focused impact of what's happened throughout her career; she defamed Tom James with the assault allegation in the same way she fueled the Chung torture rumor; she sells out her daughter in the way that she's, well, done it all of Catherine's life; minor details like drilling rights on federal lands are an easy mirror of past sell-outs like support for a border wall; though of course Gary takes the absolute cake, and its a fantastic finale for that reason.
- I do question how on earth she actually banned same-sex marriage - if both parties are at least moderated somewhat, there's no political use in banning same-sex marriage; even Buddy Calhoun doesn't represent a large enough slice of the pie that she can't avoid appeasing them. I suppose its one way of cementing her repulsion of Catherine, but it seemed sorta superfluous. Also, the fact it may well take a constitutional amendment, too?
- While obviously the general idea of the Oval Office scene was to hammer home how lonely it is at the top, she could well 'resurrect' at least part of her team if she had the willpower - Amy would likely jump at the chance to be free of Jonah, and Dan could well be bought/bribed back with some form of access to power or money. Not to mention how Jonah and Richard are still part of the cabinet, and Sue is unfixingly changed. Sure, she's lonely, but its not an immovable situation.
Anyway, this was far longer than I intended. 9/10

The Importance of Being Candid: On China’s Relationship with the Rest of the World

https://policyexchange.org.uk/pxevents/on-chinas-relationship-with-the-rest-of-the-world/?fbclid=IwAR2W2jM0CQXW-b5AmRCY9uTq6kPiwLrn7Ygy43Nl7_HnBaRkgUqOsUZEB6k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCM8szICMpc&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=PolicyExchangeUK
The Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture (I)
The Importance of Being Candid: On China’s Relationship with the Rest of the World
by
Matthew Pottinger
Deputy National Security Advisor to the President of the United States
Matthew Pottinger is Assistant to the President and US Deputy National Security Advisor. Mr. Pottinger served as the Senior Director for Asia since the start of the Trump Administration in January 2017. In that role, Mr. Pottinger advised the President on Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, and coordinated U.S. policy for the region.
Before joining the National Security Council staff, Mr. Pottinger ran Asia research at a New York-based investment firm and, prior to that, was the founder of a consultancy serving American investors in East Asia. Mr. Pottinger served as a U.S. Marine, with active duty in Japan and three combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by reserve duty at the Pentagon and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Prior to military service, Mr. Pottinger lived and worked in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China from 1997-2005, reporting for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. He is fluent in Mandarin.
INTRODUCTION
DEAN GODSON: Good afternoon, my name is Dean Godson, I’m Director of Policy Exchange, I have the privilege, pleasure of being your host for this 9th Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture. As many of you will know and remember, Colin was the much-loved Chief Constable of West Yorkshire at the time of the 7/7 bombings, the last Deputy Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and first Acting Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He was taken from us tragically early by cancer, still remembered with much fondness. We’re delighted that his widow, Lynn, is here with us today online and with other members of the family. I know you will all wish to, on behalf of everyone here, to wish them all the very best and to thank them for continuing to be patrons of this lecture which would have, I know, meant so much to Colin.
As I say, this is the 9th such lecture and our guest of honour today, our keynoter, Matt Pottinger is Deputy National Security Advisor to the President of the United States. He was previously a distinguished journalist with the Wall Street Journal and then joined the US Marine Corps and won combat decorations for his service in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s one of the leading authorities in the US government on China and that is why uniquely today we are innovating today here at Policy Exchange because as a more than fluent Mandarin speaker, Matt’s address today will be delivered in Mandarin for the sake of audiences across the world and indicating his belief that China is not defined solely by the People’s Republic of China and its representatives, that there is a wider engagement to be had with audiences across the world, Mandarin speaking and others, so good evening to anyone coming in from the Indo Pacific region and China in particular, good morning to all of you in Washington.
Matt, as I say, will make his remarks first in Mandarin and we’ll then open the floor to questions for 35 minutes or so of questions. As I say, we are delighted to be doing this here at Policy Exchange with the importance of this subject of the wider Indo Pacific region and China in particular. We have our own Indo Pacific Commission, chaired by former Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper, which will be publishing in the near future its findings and it work. Also, because of the particular importance of this subject and because of the proximity to the US Presidential election, we are having actually two Cramphorn Memorial Lectures in close succession, one obviously the one today by Matt Pottinger and the other next week by Dr Kurt Campbell of the Asia Group, one of the leading authorities on Asia from the last Democratic administration of Barack Obama, of particular significance because people are increasingly aware in this country that in an era of polarisation in America, the area of the Indo Pacific and China is one subject where discussion and even a measure of consensus is still possible in the United States. So, thank you to Matt Pottinger for honouring us in this way, we look forward to hearing your unique address and insights and then open to wider discussion, thank you Matt.
SPEECH TRANSCRIPTION
I’d like to thank Dean Godson and Policy Exchange for inviting me to deliver the ninth annual Colin Cramphorn lecture. We all look forward to a time when we can gather again in person for events like this. With new vaccines and therapeutics on the near horizon, I’m optimistic that day will soon arrive. In the meantime, let’s pretend we’re at the Red Lion pub and enjoy this convivial, trans-Atlantic video conference between Westminster and the White House. I’m betting on a lively discussion following my set remarks.
As most of you know, England and America are two countries separated by a common language. In order to bridge that divide, I’ve decided to give my remarks in Mandarin.
Truth be told, Dean Godson asked me to bust out my Chinese for the sake of higher ratings. Dean knew that a video of an earlier speech I delivered in Mandarin, about China’s May Fourth movement, was viewed more than one million times. Dean may have also known that a subsequent video I recorded in English for the Ronald Reagan Institute was, by contrast, barely noticed by even my own staff.
Naturally, Dean calculated that a white guy speaking in stilted Mandarin would be a bigger box-office draw than whatever message the white guy might be trying to convey.
So be it. As a character on The Simpsons once put it: “Come for the freak, stay for the food.”
Delivering these remarks in Mandarin has another benefit: It allows friends in China to join a conversation that is taking place with increasing regularity around the globe: A conversation about China’s relationship with the rest of the world.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN HISTORY
But first, a smidgen of history to underscore what’s at stake.
Near the end of the 18th century, across the water and many miles from England, a group of visionary men drew up a constitution. The document they framed was designed to limit the powers of government, assert the rights of the people, and chart a path toward what they hoped would be a lasting democracy.
I’m talking, of course, about… Poland.
“Poland?” you ask. Don’t be embarrassed if 1790s Poland didn’t turn up in your high-school textbooks. Unlike the more famous U.S. Constitution, which was adopted just a few years earlier and still serves as the supreme law of the American republic, the Polish experiment with constitutional government was strangled in its infancy.
The problem was foreign interference. A faction of the Polish nobility felt threatened by the influence they would lose under the new constitution. So they sought Russian help in reestablishing the old order. Catherine the Great seized the opportunity to invade and then partition Poland—she took the east and Prussia took the west.
Then, after defeating a revolt led by Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish military hero of the American Revolution, Russia—along with Prussia and Austria—carried out a final partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1795. The young Commonwealth was erased from the map altogether.
I mention Poland’s failed experiment for two reasons: First, it’s a reminder that democracy, while unrivaled in terms of legitimacy and results, is neither invincible nor inevitable. Second, interference in the affairs of free societies by autocratic regimes is a phenomenon that is waxing, not waning.
To stave off meddling, it never hurts to have favorable geography—a luxury Poland didn’t enjoy. Poland’s 18th Century neighbors were powerful European monarchies. America’s neighbors, by contrast, were the two best friends a fledgling democracy could ever ask for—the Atlantic and the Pacific.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN THE CYBER AGE
But in the cyber age, autocratic governments can concoct disinformation, inject it into the public discourse of nations, and amplify it through self-improving algorithms from the other side of the earth. Are the blessings of oceans and channels sufficient barriers against this sort of meddling?
Not if the citizens of free and sovereign nations yield to complacency. Nations, including democracies, are undergoing the first stage of a real-life “stress test” of their ability to withstand covert, coercive, and corrupt influence by high-tech autocracies.
This may seem odd, because the autocracies are so vastly outnumbered. But they compensate by marshalling the full resources of their states, by learning from one another’s successes and failures, and sometimes by coordinating with one another.
Economic strength isn’t a prerequisite for waging cyber warfare. Thus, we see hackers tasked by Moscow and Tehran attempting to undermine confidence in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. But no regime has more riding on its ability to influence the perceptions, policies and priorities of foreign populations than the Chinese Communist Party.
THE PARTY’S “MAGIC WEAPON”
In truth, we should’ve expected this. The Communist Party’s victory in the Chinese civil war owed less to its combat prowess against superior Nationalist forces than to its ability to infiltrate and manipulate the language, thinking, and actions of its adversaries. This is why the current Party leadership is redoubling its emphasis on “United Front” work.
The defining feature of United Front work is that it’s not transparent. The clue is in the name.
