Выявление функций эвфемизмов в политическом дискурсе американских и британских СМИ

Or are they? The rich may be a tiny minority, but they are not altogether alone. Indeed that was, or appeared to be, one of the basic intuitions that took New Labour to power.

New Labour's original tax pledge was a totem of its revamped economic approach: of its acknowledgment that free markets and deregulation were, after all, the best way to maximise national prosperity and finance progressive goals. But it also implied an even greater admission: that Britain was more individualistic, more aspirational and less collectivist than Labour had previously believed. The pledge seemed to concede that Margaret Thatcher had been right about not only economic policy but also the national personality; that Britons might resent inherited privilege but were increasingly relaxed about wealth itself. New Labour realised that whereas the rich are few, the would-be rich--likewise alarmed by punitive taxes--are numerous.

It now appears that for Mr Brown and Mr Darling, at least, New Labour's old posture on tax may not have represented the fundamental reappraisal of Britain's psychology that it did for Tony Blair; that for them it was a necessary economic and electoral strategy, not an imaginative epiphany. Perhaps they are right about the new mood: Number 10 doubtless spent almost as much as the new taxes will extract on testing their popularity in focus groups. But it may be that the country has changed less than Mr Brown thinks, and that even in a slump the rich are less isolated than they look. More than an economic crime, pinching the rich may turn out to be a profound political mistake.

From The Economist

Nov 13th 2008

Eastern Europe awaits a new American president nervously but in hope

Peter Shrank

DETAINING the next president of the United States for three hours in what an eyewitness called a “malodorous” small room at an airport in the provincial Russian city of Perm looks, in retrospect, to have been a pretty bad idea. No matter that the Kremlin muttered an apology for delaying Barack Obama, along with his mentor on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, in August 2005. The hold-up was blamed on a muddle over paperwork--although some Russia-watchers suspected it was a calculated Kremlin snub to the Republican Mr Lugar.

Mr Obama now plays down the episode, but his first-hand experience of the Russian bureaucracy's capacity for at best capricious incompetence and at worst vindictiveness could yet prove telling. His team of hundreds of foreign-policy experts ranges from those who see the Bush administration's policy as dangerously confrontational to those who think it too soft. Michael McFaul, a Stanford academic who has become a caustic critic of the Kremlin, is an influential Obama adviser. But it remains to be seen how many people Mr Obama will pick from his own team, and how many from the Hillary Clinton camp of experienced Russia hands.

The Democratic Party is in general rather less hawkish than many of Mr Obama's senior advisers. Yet the prosaic truth is that, whoever secures the top jobs in the new administration, American policy towards eastern Europe is likely to be shaped mainly by events and bureaucratic drift, not personalities. Barring a new crisis (such as another war in Georgia), eastern Europe is unlikely to get anything like as much attention as the economy. Even more conveniently, the main decisions can easily be fudged or postponed.

Thus the Bush administration is still trying to push for Ukraine to be given a clear path towards future NATO membership. It reiterated this at a recent high-level NATO-Ukraine meeting in Estonia. But if Mr Obama wants to cash in his popularity in Europe, he is more likely to do so by asking European countries to send more troops to Afghanistan, not to swallow their objections to NATO membership for two increasingly unconvincing candidates: a chaotically divided Ukraine and an erratic, indefensible Georgia.

An Obama administration may concentrate on the nitty-gritty of military reform in the Ukraine rather than grand promises of NATO membership. That would be welcome in Russia. So too might be Mr Obama's rather more doveish line on nuclear weapons (see article). But another sore point with the Kremlin is America's plans for missile defences, and especially for the siting of ten interceptor rockets in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic. These--if they work--might stop or deter an Iranian missile attack on America or Europe. But public opinion in the Czech Republic and Poland remains unenthusiastic. And Russia has now threatened a bunch of countermeasures, including putting nuclear-capable missiles in the Kaliningrad exclave and targeting the missile-defence installations with its own nuclear arsenal.

Mr Obama, like many Democrats, sounds sceptical on missile defence. With no money allocated to the programme by Congress, it will be easy to keep the plans alive on paper, but to do little to promote them in practice. And if talks with Russia about nuclear weapons do go ahead, a deal on missile defence might be thrown in. Czechs and Poles may feel a touch queasy as these issues are discussed over their heads; but there is little they can do about it in practice.

Nor is it likely that an Obama administration will fight hard for greater European independence from Russia's monopoly of east-west gas pipelines. The Bush administration promoted Nabucco, a pipeline that would bring Caspian and Central Asian gas to Europe via Turkey. But a shambolic and inattentive European policy on pipelines and energy dependence in recent years has left policymakers in Washington feeling that they are wasting their time. If the Europeans cannot look after their own interests, why should America?

