The stimulus package, announced on Thursday, is constructive in that it recognises the necessity of getting people into jobs or helping them stay there.

Other governments have also scrambled to introduce stimulus packages to reduce unemployment rates. Yet, whatever the short-term response is, governments everywhere will have to plan for certain sectors not to recover quickly, and some not to recover at all.

Hospitality and leisure depend on people congregating in groups and sufficient traffic to stay afloat. Only a vaccine will protect these sectors and, by the time it arrives, many individual businesses will have failed. The IMFs prediction that the Swedish economy will decline by more than its Nordic neighbours, despite its laissez-faire approach to the lockdown, only demonstrates how much anxiety about the virus influences current consumer behaviour.

In the context of global recession and this public anxiety about the future, the Irish Governments stimulus response is also underwhelming. It is less ambitious and visionary than policy proposals in other countries facing a worse economic and public health crisis.

For example, the Biden campaign in the US and a campaign in the UK driven by hundreds of civil society organisations and academics (as well as Trcaire here in Ireland) have adopted the slogan Build Back Better from the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The slogan refers to developing greater resilience after a crisis through new policy initiatives. Public investment should correspondingly go beyond temporary fixes to envisioning how improvements in infrastructure, human capital and collaboration at a community level can prepare a society for future shocks.

The pandemic has affected the US and the UK more than Ireland, and the Government here should be lauded for acting quickly. Those countries are also confronting the divisiveness of political polarisation and the repercussions of decades, if not centuries, of racism and oppression. Those two trends are fuelling confrontation between political leaders and on the street.

But these differences do not mean that policymakers in Ireland can avoid thinking about social and political divisions here, and the longer-term policy vision needed to overcome entrenched structural problems, such as low pay and precarity. Like the US, the UK and elsewhere, the fault lines in Irish society have been exacerbated by the pandemic, and recession and will not go away without new policy ideas.

In fact, there are two lessons the Irish Government should take from the US and the UK. The first is that a slogan such as Build Back Better evokes a brighter future, and implicitly tells young people to aspire and to trust that leaders are looking after their interests. The second, based on the friction caused by the cancel culture debate or perceived hardening of ideas amongst progressives, is that the Government has to connect open public debate to transformative economic and social policy. The victory in the Apple tax case represents in some ways the first foray into this debate. We should debate whether the status quo really represents effective economic policy for a small, open economy in a volatile world or, instead, if we should be engaging in more far-reaching and forward-thinking discussion about the economy we need for the future.

The stimulus package and the recent rejection of the Private Members Bill on protecting low-wage, precarious workers that the Social Democrats put forward suggest that the Government is pursuing the former strategy to create jobs first and consider their quality later. Yet, considering the combination of external pressures and internal problems policymakers must confront over the next few years, a bolder, more visionary alternative would also be more pragmatic. Waiting for the emergency to pass as this stimulus package seems to be predicated on may only make the long-term challenges more daunting.

This first economic litmus test for this new Government fails to impress because it does not give the sense that the new FF-FG-Green alliance is prepared to think big enough to move beyond Covid-19 to a new normal that is predicated on equality, and more profoundly hope for the future.

Instead of generating jobs for the sake of employment numbers, the stimulus package could have hinged on linking job creation to wellbeing, climate change and economic democracy.

Policy planning for the future should therefore not just aim to return people very often women to low-paid, precarious positions, but rather to better jobs that reflect recognition of the collective benefit of a more stable, more optimistic workforce. Critically, younger generations would feel like they have a stake in such an economy, where they can perceive a trajectory for themselves instead of a narrow, and sometimes depressing, set of choices.

The Government has a strong basis and mandate following the last election and the impact of Covid-19 for moving in this direction. During the pandemic, politicians asked us all to engage in a collective effort to care for each other. Improving the quality of work in sectors such as care, or renewable energy or any other sector that suggests responsible future planning, shows that the State recognises that to build a better Ireland, investing in economic recovery has to be good for society as well. This stimulus package aims to fulfil half this brief but the other half remains just as important.

Shana Cohen is director of TASC, the think tank for action on social change

Continued here:

Governments stimulus package falls short of the big thinking Ireland needs - The Irish Times

The time immediately following a crisis, whether it be a peace process, rebuilding after a natural disaster or seeing a new government come into power, creates a window of opportunity to reimagine what the next phase of life can look like. When the status quo has been upended, there is a feeling that normal can be redesigned. With COVID-19, this opportunity seems more pressing than ever before as the pandemic has highlighted the inequalities that have made the old normal not work for so many, particularly women. In every country, women face gender discrimination and often times, this intersects with other forms of inequity stemming from disability, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, creating additional barriers for accessing services, education, and employment. The surging Black Lives Matter movement around the globe has thrown into stark relief just how critically important it is, especially for women, and particularly women of color, that we do not just get back to normal, but that we actively build back better.

For women and girls living in humanitarian contexts, building back betterand taking into account multiple factors of oppression and discriminationis critical. Through the International Rescue Committees (IRC) nearly 90 years of humanitarian work, we know that women and girls continue to be disadvantaged in terms of access to education, employment, healthcare, safety, and more. COVID-19 has brought increased rhetoric around the different ways women and girls experience a crisis, yet we are still seeing old patterns being repeated, particularly in the absence of gender analysis, disaggregated data, and dedicated funding to support the most vulnerable, despite highlevel calls to action. As countries begin to reopen, we cannot sacrifice the necessary changes for the comfort of the familiar. The time is far past to have difficult conversations, to employ feminist approaches, and to use COVID-19, as terrible as it continues to be, as an opportunity to truly change the status quo for all women and girls.

Originally posted here:

When Returning to Normal Doesn't Work for Half the World's Population: How to Build Back Better - World - ReliefWeb

By Rose BirgenBy Eva Okoth

Laws are not always just. Ironically, the law can be used as a tool for creating social order and, at the same time, as an avenue for oppression. In many countries around the world, the law has been used to protect political and monetary interests at the expense of the most vulnerable in society.

In Kenya, this is demonstrated by the governments enactment of draconian and backward legislation, such as the Land Value (Amendment) Act, which is, to a great extent, oppressive to the ordinary citizen.

The Land Value (Amendment) Act came into force in 2019. Its objective is to provide guidance on the process of compulsory acquisition of private or community lands for a public purpose. It also describes the method of calculating the value of land acquired in order to estimate the amount of compensation.

The Act introduced amendments which are not only potentially unconstitutional but also likely to infringe the property rights of communities where compulsory acquisition takes place. It allows the government to compulsorily acquire land and pay individuals or affected communities as late as one year later.

The positive changes made to the law through this amendment Act are insignificant. Instead, it has legalised the governments usual tendency to acquire land illegally without compensating affected persons promptly.

To date, communities from Lamu County, including farmers in Kililana, Kwasasi, Sinambio, the Awer of Bargon and villagers from Bobo and Roka whose lands were acquired for the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopian Transport (Lapsset) corridor have not been compensated, even though the legal regime at the time of acquisition the government to compensate affected persons before possessing their land. Persons affected by the Standard Gauge Railway project, which the Court of Appeal recently declared illegal, are facing a similar predicament.

Failing to compensate these communities promptly has increased their vulnerability to human rights violations. This is particularly inevitable where communities are evicted from their ancestral lands, rendering them homeless and internally displaced years after the completion of these projects.

Perhaps the critical question to ask ourselves at this point is whose interests this law serves.

THE PROMPT PAYMENT BILL

To answer that question, let us draw our attention to the Prompt Payment Bill, introduced into Parliament on February 28, 2020 - just around the period when countries were going into lockdown due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The purpose of this Bill is to provide for the prompt payment for supply of goods, works and services procured by government entities at the national and county levels. This Bill, unlike the Land Value (Amendment) Act, places a mandatory obligation on the government to pay for goods, services or works provided within the date prescribed in a contract or, where no date is prescribed, within 90 days or less as prescribed by the Cabinet Secretary by way of delegated legislation. Failure to make a prompt payment attracts a criminal penalty and interest on the principal amount.

Arguably, just like any other commercial arrangement, compulsory land acquisition is a form of procurement. However, the difference in treatment between ordinary procurement transactions and compulsory land acquisition is glaring.

For instance, prompt payment in the context of the Act differs from the meaning it is given under the Bill. Similarly, the failure to pay for services in time attracts a criminal penalty under the Bill but not under the Act. Yet, in both instances, the government benefits in some way from the goods, services or rights acquired.

EQUAL TREATMENT

Community land is a valuable commodity for communities that depend on it for their livelihood. Its acquisition by the government must therefore be treated in the same way as other government procurement processes, specifically in terms of ensuring that:

This is the only way to ensure that as a nation we protect the integrity of our laws.

Legislators must, therefore, remember that Kenyas democracy can only succeed when the interests of the people, especially the most vulnerable persons, are placed at the centre of decision-making processes. This requires equal treatment of all people under the law.

Rose Birgen is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a senior programme officer with Natural Justice.

Eva Maria Okoth is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a programme officer with Natural Justice.

Continued here:

Prompt Payment Bill a ray of hope to victims of compulsory acquisition - Daily Nation

KUALA LUMPUR (July 22): The High Court here today ordered former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to pay the government, through the Inland Revenue Board (IRB), RM1.69 billion in additional taxes and penalties.

High Court Judge Justice Datuk Ahmad Bache read out his summary judgment today, ordering Najib to pay the amount to the IRB. The IRB was also awarded RM15,000 in cost.

The court holds that a summary judgment is entered against the defendant (Najib) for the amount claimed by the plaintiff (IRB) as in the plaintiffs statement of claims, that is RM1,692,872,924.83 with cost. Hence, an order in terms is granted to Enclosure (1), Order Accordingly, Ahmad read.

Bache stated that under the Income Tax Act, the court has no powers pertaining to pleas from individuals who are disputing tax assessments against them.

Such is the law because of the principle of revenue law that when there is a debt due to the government, the court shall not entertain any plea whatsoever, he said.

The yearly assessments, not inclusive of penalties, amounted to RM1,465,690,844, became due and payable to the IRB after they sent assessment notices to Najib dated March 20, 2019, the judge noted, adding Najibs camp has also admitted to receiving the notices at his address.

Furthermore, the fact that the defendant has filed an appeal to the Special Commissioners of Income Tax (SCIT) in relation to those notices, further reinforced the fact that said notices are properly served, Ahmad read, stating this was in accordance with the provision of the Income Tax Act 1967 in relation to the serving of notices.

Since the notices were properly served to Najib, the tax therefore becomes due and payable to the IRB, he said.

The court also held that the penalty of 10% for each year of assessment for failing to pay the outstanding sum is permissible by virtue of Section 103 (5) of the Income Tax Act 1967, which states that any sum not paid within 30 days of the receipt of the notice be subject to the penalty.

With the 10% penalty added to the total outstanding sum, the payable sum due becomes RM1.61 billion. Subsequently, Najib failed to settle the renewed sum within 60 days under the same act, which resulted in a compounded 5% hike of RM80.61 million. Which brings the total to RM1.69 billion.

Ahmad also said the imposition of the penalty is fair and permissible. Because if all other tax-payers are to be imposed with such penalties upon late payment of taxes due, it is only fair that the defendant, who is a former finance minister and former prime minister, be subjected to the same provision of penalty as everyone stands equal before the law, he said.

Ahmad also maintained that the court, in a civil proceeding brought by the government, has no power to entertain any plea on the amount, whether it is excessive, incorrectly assessed and under appeal as Najibs lawyers had claimed.

He said that this has to be taken up with the Special Commissioners of Income Tax (SCIT), who are judges of fact. This court holds that the merit of assessment which involve questions, should be heard by the SCIT, as the court is not the appropriate quorum to decide on issues of assessment. The SCIT are judges of facts, he said.

Najibs lawyer Farhan Shafee argued last month that the unpaid tax the IRB is seeking were from donations given to Najib, which he claimed were not taxable.

We have the RM2.6 billion Arab donation that went into Najibs account but after he used the money for elections, around US$620 million was returned to the Arabs. This has come out in Najibs other court cases and there is money trail proof in black and white of these transactions. So how can the IRB tax the amount that was returned to the Arab royalty? Farhan had questioned.

The judge further said today that all is not lost for Najib, as he can dispute the amount of assessment with the SCIT by filing an appeal, which has already been done.

In an immediate response to the summary judgment, Najib took to his Facebook account to express his dissatisfaction.