China’s United Front Work system is a gigantic government function with no analogue in democracies. China’s leaders call it a “magic weapon,” and the Party’s 90 million members are required to support its activities. While the system has many branches, the United Front Work Department alone has four times as many cadres as the U.S. State Department has foreign-service officers. But instead of practicing diplomacy with foreign governments—the Chinese foreign ministry handles that—the United Front gathers intelligence about, and works to influence, private citizens overseas. The focus is on foreign elites and the organizations they run. Think of a United Front worker as a cross between an intelligence collector, a propagandist, and a psychologist.
I know that sounds like the opening line to a joke. But United Front work is serious business, and it affects you and me. After all, the raw material for psychologists is data about their patients. The Party is compiling digital dossiers on millions of foreign citizens around the world. The exposure last month of a Chinese database on at least 2.4 million people around the world—including many of us on this call—speaks to the Party’s sheer ambition to wed traditional Leninist techniques with powerful new tools of digital surveillance.
The company building these dossiers, Shenzhen Zhenhua Data Information Technology Co, supports what its CEO reportedly calls “psychological warfare.” Zhenhua harvests and organizes public and private data about us for exploitation by its clients, which are organs of the Chinese security apparatus, according to its website.
The dossiers Zhenhua is compiling include people in virtually every country on earth, no matter how small. They include members of royal families and members of parliament, judges and clerks, tech mavens and budding entrepreneurs, four-star admirals and the crewmembers of warships, professors and think-tankers, and national and local officials. They also include children, who are fair game under Beijing’s rules of political warfare. No one is too prominent or too obscure.
Zhenhua isn’t a particularly large or sophisticated actor in the United Front world. It may even be acting opportunistically, because it thinks the Party will reward it. Far more powerful tech firms, including famous Chinese app developers, play a much bigger role in this kind of work.
Assembling dossiers has always been a feature of Leninist regimes. The material is used now, as before, to influence and intimidate, reward and blackmail, flatter and humiliate, divide and conquer. What’s new is how easy we’ve made it for autocrats to accumulate so much intimate data about ourselves—even people who’ve never set foot in China. We leave our intellectual property, our official documents, and our private lives on the table like open books. The smart phones we use all day to chat, search, buy, view, bank, navigate, network, worship and confide make our thoughts and actions as plain to cyber spooks as the plumes of exhaust from a vintage double-decker bus.
The Chinese Communist Party has reorganized its national strategy around harnessing that digital exhaust to expand the Party’s power and reach.
THE PARTY’S GOALS
But what’s the ultimate point of all the data collection and exploitation? What is Beijing trying to influence us to do? The Party’s goal, in short, is to co-opt or bully people—and even nations—into a particular frame of mind that’s conducive to Beijing’s grand ambitions. It’s a paradoxical mindset—a state of cognitive dissonance that is at once credulous and fearful, complacent and defeatist. It’s a mindset that on Monday says “It’s too early to say whether Beijing poses a threat,” and by Friday says “They’re a threat, all right, but it’s too late to do anything about it now.” To be coaxed into such a mindset is to be seduced into submission—like taking the “blue pill” in The Matrix.
How does Beijing do it? This is where United Front propaganda and psychology come into play. The Party’s overseas propaganda has two consistent themes: “We own the future, so make your adjustments now.” And: “We’re just like you, so try not to worry.” Together, these assertions form the elaborate con at the heart of all Leninist movements.
The Kiwi scholar Anne-Marie Brady, a pioneer in sussing out United Front ploys, points to the Party’s global campaigns—“One Belt, One Road” and the “Community of Common Destiny for Mankind”—as classic specimens of the genre.
Brady calls United Front work a “tool to corrode and corrupt our political system, to weaken and divide us against each other, to erode the critical voice of our media, and turn our elites into clients of the Chinese Communist Party, their mouths stuffed with cash.”
The con doesn’t always work, of course. Facts sometimes get in the way. The profound waste and corruption of many One Belt, One Road projects is an example. When the con doesn’t induce acquiescence, the Party often resorts to intimidation and repression.
Take Hong Kong, where demonstrators took to the streets by the millions last year to protest Beijing’s efforts to undermine Hong Kong’s rule of law. If “socialism with Chinese characteristics” was the future, the demonstrators seemed to prefer staying firmly in the present.
So Beijing resorted to Plan B. It demolished Deng Xiaoping’s “One Country, Two Systems” framework and deprived Hong Kong of the autonomy that made it the most spectacular city in Asia.
HOW WE DEFEND OURSELVES
None of this is reason for panic, mind you. It’s true the West is going through one of its periodic spells of self-doubt, when extreme political creeds surface on the left and the right, and some ideas are so foolish that, to paraphrase George Orwell, only an intellectual could believe them. So let’s pull up our socks and get back to common sense.
On the foreign policy front, President Trump has ingrained two principles worth sharing here, because they’re designed to preserve our sovereignty, promote stability, and reduce miscalculation. They are reciprocity and candor.
Reciprocity is the straightforward idea that when a country injures your interests, you return the favor. It is eminently reasonable and readily understood, including by would-be aggressors. It’s an inherently defensive approach, rooted in notions of fair play and deterrence.
Candor is the idea that democracies are safest when we speak honestly and publicly about and to our friends, our adversaries, and ourselves. This can take some getting used to. When President Reagan was preparing to give a speech in Berlin, several of his staff tried desperately to get him to remove a phrase they found embarrassing and needlessly provocative. Luckily, President Reagan went with his gut, and delivered the most famous line of his presidency: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
Some will argue that confrontational rhetoric turns countries into enemies. This old chestnut of the U.S. diplomatic corps masquerades as humble policy, but is in fact quite arrogant because it presumes nations act primarily in reaction to whatever the United States says or does.
Clever adversaries use such thinking against us. By portraying truth-telling as an act of belligerence, autocrats try to badger democracies into silence—and often succeed. “This is the first and most important defeat free nations can ever suffer,” President Reagan said at Guildhall. “When free peoples cease telling the truth about and to their adversaries, they cease telling the truth to themselves.” Public candor actually promotes peace by reducing the space for strategic blunders.
Public candor applies to our internal affairs, too. There can be no double standard.
When Louis Armstrong performed in the Soviet Union as a cultural ambassador of the State Department, he spoke frankly about racial bigotry in the United States. When Reagan famously referred to the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire,” he explored America’s own “legacy of evil”—including anti-Semitism and slavery—in the very same speech.
XINJIANG
So it is in a spirit of friendship, reflection, and, yes, candor, that I ask friends in China to research the truth about your government’s policies toward the Uyghur people and other religious minorities. Ask yourselves why the editors of The Economist, in a cover article this week, called those policies “a crime against humanity” and “the most extensive violation in the world today of the principle that individuals have a right to liberty and dignity simply because they are people.”
As a Marine who spent three combat deployments fighting terrorists, I can tell you that what is taking place in Xinjiang bears no resemblance whatsoever to an ethical counter-terrorism strategy. Such abuses are what the Chinese diplomat P.C. Chang was trying to prevent when he helped draft the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is no credible justification I can find in Chinese philosophy, religion, or moral law for the concentration camps inside your borders.
WHAT EVIL FEARS MOST
Colin Cramphorn, for whom this lecture is named, was Chief Constable of West Yorkshire before his death from cancer in 2006. Colin worked the most notorious terrorism cases in British history, from the Omagh car-bombing to the London suicide attacks of 2005. When your day job is to confront evil, it’s hard to avoid dwelling at night on big questions about the human heart. Colin, a voracious and varied reader, sometimes consulted the writings of C.S. Lewis.
I’m told he found particular solace in The Screwtape Letters—Lewis’s brilliantly imagined monologue of a demon toiling in Satan’s bureaucracy. (John Cleese recorded a pitch-perfect rendition of the book a few decades ago, by the way. It’s on YouTube. I’m told Andy Serkis has recorded a version that gives Cleese a run for his money.)
“The safest road to Hell,” old Screwtape advises his nephew, “is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
I suspect Colin drew hope and courage from the knowledge that evil, properly identified and exposed, is frail—even farcical. And that calling it out in public—giving it “signposts”—inoculates us against temptation and liberates us from fear. As my friend Tony Dolan told me: “The great paradox of institutionalized evil is that it can be enormously powerful but also enormously fragile. Thus, it is compulsively aggressive and ultimately self-destructive. It senses its own moral absurdity. It knows it is a raft on a sea of ontological good.”
“What evil fears most is the publicly spoken truth.”
So speak up, everyone. And raise a glass tonight to the good constable Colin Cramphorn and to like-minded public servants the world over. They have our love and our thanks.
QUESTION AND ANSWER
DEAN GODSON: Matt, thank you for a truly brilliant and memorable address. You have now very kindly agreed to answer questions. Just two items of protocol here, please put your virtual hands up and please also look into the camera when you’re speaking because of the exigencies of the virtual event. The final house rule that all of you will be aware of, no question too outrageous, you just have to state your name and organisation before pronouncing. David Brunston, if you can just restate for the record your name and organisation, you wanted to ask a question. David, we can’t hear you. A number of people have been texting in to me, some of them wanted to be asked anonymously, Matt, so if I can use Chairman’s privilege to ask on their behalf. A little more detail, is the strategy, the CCP strategy of wolf diplomacy, is it too far gone now? Could you say more in a bit more detail, they ask, what in your view, the US administration’s perspective, the counter measures should be?