From The Economist

Nov 13th 2008

A turbulent few months are expected on Capitol Hill Claudio Munos

CHANGE is coming to Congress. The oldest senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia (pictured), is to be shunted aside as chairman of the mighty appropriations committee. Mr Byrd, a Democrat, started winning elections 66 years ago, when his local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan picked him as its leader, or “Exalted Cyclops”. A senator since 1959, he is no longer a racist but is notorious for lavishing taxpayers' cash on boondoggles named after himself. As he nears his 91st birthday, however, he is in poor health. He will be replaced by Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, a sprightly 84-year old.

All this turmoil is occurring at a difficult time. The world economy is having a seizure. Carmakers in Detroit are begging for a bail-out. The Democrats who control Congress would like to help President-elect Barack Obama tackle these crises. But he will not become president until January 20th. For now, George Bush is the only man who can sign (or veto) laws. And only the old Congress can pass them: the new one does not take office till January 6th. A short-term economic stimulus is needed before then, and is likely to pass. Mr Bush also wants Congress to ratify a free-trade deal with Colombia. It probably won't.

In the House of Representatives the Democrats have a comfortable majority, which will get even bigger next year. In the Senate they currently have only a 51-49 edge, including two independents, and next year's line-up is still unclear. The Democrats will have at least 57 seats, a hefty majority. But three seats are still undecided. Recounts of close races in Alaska and Minnesota could drag on for weeks, with allegations of cheating from both sides. And a run-off will be held in Georgia on December 2nd, as local rules require, after neither candidate won more than 50% of the vote.

If the Democrats win all three seats, which is unlikely but not impossible, they will be able to shut down Republican filibusters and ram through any law they like. Republican big beasts, including John McCain, are converging on Georgia to support Senator Saxby Chambliss in the run-off. A Democratic supermajority would mean: “No checks. No balances. No stopping them,” warns one website.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the top Democrats in the House and Senate, are furiously juggling. Even as their members jostle for jobs in the new Congress, they still have a lame-duck legislature to run. They seem to have kept a lid on the in-fighting, at least for now, but several big jobs are yet to be filled.

Since Joe Biden is moving to the White House, his plum spot as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is up for grabs. John Kerry, a former Democratic presidential nominee, says he wants it. But if Mr Obama makes him secretary of state or ambassador to the UN, the more leftish Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin would be in line. Another question-mark hangs over Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000. This year he backed John McCain for the presidency. Many Democrats want to punish him, by stripping him of his chairmanship of the homeland security committee or even kicking him out of the Democratic caucus. But Mr Obama is said to want to let bygones be bygones.

In the House some personnel changes portend a leftward shift. Rahm Emanuel, a forceful centrist, is leaving his Chicago seat to become Mr Obama's chief of staff. His post as Democratic caucus chairman, the number-four job in the House, goes to John Larson of Connecticut, who is somewhat further to the left. And Henry Waxman of California is challenging John Dingell of Michigan for the chairmanship of the House committee that handles energy and climate change.

A bitter battle is brewing. Many ideological greens prefer Mr Waxman, who supports tougher curbs on carbon emissions and has a more belligerent approach to corporations. Many pragmatists prefer Mr Dingell, for the same reasons. A cap-and-trade bill will be much harder to pass now that the economy is in the doldrums, says a former Clinton White House staffer. Mr Dingell, who hails from Michigan, is trusted by the big carbon-emitting industries. Mr Waxman is not. So a deal next year may be more likely under Mr Dingell.

More immediately, congressional Democrats are urging Mr Bush to find as much as $50 billion to rescue the Big Three carmakers. Mr Dingell strongly supports this idea. So do most Democrats. If the government can bail out greedy bankers, they reason, surely it can help horny-handed workers keep their jobs. Plus, they see the cash infusion as an opportunity to insist on greener cars.

Many Republicans are aghast. If the financial system had collapsed, it would have devastated the entire economy. That is not true of carmakers. If the Treasury props them up, every badly-run company in America will beat a path to its door. But a bail-out looks likely. And if Republicans in the Senate lose their power to filibuster, the Democrats will abolish workers' right to a secret ballot before unionising. That, warn Republicans, will let unions do to other firms what they did to General Motors.

From The Times

December 4, 2008

Immigrants must learn English to qualify for a British passport

Richard Ford

Immigrants who make little effort to integrate into society will wait longer before they can become British citizens under changes to citizenship rules.

As part of the Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Bill, they will have to “earn” the right to a passport rather than simply achieving it through five years' residence. The latest measure will end the automatic right to stay and replace it with a new system of “earned citizenship” and temporary residence.

Arrivals will have to demonstrate a good ability in English and a knowledge of life in Britain before becoming citizens. Immigrants who do no voluntary work will qualify only after eight years and those who become unemployed will be asked to leave.

The Bill will deny full access to social benefits, including social housing, to those who have not completed a new period of probationary citizenship of between one and five years. The aim is to link the gaining of a British passport to a greater commitment to the British way of life. Immigrants convicted of serious criminal offences could be barred from citizenship and those found guilty of minor crimes may face delays in having their applications processed.