He claimed the issue was an act of oppression espoused by the Pakatan Harapan government against him. He also claimed that this was an abuse of power by the former government. Actually, I am not ordered by the judge to pay the tax but the judge gave a summary judgment to the IRB to go ahead with their claim against me, he added.

The government filed the suit against Najib on June 25 last year to recover the unpaid taxes.

The rest is here:

High Court orders Najib to pay RM1.69b in additional taxes to government - The Edge Markets MY

The provincial directive to end the "discriminatory practice" of birth alerts is a big step forward to keeping Indigenous and racialized families together, according to advocates in Ontario.

The directive, issued on July 14 by Ontario Associate Minister of Children and Women's Issues Jill Dunlop, ordered children's aid societies to stop issuing birth alerts by mid-October.

"For our community ... for Indigenous women across the province of Ontario ... this is a real sign of recognition of our rights as mothers, our rights as women but also, more importantly, this is going to improve the outcomes for Indigenous children and Indigenous babies across the province," said Dawn Lavell Harvard, president of the Ontario Native Women's Association (ONWA).

She added, "I'm absolutely over-the-moon happy with the current government for taking this all-important step to recognize the autonomy of Indigenous mothers, to recognize their right to mother their own children something that was taken away with residential schools, were taken away with the Sixties Scoop and has been taken away generation after generation by racist governments."

The practice of birth alerts where a children's aid society notifies hospitals when they believe a newborn may be in need of protection has long been reported to disproportionately affect Indigenous families in Ontario.

Its elimination was also a recommendation made bythe National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Lavell Harvard said the systemic discrimination seen in the practice of birth alerts is reflected more broadly in the child welfare system.

"We know that there are currently more children in the care of the child welfare system than were in the residential schools at the height of the residential school system. And this is a result of poverty, is a result of racism, discrimination and systemic racism within the child welfare system ... where Indigenous mothers and Indigenous families are unfairly targeted."

"We recognize that in most cases, birth alerts do not support our goal of protecting children while supporting families to stay together. Every new mother and father need to be treated with respect, not negatively impacted because of an alert that might result in judgment with discriminatory measures," said Thelma Morris, executive director of Tikinagan Child & Family Services, a "community-based" child welfare agency that serves30 First Nations in northern Ontario.

The executive director for the Children's Aid Society of Thunder Bay, Brad Bain, said he sees the directive as a "positive step" made by the provincial government.

Bain acknowledged "the role that the Thunder Bay agency has played certainly, as well as our sector, in contributing to systemic racism and oppression."

He estimated that in recent years, the agency has issued five birth alerts per year, although noted that no birth alerts have been issued in 2020.

"As an organization, we are committed to the elimination of systemic racism and have an internal, anti-oppressive practices committee and we work in concert with our local stakeholders to inform our practices and our policies," Bain added.

Lavell Harvard said there is a lot more work to be done to keep families together.

"Indigenous-run child welfare organizations are discriminated against in terms ... they're expected to do more to hold families together with significantly less resources and then they are blamed when they have poor outcomes."

She added more "upstream" investment is needed to ensure Indigenous families are supported.

"If one wants to talk bottom line in terms of investments ... we need to be investing in that prevention, investing in providing Indigenous moms and their families with the tools they need to survive and provide for our families."

More:

'Discriminatory practice' of birth alerts to end in Ontario, and that's good for Indigenous families says ONWA - CBC.ca

Graphic by Ferna Simbulan

Editor's note: All letters to the editor will be considered, but not every one will be published. Please allow 24 hours for a response regarding your submission.

We are a pro-Palestine organization, and we renounce the claims the Israeli government has on the land of my people, including the annexation of villages in the West Bank.

We are writing to address several things that were mentioned in a Letter to the Editor from a Zionist student regarding the protest we organized last week.

Palestinians are so rarely the focus in media pieces. Our voices are often ignored and disproportionately underrepresented. So we want to start by saying that the Alligator did its duty in upholding the core of journalistic practice, and that is the dedication to reporting the truth. The reporter was sent to cover a planned statewide protest for Palestine with more than 100 attendees, not a spontaneous group of about 10 pro-Israel students waving a flag across the street. The lack of Israeli perspective in the piece was not biased or malicious, it was true to the story that was unfolding. Its fine that just this once, ours were the voices that were centered. On that day, we felt heard. We felt seen.

Perhaps if a larger Israeli demonstration was coordinated, it couldve gotten more coverage.

The definition of Zionism provided in the Letter to the Editor was incomplete. No matter how you look at it, Israel was established by the literal expulsion of Palestinians from their homes. So to even say that Zionism does not equate to anti-Palestine, is not just wrong, it is the gaslighting of an entire nation.

Palestine mourns May 15, 1948, also known as Al-Nakba, or the Catastrophe, while Israel celebrates it as its independence day. On this day alone, Zionist forces conducted 33 massacres, destroyed 531 villages, and forced over 750,000 Palestinians out of the country as refugees.

One of our organizers families was one of the many forced to flee. Tantura, the small coastal village on the Mediterranean they called home, was wiped off the map.

Anti-Zionism rejects the colonial racism of Israels founding and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians within the occupied territories. It is the rejection of oppression and apartheid. It is NOT prejudice and discrimination toward Jewish people as individuals or as a group. That would be anti-Semitism.

In the letter, the writer claimed that nationally renowned, anti-racist author and professor, Paul Ortiz, was anti-Semitic when he compared the plight of Native Americans in the U.S. to that of Palestinians under Israeli colonization. For one, as we established above, criticizing Israeli colonialism does not equate to being bigoted towards Jewish people. European colonizers felt entitled to Native American lands and took them by force. The same can be said for Israel.

Within the letter, it was implied that equating Zionism and white supremacy was groundless.

So should we ignore that Richard Spencer called himself a white Zionist?

Or that both Zionism in Israel and white supremacy in the U.S. maintain their grips of power through the exploitation, subjugation and displacement of indigenous groups?

Because there is certainly a white ruling class in Israel and a population of Black Ethiopian Jews who disproportionately experience levels of brutality and discrimination that parallel the plight of Black Americans.

In addition, Palestinians are denied the freedom of movement in their own countries through military checkpoints, much like how apartheid South Africa upheld pass laws that forced Black South Africans to carry permits to enter white cities.

Time and time again so many Palestinians and allies have had to explain ourselves and what we advocate for. The student who wrote the Letter to the Editor, as well as so many other Zionist students weve met, insisted that resolution can only be reached if both sides truly listen to one another. But conversation cant happen if every Palestinian activist and ally is labeled anti-Semitic for actions that simply arent so.

So we want to say something we feel has not been expressed enough in these conversations, and we want to be very clear: to be effectively pro-Palestine, one must also stand unwaveringly against anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic bigotry has created generational trauma for Jewish people, just as all forms of oppressive ideology has done for so many other marginalized groups.

It was not hate that allowed Zionism to take residence in a land that already had people.

It was fear.

It was fear that drove an oppressed people to oppress others.

The reason why we stand so ardently against these accusations of anti-Semitism is because it has no place in this movement.

So when we say free Palestine, it means more than liberating Gaza, more than bringing back the generations of Palestinians scattered across the globe to their usurped homes, more than ending apartheid within the occupied lands. Freeing Palestine means ending the trauma of colonization for all oppressed people across the world.

It is why images of George Floyd, a black man mercilessly killed by U.S. police, are painted all over the occupied West Bank right beside murals of Razan al-Najjar, a Palestinian nurse murdered by the Israeli military.

Its why we protested on the corner of University Avenue a week ago. It's why we will continue to stand against oppression tomorrow. Its why we are here today.

We cannot be free until we are all free. And we know, within our lifetimes, we will be.

SJP is an independent organization that creates opportunities to learn about and participate in global movements for the freedom, justice, and equality of Palestinians and others.

See the original post here:

Letter to the editor: Palestine in the media - The Independent Florida Alligator

Since the murder of George Floyd, racism, police brutality, and the long history of inequality in our country, have been under a microscope like never before. People can no longer ignore what 400 years of oppression has done to the black community, and cities say its time for reparations. USA Today reports that local officials in cities like Providence, RI, and Asheville, NC are now proposing different measures to address these injustices, ranging from resolutions to support studying reparations and proposals funneling more funds into programs for Black communities.

Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, says that recent nationwide unrest finally brought the conversation to the forefront. Its always the right time to do the right thing. There is an appetite and an urgency to make the most of this moment and make sure there is real structural change that comes out of it.

Although the idea of reparations does have support like never before, there will always be opposition, and much of the debate is over what the reparations would actually look like. There has been talk about allocating funds to programs that would uplift Black communities and even some discussion about cash payments, though thats where most of the opposition lies. Some Senate Republicans argue that Americans alive today shouldnt have to pay the price for their ancestors choices, even though black Americans are still feeling the effects of the generational trauma inflicted on theirs. Its also important to note that no country has ever given monetary compensation to African descendants of the transatlantic slave trade. GOP members sayit would be too costly and point out that determining eligibility would pose a large problem.

Despite what the government says at a federal level, local officials like Providence Councilwoman, Nirva LaFortune, and other community leaders are promising residentstruth, reconciliation and municipal reparations. Asheville officials have also promised reparations to its Black residents. Last week the city council voted in favor of investing inmarginalized Black communities.City Councilwoman Sheneika Smith said the city is discussing how to tackle things like increasing minority homeownership and access to other affordable housing; increasing minority business ownership and career opportunities; closing the gap in healthcare, education, employment, and pay; and reforming the criminal justice system. They hope to create paths to generational wealth for Black people and will map out how to fund these efforts over the next year. California and North Carolina are also working on following suit.

Elorza notes that cities cant bear the entire burden of paying reparations to its residents and called for all levels of government to step up to the plate. William Darity, an expert and professor at Duke University,told USA Today that he believes slavery is the Federal governments doingso it should be up to them to right their wrongs. The federal government is the culpable party, and as a matter of principle, should foot the bill for reparations, but the federal government also is the only entity that can meet the bill,he said. Darity suggests using reparations as a way to eliminate the racial wealth gap between Blacks and whites. He estimates this would cost anywhere from $10 to $12 trillion.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he doesnt think reparations is a good idea, additionally, Donald Trump has said he doesnt see it happening. Newsweek reported Thursday that during a virtual town hall with the NAACP, Joe Biden said hes in favor of reparations if studies show that cash payments are, in fact, a viable option. Regardless of what happens in November, though, newly elected President of the U. S. Conference of Mayors, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, says, The timing is right for reparations discussions.

See original here:

Local Governments Say "The Timing Is Right For Reparations Discussions" - balleralert.com

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In Portland, Oregon, unidentified armed assailants dressed in military fatigues have been snatching people off the streets, piling them into unmarked vans, and taking them away.

Just as the founders intended.

No, seriously, the founders must have intended for that to happen. Otherwise the people who are always proclaiming their worship of rights, and freedom, and liberty people who are quite certain they know a lot more than you about what the founders intended would be condemning this assault on, well, rights, and freedom, and liberty.

And theyre not.

Any discomfort, any momentary tinge of cognitive dissonance, appears to be assuaged by whos in charge. The thugs dispatched to seize American citizens off the streets of a U.S. city, you see, are federal officers carrying out orders of the Trump administration.

The Oregon attorney general has filed a suit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Federal Protective Service. Oh, and the AG in Nevadas neighbor to the northwest has also sued John Does 1-10, who are so named, the suit explains, because the government has made it impossible for them to be individually identified by carrying out law enforcement actions without wearing any identifying information, even so much as the agency that employs them.

Aint that America?

The John Does and their cohorts have been conducting the aforementioned abductions of your fellow Americans without either arresting them or stating the basis for an arrest, since at least Tuesday, July 14, according to allegations in the suit.

Ordinarily, a person exercising his right to walk through the streets of Portland who is confronted by anonymous men in military-type fatigues and ordered into an unmarked van can reasonably assume that he is being kidnapped and is the victim of a crime, the suit notes. Which is true.

Defendants are injuring the occupants of Portland, the suit continues, by taking away citizens ability to determine whether they are being kidnapped by militia or other malfeasants dressed in paramilitary gear (such that they may engage in self-defense to the fullest extent permitted by law) or are being arrested (such that resisting might amount to a crime).

The abductions, in addition to creeping everyone out, are violations of the 1st, 4th and 5th amendments, says the suit, which seeks an injunction ordering the Trump administration to, well, stop being a bunch of lawless thugs.