MATT POTTINGER: Dean, thanks so much. You know, I think in a way the wolf warrior diplomacy is an expression of a moment of a kind of desperate opportunism. In a sense, I think as many countries have caught on to the scope of Beijing’s ambitions and have started to push back where they think or the community of nations think they go too far or are damaging to countries sovereignty or interests. I think the process of pushing back has led to a bit of a dropping of the fig leaf, if you will, and this more combative approach to diplomacy, it’s a more coercive approach to diplomacy so I think that what all countries need to do – and this is for the sake of stability by the way, this is in the interest of re-establishing a kind of equilibrium and more constructive, results-oriented relationship between China and the community of nations. I think the two ideas that I talked about in the speech and that are central to President Trump’s approach, the reciprocity but also the candour, will help go quite some way in restoring that balance.
DEAN GODSON: Brilliant, thank you and I’ve been asked to ask the question on behalf of David Brunston of Reuters and the question he wants to ask is how would you expect US policy under a second Trump administration to evolve and how it would differ from a policy that the Biden administration might pursue?
MATT POTTINGER: Yes, so people advising Vice President Biden talk about what he thinks a good policy would be but in terms of President Trump’s approach, I think first you have to take stock of the fact that there is a new consensus and the forging of that new consensus about China is something that has happened under President Trump’s watch, it is in no small part because of the policies that he’s taken and the result has been that it has actually, as you alluded to in the introductory remarks, Dean, it’s a bipartisan, it’s a whole of society consensus and as you read polls popping up all over the world, you see that it’s not just an American consensus anymore either. We’ve led that consensus, that’s been President Trump’s hallmark, probably the most key legacy and shift in American foreign policy in quite some time but there are a lot of other countries that are now starting to, at a minimum, share a very similar consensus on the diagnosis of what the problem is and increasingly, a lot of countries, our European allies, allies across the Indo Pacific region and beyond, who are exploring and in some cases taking similar steps to those that President Trump has advocated for.
DEAN GODSON: Thank you. The next question is from the Right Honourable Lord Mandelson, former Deputy Prime Minister and European Commissioner. Peter, your question if you can come in.
PETER MANDELSON: Dean, thank you very much indeed and I hope you can hear me.
DEAN GODSON: Loud and clear.
RT HON LORD MANDELSON: I have been rather impressed by Matt Pottinger’s lecture and I find myself actually a supporter of both reciprocity and candour and as somebody who, when I was Trade Commissioner, was equally accused of using confrontational rhetoric towards China when I described them as a trade juggernaut out of control, I can see its usefulness. Can I ask though this question to Mr Pottinger? For China in a sense to lose, the West has to win and the West has not been winning during the last four years. With humility and self-criticism, could Mr Pottinger explain to us why he thinks the West has not been strengthened in its coherence and its unity during the last four years and why we have been less able to act in a joined-up way towards China and other international questions than we have during other periods since the Second World War?
DEAN GODSON: Thank you. Matt.
MATT POTTINGER: Thank you, that’s a great question and a great thoughtful prelude to the question as well, thank you. Look, President Trump came in following what I believe and certainly the people who elected him believed was a lengthy period of failure in American foreign policy and really more of a failure of broader foreign policy in the West. We got in lengthy wars under sort of a I think a misimpression that we would be able to inject democracy into far corners of the earth by the barrel of a gun, those have been enormously costly. Those are things that really have done damage, I think, to the West.
China’s entry into the WTO and all of the policies, really the assumptions that led to that and I shared those assumptions 20 years ago so I don’t blame or cast aspersions for what was actually very optimistic bold policy taken by the United States and the West to try to help China become more liberal, first economically and then we hoped politically as well but I think we’ve now taken stock of the fact that some of those assumptions were generous but misplaced. In fact, really the high watermark of China’s opening and liberalisation was December 11th 2001, which I think was the date China entered the WTO. After that, all of those reforms that we so eagerly anticipated by bringing China into the WTO, actually flatlined, things started to plateau for about a decade and over the course of the decade that we’ve just concluded, we saw those reforms go into reverse.
We’ve seen a far greater concentration of power in the hands of the state over the economy, over people’s lives and what we’ve learned is that optimistic period, the reform and opening period if you like, was unfortunately an interregnum, it was an interregnum between the totalitarianism of Mao’s rule and a new technologically enhanced totalitarianism under the current leadership and I’ve heard some refer to it as an attempt at so-called exquisite totalitarianism. I think that that’s a good encapsulation of what has now being attempted, this experiment that Beijing is running to see whether or not it can improve on the failed approach of all the other Leninist states of the 20th century by compensating for the failures of those systems through advanced technology and totalitarian surveillance. So, in short, I think this period that you’re referring to that you characterise as a sort of insufficient pulling together of the West, you’ve got to have a little bit of historical perspective that we’re going through a massive change from the post-Cold War era of the last few decades to a new one that takes stock of some of the failures of the last 30 years. Thanks.
DEAN GODSON: Brilliant, thank you. Next, Deborah Haynes, Foreign Editor, Sky News. Deborah, are you coming in?
DEBORAH HAYNES: Hopefully. Hi, thank you very much, thank you for letting me ask a question and thank you for that fascinating presentation. In terms of how you were describing how the United Front is implementing China’s policies, is what we’re seeing now, given that China is this rising power, a kind of a global battle over ideologies? I mean there’s no rule book that says that China has to adopt the rules based system and carry on using it if it’s the predominant power and if that’s the case, could you just spell out what the danger is if liberal democracies, who are far more fractured now than they have been, if they don’t stand together and stand up for the ideologies of free speech and human rights and all the things that we believe in, that we will see this big global division between those who side with China technologically and ideologically, and those who side with the West, much more than we’ve ever seen before?
MATT POTTINGER: That’s also a great question. So, American foreign policy has had this element, this tradition of realpolitik which, you know, there are nations that calculate on the basis of their own cold self-interest and also running in our veins is this tradition of our own revolutionary liberal democratic world view. They run in our veins like iced water and hot water and hopefully they remain in good enough balance that your blood stays at a good temperature. But you’ve hit on something, the truth is that you cannot ignore the ideological dimensions and ideology is just a fancy word for world view, right. We do have a markedly different world view from the Chinese Communist Party, a different approach to the world, different ideas about quite a lot and that’s not true of China as a whole. The Chinese Communist Party is firmly in command of China, obviously, but China is a lot of things. It is a pretty remarkable civilisation that I have devoted a huge part of my adult life to living in and studying and enjoying and I still do; the history, the culture and the unbelievable drive and energy and entrepreneurialism of the Chinese people. But that ideological dimension is unavoidable and if we try to ignore it, if we try to pretend that it’s only a matter of cold self-interest on both sides, that it’s a Thucydides trap as some like to frame it, I think we’d actually put ourselves on a path towards a more destabilised future than if we were to talk quite frankly to ourselves, our allies and yes, to our adversaries about those differences so that we can avoid miscalculation.
DEAN GODSON: Thank you, Matt. Next question from Alexander Downer, our Chairman of Trustees here at Policy Exchange and, of course, the longest serving Australian Foreign Minister in the country’s history and High Commissioner in London. Alexander.
HON ALEXANDER DOWNER AC: Thanks Dean, I hope you can hear me. I think, speaking as an Australian, it has to be said that we Australians had a fairly solid although not tension-free relationship with China for many years under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao and Australians have been really taken aback by the aggression in recent years of the Xi Jinping administration so my question is a little bit like Peter Mandelson’s, if there’s a second Trump administration what specific steps will the United States be taking to help countries like Australia which have been targeted by China, particularly Australian trade has been targeted by China, to help build a sense of collective security amongst liberal democracies in the Indo-Pacific region.
MATT POTTINGER: Yes, that’s a great remark that you made and Australia has been in some sense the canary in the coal mine. Australia – by the way, when people claim that provocative and frank, candid language is what causes China to act out in this sort of wolf warrior way, I always point to Australia as well as India as the counter examples there because India and Australia are two countries that had, really went out of their way to extend warmth to China in their people to people and commercial ties. These were countries that did seek to integrate their economies certainly, especially in the case of Australia and yet, when the Australian government just earlier this year had the temerity to ask the World Health Organisation whether there could be a general investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, China retaliated for that wholly reasonable request that Australia made. By the way, the World Health Organisation members voted in the largest majority in the organisation’s history in favour of the motion that Australia raised to investigate the origins, how is it that millions of us now have been infected with this disease? China retaliated by putting tariffs on Australian barley, cancelling beef exports and describing … their arch-propagandist said that Australia is chewing gum stuck to the bottom of China’s shoe and it is time to scrape it off. So, there you have a pretty good counter-argument to the notion that by being extra-friendly to China and hiding some of our candour, that that would lead to a happier bilateral relationship doesn’t stand up.