The Bill will also reduce the restrictions on people from overseas, but who have a British-born mother, applying to become a citizen. Children born to British mothers before 1961 will be able to apply for citizenship. Previously it was passed on through fathers.

The Government proposes to levy a top-up fee on immigrants to create a fund expected to run to Ј20 million. Cash from the fund will be distributed to local authorities facing short-term pressure because of an influx of migrants.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: “These proposed reforms are a tacit admission that the Government has failed in its seven previous immigration Bills. We need to re-establish controls over our borders so we can count people in and out.”

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, will also unveil reforms to the police service, including plans for directly elected police authorities. Although the issue does not generate much public interest, it is generating concern within political parties and threatens to put local councillors at loggerheads with Westminster frontbenchers.

Fears have been expressed by Labour local government leaders that direct votes for police authorities might lead to right-wing groups gaining political control of the police in ballots where the turnout was low.

There is wider concern among the police that this is part of a trend towards politicians obtaining power over the direction of policing.

Others parts of the proposals are less controversial and include laying down minimum national standards for neighbourhood policing teams and a new structure for police pay.

Officers will be given powers to take fingerprints while they are out on the beat and to use hand-held computers and other devices to cut down on paperwork. Under the Coroners and Justice Bill, the Government plans to introduce new “investigative witness anonymity” to protect witnesses to gang-related killings. It will also reform murder law, including the abolition of the partial defence of provocation, and modernise the law on assisted suicide.

The Bill also includes establishing a sentencing council for England and Wales to make sentencing more consistent and introduces a scheme to stop criminals selling their stories. The Bill applies to England and Wales, with some elements extending to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Proposals to hold some inquests in private on the ground of national security appear to have been put on hold after criticism from MPs and justice campaigners.

May 25, 2007

From the New York Times

Barack Obama's American Exceptionalism

Christopher A. Preble

Senator Barack Obama's meteoric rise from relative obscurity to presidential contender has been aided by the debate over the war in Iraq. Obama, who was not a U.S. Senator when Congress voted to go to war in 2002, has worn his opposition to the war as a badge of honor. But as Christopher Preble argues, that will only carry him so far, ecognizing the need to lay out a foreign policy agenda defined by more than opposition to the war in Iraq, Senator Obama set out to explain his broader vision for U.S. foreign policy in an April 2007 speech before the Chicago Council of Global Affairs.

The speech contained a healthy helping of high-minded rhetoric about the need “to stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar,” of leading a global effort “to keep the world's deadliest weapons out of the world's most dangerous hands,” of the need to build “stronger alliances,” and of leading “a stronger push to defeat the terrorists' message of hate with an agenda for hope around the world.”

The few concrete recommendations, including his proposal to increase U.S. foreign aid spending to $50 billion by 2012, are conventional in the sense that they are designed to appeal to his party's liberal base.

The underlying message implies a willingness to use force abroad that might be nearly indistinguishable from that of the current occupant of the White House.

Equally conventional is his invocation of Franklin Roosevelt. Obama, channeling FDR, explains that the United States leads “the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good.” And so we must. “We must lead by building a 21st century military to ensure the security of our people and advance the security of all people.” (Emphasis added)

This expansive vision for what the United States can and should do is consistent with Obama's endorsement of a permanent increase in the size of the military, an additional “65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.”

Many of the other candidates aspiring for the nomination have embraced the idea of growing the military, and the logic is consistent with Obama's accurate observation that “the war in Afghanistan and the ill-advised invasion of Iraq have clearly demonstrated the consequences of underestimating the number of troops required to fight two wars and defend our homeland.”

But there are two ways to solve this problem -- by either restraining the impulse to intervene militarily or by increasing the military. Obama conceded as much. “Of course,” he explained, “how we use our armed forces matters just as much as how they are prepared.”

Would President Obama have sent troops to Panama? To Somalia? To Haiti? Would he have declared, as George H.W. Bush did, that Saddam's aggression against Kuwait would not stand?

However, the underlying message of his speech, and of his specific proposals, implies a willingness to use force abroad that might be nearly indistinguishable from that of the current occupant of the White House.

Perhaps that explains why the junior senator from Illinois won praise from Robert Kagan, the Washington Post columnist. He seemed genuinely excited about Obama's embrace of a highly activist foreign policy.

Kagan had a hand in shaping that policy in the mid-1990s, when he (along with William Kristol) called for the United States to play the role of “benevolent global hegemon” -- i.e. “world's policeman.”

The Iraq war and other global misadventures have revealed that being the world's cop is a costly undertaking.

And although 76% of Americans, according to a recent poll taken by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org, say that the United States is “playing the role of world policeman more than it should be,” Kagan believes that he has found yet another politician who believes the United States doesn't play the role often enough -- hence his praise for “Obama the Interventionist.”

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