Remember that one day when people who think fighting the covid is unconstitutional or something went to the Nevada governors office, with guns, to call him a dictator and shake their fists at the sky and yell about freedom?

Or remember that time a huge Blue Lives Matter march was supposed to be held in Las Vegas?

Imagine if, at such an event, federal officers started just cold grabbing protesters and hauling them away with no explanation whatsoever.

Imagine the outcry from the likes of, oh, Fox News, or Adam Laxalt, or Brobdingnagian Dan Rodimer, or Michele Fiore, or that one whosit carnival barker who used to have a column in the RJ. They would have had a cow (donated by Cliven Bundy no doubt).

So youd think those self-professed lovers of freedom and rights and liberty and the rule of law, those self-identified Real Americans, and their ilk would be pitching a fit over tyrannical and dictatorial federal actions designed to, as Trump likes to say, dominate the citizenry.

After all, as the Oregon AGs suit asserts, Citizens peacefully gathering on the streets of Portland to protest racial inequality have the right

Oh. Wait. It looks weve found the extenuating circumstances.

Its not as if people in Portland were making noise on behalf of some truly cherished American value, like the freedom to spread covid to others, or the right of a welfare cowboy to make taxpayers foot the bill to feed his cows.

Its not as if people in Portland were standing up to support the perpetuation of the traditional status quo, wherein police kill Black people and no one is held accountable.

No, the people in Portland have been protesting racial inequality.

Your freedom-loving, mask-despising patriots may, as a rule, view Big Guvment para-trooping a light military force into a state without giving notice to, let alone being requested by, that states duly elected officials or law enforcement as a violation of every star-spangled red white & blue value they hold so dear.

Unless the stormtroopers are violating the rights and liberty of people who are challenging North Americas 400-year legacy of cruelty, violence, theft, rape, and systemic oppression of people who arent white. When people are protesting that, kidnapping Americans is evidently OK. Even if the people being secreted away are white (seriously have you been to Portland?).

No one expects intellectual consistency, or intellectual much of anything, from Laxalt, Rodimer, Fiore & Friends.

And everyone, even and especially his supporters, know that law and order just means continued oppression and domination of everyone who isnt a Trump supporter when Trump says it.

Ah, but maybe these harsh and authoritarian tactics undertaken by the weak wannabe strongman will at least quell unrest or vandalism in Portland, and Dear Leader Trump will save the day after all.

Eh, not so much.

Their presence, the Oregonian reported Monday of Trumps invasion of Portland, has stoked the nightly strife in downtown, not tamped down tensions as professed by Trump or Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad F. Wolf, local and state leaders say.

Portlands mayor has said, well, a lot of things, as you can imagine. But this is the most important:

This could happen in your city.

As if on cue, Trump Monday blustered that hes going to send his American Gestapo to Chicago and several other cities all run by liberal Democrats.

No one would ever accuse Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman of being one of those. But she doesnt really run the metro area, the county commission does, and however to the left you may think they are, rest assured its more than enough to qualify as liberal Democrats in Trumps noggin. Laughable though it may seem, the same goes for Nevadas governor and Democrats who have majorities in the Legislature.

Trump hasnt targeted Las Vegas for unconstitutional and malicious military thuggery. Yet. But if and when he does, its a safe bet Nevada Trump supporters, states rights devotees all, will demonstrate their commitment to the nations founding principles of liberty and freedom by cheering him on.

Editor | Hugh Jackson has been writing about Nevada policy and politics for more than 20 years. He was editor of the Las Vegas Business Press, senior editor at the Las Vegas CityLife weekly newspaper, daily political commentator on the Las Vegas NBC affiliate, and wrote the then-groundbreaking Las Vegas Gleaner, which among other things was the only independent political blog from Nevada that was credentialed at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. He spent a few years as a senior energy and environmental policy analyst for Public Citizen, and has occasionally worked as a consultant on mining, taxation, education and other issues for Nevada labor and public interest organizations. His freelance work has been published in outlets ranging from the Guardian to Desert Companion to In These Times to the Oil & Gas Journal. For several years he also taught U.S. History courses at UNLV. Prior to moving to Las Vegas, he was a reporter and then assistant managing editor at the Casper Star-Tribune, Wyomings largest newspaper.

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There's never a states' rights hero around when you need one - Nevada Current

The Martian Revolution pitting the human inhabitants of Mars against the Earthlings who stayed at home is coming. The only question is which side of it we should be on now, a century or two before it begins.

On Thursday local time, China launched one of three international missions set to head toward Mars this summer, each one marking a dramatic step forward in the scientific exploration of the Red Planet and the day that human settlement there becomes a reality. The purpose of the missions, the other two of which are being undertaken by the United Arab Emirates and the United States, range from unpacking the history of Mars' atmosphere to looking for signs of ancient life.

In building new outposts of human society, how do we keep from repeating all the injustices and broken power dynamics that have marked history on Earth?

While billionaire rocketeers like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others aren't directly involved in these missions, they are very interested in Mars. And nation-sponsored endeavors like those launching this week will plant the seeds that they hope will eventually grow into a long-term, large-scale human presence on Mars and throughout the solar system. Commercial space companies, like Musk's SpaceX, have had remarkable success building powerful, reusable rockets that shave the cost of reaching orbit and would help drive that Martian settlement.

But the progress also brings new and equally remarkable questions about the ethics of populating Mars, particularly when we are so acutely aware of the failures and devastation caused by humanity's earlier acts of colonization. Answers to these new questions may not only determine our future in space, but they may also shape the human future for centuries.

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There are important questions about the legitimacy and wisdom of colonizing Mars in the first place. But even if these concerns are overcome or simply ignored in the enthusiasm for a human future in space, we must think seriously about how to do it in the best way. The global outrage at George Floyd's death and the societal shortcomings it spotlights tell us we must ask ourselves now and not later: In building new outposts of human society, how do we keep from repeating all the injustices and broken power dynamics that have marked history on Earth?

That's where the Martian Revolution comes in.

Martian liberation movements are a staple of science fiction. First, people from Earth build tiny settlements on Mars. Then, after a century or so, the settlements grow into vibrant planetwide civilizations. Eventually, these new "Martians" fight to throw off the yoke of Earth's tyranny. In these stories, space represents an opportunity to create social arrangements that look profoundly different from what we've been locked into on Earth. In space, maybe, we could be more free.

The question that must come next is: Whose idea of freedom are we talking about? The broad discussion of systematic racism happening now is a recognition of just how deep and persistent inequality has been in most modern societies. Add to this the oppression of different sexual and gender identities and it's clear that there are forms of expression and well-being that lots of humans don't fully enjoy here on Earth.

So, if we want something different, how can we get there?

One vehicle is the growth of commercial space enterprises, because their premise is so new and their activities are so vibrant. SpaceX, Blue Origin and others deserve a lot of credit for what they have and can achieve technologically. But it's unlikely that the owners, a group of hyper-rich white guys small enough to fit into an elevator, can build the best new society on their own even if they really did have the very best of intentions.

But the economic engines they're creating can help bring many different kinds of people into the process, including those who suffer now under what we've built on Earth. That's because thriving long-term human settlements on Mars can exist only once we've built a healthy space economy, and that's going to happen only through collaborations between governments and commercial enterprises (i.e., public-private partnerships). Right now, for example, the U.S. government is a principal client for SpaceX. So, in the future, the moon bases, asteroid-mining facilities and deep-space exploration platforms that will make up a space economy will likely be built by consortiums of nations working with private companies.

We everyday citizens who represent the public side of the partnerships can require those companies to break with the past to be more inclusive and innovative; we have leverage. If a company wants to be part of a big moon base contract, then the governments allowing them to be involved have to set up rules and standards that benefit all humans, regardless of their place on the socioeconomic ladder. Creating economic structures for workers that can't devolve into versions of indentured servitude (something Musk seemed to unwittingly imply was possible) is one example.

But we could go even further. My colleague Jacob Haqq-Misra of the Blue Marble Space Institute has come up with one of the coolest ideas ever when it comes to this question. He argues that we can liberate Mars now by declaring any settlement there to be definitively Martian. Humans who leave Earth to permanently settle on Mars would have to relinquish their planetary citizenship as Earthlings. These new Martians wouldn't be able to represent the interests of any group on Earth and couldn't acquire wealth on Earth.

Just as important, in keeping with space treaties formed under the auspices of the United Nations, the Martian Constitution outlining the society the planet's new citizens would be joining would spell out the use of land on the Red Planet. In particular, land rights would be determined only by Martians; Earthlings wouldn't be able to make any demands for resources like water (for making rocket fuel). (Note that this means you could still make money on Mars, but you would have to do it as a citizen of the new world, with its new, more just and equal social arrangements.

If we do decide to populate Mars (and you can probably tell I really want us to), then we can ensure a future in space that would be something much better than what we have now something those back on Earth could eventually learn from. In that way, the Martian Revolution can begin today. It can be fought and won without grievance and without a shot, fully completed by that fateful day when human beings first set foot on the red soil of their new home.

Adam Frank, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, is the author of "Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth."

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The China Mars mission raises the question of how best to settle other planets - NBC News

DENIS ROGATYUK: The fight to bring Julian home has been a monumental challenge since his unjust conviction. But it has certainly become much more difficult since his expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy in March 2019. What have been the primary actions that you and the campaign have undertaken since then?

JOHN SHIPTON: Well we fight against the United Kingdom, Sweden, the United States, and to a certain extent Australia. They have marshaled all of their forces and broken every law in human rights and due process in order to send Julian to the United States and destroy him.

Before our eyes, we have watched the gradual murder of Julian through psychological torture, through ceaseless breaking of procedures and due process. So that is what we fight against.

During the latest hearing, the judge Barrett asked Julian to prove that he was unwell, that he didnt come onto the video. So again, we see a process that we witness over and over again, blaming the victim.

In the case of Australia, the Australians say that theyve offered consular assistance. When I say the Australians, DFAT (the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade), and the prime minister, and the foreign minister, Marise Payne, say that they have consular assistance over and over again. Their consular assistance consists offering last weeks newspaper and to see if hes still alive. Thats about the extent of it.

So consular assistance, I think they maintain, DFAT maintains that theyve made 100 offers. Well this is a profound testimony to failure.

Its now 11 years; Julian has been arbitrarily detained 11 years. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared that Julian was arbitrarily detained, and should be compensated and freed straightaway.

The latest of their reports was February 2018. It is now 2020 and Julian is still in maximum security Belmarsh prison under lockdown 23 hours a day.

DENIS ROGATYUK: And how would you describe the relationship between the current campaign for his release and the Wikileaks organisation?

JOHN SHIPTON: Well WikiLeaks continues its work and continues to hold the most extraordinary library of the American, United States diplomacy since 1970. Its an extraordinary artifact that any journalist or any historian, any of us can look up the names of those who have been involved in diplomacy with the United States, in their own countries or with the United States. This is a great resource. It continues to be maintained.

Just the week before last, WikiLeaks released another set of files, so WikiLeaks continues its work.

The people who defend Julian include Wikileaks, but include 100,000 people all around the world who are working constantly to bring about Julians freedom and stop this oppression of the free press, of publication, of publishers, and of journalists. We work constantly to do that.

There are about 80 websites around the world that publish and agitate for Julians freedom. And about 86 Facebook pages devoted to Julian. So there are many of us. And the upswelling of support continues, despite Covid. Covid slowed us down a little bit. Now that Covid-19 is withdrawing, the upswelling continues.

And it will do so until the Australian Government and the United Kingdom recognise that this is the crime, the oppression of Julian, is the great crime of the 21st century.

DENIS ROGATYUK: The latest superseding indictment of Julian regarding the alleged conspiracy with unnamed anonymous hackers appears to be another attempt to fast-track his extradition. Do you believe this is a symptom of desperation on the part of the Department of Justice of the United States?

JOHN SHIPTON: No I dont. The people who work in the Department of Justice get paid, whether this succeeds or not. Whether Julian is extradited they get paid; if hes not extradited they still get paid. They still go home, and have a glass of wine, take the kids to the movies, and then come to work the next day, and think up another instrument of torture for Julian. This is their job.

So I dont know why, but I could speculate or guess, if you like, that the Department of Justice would like to see the trial delayed, the hearing delayed, until after the American election (in November 2020). So there will be appeals by the lawyers in court that they havent had time to accommodate and that the judge, they asked the judge to move the hearing date. Thats what I imagine.