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Middle East Center Stage (Full Cast Multigenre Anthology) GOLDEN THREAD PRODUCTIONS is the first American theatre company devoted to plays from or about the Middle East. For 25 years, Golden Thread has created artistic excellence with plays that defy stereotypes, and engage diverse communities. Initiated as a response to the theatre closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Middle East Center Stage is Golden Thread's podcast series of audio plays. We are thrilled by the opportunity to reach audiences across the globe through this medium.
If Anyone Should Find This (Full Cast Horror Series) The world is changing. Will you change with it? "If Anyone Should Find This" is a 9 episode audio drama that follows two security guards as their lives are forever transformed.
The Web of Truth (Full Cast Comedy Series) The year is 2002. Steven Bradbury has just won Australia's first Winter Olympic gold medal, George Bush Junior and John Howard are still international leaders, and five young men head to Victoria's Mt Buller ski resort for a 21st birthday. Part black comedy, part low-stakes thriller, and partly an ode to early 2000's pop culture, The Web of Truth is a three-part audio mini-series streaming now.
The Seventh Valkyrie (Narrated Urban Fantasy Series) Seven years ago, Edara and the Free Lands were torn apart by Apostalys, and the war that followed his arrival. Then one night, a star falls, and ancient gears begin to turn. Cyrus washes ashore in Edara with a voice in his head, a growing magical power, and a demonic force on his trail. Val is torn from his peaceful exile by a new enemy, one who threatens to drag the man once known as "The Iron Wolf", and the rest of Edara, back to the depths of war. And in the heart of Rene's pleasure district, BC receives a signal, as a looming shadow prepares to step into the light. Welcome to the first chapter. Welcome to the Seventh Valkyrie.
Khôra (Full Cast Science Fiction Series) The women from the tale of Jason and the golden fleece face space monsters, reality TV stars, and the sometimes benevolent, mostly dangerous Olympus Corp as they take on the quest to return the Fleece to Colchis. It's got pirates, it's got sentient spaceships, and it's All About The Ladies! It's also very queer.
The Bellow of Brittle Stars (Full Cast Science Fiction Series) A group of students are given the opportunity to study and explore a giant fossil found floating in the asteroid belt. A story about the awkwardness of meeting new people.
Russian Trolls (Full Cast Comedy Series) Russian Trolls is a sitcom podcast about the true story of the Internet Research Agency, the infamous Russian Troll Farm that influenced the 2016 presidential election and may or may not have helped Donald J. Trump become president.
Crown Jewels (Full Cast Comedy Series) Rags to riches, riches to rags. Crown Jewels follows Heer, Nazzy, and Bilal Kazan (formerly of the Mirza family, the third richest family in the world) as they navigate life on a literal dime. Everything gets turned upside-down when Altaf, the third richest man in the world and Heer's father, knocks on their door asking for a new life of his own.
Aster Podcasting Presents (Full Cast Multigenre Anthology) Aster Podcasting Network hosts episodes and projects from new writers, actors, and people within the network–we compile those stories here for you to enjoy.
No Sleep Tonight Horror Radio Show (Full Cast Horror Anthology) In the vein of the classic radio serials of the 50's and 60's. Fully dramatized radio plays that bring to life horrific tales that will keep you up at night.
Shellshocked (Full Cast Science Fiction Comedy Series) There are always things to account for when looking for a new planet to live on, like, is there oxygen, can we find food, will the aliens hunt us for blood-sport? Well, it's good to know these things which is why Andrea Shaw, chronicler and cartographer, and her crew are doing all the hard work for us! Joining her aboard the Celeste is the fearless yet cranky Captain Locklear; renowned astrobiologist, doctor, botanist, and geologist Remy Dubois; stressed out deep space survivalist Jonathan Choi; and an AI named XAN to hold them all together. With everyone onboard and ready to fly, who knows what going to be out there.... Space survival, bloodthirsty lifeforms, alien ruins, and suspiciously long ferrets are just the beginning, and boy do we have a long way to go.
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The Cellar Letters (Narrated Horror Series) Hey guys! Lost my job during the pandemic so decided to move cross country. So bored that I figured I'd document the move. Hope it's not too boring.
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The Scarecast (Narrated Horror Anthology) This podcast features various scary stories, murders, strange mysteries, conspiracy theories, and creepypasta from popular Youtuber MaddMike. These creepy stories are narrations of different peoples postings on reddit and also from different news sources across the internet. From deep web, stalkers, serial killers, and murder. These stories will be sure to keep you awake all night and under the cover.
Tower 4 (Full Cast Mystery Thriller Series) Mike Archer is a newly appointed fire watcher in the Wyoming woods. While he's never done anything like this before, he needed something new after his mom passed. Now he hopes to spend his days in a tower above the trees looking for fires and working on his new book. But things aren't as quiet and peaceful as he hoped. Strange interference blasts over his radio at night and he starts seeing and hearing creepy noises in the woods. But are these odd occurrences actually happening or is he just going stir crazy?
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Ad Read (Full Cast Comedy Series) A surreal comedy fiction podcast where we tell stories through ads. Disclaimer: Any references to products/companies real or fake reflect our opinion alone and not the opinion of the companies in question.