But I dont think its an act of desperation at all. If anything it is giving us who defend Julian more things to worry about, so that our energies are not focused singularly upon getting Julian out. So the conversation drifts over to this further indictment and about who is included in it.

It is Siggi and Sabu, both of whom are not credible witnesses. Siggi (Sigurdur Thordarson, or Siggi hakkari) is a convicted sex offender, a con man, who stole $50,000 from Wikileaks and so on. There are not credible witnesses (to these allegations). I guess that it is either to delay the hearing and or to cause the conversation to drift away from what is important.

DENIS ROGATYUK: I wish to move to the second part of our interview now, exploring Julians life.

A lot has been researched and published about Julians life and early days in the 1990s. I would like to discuss the aspects of his life that have given him the resilience and the strength to withstand the challenges that he faces now.

Julian is incredibly committed to telling the truth in his interviews. He is very articulate and he is very careful about communicating and choosing the exact words to describe things. Is this something that his family taught him or is it something special about Julian?

JOHN SHIPTON: I dont really know, you know, it is sort of a gift that I would like to have myself. So I dont know where it came from. I guess you would have to ask the gods, maybe they know the answer.

The path he has forged is distinct and distinctly his. I admire and am proud of him for his capacity to adapt, and his capacity to continue fighting, despite 11 years of ceaseless psychological torture. That doesnt come without cost. It cost him a lot.

However, we believe that we will prevail. And Julian will be able to come home to Australia, and maybe live in Mullumbimby for a little bit, or in Melbourne; he used to live here down the corner.

Oh actually I dont like the word, if I may withdraw that sentence, I dont like the word hope. Hope sort of makes a really nice breakfast, and a bad dinner. So we will prevail in this fight is what I would say.

DENIS ROGATYUK: Julian displayed incredible physical and mental resilience these past 9 years, particularly nearly 8 years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy and this past year in the Belmarsh prison. Where do you think this strength is coming from his moral and political convictions or something he developed in his early life in Australia?

JOHN SHIPTON: I think its a gift that he has, that he will continue to fight for what he believes. And if there are elements of truth in what he is fighting for, well then he never surrenders. Its an aspect of character.

I dont mind in fact myself, but I am invigorated by fighting for Julian. And each insult or offence against Julian increases my determination to prevail, and the determination of Julians supporters to prevail. Each insult increases our strength.

And so you can see, when the second a lot of indictments were brought down week before last, supporters around the world raised their voices in disbelief, and began again to raise awareness of Julians situation.

So its really interesting, the Department of Justice might think one thing that it causes us to fracture, but what actually happens is the upswelling of support continues unabated.

DENIS ROGATYUK: John, I wish to ask you a more personal question. How does it feel to be the father of a man like Julian, and to see his son son go through all this hardship and slander, and to keep traveling and fighting for his liberation across the world?

JOHN SHIPTON: Well some of it is hard to believe, what people say about Julian. You know those American politicians are shooting, and you know the UC Global employees in Spain, who were supposed to look after the security of the Ecuadorian embassy, who speculated on how to poison Julian at the behest of CIA and Mossad and Sheldon Adelson, whatever whatever you want to call those bunch of creeps.

Im surprised, but you know I ignore it. For myself I take not the slightest bit of notice. Im surprised that people put their energies into calling Julian names, and theyve never met him, never even set eyes on him, some people, and yet they find the time and energy to write scurrilous things.

I think maybe they dont have anybody to go out with, or theres no friends at home, or something like that, or their their wife cant stand them, so they go down the backyard with their laptops and write scurrilous things about Julian or whatever, or their neighbors dog.

Im very surprised that people put the energy into that sort of thing.

DENIS ROGATYUK: But how does it feel to keep this campaign for a liberation going? Because you have done a lot of travel around the world; you have been advocating for his release everywhere you go. So what has that journey been like for you, personally?

JOHN SHIPTON: Uh Denis, I dont count the costs, not even for a minute. I do what Im here today with you, I do what comes before me, and then I go on to the next thing. But I never, ever count costs.

DENIS ROGATYUK: And for the last part of our interview I wanted to actually discuss your thoughts and your opinions on some of the more important and more prominent issues of our day.

Ever since the extradition hearings began, against Julian, the US government, particularly Trump, Mike Pence, and Mike Pompeo, have been doubling down on their attacks against Julian and WikiLeaks. Pompeo even called it a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.

The US establishment appears to be dead set against them, and both major parties are playing along. So what do you think ought to be the strategy of activists and journalists in the US to challenge this?

JOHN SHIPTON: Well first of all, Mike Pompeo, dear oh dear, I mean a failed secretary of state and a failed CIA director, declares war on WikiLeaks in order to get the CIA support for his future ambitions to run for president. And he moves now from secretary of state to the Senate for Kansas.

The secretary of state is an important position. However Mike Pompeo doesnt strike me as being a historically significant personality.

The US establishment must fall in line with what the CIA wants and thinks. So Pompeo in that address on the (13th) of April 2017 that you just quoted, he just wants to get all of his workers to support him in his bid for presidency.

And also to oppress and intimidate journalists all over the world, and publishers and publications his sole aim is to ruin your capacity to bring to the public ideas and information, and our capacity as members of the public to talk amongst ourselves and sort out things through conversation with each other, on what we ought to do and how we ought to go about life.

They just want to have it all their own way, declare war on whomever, murder another million people, destroy Yemen, destroy Libya, destroy Iraq, destroy Afghanistan, the list goes on destroy Syria, millions of people refugees, flooding the world, and moving into Europe; the Maghreb in turmoil, the Levant in turmoil, Palestinians murdered this is their aim.

And so for us, we depend upon you to bring us truthful information, so that we can have fair opinions of how the world is moving around us.

What Pompeo wants is for what he says to be believed. Well you can see his history. They say it may be up to 5 million people since 1991 died as a result of the United States and its allies moving on Iraq in an illegal war.

You can watch Collateral Murder and you can see a good samaritan dragging a wounded man into his car to take him to the hospital, taking his children on the way to school, murdered before your eyes. The pilots of the helicopter begging for instructions to be able to shoot a wounded man, two kids, and two good samaritans, begging for instructions from their controller.

So they dont want us to see that. However we depend upon you journalists, publishers, publications to bring to us the crimes that governments commit so that we are energized, so that we place our shoulders to preventing these murders with all of the determination and energy we can muster, to prevent the murder and destruction of an entire country.

If I may remind you, in Melbourne, there were a million people marched against the Iraq War. All over the world I think a total of 10 million people. We dont want war. They lie to us in order to have wars, for whatever satisfaction, I cant make out myself.

Who would want to see and hear the lamentation of widows, the cries of children, the groans of men? Who would want that? Its monstrous.

And so we need the information in order to say no.

DENIS ROGATYUK: The new cold war between the United States and the European Union on one side and China and Russia on the other, threatens to pull the ordinary people of the world into another confrontation on behalf of these political and economic elites among these countries.

From your experience of seeking international support for Julian, what are the best ways of forging solidarity across borders in this new conflict that seems to be developing?

JOHN SHIPTON: I think the best way is to talk to your friends and discuss things, gathering friends and discussing things, becoming aware outside of what the mass communication outlets want us to see and hear.

So just face-to-face conversations and then conversations over social media is sufficient. Each day you will see, the last two weeks, Facebook and YouTube and Twitter removing, as platforms of discussion, certain subjects, and certain YouTube channels. They remove them because we are succeeding, not because nobody watches them, nobody goes there. Its because we are succeeding to educate ourselves as to what governments do in our name.

To bring peace between or fair relationships between the members of the European Union and Australia and China and Russia, ordinary people the Sochi World Cup, soccer world cup, was the greatest success, fabulous success. Everybody who went to Russia came back full of admiration for Russia and Russian hospitality.

Well this is what is needed, just ordinary people getting to know each other and discussing matters of importance, not depending upon CNN or any other talking head for how you should feel about this or that subject. Just talk to friends, talk to groups of people, talk amongst each other, exchange ideas, exchange where to get good information, and things will change.

I have an undying belief in the capacity and goodness of general humanity. And I am proved right every time, because 10 million people marched against the Iraq War, but a few hundred manipulated the nations by blowing up railway stations, what they called terrorism, just a few hundred manipulated those nations into destroying Iraq.

Ordinary people dont want war; we want to be able to just talk to our friends, look after our families, thats all.

DENIS ROGATYUK: And one final question, John. The Covid-19 pandemic has not only revealed the inadequacies of the neoliberal economic order, but it has also revealed its increasing instability and desperation to maintain itself.

This is also true with regards to prominent right-wing governments the United States, Brazil, and Bolivia seeking to silence journalists and reports regarding their mismanagement of the pandemic.

We are seeing independent journalism under attack around the world, through censorship, intimidation threats, and assassinations.

What do you think should be the best way of fighting back against them?

JOHN SHIPTON: These governments, they cant even look after their own populations, let alone order the world in a decent way. And their ambitions are to order the world, while they cant even look after the people of Seattle.

Its just, if it wasnt so tragic, it would be just amusing, you would read about it just to get a laugh every morning.

Of course they oppress the journalists; of course they oppress publications; of course the warrants that allow you to broadcast on a certain spectrum are removed; platforms are removed. Because we continue to understand and expose their shortcomings.

The shortcomings are criminal. They actually consider the phrase herd immunity to be something scientific. They actually contemplate allowing hundreds of thousands of old people or older people to die. And they use phrases like, Oh well, they had comorbidities. Everybody over 60 has a comorbidity. You dont get older and get weller; you get older and get a little bit sick, or a little bit not so strong.

The actual contemplation of doing away with the steadying part of a society older people steady the young; the young are full of vigor, and the old are full of caution; this is a fair balance in society allowing them to die off, for whatever reason we cant discern. We cannot discern; it doesnt cost any more money to look after a section of society and prevent Covid. You dont lose anything from it; you actually gain access to the experience and judgment of the older section of your society.

So it is incomprehensible, like neoliberalism itself, nobody quite understands why weve got, it but its there.

Denis is a Russian-Australian freelance writer, journalist and researcher. His articles, interviews and analysis have been published in a variety of media sources around the world including Jacobin, Le Vent Se Lve, Sputnik, Green Left Weekly, Links International Journal, Alborada and others.

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Assanges father speaks out, calls oppression of WikiLeaks founder a great crime of 21st century - The Grayzone

It was an ordinary day for Palestinians under Israels rule. Ordinary, in the sense that the many ways that Israel oppresses Palestinians continued as usual, be it through military orders, court rulings, or direct state violence.

July 1 was the earliest launch date for Israels de jure annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank. Yet it was also a day that Israel simply continued doing what it pleases to Palestinians throughout the territory: Its infrastructure of oppression has already been in place for decades. But one thing is both certain and fixed: how oppressive, demeaning, and brutal this reality is.

The Israeli state has effectively annexed Palestinian lives. That on July 1 certain parts of the occupied West Bank did not switch their designation to de jure annexation was another arbitrary Israeli decision, in this case spelling out the occupying powers preference to continue to subjugate Palestinians in one certain way instead of through a novel approach. In that same arbitrary vein, this very decision may still changeor not.

More coverage of the Middle East

Though nothing changed on the ground, the political ground in Washington may be shifting.

Not at AIPAC. The so-called pro-Israel lobbying group has begun telling lawmakers that they are free to criticize Israels looming annexation plansjust as long as the criticism stops there, according to reports. Similarly, a leaked memo from the civil rights watchdog Anti-Defamation League offered parallel talking points: providing a space for local and national leaders to express their criticism of Israels decision while neutralizing anti-Israel legislative proposals, e.g. condemning and singling out its human rights record and conditioning its military aid.

In other words, it seems that the Israeli government and certain Jewish organizations have read the recent statement by some 50 U.N. experts, that [t]he lessons from the past are clear: Criticism without consequences will neither forestall annexation nor end the occupation. These American Jewish groups appear to be in agreement that genuine consequences may actually make a differenceand thus they are working diligently to keep the noise on a meaningless level, dialed precisely to allow criticism without leading to consequences.

Yet thanks to all the focus on potential de jure annexation, we can now see the difference between those still committed to expressing deep concern without taking any action and those refusing to continue with complicity.

In Washington, D.C., a letter signed by 191 House Democrats urge[d] the Israeli government to reconsider its annexation plans. The text is framed exclusively from the perspective of Israels interests; it fails to mention Palestinians human rights or their past, current, and future oppression. It also refrains from even hinting that there could be potential consequences if their urging is ignored.

But this business-as-usual acquiescence was soon eclipsed by a very different text, led by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pramila Jayapal, Betty McCollum, and Rashida Tlaib, and signed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, among others. Calling things by their proper names, the letter addresses the path toward an apartheid system. It details human rights violations from limitations on freedom of movement to continued demolitions of Palestinian homes. And it introduces meaningful consequences, leveraging the $3.8 billion of U.S. military funding to Israel.

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In Europe, one can witness a similar divide. On the one hand, the letter signed by more than a thousand European lawmakers calling for commensurate consequences and resolutions demanding action by parliaments in Belgium and the Netherlands. On the other, op-eds published by the European Unions foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and several EU ambassadors to Israel. Borrells op-ed barely mentions Palestinians. Instead, he puts great effort into trying to explain to Israelis whats in their best interest (Annexation is not the way to create peace with the Palestinians and to improve Israels security), and goes out of his way to spell out that for Brussels the path forward is paved with carrots, not sticks: Peace cannot be imposed Peace can also bring new possibilities for EU-Israel relations to further grow. Europe, internally dividedand humiliatedthrough Israels open alliances with the rising authoritarian forces on the continent, seems, so far, unable and unwilling to wake up to realitythe very reality arrived at to no small extent as a result of Europes failed foreign policy to date.

July 1 proved to be a very ordinary day in our reality. Other ordinary days will follow, in a path paved by Israeli bulldozers, backed by Israeli courts, trampling over Palestinian homes and rights and dignity. The talk of de jure annexation might focus global attention, but that attention may fade if weeks pass and Israel decides that its preferred method of further oppressing Palestinians is by means of long-lasting de facto annexation, without adding to it a dash of de jure. For one way or another, it is the government of Israel that controls everyone and everything between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

It is essential that this lesson does not fade awayand that the ongoing reality of de facto annexation is not further normalized. Dont wait for formal legalization, or release a sigh of relief if that possibility is set aside for now. Do commit to an action-based rejection of the existing, appalling, reality on the ground.

De jure or de facto, Israels oppression of Palestinians already demands consequences.

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Waiting for Annexation - The American Prospect

On a cold winters night in July 2016, thousands of people gathered inside and outside Rotten Row Magistrates Court in Harare to await the verdict in the Zimbabwean governments case against Pastor Evan Mawarire, the leader of the #ThisFlag movement and a staunch opponent of then-President Robert Mugabe. When the magistrate eventually threw out the treason charges brought against Mawarire for peacefully rallying people against corruption, a street party broke out. It was an unexpected victory for the rule of lawwon, at least in part, through collective nonviolent action by ordinary people.

In its most basic form, the rule of law simply means that no one is above the law. Everyone is treated fairly and justly, and the government does not exercise its power arbitrarily. These principles lie at the heart of the ongoing protests against systemic racism and police brutality in the United States following the death of George Floyd. The rule of law is very different from rule by law, which characterises many authoritarian states and, increasingly, some democracies as well.

Many argue, not unreasonably, that building robust institutions is essential to strengthening the rule of law. But what do you do when the institutions which are meant to uphold the rule of law are so hollowed out that they have become the primary tools for its subversion? The conventional focus on building institutions can leave ordinary people feeling disempowered, waiting patiently for the all-important institutions to reform, while they remain on the receiving end of oppression meted out by those very institutions. It can also lead to unhelpful interventions by well-meaning external actors, which inadvertently strengthen the authoritarian capabilities of captured institutions, rather than the rule of law.

To strengthen the rule of law, we first need to focus on strengthening people, not institutions. This involves the difficult, dangerous, and often unglamorous work of grassroots community organising that empowers citizens to act through informal channels outside of established institutions. Such action includes non-violent protestsmarches, boycotts, strikes, and picketsas well as community initiatives that directly improve peoples lives, such as worker advice centres and community gardens.

Such efforts are especially necessary in authoritarian states where institutions are fundamentally broken. But even in established democracies, the recent failure of supposedly strong institutions to prevent the rule of law from being undermined has shown that there is no substitute for an active and organised citizenry. Such engagement cannot be legislated or decreed, or copied and pasted from another jurisdiction. People must build it collectively from the ground up.

Building people power starts with opening citizens minds to a different type of society and a new way of doing things. In apartheid South Africa, for example, the study groups and adult literacy classes in townships during the 1970s helped to lay the groundwork for the mass movement that emerged in the 1980s under the banner of the United Democratic Front. The UDF would go on to play a leading role in the struggle against apartheid, culminating in 1990 with Nelson Mandelas release from prison and the unbanning of the African National Congress.

Next, like-minded people need to organise themselves, connect with one another in the real world (not just on social media), and become actively involved in issues directly affecting their lives. These issues might at first be local rather than national, and involve less risky actions. Over time, however, people build mutual trust and gain confidence in both themselves and their collective power as a group. Coalitions form, and actions become larger in scope and perhaps more confrontational. Before you know it, a social movement emerges that is bigger than any of the individuals or organisations involved and can unlock peoples power to bring about change.

People power can strengthen the rule of law in at least three ways. For starters, it can counteract and even neutralise the top-down pressure placed on courts and police by the authoritiestypically, the executive. This can help to ensure that even hollowed-out or compromised institutions discharge their duties in accordance with the rule of lawas in the case involving Mawarire.

A people-power movement can also create alternative spaces that prefigure a society in which the rule of law is respected. The movement must operate internally in a just and fair way, and apply the same standards to all its members regardless of rank. And any civil disobedience must have a strategic purpose and be highly disciplined, so that participants understand that such action does not constitute a rejection of the rule of law, but rather a means of establishing it.

Third, people power has repeatedly proved to be an effective tool in defeating even the most brutal dictatorships and achieving a transition to a more democratic system of governance. Far-reaching reforms that strengthen the rule of law can then be implemented in ways that would not have been possible under a corrupted system. In November 2019, for example, Sudans new transitional authorityestablished after months of non-violent protests against President Omar al-Bashirs dictatorship and then against the military regime that ousted himrepealed an oppressive public-order law that had governed how women could behave and dress in public. Although Sudans transition is by no means complete, this represented a huge triumph for the rule of law. It would not have been achieved without people power.

Authoritarian leaders understand and fear people power. Soon after Mawarires hearing, the Zimbabwean regime erected a fence around Rotten Row Magistrates Court to prevent similar public gatherings there in the future. But just as authoritarian regimes adapt and learn from their past mistakes, those of us fighting for a society based on the rule of law also must adjust, innovate, and improvise, and accumulate enough power to dismantle the oppressive systems that shackle us. Only through the struggle of ordinary people can we eventually shift our focus to building strong institutions that protect everyone equally.

***

What do you think?

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How people power strengthens the rule of law - The Kathmandu Post

It is truly bizarre that, at a moment when the Trump administration is sending in federal stormtroopers to threaten peaceful protesters in Portland, Oregon, conservatives are claiming that it is liberals who threaten the foundation of our democratic republic. It all started with Trumps speech at Mt. Rushmore on July 4th.

Seventeen seventy-six represented the culmination of thousands of years of western civilization and the triumph not only of spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason.

And yet, as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure.

Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children

This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nations children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life

Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution.

That was followed up by a speech from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the National Constitution Center to unveil the first report from his Commission on Unalienable Rights. The secretary had established the commission a year ago in order to ground our foreign policy in this countrys founding ideals. The first thing to note is that Pompeo thinks that it is necessary to prioritize which unalienable rights are most important.

the report emphasizes foremost among these rights are property rights and religious liberty. No one can enjoy the pursuit of happiness if you cannot own the fruits of your own labor, and no society no society can retain its legitimacy or a virtuous character without religious freedom.

Of course, what a Christian nationalist like Pompeo means when he talks about religious liberty is the freedom of white evangelical Christians to do what they please and all other religions be damned. That one has a lot of human rights advocates pointing out that it is the rights of women and LGBTQ persons to be treated as equal citizens under the law that are getting thrown under the bus.

Pompeo mentioned Trumps speech at Mt. Rushmore when he launched into his own attack on those who are protesting against police brutality.

President Trump spoke about this at Mount Rushmore on the Fourth of July. And our rights tradition is under assault.

The New York Timess 1619 Project so named for the year that the first slaves were transported to America wants you to believe that our country was founded for human bondage.

They want you to believe that Americas institutions continue to reflect the countrys acceptance of slavery at our founding.

They want you to believe that Marxist ideology that America is only the oppressors and the oppressed. The Chinese Communist Party must be gleeful when they see the New York Times spout this ideology.

Some people have taken these false doctrines to heart. The rioters pulling down statues thus see nothing wrong with desecrating monuments to those who fought for our unalienable rights from our founding to the present day.

This is a dark vision of Americas birth. I reject it. Its a disturbed reading of history. It is a slander on our great people. Nothing could be further from the truth of our founding and the rights about which this report speaks.

The commission reminds us its got a quote from Frederick Douglas, himself a freed slave, who saw the Constitution as a glorious, liberty document. That it is.

That quote from Frederick Douglass is a favorite among conservatives. What they dont tell you is that it comes from his speech titled, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? given in 1852nine years before the Civil War. Speaking to a white audience, Douglass refers to your National Independence, and of your political freedom (emphasis mine), making it clear that it doesnt apply to those who were enslaved. You can almost see the tongue-in-cheek way that he talks about what led up to the Declaration of Independence from British rule.

Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back

Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it.

It seems pretty clear that Pompeo has never read Douglasss whole speech. So it might surprise him to learn that the man he quoted referred to our founding fathers as oppressed, but wise men who chaffed under their treatment by the home government. The Declaration of Independence was actually a protest document.

But by the end of his speech, Douglass made it clear that these founding ideals were not extended to people like him.

I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July isyours, notmine.Youmay rejoice,Imust mourn.

That is the part of Douglasss speech that Pompeo doesnt want you to hearmuch less read himself. There are people who are still mourning the fact that American hasnt lived up to its ideals. They are taking to the streets to protest and this administration is doing everything in their power to vilify, threaten, and stop them.

It is worth noting that it was this countrys first African American president who drew ourattention to the words contained in the preamble to the Constitution during his 2008 speech about race in America (emphasis mine).

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Heres what Obama said.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty and justice and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part through protests and struggles, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience, and always at great risk to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

With the passing of John Lewis over the weekend, this is also a time to remember the words Obama spoke to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the march he led across the bridge in Selma, Alabama.

As we commemorate their achievement, we are well-served to remember that at the time of the marches, many in power condemned rather than praised them. Back then, they were called Communists, or half-breeds, or outside agitators, sexual and moral degenerates, and worse - they were called everything but the name their parents gave them. Their faith was questioned. Their lives were threatened. Their patriotism challenged.

And yet, what could be more American than what happened in this place? What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of America than plain and humble people - unsung, the downtrodden, the dreamers not of high station, not born to wealth or privilege, not of one religious tradition but many, coming together to shape their countrys course?

What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this, what greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?

Thats why Selma is not some outlier in the American experience. Thats why its not a museum or a static monument to behold from a distance. It is instead the manifestation of a creed written into our founding documents: We the People in order to form a more perfect union. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

It is people like Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo who are in the process of threatening the ideals on which this country was founded. They are the ones who are calling protesters everything but the name their parents gave them and serving up the modern-day equivalent of the billy clubs used against people like John Lewis on Bloody Sunday.

The great divide in this country has always been the one between those in power who will do anything to maintain the status quo and those who revere our founding ideals enough to join the struggle to perfect our union. Its once again time to choose a side.

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The Protesters Are the True Patriots - Washington Monthly

Molly Washington

Diversity on the jobsite and within the various departments of a construction company has numerous benefits, but building and retaining a truly diverse workforce takes an unwavering commitment to equity within organization walls. That commitment requires organizations to invest in the needs of all of its people and divest in systems that are causing harm.

The most important first step is to actively engage in genuine efforts to self-reflect on ways that a company might be actively instituting or perpetuating systems that exclude, devalue, and oppress Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC), women, gender-nonconforming people and people who identify as LGBTQIA+. If a disproportionate number of people within these groups are unable to access or advance within a company, its systems must be reviewed for bias and institutional racism, sexism, transphobia and homophobia. Once identified, each of these issues must be addressed with intentionality and focus.