Feel free to discuss any of these shows or comment about Audio-Drama.com. Note that the website is currently in the process of being redesigned, so some functionality is limited and pages may look different from one another. I always welcome any questions or feedback.
Previous weekly Audio-Drama.com links

Kaiserreich Beta 0.10 - ‘Blood on the Yangtze’ is out!

Kaiserreich Beta 0.10 - ‘Blood on the Yangtze’
We are out of alpha! Welcome to the first beta version of Kaiserreich for Hearts of Iron 4. We are so happy to be here and couldn’t be more proud of all the work that has been done to get here. We never would have got here without one of the most amazing and passionate communities in all of gaming. Thank you. This update is our largest ever, with no less than 17 pages of changes. Highlights include, of course, the long awaited China update, the Italian rework, new naval changes, our largest ever performance improvement, an insane number of bug fixes and huge quality of life changes. More than ever before, we hope you enjoy playing Kaiserreich!
The KR4 team
P.S. We owe a massive thanks to Dayshine, among others, who have been working on CWTools. It has been an invaluable tool for us and we encourage modders from all Paradox games to make use of it.
P.P.S. We are aware of many people still having trouble with the new launcher. We believe we have identified, and fixed, the cause of some of the issues, though not all. If you are still having trouble, we have written up a guide which we hope will be of some use: https://kaiserreich.fandom.com/wiki/Troubleshooting_the_HoI4_Launcher
Changes
Notable Additions

Industry technologies values in KR are now in line with the vanilla ones, i.e. instead of 10% you now get 20% of new building slots per state in every tech.
Stability has been changed to be less lopsided; the effects at 0% stability are -20% factory/dockyard output, -10 organisation, and -10% political power gain, and at 100% stability are +20% factory/dockyard output, +10 organisation, and +10% political power gain. The USA and Germany stability debuffs were changed to accommodate this.
The endonym/exonym game rule has been removed. The system can now be switched on and off via a button in the UI. News event settings have also been moved to a button.
Political ministers can no longer be added manually so performance cost-heavy checks could be removed. Removed the intelligence minister and theorists. This has lead to sizable (up to a 15% raw improvement, though your mileage may vary) performance improvements.
Most (though not all) volunteer events removed, replaced by an improved ai volunteer system.
Fixed some major supply zone issues across the globe, supply now works a lot better.
Added custom tile pictures to major cities.

The Italian Update

Italian states can now peacefully reunify once the SRI is defeated.
All Italian war and diplomacy focuses have been transferred to decisions.
The Venetian Revolt has been reworked. Now Venice will only rise up in Veneto, but will receive foreign aid after 180 days. 180 days after that, if they have not won yet, they annex Italy. Then they can either restore the Italian Federation or release Lombardy and go their own way.
ANI Italy can now join the Belgrade Pact
The Neo-Sanfedisti event chain has been reworked to provide more benefits for the Papal States and Sicily if they support the rebels in the SRI.
The Papal State is now a Sicilian puppet, and can break free or be annexed by decision after certain points in the game.
The Papal States will now only support the Neo-Sanfedisti after 1938.
The Two Sicilies have had their faction joining changed to decisions, and require the entire political tree to be completed.
Two Sicilies has received a new land reform tree.
The Italian Republic now starts as an Austrian puppet, but will break free following Black Monday.
The Italian Republic’s government can fall after the 1937 elections if the democratic parties win, leading either to a restoration of the Italian Federation, or devolution into Lombardy and Venice.
The Socialist Republic of Italy has had their tree simplified.

Naval Rework 3.0

Ship equipment was completely revamped to be in line with Vanilla and easy to maintain in cases of further changes to the naval system from PDX side.
MTG system is now extremely similar to vanilla, we have just some extra modules and PZS hull is considered as heavy hull
There shouldn't be any non-buildable ships for Non-MTG players
All variants were changed from generic to the nation unique (based either on vanilla representation of pre PoD ships or on first naval rework lore for KR timeline unique ships)
Added first glimpses of MTG version of ship name lists (for China tags, JAP and AUS)

Added Focus Trees to:

Anqing Clique
Bhutan
East Turkestan
Guangdong
Guangxi Clique
Kumul Khanate
League of Eight Provinces
Left Kuomintang
Ma Clique
Manchuria (Puppet)
Shan Confederation
Shandong Clique
Shanxi Clique
Sichuan Clique
State of Kachin
Tibet
Xinjiang Clique
Yunnan Clique

Reworked/expanded focus trees of:

Austrian Empire
Brazil
Chile
Combined Syndicates of America
Emilia
Fengtian Government
German East Asia
Japan
Legation Cities
Lombardy
Mongolia
Pacific States of America
Poland
Qing
Republic of Italy
Socialist Republic of Italy
Switzerland
Transamur
Two Sicilies
Union of Britain
United States of America
Venice

Added Events to/for:

Anqing Clique
Austria
Bhutan
East Turkestan
Fengtian Government
Guangdong
Guangxi Clique
Hunan
Italian Republic
Italian Reunification
Kumul Khanate
League of Eight Provinces
Left Kuomintang
Legation Cities
Ma Clique
Mongolia
Qing
Shandong Clique
Shanxi Clique
Sichuan Clique
Switzerland
Tibet
Transamur
Two Sicilies
United Kingdom
Venice
West Indies Federation
Xinjiang Clique
Yunnan Clique

Added Decisions to/for:

Anqing Clique
Austria
Bhutan
Chile
Chinese Reunification
Commune of France
East Turkestan
Fengtian Government
German East Asia
Guangdong
Hunan
Italian Republic
Italian Reunification
Japan
Kumul Khanate
League of Eight Provinces
Left Kuomintang
Legation Cities
Lombardy
Ma Clique
Members of the Legation Council
Mongolia
Qing
Shandong Clique
Shanxi Clique
Sichuan Clique
Switzerland
Tibet
Transamur
Transamur
Venezuela
Venice
Xinjiang Clique
Yunnan Clique

Added Custom Paths to/for:

Bolivia
Chile
Colombia
Cuba
Ecuador
Paraguay
Patagonia
Qing
Uruguay
Venezuela

Mapping

Major map changes in China
Major map changes in Spain
Major map changes in the Middle East
Overhauled Austrian, Balkan and Eastern European strategic regions
Fixed several misaligned river mouths
Merged Trieste into the Austrian Littoral
Split Bucovina into Northern and Southern Bucovina
Redid Baltic state boundaries
Added Trento and Pola as new VPs for Austria.
Added Sopron/Ödenburg and Târgu Mureș/Marosvásárhely as new VPs for Hungary.
Added Slovak renaming.
Added German, Polish, Ukrainian and Romanian renaming for Slovakia and Hungary where appropriate.
Adjusted the Finnish-Russian border in Karelia
Added correct jungle terrain to Southeast Asia
Split off Gambia from Senegal
Removed several small island states
Fixed broken frontlines along the French-Belgian and Serbian-Bulgarian borders

GFX

Added new portraits for Italian countries
Removed vanilla portraits in American (CSA, AUS, PSA,USA) countries and replaced them with KR appropriate portraits.
Redid many portraits, including: Francisco Franco, Phillipe Petain, Gustaf Adolf, Clement Attlee, Claude Auchinleck, Tom Phillips, John Tovey, Louis Mountbatten, Kenneth Stuart, Georges Valois, John Winant, Prajadahipok, Plaek Phibunsongkhram, Phraya Phahon, Gearoid O Cuineagain, Leon Jouhaux, Yevhen Konovalets, Mykhailo Omelianovych Pavlenko, Hnat Stefaniv, Christian X, Alan Brooke, John Dill, Richard O’Connor, Tom Wintringham, Nguyen An Ninh, Tadeusz Rozwadowski, Witold Pilecki, Anatoly Pepelyaev, Mohammed V, Souphavong Andriy Melnyk, Petar Bojovic, Duarte II, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Marmaduke Grove, Benoit Frachon, Maurice Gamelin, António Carmona, Bento António Gonçalves, Joseph August von Habsburg, Alphonse Georges.
Replaced Switzerland’s starting Council portrait with a Swiss Coat of Arms.
Added many new unit models, most courtesy of MI2 by McNaughton
Redid and added many focus and idea icons
Added many new event pics
Added many new decision icons