Is this task a substantial undertaking? Absolutely. Is the reward worth the effort? Without a doubt. Companies that choose not to invest resources in this level of self-exploration and honesty might never reach their full potential and instead will continue to limit themselves, the success of their projects, their partnerships and their people.

Access and advancement are imperative

Construction typically does not require a college degree at its entry point, eliminating the time investment and debt associated with other well-paying professions. It provides interesting work that pays a living wage and benefits. Although construction is not immune to economic downturns, it can be more sustainable because the government typically invests in it first to bring back economic growth. For someone without equitable access to a construction career, there is no opportunity to avail oneself of these benefits. Importantly, if some people are denied this opportunity at the outset due to bias and systems of exclusion, construction companies and the industry itself will never realize the true benefits of a diverse workforce.

A diverse workforce is valuable because it encourages innovation and elevates new perspectives. In construction, each project is different and the road to success includes distinct facets. Each person involved in a project brings a unique set of skills and abilities, adding to the companys overall ability to identify issues, solve problems, and deliver a successful project. The more diversity in experience, perspective and ingenuity, the better the ability to offer the best solution. In addition, when employees feel that their company is committed to diversity, and feel included, their investment and ability to innovate is increased.

Building a diverse workforce requires construction companies to reach out to marginalized groups, place value on the diversity of their lived experiences and prove to them that there are opportunities to work and be promoted. At the outset, simply seeing construction as a career path might mean the difference between access and obstacle. This requires companies to recognize that there is something to the mantra you cant be it if you cant see it. Construction companies should ensure that anyone who has worked for them has the ability to be it. This includes identifying and eliminating obstacles and barriers, including systems of oppression, within their own processes and practices.

Ultimately, companies have the power to decide whether BIPOC, women, gender non-confirming people, or people who identify as LGBTQIA+ are seen as valuable to the company and are recognized as leaders deserving of advancement. Furthermore, not only do these new leaders serve as examples of success to motivate others within the organization, but they also introduce people within their own communities to the idea of a career in construction. Community-centered organizations like Oregon Tradeswomen Inc., Latino Build, and programs administered by Portland Opportunities and Industrialization Center, Constructing Hope and Girls Build are great examples of how the next generation of nondominant culture leaders are helping our diverse youth see it.

An inclusive and respectful workplace is required

Creating access for marginalized groups is the first step. Organizations must then be prepared to engage in the self-reflection necessary to institute policies, processes and practices that help them retain the people who have overcome institutional obstacles to access construction careers people who historically have been pushed out. In essence, retaining a diverse workforce requires companies to create inclusive and respectful work environments for all employees.

Part of the self-reflection required for a company to create an inclusive and respectful work environment for all of its employees is analyzing the intersections of discrimination, opportunity and power within the organization itself. Using equity analysis is a beneficial tool in this regard. It helps identify racial, gender and other disparities that interfere or harm organizations, as well as provides ways to mitigate or eliminate those disparities. It assists organizations to align with outside equity initiatives and create processes and programs to support recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce.

Organizations that use equity analysis can proactively identify unintended consequences before damage is done by evaluating policies and practices, and then developing creative solutions to address concerns. If these issues are not identified and addressed in advance, the ability to recover and rebuild trust with those harmed can be arduous and, at times, insurmountable.

Final thoughts

A company that creates access and opportunity, as well as an environment and culture where all employees feel included and respected, reveals it has an ability to retain a diverse workforce. If companies want to attract and retain the best people, they need to create the best work environments. Ensuring access to the construction industry, valuing different lived-experiences, identifying and rectifying systems of exclusion and oppression, and utilizing equity analysis are good initial efforts for a company to become respected and sought after. At the very least, these are important steps to take to ensure a company is valuing its most important asset its people.

Molly Washington is a real estate and construction industry group attorney with Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt PC in Oregon. She focuses on equity. Contact her at 503-796-2878 or mwashington@schwabe.com.

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To attract, retain diverse workforce, start with self-reflection - Idaho Business Review

MURRAY Though Robert E. Lee presided over the surrender of Confederate troops to effectively end the Civil War, Calloway County leaders signaled Wednesday they have no intention of surrendering in the fight over his likeness standing on the courthouse lawn.

In the face of a significant push over the last month and a half to remove the Confederate soldiers memorial thats stood for over 100 years at the courthouse, the Calloway County Fiscal Court voted unanimously Wednesday morning to leave the monument where it stands.

That evening, protestors again made their presence felt, with several dozen engaging in often heated exchanges with a small group of the statues supporters.

For hours, the two groups shouted back and forth about racism, history, crime, treason and the Civil War, with some interactions hostile enough that law enforcement officers removed participants from both camps at various times.

The only speaker at the fiscal court meeting, Murray State University Professor Kevin Elliott, told the governing body that the monument is bringing out the worst in our community.

In requesting the fiscal court to explore options for moving the statue, Elliott focused on its placement at the courthouse, lamenting that a statue honoring the Confederacy stands where everyone should feel their voice is heard.

The monument stands for the idea that the power of the government belongs exclusively to the white members of the community, Elliott said.

Throughout Elliotts time speaking, County Attorney Bryan Ernstberger routinely expressed skepticism at Elliotts estimation of the legal ease and simplicity of moving the monument.

After Elliotts presentation during which he also discussed the cost of the removal as likely less than people would expect, and potential placement at an abandoned cemetery that could easily be appropriated by the government, the fiscal court voted on a resolution that Elliott later said came as a surprise.

The resolution, which notes the negative connotations that the Monument may hold for some and unreservedly condemns slavery and racial oppression, also says the monument was erected simply to honor Calloway County residents who fought for the Confederacy and not as several have argued, for the purpose of promoting continued oppression.

Magistrate Paul Rister noted during the meeting that he took a survey of 280 people in his constituency, which he said he randomized by only approaching people who were outside during his survey. According to Risters calculations, 77% of his constituents supported leaving the monument where it stands.

Magistrate Don Cherry during the meeting said he believed the county was approaching the issue the right way, and lamented the idea of mob rule.

We cannot run our country that way. If we make decisions by mob rule then weve lost control of our government.

At that evenings protest, some urged supporters of the statue to consider racial disparities in the justice system and in health care.

Counter-protesters asserted that Black people commit violent crimes at significantly higher rates than white people, but said they werent claiming that Black people are naturally more violent or less civil than white people.

At times protesters brought up the prohibition on displaying Nazi symbols in Germany, but were not Germany came as a standard reply.

Counter-protesters, displaying an #alllifematters sign, routinely expressed concerns about erasing history and accused the protesters of not being Calloway residents that assertion drew guffaws and raised hands from many in the crowd proclaiming their local residency.

Though she was initially flanked by fellow protesters, as the night went on Murray resident Linda Arakelyan found herself surrounded by counter-protesters throwing rude hand gestures toward her TEAR IT DOWN sign and, she said, threatening her.

They tried intimidating me, Arakelyan said in a Thursday interview.

If anything, it kind of empowered me more, seeing how much they hated it.

Shawn Jackson, who moved to Murray from Mayfield, said that hes experienced a lot of racist stuff in the area, and said residents opposed to the statue have a right to have this taken down, the same right they have to keep it up.

People say put the past in the past, he said.

Were not putting the past in the past, because were still looking the past in the face.

Quintin Walls, who said he grew up in Murray before moving away then returning about a decade ago, said the statue doesnt represent anything good to me.

I ride by it, look at it and have bad thoughts about it, said Walls, who is Black.

It represents more dead American soldiers than any other war, and for a cause that wasnt good. It represents the losers and people who were really traitors to the United States of America.

Walls said that, if the statue remains up, the community could find potential business partners or residents less likely to move in.

People need to get involved, vote, protest peacefully and get this thing out of here, he said.

Im not saying destroy it. It just doesnt have to be on our court square.

Arakelyan said shes been involved in social justice movements before, but that she had never even known the statue topping the monument was an image of Robert E. Lee until Sherman Neal, a football coach at Murray State University, wrote a letter a month and a half ago that helped to spark the recent protests.

I definitely think its going to come down one day, whether its when were older or if its just right now through having meaningful conversations with those in opposition even continually pushing Judge (Kenneth) Imes and the magistrates to reconsider their opinion.

Arakelyan said near the beginning of the protest, two armed men stood atop a nearby building, which she perceived as intimidating, before police made them come down.

She called her experience protesting the statue eye opening in a good and bad way.

Im seeing people who, growing up, I would have never thought would be on the same side as me. Its also eye opening, the fact that theres still so many people who are so passionate and full of hate that they want something like that (statue) up.

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'Still looking the past in the face': Murray statue continues to draw protests - The Trib

The slugfest between China and the U.S. over the treatment of media workers in each country appears to have paused. Rather than expel each others journalists, as they did a few months ago, each side in early July imposed registration and reporting requirements on those remainingstill many more Chinese in the U.S. than Americans in China.

Many observers say the U.S. government has badly misplayed its hand, resulting in the decimation of American media operations in China while Chinese operations in the U.S. suffer much less impact. And, even though a group of experts is working on recommendations to repair the damage, prospects for recovery are dim.

I imagine China is pretty happy with the way things are now, said James McGregor, a business consultant, longtime China resident, and former Wall Street Journal reporter who chairs APCO Worldwides greater China operation.

The expulsion from China of prominent reporters from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal who had pioneered reporting on everything from COVID-19 to mass incarceration of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang was not the stated intent of the U.S. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in March, after the U.S. effectively expelled dozens of Chinese journalists: We expect Beijing to take a more fair approach towards American and other foreign press inside of China. Where the Chinese Communist Party has imposed increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment, and intimidation on our independent and world-class journalists, we will respond to achieve reciprocity.

Instead, The U.S., by taking on this issue the way they have, have played into the hands of all the bad actors in the Chinese system and given them carte blanche to get rid of American journalists, said Richard McGregor (no relation to James McGregor), senior fellow at Australias Lowy Institute, a private think tank. If the idea was to strengthen the leverage over a countrys nationals working in China, it has backfired spectacularly.

I think we fell into Chinas trap, said Minxin Pei, a Chinese politics specialist at Claremont McKenna College, arguing that China has long wanted to rid itself of the U.S. journalists.

As Richard McGregor, previously stationed in China and the U.S. for the Financial Times, said: The Chinese journalists in America, however many there are, add nothing to the greater universe of knowledge about America at all. If they stopped working tomorrow, I dont think anyone in China would be less wise about whats happening in the U.S. because the U.S. system is open, and well reported on by the locals.

By contrast, he said, restrictions on the local press in China are severe, leaving it to foreigners to dig into news and trends.

James McGregor agrees: Most of what you know about China that China doesnt want you to know comes out of those journalists [who are now expelled]. He adds that its a loss for the business community that needs to know what is happening in China.

The conflict has brewed for years, as China abused and oppressed foreign journalists, or those trying to gain entry. CPJ has documented repeated cases of China delaying or refusing to grant visas to those who wrote stories that China found embarrassing. On the ground in China, reporters frequently face harassment from security officials who do not accept rights of foreign correspondents to travel freely and interview anyone willing to talk to them. The number of Chinese willing to talk to a foreign journalist has also declined, as interviewees can face harassment or even arrest. Every year, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China documents the sad deterioration of the working environment for foreign correspondents in an annual report.

Meanwhile, as China blocked access to The New York Times and other news websites, the U.S. freely admitted hundreds, possibly thousands, of Chinese journalists and allowed them to roam the country and do what they wanted. (While the State Department apparently wasnt counting, the U.S. government should now have access to data on Chinese journalists, since forcing them to register as foreign missions.) China Global Television Network (CGTN) set up its own U.S. broadcast operation. Some Chinese outlets were openly propaganda controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

Or worse: Some of them are spies; thats a fact, Pei told CPJ.

How to rectify the imbalance has long vexed journalists, China specialists and U.S. diplomats. Keith Richburg, head of the media program at Hong Kong University and a longtime foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, recalled a conversation with a U.S. diplomat in Beijing from 2011 where Richburg suggested casually that the U.S. go for reciprocity and get tough on issuing visas to Chinese. The diplomat responded that the U.S. could never win by going down that road. And, Richburg said, Whats happened so far was what all the people opposed to reciprocity always said would happen.

China described its retaliatory measures as entirely necessary and reciprocal countermeasures that China is compelled to take in response to the unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the U.S. It did not mention the history of its mistreatment of foreign correspondents in China.

Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society, told CPJ that the rupture over media personnel was inevitable.

The Chinese had us in a stranglehold, Schell said. China was just flooding the place with journalists, executives, spies, you name it. We had limited numbers of journalists, constantly getting expelled and threatened. Its just total madness and total inequality and totally lacking in reciprocity.

The Trump administration said this was not sustainable, said John Pomfret, a former Washington Post Beijing bureau chief. And to that extent, I agree with them.

This isnt to say that either Schell or Pomfret applaud Trump administration tactics, which Schell calls inept and clumsy.

Whats next? Schell heads an Asia Society task force drawing up recommendations for the U.S. government. He suggests looking back to the Soviet era to see how the Soviet Union and the U.S. managed differences. Pomfret, part of the task force, suggested that each side cap media visas at a number, perhaps 100, and that under the cap each side would have total freedom to decide who gets the visas to send into the other country. If more U.S. journalists want China visas than allowed, a non-profit entity would decide who gets them. Pomfret then suggested that issues such as Chinese broadcasting in the U.S. and websites or broadcasts by U.S. outfits be negotiated as a trade issue.

Susan Shirk, chair of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego, said a further round of expulsions that could reduce the headcount to zero in each country is a real possibility. At the same time, drawing on her experience in the State Department during the Clinton administration, she said the key is to start with something simple and achievable, such as a cap on visa numbers, on the assumption that China values the presence of its media operations in the U.S. enough to overcome its distaste of hosting foreign correspondents in China.

While Minxin Pei sees no prospect for movement under the Trump administration, he said a truce followed by agreement on stationing journalists in each country could be a relatively easy win for the two countries if they want to patch up relations, given the complexity of other issues of conflict.

Others are more skeptical, especially on the idea of reciprocal numbers. China probably would not go for it because they have far more journalists in the U.S. operating freely than they would allow in China, Richburg said.

James McGregor said Chinas media outlets can easily replace expelled reporters with experienced, out-of-work U.S. journalists.

What pressure point could you put on the Chinese to get them to treat American journalists better? Richburg asked, unable to provide an answer. It was better to have journalists working in China under those conditions rather than having them all kicked out.

No one knows how to roll back the clock, much less broadly improve the treatment of foreign correspondents in China.

The State Department declined to comment when CPJ asked whether it had proposed negotiations to China. The Chinese Foreign Ministrys International Press Center and the Department of Consular affairs did not respond to CPJs emailed requests for comment.

There are no good answers here, James McGregor said.

Read more from the original source:

Prospects bleak for recovery of US media presence in China - CPJ Press Freedom Online

The personal and political benefits of practices like meditation have been a staple of Transformations coverage since the site was launched eight years ago. These practices can help us to confront the fear, mental confusion and other limitations that weaken our potential to be agents of change on the broader stage of politics, economics and social struggle. But its clear that these effects arent automatic or uncomplicated.

Over the past few years theres been increasing interest in exploring one particular kind of practice called mindfulness - the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what were doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by whats going on around us. It seems clear that strengthening these capacities is a useful thing to do for individuals, but can mindfulness also play a role in promoting broader social change? What can the articles weve published tell us about the answers to that question?

A good place to start is Ron Pursers book McMindfulness, which exploded onto the scene in 2019 and sharpened the conversation enormously. In his piece about the book for Transformation, Purser argued that the mindfulness movement has degenerated into the new capitalist spirituality, a form of individualized stress relief that encourages practitioners to accommodate themselves more comfortably to the world as it is, packaged and sold by increasingly commercially-minded providers and gutted of any broader social utility.

Elements of this argument had already been circulating for a number of years - in critiques of the happiness industry and positive psychology, for example, and in exposs of corporations, consultants and entrepreneurs who were selling yoga and meditation as a cure-all. As one piece on mindfulness training in Silicon Valley put it as long ago as 2014, Take an ancient practice, remove it from its context, strip away its ethical imperatives and sell it for a profit. Is the goal of the corporate mindfulness movement to comfort the already comfortable?

The faux revolution of mindfulness, by Ronald Purser

The selective awareness of Wisdom 2.0, by Darrin Drda

The corruption of happiness, by William Davies

Why I choose Samuel Beckett over positive thinking any day, by Dionne Lew

The dangers of radical self-love, by Chloe King

Pursers book was harder-hitting and much more widely-circulated than these earlier critiques, and it stimulated a large number of responses on the site. By and large, these responses accepted the risks of commercial appropriation, but rejected the conclusion that this was inevitable, or that it applied to all forms of mindfulness. Once Pursers faux revolution has been exposed and rejected, these authors argued, the debate becomes much more interesting and fruitful, because were freed to get on with the task of promoting the real thing and learning as we go.

Purser himself contributed two of these pieces, arguing for a socially-engaged or civic mindfulness that moves the focus of training and practice from me to weWhen mindfulness is taught and practiced in ways that help people connect the dots between their personal troubles and public issues, it becomes potentially transformative.

Moving mindfulness from me to we, by Ronald Purser

The future of mindfulness, by Ronald Purser

Others used similar frames to show how this kind of mindfulness can generate concrete results in schools, local governments, political processes, the training of activists, the fight against climate justice, and responses to the coronavirus pandemic. For example, Welsh civil servants reported more openness to conflicting perspectives that had to be synthesized into an action plan very quickly as COVID-19 was spreading in the Spring of 2020, while counselors at a Brooklyn High School have introduced mindfulness into ninth grade English classes, not just to reduce stress but also to help students question the social conditions under which they feel pressured and get angry - conditions like under-resourcing of the school system and the effects of racial injustice.

Does mindfulness in politics make any difference? By Rachel Lilley and Mark Whitehead

The need for critical social mindfulness in schools, by David Forbes

Climate change and the attention economy, by Peter Doran

Can mindfulness help us in the midst of COVID-19 - and beyond? By Beth Berila, David Forbes, Mark Leonard, Rachel Lilley and Michael Edwards

Purposeful solitude: reading Thoreau in a lockdown, by Andreas Hess

These examples suggest that there are at least three factors which differentiate mindfulness as stress relief from mindfulness for social change. First, framing mindfulness in social or collective terms has to be a conscious choice - it doesnt happen automatically or by accident, and it takes careful preparation and particular kinds of training. That may seem like an obvious conclusion, but its extremely important in a world where meditation and other techniques are sometimes seen to have social consequences simply by virtue of their effects on the mind. They dont.

Instead, such broader and deeper effects depend on deliberate attempts to link the cultivation of personal and political awareness together - what the German activist-theologian Dorothee Soelle called the mysticism of wide-open eyes. This doesnt mean that every student of mindfulness has to vote for the Labour Party or the Democrats; just that they be mindful of everything around them, as well whats happening inside of them and the interplay between the two, since all aspects of reality are connected. In these circumstances there need be no conflict or contradiction between systems change and inner development (though mindfulness doesnt necessarily bring agreement on the details of what that change should be).

Time for new thinking about mindfulness and social change, by Jamie Bristow

No, you cant be the change alone, by Alessandra Pigni

Why positive thinking isnt neoliberal, by Sonja Aviljas

The mysticism of wide-open eyes, by Michael Edwards

Second, mindfulness alone isnt enough to make these links effectively. In successful cases, trainers and teachers use other tools to bring in the social and political dimensions of human experience. The Ulex Project in Spain, for example, adds anti-oppression pedagogy to its mindfulness programs for activists, while insights from a wide range of other behavioral and cognitive theories are used among local government workers in Wales.

Traditionally, calming the mind and developing greater self-awareness have been the building blocks of mindfulness practice, and a quick glance at whats unfolding in the US and the UK should be enough to convince the skeptics that these things provide a better foundation for decision-making than narcissism and personal insecurity: if you think mindfulness is suspect, then try mindless politics and economics instead. But adding other tools enriches the mix enormously, and makes it easier to see how our individual struggles are embedded in wider social structures.

Mindfulness and social change, by Paula Haddock and Luke Wreford

Dont wait for the future of mindfulness its already here, by Paul Haddock and Gee

Social mindfulness as a force for change, by Mark Leonard

Waking up in the time of Corona: four insights from psychology, by Willem Kuyken

The third distinguishing feature is that socially-engaged mindfulness doesnt shy away from the sharpest forms of injustice and our own role in perpetuating them, as some meditation training tends to do because this is seen as potentially divisive, upsetting or destabilizing. Instead, it embraces them and makes them part of the journey, encouraging us to be mindful of the social realities around us and how we internalize them.

Beth Berila contributed two pieces in this vein which show how mindfulness can help us to discern, interrupt and transform power differentials and biases, by asking how anxiety and stress are shaped by the wider world for people who occupy different positions in society. The ultimate goals of mindfulness may be peace, harmony, unity or oneness, but oneness isnt sameness as she puts it. Our own wellbeing is connected to that of everyone else, so we can never be at peace in a world where others suffer so much violence and oppression, however long we meditate.

Mindful social justice, by Beth Berila

White urgency to end racism: why now? By Beth Berila

All the articles in the series agree on one point: counterposing mindfulness against social action doesnt get us very far, even if its an accurate description of some mainstream or commercial training programs. The really interesting questions lie between these two supposed poles, in exploring how different facets of mindfulness connect with different elements of social change in different settings. Thats a hugely-creative process in which no-one has a monopoly of wisdom and were all learning as we go.

As Gee and Paula Haddock from the Ulex Project put it, unless activists are prepared to turn their attention inwards as well as outwards our struggles will continue to be undermined by our own mental habits, but if mindfulness isnt mindful of the realities in which its practiced then it won't fulfill its potential as a wellspring of social transformation.

Excerpt from:

The road beyond McMindfulness - Open Democracy

5 mins read

Posted by Abhijit Dhillon

The idea of drugs and drug addiction generally creates an image of a man lying on a pavement oblivious to the world or rich teenage boys with humongous amounts of cash at their disposal enjoying expensive shots of drugs.Though the class aspect of drug abuse is captured in our picturisation, we often fail to understand this from a gendered aspect of the drug addiction. Why is there not enough literature or even interventions for female drug addicts? And just because there is largely a blind eye turned towards female drug addicts, it does not mean that substance abuse among females does not exist at all.

Why is there not enough literature or even interventions for female drug addicts? And just because there is largely a blind eye turned towards female drug addicts, it does not mean that substance abuse among females does not exist at all.

Also read: What Neha Shorees Murder Tells Us About Punjabs Drug Problem

Recently, a popular news channel reported how a mother in Amritsar chained her daughter to the bed to prevent her from taking drugs. As unbelievable it may havesounded, it was just one story that got reported from the many others under the radar because of the lack of media and academia attention to the problem. A 2018 study conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs Crime (UNODC) acknowledged that abuse among female drug addicts is particularly hard to capture. The problem lies in the under representation of female drug addicts in most surveys as well as the limited treatment facilities available to them. For instance, Punjab (often seen as the hub of drug addicts in India) has 31 government-run de-addiction centres. Of them, there is only one de-addiction center dedicated exclusively to female drug addicts.It was however, only as recently as in March 2019, the state government had ordered for separate women-only wards in the de-addiction centres, so as to mitigate the problem of inaccessibility to healthcare by women addicts.

However, a double-jeopardy stares in the face of the female drug addicts, similar to the double-oppression of women underlined in the Second Sex by feminist writer Simon De Beauvoir. These oppressive layers operate based on gender and the socio-legal policies and system.

The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime(UNODC)s World Drug Report: Booklet 5 on Women and Drugspublished in 2018 shows that female drug addicts constitute one-third of drug users globally and one-fifth of the global estimated number of people who inject drugs (PWID). Female drug addicts who inject drugs have a greater vulnerability than men to HIV, hepatitis C and other blood-borne infections due to syringe sharing.

Magnitude of substance abuse in India (2019) by Ministry of Social Justice And Empowerment is a government report which is an output from the project National Survey on Extent and Pattern of Substance Use in India. The report acknowledges that people affected by drug use are one of the most marginalised and under-served populations. Imagine being a female drug addicts now, in the midst of an already marginalised and under-served population.

There is considerably more stigma around female drug addicts than male drug addicts. Female drug addicts are considered doubly deviant by the society. While male addicts are considered deviant, courtesy their criminalisation, female drug addicts apart from being seen as criminals for taking drugs, are also vilified for transgressing their socially accepted role of a care-giver, again becoming a factor to in their double marginalisation.