Music Mod

Please note that we are delaying the update to the music mod by a few days to let us deal with any issues with the main mod first. Sorry for the slight delay there.
“Reflection of the Moon in the Erquan Pool” is the new main theme
Added 7 Insulindian songs
Added 2 KMT military songs
Added 5 peace songs for China

Miscellaneous
Western Europe

Changed Switzerland’s SocLib party from ‘Landesring der Unabhängigen’ to ‘Liberale Partei der Schweiz’.
The Savoyard Crisis will now not contribute to world tension if it never escalates.
Converted Switzerland’s foreign policy from focuses to decisions.
Commune of France and Union of Britain now start on partial mobilization.
Added more steel to Luxemburg and Flanders-Wallonia.
Rebalanced Switzerland’s ‘New Order’ decisions to make it actually possible to secure the government and take ‘Greater Switzerland’.
Henri Guisan can no longer be elected General in NatPop Switzerland due to his Romand origins, and Syndicalist Switzerland will no longer elect a general.
Denmark will now always simply join the Reichspakt during the Weltkrieg unless they are ruled by the social democrats to prevent issues with events that didn’t anticipate this behavior.
Added annexation mission for Alsace-Lorraine.
Removed a few small chances for the AI to start WK2 early over small diplomatic incidents.
Expanded Switzerland’s national populist path
The Kaiser Wilhelm society now exists at game start
Germany is no longer locked out of the Walloon annexation event
The British and French each have focuses to initiate returning their colonies that they occupy to each other once the mainlands are reclaimed.
Changed Germany’s IG Farben focus
Germany can no longer invite Iron Guard Romania to the Reichspakt when it is a faction other than the Belgrade Pact
Touched up the Savoie Crisis chain
Changed the name of the Belgian-Dutch alliance to BeNeSam

Eastern Europe

Annexation mission for the United Baltic Duchy has been added for Germany.
Added several flavor events for Lithuania
Redid annexation missions for the south Slavic states
Russia can now directly attack White Ruthenia instead of buying state bonds when White Ruthenia is socialist and they are not
Germany now revokes its guarantee on Azerbaijan if they refuse to defend them from Persia
Russian/Soviet general transfers no longer leave some in both countries
Changed Russian focuses related to China
Poland now starts with Chelm
Performance optimisation for Russian events and focuses
Russian civil war ideas are removed via annexation
Fixed focus available conditions for Poland
Removed Molotov-Ribbentrop line from Poland and Galician states
Russia now no longer joins the internationale via “Deal With the Devil”, it just enters the war
Removed the Russian focus to join the Internationale - Syndie Russia can still join under the proper circumstances via event
Cut the Ukranian Civil War
White Ruthenia’s focus tree times have been shortened (70 to 56)

Southern Europe

Annexation missions for Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Transylvania have been added for the Austrian Civil War.
Release events for Slovakia will now take into account the status of Southern Slovakia and Transcarpathia
National France now begins the game controlling Malta.
Austria now is made aware of its influence in Italy
Bulgaria now takes Nis and Macedonia from Serbia when it has lost them then later goes to war against Serbia with Austria
Serbia and Bulgaria are now notified when Romania leaves the Belgrade Pact
Moved Greek Megali claims to an event
Added annexation missions to Macedonia and Dobrogea
Serbia can no longer release Croatia
Greece and Romania can now end its war with Bulgaria parallel to the Balkan war when it does not join the Belgrade Pact at the same time as Serbia.

Northern Europe

Added a news event for Wilhelm II’s death.
Cut the “Every King a Turn” focus in Scandinavia for now as it has been causing unwanted results.

North America

West Indies Federation can now peace out with Canada via event once they take the “Join the Internationale” focus.
Canada can now release the USA regardless of what they supported
(Re-)Added Robert Hale Merriman as a general for the CSA
Reduced cost of Hawaii’s focuses to 42 days, down from 70
The USA no longer hates Canada for taking New England and Alaska if they return them
Cuba can now restore the commission of old generals, meaning all factions now have generals
ACW states now have ACW templates removed when released
The CSA will no longer embargo Australasia if Australasia went syndicalist prior to the 2AW
The USA can no longer use its national guard mobilization for wars other than the 2ACW
Montreal and Ottawa are now their own states, removed Queen Charlotte islands and Trans-Pecos
SocDem Costa Rica should now sometimes agree to join socialist Centroamerica
Added Fox Conner as a general for the USA and AUS
The CSA now no longer automatically receives cores on former territories like Puerto Rico
USA immediate post-war events now auto-complete focuses rather than bypassing
Frank Merriam can now lead the PSA democratic party in 1940

South America

Brazil’s anti-syndicalist provincial revolt Bahia is now AuthDem instead of PatAut.
Paraguay focus times are now 56 days instead of 70 days.
Leader descriptions for all Brazilian leaders.
Syndicalist Chile’s foreign policy converted from focuses to decisions.
Brazil’s focus tree is now dynamic.
Venezuela can now join the Entente if at war with an Internationale member.
Venezuela will now attack the West Indies for Essequibo, and can offer the West Indies peace when they hold it for long enough
Neves now leads SocCon Vera Cruz
Memede now leads PatAut Bahia
Siseno Ramos Sarmento added as the new natpop leader of Amazonas
Peru’s focuses are now all locked to ideology
Removed ideology drift from national spirits in Peru.
Peru and Ecuador can now do a white peace if Ecuador is doing well in the Pastaza war. Peru will lose their core on Pastaza when this happens, and when they are outright annexed by Ecuador.
Brazil should now receive events about American refugees earlier in the war
Bolivian companies are now available to the PBC
Syndie Peru should now leave the Buenos Aires-Lima Pact
Touched up state ambitions and potential claims in South America, should lead to more consistent peace conferences
Buffed Mexican population gain ideas

Asia

The Co-Prosperity Sphere is now a starting faction.
WIP icons in the BHC and DEH foci trees have been swapped with ones from base game.
Fixed a mistake in which Ragnar Colvin was using a portrait photo of John Gregory Crace.
Princely Federation now goes isolationist far less
Added a warning about claiming the title as Caliph for the Saudis and Rashidis
Added new flavor events to Siam
Fixed Araki Sakao dying randomly
Middle Eastern populations fully adjusted to new states
Redid Japan’s foreign policy tree
Increase the speed at which Indian nations gain cores on the other conquered factions
Optimised Turkestan events, deleted many more
Japan now has a unique leader when puppeted by any socialist power
Syndicalist Japan will now be able to deal with the Imperial House (AI-only paths)
Siam can no longer go down its political trees when puppeted
Redid Transamur’s foreign policy and industry sections of their tree
Indian states should now have priority in peace conferences for Burma
Player-led Australasia can now demand territories from the Anderson doctrine at threat of war

Africa

Fixed several event chains involving artists in National France.
Libya’s population has been properly adjusted to account for the absence of the Cyrenaican genocide
The UK can no longer change the Head of State of British-Aligned South Africa

Other

Replaced the Generic European 1 portrait that was using Frank T. Johns likeness.
Mechanized companies no also affect amphibious mechanized vehicles
Tank companies now also affect td/aa/spg variants
Countries which can join the ISAC by other means no longer are invited to join automatically
Removed AOG, Normandy, Schleswig-Holstein, and Yugoslavia tags
If a country occupies territory owned by a country they are allied with, they should now automatically turn it over
Moderate resource rebalancing in parts of western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia
Continued rebalancing starting slots for states, notably the USA
Adjusted many monthly population ideas
Added voice overs to several tags
Removed starting cores for more nations which aren't around in 1936 - saves on performance
Converted colonial government ideas to a special government type
The corrupt kleptocrat minister trait is now less corrupt
Replaced loading screen quote from probable fictional person.
Replaced repetitive loading screen quote sources with new quotes from: John McLean, H.G. Wells, Dalton Trumbo, Westbrook Pegler, Earl Browder
Nerfed volunteer size ideas across the mod

Incomplete Content

Hunan’s focus tree wasn’t finished. Hunan has been given a temporary tree and a few decisions for the time being. It will be in a following patch.

Fixes
Western Europe

Fixed the UK General Elections firing before they were supposed to.
Fixed the Commune of France being able to use sabotage or development decisions on countries that don’t exist.
Fixed Germany’s Bring Back Order focus sometimes not giving the proper effect.
Ireland’s and Canada’s events have been adjusted to be less performance-heavy.
Belgium can no longer hire Totalist, Syndicalist or Radical Socialist ministers after the interim government ends, unless it’s governed by one of the aforementioned ideologies.
Totalist Wallonia now has the correct ministers upon breaking from Flanders-Wallonia.
You now have to wait for the economic crisis to hit in order to take ‘Combat the Economic Crisis’ as Switzerland.
The VNH doesn’t introduce a private welfare initiative after taking power anymore in the Netherlands.
Fixed purged Finnish German generals still being selectable as head of staff, the army, navy and air force.
Shortened the news event for the Dutch revolution slightly so it doesn’t clip under the option button.
Fixed a missing localisation tag on the Danish-German opinion modifier when a trade deal is rejected.
The correct Otto Wels death event will now fire if the SPD is not ruling Germany
Fixed the UoB occasionally not getting totalist George Orwell when he is chosen
Fixed UoB companies having values different from much of the rest of the game
Fixed the UK general election beginning before the focus is taken
Fixed Flanders going down the council rule tree when not ruled by the council
World tension is no longer generated by the savoyard crisis if it never escalates
Fixed up an old CoF chain to help the CSA
Mussolini no longer rises from the dead in the fifth SRI congress
Fixed the UK’s annexation event for Ireland if it had previously chosen to occupy via its own chain
Switzerland can now properly join the Donau-Adriabund
Fixed a few events for Switzerland not firing at all
The Second Peace with Honour now properly peaces the UoB out with everyone under all circumstances
Fixed a reversed opinion modifier for CoF demanding Romandy
Added sanity checks for Switzerland addressing black monday
Harold Alexander removed as a possible general from the UoB (he’s in Canada)
Irish ACW decisions can no longer be taken once the ACW is over
The second TUC no longer breaks due to the Lawrence coup
Rewrote Britain’s Irish event chain
Fixed effects of the Treaty of Arel failing
Countries other than France no no longer automatically get cores Alsace-Lorraine when it is conquered
Fixed an edge case where Switzerland could not recover from Black Monday
Fixed the German Women’s Suffrage chain going nowhere
Fixed an event for the death of ex-Chairman Mann for UoB never firing
Fixed Ireland not being able to approach the PSA after they unite America

Eastern Europe

Lithuanian political focuses are now restricted to their specific ideologies.
Fixed Russia not being able to declare war on Poland via focus if Poland annexed Lithuania.
Tweaked Lithuania’s ‘Revolt’ and ‘Loyalty’ paths to accomodate for a German victory and the return to puppet status if they revolt.
Russian event chain about purchasing White Ruthenian state bonds now only applies if White Ruthenia is either independent and not socialist or is a puppet of Germany. In all other cases they’ll immediately declare war instead.
Removed the option to only annex half of White Ruthenia for Russia
President Dmitriy will no longer be immortal if the Second Russian Civil War is ongoing.
The Intermarium will be disbanded if Ukraine chooses to become isolationist.
Fixed Polish ministers not being removed on death.
Reordered the PLC tree a bit and prevented it from frequently being locked out of its foreign policy tree
Dvinsk is now properly given to the baltic states in annexations when owned
Ukraine should no longer send all of its units to Germany when the RP is at war
Rozwadowski is no longer immortal
Hopefully fixed Russia being inundated with strikes forever
Fixed the partition of Ukraine between Poland and DKB firing if DKB does not exist

Southern Europe

National Populist Italy will no longer receive events meant for Democratic Italy.
Albania will now leave Austria’s faction should Wilhelm zu Wied be assassinated.
Fixed several bugs with the Ausgleich event chain.
Missions dealing with the collapse of the Portuguese Empire will now be cancelled if Portugal is not at war.
Portugal can now no longer always immediately begin its political tree
The Iron Guard leadership will no longer flee to Serbia if Serbia has sided against them in the Romanian Civil War.
Spain can now bypass certain focuses depending on its level of social breakdown
Carlist Spain now always receives the cores it should
Sabotage event no longer fires for Spain at the start of the game
Romania now loses Belgrade Pact opinion modifiers when it leaves the Pact
Italy can no longer join Austria’s faction when at war
Fixed Stamboliyski being killed off if Bulgaria is annexed by Serbia
Fixed Greek monarchy cosmetic tags being sometimes misapplied
Tuscany and Italy can no longer both be ruled by the same person
Austria can no longer restore a dead Wilhelm zu Wied in Albania
The annexations of Bulgaria are now much less likely to leave odd leftover territory
Socialist Bulgaria can no longer join the Donau-Adriabund
Fixed Greece being locked out of focuses after losing the Balkan War

Northern Europe

Iceland now leaves the Reichspakt when they declare independence in the referendum.
Iceland also now leaves its old faction when joining a new one during the ‘Cod War’
Iceland can no longer do its resistance decisions once it has broken free
King’s Cabinet Denmark will no longer have its government overridden by Kanslergade Agreement events.
The Netherlands will no longer have a second revolution after being reconquered by the Dutch East Indies.
Fixed puppeted Finland being a kingdom without a king in some cases
Changed the name of puppeted Paternal Autocrat Denmark to lose references to kingdom
Disabled the choice of government for right wing puppet Sweden
Fixed a Norwegian focus relating to Denmark bypassing when Sweden becomes socialist
Fixed an improper event tooltip in Norway
Fixed the UoB getting a request from Norway meant for the CoF
Fixed Dimitriy returning from the dead in Russia
August Uproar in Denmark now fires in August
Oscar Nygren can no longer return from the dead

North America

Canada will no longer receive repeat West Indies annexation missions if it chooses to assume direct control of the Federation.
Any trade modifiers regarding war debt repayments will now be removed if the US joins the Entente, allowing for free trade between them.
The American Union State can now complete its naval tree if it chooses Trade Interdiction as its doctrine.
Fixed broken naval focus mutual exclusivity for socialist Centroamerica
Fixed Centroamerica’s native rights event giving the wrong tooltip
The ISAC and IEDC are now disbanded when Canada surrenders
Hawaii now changes ministers when it changes government
Hawaii now peaces out when ts faction leader falls
The ACW ceasefire no longer triggers when the PSA is about to win
Fixed a Dominican Chain firing for Costa Rica
Fixed instances where not selecting anything with the 1936 presidential election could cause Olson to live indefinitely
Fixed socialist Centroamerica keeping a non-socialist cosmetic tag when puppeted
The American Union State no longer puts its own generals on trial
Nimitz is no longer in two ACW factions at once
Proper ministers are now added for cuba’s revolutionary democracy path
Fixed an edge case where Panama could declare war for Coto Brus without warning
Fixed Canada sometimes being locked out of intervening in the US post-ACW when it should be able to
Effects and event options for the West Indies Federation are no longer often reversed
Fixed the Cuban CNOC leadership event
Fixed the Cuban democratic and US-lapdog constitutional convention chain
Fixed the Dominican Dictatorship power struggle
Fixed status of Belize event for CA
Fixed Panama post-1940 focuses not being properly bypassed