Further, there is considerably more stigma around female drug addicts than male drug addicts. Female drug addicts are considered doubly deviant by the society. While male addicts are considered deviant, courtesy their criminalisation, female drug addicts apart from being seen as criminals for taking drugs, are also vilified for transgressing their socially accepted role of a care-giver, again becoming a factor to in their double marginalisation.

If this was not enough, the majority of known women drug addicts, are generally involved in the occupation of sex work. The only female government-run Nakiran De-addiction Centre in Punjab situated in Kapurthala, runs a pilot program for female drug users (FDU). The project focuses on a comprehensive health and rights-based response for female drug addicts and aims to achieve a holistic harm reduction rather than just de-addiction. This project has focused mainly on sex workers and why they do not want a de-addiction program to begin with. According to them, taking drugs makes their work easier. Most women who come forward for the harm reduction treatments are women who are sex workers. Their line of work makes them susceptible to drug abuse. The relation between sex workers and drug use is bidirectional. Prostitution is seen as a cause as well as an effect for women to use drugs.

Other female drug addicts who came to fight addictions at the Centre at Kapurthala were mostly from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Trauma and difficult childhoods in the past were seen in almost all cases. This argument provides a solid ground that the socio-cultural and psycho-economic consequences in the cases of female drug addicts are often ignored.

Also read: Udta Punjab: The Problem Isnt the Drugs, Its the Patriarchy

The pandoras box that womens substance abuse opens up is something neither the governments nor the society want to address. Further, the spillages that taking this issue to the public forum can have on the society make all the stake-holders, including the women, to keep mum and maintain the veil of secrecy. The denial is shaped by both psychological and social factors of the drug users.

The scant literature on female drug addicts shows that, Indian women are more vulnerable to adverse physical and social consequences of substance abuse. The identification of female drug addicts by health care professionals is hindered by the stereotypes around them.

The scant literature on female drug addicts shows that, Indian women are more vulnerable to adverse physical and social consequences of substance abuse. The identification of female drug addicts by health care professionals is hindered by the stereotypes around them. This shunning then closes doors for dialogue and necessary interventions and strategies. The need of the times is to recognise substance abuse in females not in a vacuum, but in a contextual, empathetic and non-patriarchal systemic approach, so that help reaches them when its time.

A female drug addict in India is in a complex psycho-social, political and economic spiral which, along with the societal vilification she faces, does little to improve her condition. Though there are governmental policies and programmes both at the national and state level, most of them are gender-blind. The need for a gender-sensitive policy is important for systemic changes at all levels which can lead to a better world where female drug addicts are seen as patients and not as morally corrupt societal misfits.

Featured Image Source: The Hindu

Abhijit Dhillon has done her masters in Human Rights and Duties and has a certification in Women Studies from Panjab University, Chandigarh. She is a feministout and out and believes about bringing a change through unlearning the existing social patterns. She can be found onInstagram.

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The Second Druggies The Double Oppression That Female Drug Addicts In India Face - Feminism in India

There are least two areas in which this government, despite the odds, seems to have done some stellar work the first is the diplomatic work by Mohammad Sadiq that is helping forge Pakistans seriousness as Afghanistans most reliable partner and neighbour, and the second is the work to contain Covid-19 by Asad Umar and the NCOC that has clearly eased the post Ramazan/Ramadan and Eidul Fitr spike of Covid-19 infections and fatalities.

Both represent major successes for Pakistan, tenuous and temporary as they may be. Yet PM Khan and his supporters will find little to no traction for celebration. Hardly anyone has even acknowledged these positive developments. It all seems a little unfair. The big question is: why?

Well, lets imagine Prime Minister Imran Khan waking up every morning to assess his stature as the countrys undisputed leader. How would he be feeling? He has a cabinet in which members go after one another harder than they do the opposition. He has a press and media that has stopped gushing at his every smile and soundbyte (for the most part). He has a regional security situation in which Indias oppression in Kashmir is intensifying, with reports of thousands of RSS thugs being shipped to further intimidate and cow ordinary Kashmiris. He also has to consider the world after a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, with worrying reports of TTP consolidation and public threats being made by a mysteriously free and liberated Ehsanullah Ehsan.

Most of all, PM Khan is going to be held responsible, rightly or wrongly, for a broken and dysfunctional economy in which Covid-19 has wreaked untold havoc scores of unemployed Pakistanis will either not be covered by the BISP/Ehsaas programme, or will not find a one-time Rs12,000 cash grant to be enough to survive on.

If you think about all this from PM Khans perspective though, it would seem a little bit unfair. Covid-19 wasnt invented by PM Khan, and yet he has taken a lot of flak (for off-the-cuff speeches and misstatements) and received little credit (for relatively better than expected infection and fatalities numbers in July, and a swift passing of the post Ramazan/Ramadan and post-Eid spike).

Indias annexation of Kashmir on August 5, 2019 was not enacted by PM Khan. Yet many question what the government and PM Khan have done for Kashmir and Kashmiris.

The economic mess that PM Khan inherited has certainly not been fixed, but prior to Covid-19 he and his team had certainly managed to lend greater stability to the macroeconomic numbers leave aside the fact that I believe deficit reduction to be a misguided setting of tactics as strategic objectives (fiscal and external balances are tools to achieve policy goals, they cannot and should not be goals in and of themselves).

In so many things, whilst this government has been ill-prepared to govern, incapable of grappling with the wider challenges, and undeniably bereft of a grip over its own ambitious reform agenda: it has not been terrible at everything. Indeed, in perhaps the issue that should matter most to all Pakistanis the well-being of our fellow citizens the expansion of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) under the Ehsaas umbrella, has been one of the truly great moments in Pakistani statehood. With over 16 million households now having received an unconditional cash transfer of Rs12,000, the path to a universal basic income in Pakistan is now clearly defined. This alone can (and should) stand as an outstanding achievement for this government.

Yet Islamabad is abuzz with rumours. The intensity of the whispering ebbs and flows, but there certainly continues to be an intense sense of foreboding in the air. Smart money knows that the three pillars of the current regime are not going anywhere. But there is constant uncertainty and a wider sense of instability that makes the monsoon air thick with intrigue and anticipation. Again, the big question is: why?

PM Khan and his supporters will claim that the criticism of the government is rooted in vested interests as he and his cabinet enact major reforms to the countrys system of governance. When asked for proof, they will offer up the declaration of assets by the special assistants to the prime minister, and the publication of the sugar and wheat pricing scandals. But publishing these lists is neither a reform nor particularly reformist. From Hamood-ur-Rehman to Quetta, to Abbottabad to Faizabad, if the publication or leaking of facts and analysis was the same thing as reform, Pakistan would look very different than it is. This government either doesnt want to, or worse, is not capable of distinguishing between noise-making and system-making.

And this, at its heart, is the problem. The current government is not nearly as incompetent and incapable of governing as it seems. Its most profound and serious challenge is not Maryam Nawaz Sharif, or Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, or Maulana Fazlur Rehman, or any other political competition. This governments most profound and serious challenge is the undiagnosed and untreated case of verbal dysentery that afflicts almost every single member of PM Khans inner circle, and especially aspirants to this inner circle.

This is a killer flaw, and it is why there is so much political uncertainty in Islamabad. On its merits, the Pakistani opposition today cannot even violate the gag orders that restrict the primary leaders of the most potent opposition party, the PML-N. They are not about to enact some grand scheme to take down PM Khan. But what the PML-N, PPP, JUI-F and every other opponent do have going for them is PM Khan himself. They know that, for example, a series of slogans shouted at him in the assembly can distract him from his agenda, and set him and his core PTI support base on a destructive path.

Opponents of PM Khan have figured out the killer formula. You dont need to beat Imran Khan indeed, given how power is configured in Pakistan today, you cant. All you need to do is let Imran Khan beat himself. And beat himself he will.

The most important challenge facing the PTI government and its survival is not politics. It is economics. Covid-19 has exposed the foundational mess the economy is in. Daronomics, whilst perhaps unsustainable, and certainly costly, worked. It produced the one thing that this country needs more than any other thing: GDP growth.

Ask PM Khan: what is your economic vision? You will get a flurry of feel-good soundbytes. The word corruption will appear early and often. Why? There is no vision. Ask PM Khan: how will Pakistan enact a jobs-heavy recovery from Covid-19? You will get more soundbytes. More corruption blah-blah. Why? There are no jobs. Not now. Not in six months. Ask PM Khan: what is the plan for Pakistan to take advantage of the economic opportunities Covid-19 creates in international trade? You will get some feel-good soundbyte about diaspora and the PTIs fundraising prowess. Why? There is no plan.

This government will not go down because it is incompetent. It is not dramatically more incompetent than any previous government. It will go down because it is stuck on a container, nearly six years after the container almost sunk the entire political capital of the PTI. Being PM or a member of the cabinet is not a performance on a container. It is real. The ultimate test of the Pakistani leader is how many jobs she or he helps create, and how much more money he can put in pockets, in showrooms and on the streets.

Take a good look at the words and actions of PM Khan and his cabinet and ask yourself: where will the jobs come from? Where will the growth come from? How will more money get into more Pakistani pockets?

Silence.

Thats why this government is in trouble. The rest is just noise. And most of it is coming from the government itself.

The writer is an analyst and commentator.

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Disembarking the container - The News International

Kim Campbell-McLean is the executive director of the AnnauKatiget Tumingit Regional Inuit Women's Association. (Submitted by Kim Campbell-McLean)

When I heard the Newfoundland and Labrador government decided it was no longer appropriate to have a holiday celebrating John Cabot, I was shocked and ecstatic, both at the same time.

Needless to say, as an Indigenous woman, I have never celebrated Discovery Day.

In June, Premier Dwight Ball announced that the government will no longer call the holiday nearest June 24 "Discovery Day." For now, it will be called "the June holiday."

Ball also stated that in the spirit of reconciliation, the government will consult with Indigenous governments and organizations before a new name is chosen.

I am excited for the prospect of a holiday we all can celebrate and enjoy as a province, and I was shocked because the issue finally got the attention it needed to bring about positive change and reconciliation.

I thought about my ancestors.

I thought about the oppression they went through and how strong and resilient they were.

The writings of my great-great-grandmother, Lydia Campbell, came flooding through my mind like from a burst dam.

She wrote about the first race of Inuit people and how tall and beautiful they were. She wrote about how many Inuit families there used to be and on her travels seeing 20 or more sealskin tents all together. She wrote about seeing the Innu in their beautiful red birchbark canoes paddling beautiful Lake Melville, with the Innu men steering from the back, the women helping by paddling, and the children in front singing songs in their mother tongue.

She wrote about seeing Inuit after they returned from a world's fair, and how much they had changed. They no longer spoke Inuttitut and no longer dressed like Inuit.

She went on to write that over the years there was only one kayak left in the bay and hardly any Inuit or Innu around like there used to be. In her published diaries, she blames the European settlers for their demise.

I reflected, and then I whispered, "This one is for you."

I quietly thanked two very strong women who made a major influence on my life while growing up. They taught me that when you go forward in life with the purest of intentions for the betterment for all, profound change can happen.

It was with that teaching in mind, when I agreed to contribute my thoughts to Maclean's magazine last year. A reporter was working on an article last summer about Discovery Day.

That experience led me to write Premier Dwight Ball, who is also minister of Indigenous and Labrador affairs, just days later, officially asking for the name of the Discovery Day holiday to be changed.

After all, it was the premier himself who stated that if he received an official request to change the name of Discovery Day, his government would be open for discussion.

A few weeks ago, I was a guest on CBC Radio's CrossTalkto talk about this very issue once again. The timing of the show was as profound as the message:the need for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the need to decolonize our province.

Three days later, the premier announced that indeed, the holiday would be changed as of at that moment. Humbly, I have to wonder: did I help to make that change happen?

Well, folks, this is what reconciliation looks like in the year 2020. Decolonizing, one step at a time.

As a society, it is up to us to bring about reconciliation. It is up to us to look at and call out systemic racism for what it is and to advocate for change. The colonialistpolicies that make up government structures and institutions in our province and within Canada need to be challenged, by us.

It is up to us to do the work and hold our government accountable.

It is up to us.

Over and out.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

Read more:

This is what reconciliation looks like: Why Discovery Day needed to go - CBC.ca