South America

Ramirez’s Argentina can now access its political tree if he comes to power after the FOP refuses reunification.
Removed possible exploit allowing Democratic Argentina to join a faction before dealing with the FOP.
Fixed a broken company gfx for argentina
Fixed marriage event for Portugal and Brazil firing when the bride is dead
Fixed Brazilian resource focuses bypassing due to revolts
Fixed a weird frontline issue around the great lakes
Fixed issues with Brazil-WIF peace conferences

Asia

Transamur will now drop out of any of Japan’s wars if they rebel.
Japan will no longer return Okhotsk and Kamchatka to Transamur immediately after receiving the territory.
Russia-Japan peace events will now transfer the conquered territory to Transamur if it is a puppet of Japan.
Added missing Hejaz annexation event.
Siamese events will no longer refer to German engineers if Siam is socialist.
Indochina will now correctly guarantee Siam instead of Burma should they accept to cooperate.
The Golestan Pact will now be dissolved if Persia chooses to ally with the Bharatiya Commune.
The arrival of Dutch exiles as the Dutch government in exile will now give a research buff again instead of a research debuff.
The effect of the ‘An army of all Dutch East Indians’ focus now properly reflects the effect that is put in place in-game.
Fixed a double removal of the national revolutionary idea in Insulindia.
Yemen is no longer referenced in an event about Russia in Saudi Arabia.
Fixed Siam’s annexation event for Burma.
Fixed mixed up leader descriptions in Kurdistan and Iraq.
Touched up old Philippines events, including fixing the many broken or reversed opinion modifiers in the Philippines.
Massively improved the major East Asian peace chain.
Transamur can no longer elect the military when a full Japanese puppet.
Fixed Japan not transferring Siberia to Transamur in peace conferences.
Nations can now actually get Korea when they defeat Japan.
Fixed Changtang not being taken from Tibet in peace events.
The Soviet Union can no longer core Korea.
Japan’s faction and tech sharing group now exist at game start.
Transamur can now break free from Japan in their tree.
Transamur will be given the correct states in their peace deals.
Added sanity checks to Insulindia’s faction joining focuses and events.
Nepal can no longer become a republic with the king in power.

Africa

National France now gets a claim on Rio de Oro if they attempt to seize it, guaranteeing they get the province on the peace conference should war break out with the CNT-FAI.
Fixed an event chain for National France in relations to the imprisonment of Lévi Strauss.
Egypt and Sudan will no longer receive Mahdist war events as a puppet.
Socialist puppet South Africa will no longer have elections in 1943 or 1948 reverting ideology to Social Conservative.
Angola no longer takes control of a state in Spain when released.
Abyssinia/Ethiopia is now always called Ethiopia.
Fixed African state cores from Germany’s decolonization event.
Transamur can no longer take its coring decisions multiple times.
Germany no longer cedes the Suez Canal automatically when they decide to resist Egyptian demands.

Other

Most broken decision and portrait gfx have been fixed
Added tooltips to remaining raw oobs without them
Fixed the party popularity bar overlapping with the aircraft mission screen
General fixes to typos, VP and state names, etc., as always
Fixed a government in exile decision remaining after the country was restored
Fixed several instances of dates scripted on yyyy/dd/mm format instead of yyyy/mm/dd
Fixed up many literature events
Fixed several naval commanders having no stats
Fixed the Swiss Neutrality tooltip from sometimes showing up when declaring war as any country

We hope you enjoy playing Kaiserreich as much as we did making it!
- The KR4 Team: Alpinia, Anbory, Arvidus, Beelzebub, Blackfalcon501, DSFDarker, Dr. Njitram, Drozdovite, Edouard Saladier, Eragaxshim, Fbruchmueller, Flamefang, Jeankedezeehond, Jonjon428, Jonny BL, KeetnaWilson, Khalil, Kracc, Krčo, Liegnitz, Maltesefalcon, MantisToboggan, Mifil, OperationsManagementDecisions, PPsyrius, Pietrus, Rei VL, Rinbro, Roniius, Roparex, Rylock, Saladenicoise, Sjarlewis, Skip, Telcontar101, The Alpha Dog, Thomahawk2k, Vidyaország, WordZero, Yard1, Zaddy-Chan and Zankoas

The Case for Accepting Defeat on Roe -- Maybe it is time to face the fact that abortion access will be fought for in legislatures, not courts.

A list of every person Christianity has killed in history

I am very outraged about a debate with some person in reddit, he say that islam much worse than christianity historically and that catholicism not teaches that non catholics are condemn to hell for their beliefs!
Now. i am ask them to disprove me by sending them a HUGE LIST from quora of ALL PEOPLES KILLED BY CHRISTIANIY IN HISTORY.
i will ask you two things:
1 - How accurate is this list?
2 - Is Islam worse than it.
Okay here we go:
///
How many people has Christianity killed?
Nathan HimmerichAnswered November 1, 2017·Author has427answersand629.1Kanswer views
Somewhere around 50–100 million. This information is from an external source BUT has neat and organized citations all from Christian sources, and it is in chronological order more or less as well.
Listed are only events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete)
Ancient Pagans

As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469] According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]
The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415. [DO19-25]

Mission

Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]
15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]
16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde". Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]

Crusades (1095-1291)

First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]
9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]
Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]
after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35] Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents—save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40] (In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")
The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]
Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.

Heretics

Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in TrieGermany [DO26]
Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29] The Albigensians...viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC] Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]
After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]
Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).
Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.

Witches

from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand.
in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV]
incomplete list of documented cases: The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Religious Wars

15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]
1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]
1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]
17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Jews

Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.
In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]
17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]
Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]
Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]
1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]
1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]
1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]
1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]
1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.
1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]
1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43]

(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.

Native Peoples

Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200] While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]
On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimientocontinued:

I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]

Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]
In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238]
On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]
The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.
As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70]
What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness: "The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72] Or, on another occasion: "The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83]
The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75]
"And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75]
Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
"When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95]

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka.

Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]
In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem). "Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105]
On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.
When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked. Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages. The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114]
So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111].
Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow: "Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20)
Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114]
Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time) In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]
The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115]
Other tribes were to follow the same path.
Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!" "Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA]
Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106]
In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]
In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115]
To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.
All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.
A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.
In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Glorious events in US history

Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241]
Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed. From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131] More gory details.
By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]

20th Century Church Atrocities

Catholic extermination camps Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli, a practising Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children! In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdient der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]
Catholic terror in Vietnam In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters - the Viet Minh - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff] Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism. The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:
"Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."

Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - mostly in street riots - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89]. To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life....

Rwanda Massacres In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church. Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated: "Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix. According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia. In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]

As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end....
References:
[DA]
K.Deschner, Abermals krhte der Hahn, Stuttgart 1962.
[DO]
K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987.
[EC]
P.W.Edbury, Crusade and Settlement, Cardiff Univ. Press 1985.
[EJ]
S.Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders, Madison 1977.
[LI]
H.C.Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, New York 1961.
[MM]
M.Margolis, A.Marx, A History of the Jewish People.
[MV]
A.Manhattan, The Vatican’s Holocaust, Springfield 1986. See also V.Dedijer, The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, Buffalo NY, 1992.
[NC]
J.T.Noonan, Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, Cambridge/Mass., 1992.
[S2]
Newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany, 10/10/96, 12:00.
[SH]
D.Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press 1992.
[SP]
German news magazine Der Spiegel, no.49, 12/2/1996.
[TA] A True Account of the Most Considerable Occurrences that have Hapned in the Warre Between the English and the Indians in New England, London 1676.
[TG]
F.Turner, Beyond Geography, New York 1980.
[WW]
H.Wollschlger: Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zrich 1973. (This is in german and what is worse, it is out of print. But it is the best I ever read about crusades and includes a full list of original medieval Christian chroniclers' writings).
[WV]
Estimates on the number of executed witches:

N.Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch Hunt, Frogmore 1976, 253.
R.H.Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, New York 1959, 180.
J.B.Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Ithaca/NY 1972, 39.
H.Zwetsloot, Friedrich Spee und die Hexenprozesse, Trier 1954, 56

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I am angry because they downplaying facts. I am angry because they saying christianity is watered down peaceful religion that is nothing compare to islam. this is so annoying!

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