A number of people have asked me if the protests happening across the nation are what I was predicting in my latest book, The Storm Before the Calm. They asked because they thought my predictions were arriving too early. This unrest is very much the kind of thing I was expecting and about the time I expected it to start. But we are not even close to the end. I wrote in my book that the 2020s will be a decade of social, economic and international instability. Not all crises will be this intense. Many, particularly the economic crises, will be less intense but will last longer.

To get a sense of where we stand now, think of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1968, Martin Luther King was murdered and riots broke out across the country, with the police and National Guard using force to control the rioters. In summer of 1968, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, thousands of anti-war protesters showed up against the Democratic Party, which they saw as the party of imperialist wars and domestic oppression. Richard Nixon was elected that year, and in 1971, facing what was really minor inflation compared to what came later, he imposed wage and price controls, and impulsively took the U.S. off the gold standard. He later resigned to avoid being impeached following the Watergate scandal.

There was then a period of relative peace under Gerald Ford, who took over from Nixon in 1974. During this time in the U.S. there was also a massive economic crisis, with high inflation, soaring interest rates and unemployment nearing 10%. This was driven by the Arab oil embargo, triggered by an Arab war with Israel, which left Americans waiting in long lines at gasoline stations only to find there was none available. Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976 and tried to take the country back to the model that Franklin Roosevelt created. It failed, and he delivered a famous speech about the countrys malaise. Then the Iranian revolution and kidnapping of diplomats came, ending in a disastrous hostage rescue attempt. The Roosevelt era was exhausted. Ronald Reagan was elected and created a radically new structure that led to a cycle of prosperity.

Now the Reagan Cycle is coming to an end. And just as the Roosevelt Cycle culminated in a bit more than a decade of dysfunction and even despair, so too we are now entering such a phase. The coronavirus signaled that, although it had nothing to do with the failing system. But the eruption of nationwide protests are a more systemic announcement of the beginning of the transition.

The original American sin was not slavery. (Americans were not unique in holding slaves.) Rather it was a betrayal of the nations own principles.

Just as the final decade of the Roosevelt Cycle had near its beginning a racial event, the end of the Reagan Cycle is being signaled by the death of George Floyd, with consequences similar to those after Martin Luther King was killed. There is an intimate relationship between race and the American economy that goes back to the country's founding. As I said in my book, the original American sin was not slavery. (Americans were not unique in holding slaves.) Rather it was a betrayal of the nations own principles where Thomas Jefferson had written, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

Read: George Floyd laid to rest in Houston; He is going to change the world, brother says

The South was a plantation society dependent on cheap labor. It needed slaves to function. It also needed power against a growing North that had slaves but was not dependent on them, and had a nascent abolitionist movement. The South rejected the idea of freeing the slaves. But it demanded that the slaves be counted in the census, so that the Souths representation in Congress would be as large as possible. The North objected, and there could be no republic without a compromise. The compromise was that slaves counted as three-fifths of a person.

The founders believed deeply in the equality of men. But they could not form a republic if blacks were seen as equal. So in the act of designating them three-fifths of a person, they declared them less than human. In this way, they preserved the principle of universal equality but did so by designating a class of humans as subhuman.

The Hayes era grew out of the Civil War, which was about the status of blacks. The Roosevelt era was forged out of an alliance of Southern segregationists and Northern blacks. One of the central features of the era that spanned from Roosevelt to Carter was the civil rights movement and the attack on segregation. The Reagan era struggled with the issue as well, with heated debates over affirmative action and other measures.

The issue of race has torn the country apart many times, and many explanations can be offered as to why. Its a personal issue for all of us. I went to a predominantly black high school in the mid-1960s. It was a frightening experience. High school boys emerge as men through testing themselves physically. In the suburbs, football was the key. Jackson High in Queens, N.Y. had no football team. The tests were found in fighting and violence, and I was forced to face black teenagers who were bigger and tougher than me. I learned to fear them. They were doing nothing but what was normal for 16-year-olds, but they posed what seemed at that time an existential challenge to me.

It took years for me to move beyond my high school experience and to realize the kids I went to school with were just kids like any others, and likely had the same fear of me that I had of them. They saw in me the perpetual sin that was perpetrated against them. Did I ever learn to lose the fear? I think so, yet does anyone really lose the fears that dominated him when he was young? Each day is combat for boys, and that combat shapes them. That is my story. Each one of us experiences the tension of race and each emerges from it differently.

Whenever a cycle fails, and things that were certain suddenly become mysteries, one of the first things that emerges is the deeply rooted tension between black and white. It is a tension that is always there. The history is long and deep and filled with fear. When things become uncertain the thing that suddenly shows itself is the fear between the races, and the attempt on all sides to use that fear to their advantage. It is as if the Israelites were freed, but continued to live in Egypt.

Americas original sin still haunts it, and goodwill and wishes are just words.

I felt myself at war with blacks and losing. A teenage boy cant imagine the degree to which blacks felt they were losing, and the truth is that, for the most part, they were losing. They knew that, and the fights we had were rooted in that knowledge. When they see one of their own slowly strangled to death, they feel rage but also, as I understand in retrospect, helplessness and despair. This is the original sin of our republic, and none of us know how to solve it, least of all the enlightened whites who side with them.

The problem is that we are not monsters, white or black. We are humans and we are filled with fear, hope and a breathtaking inability to understand the complex realities that come from being human. And we love to feel superior to those who are different and those who disagree with us.

So to the question of whether I expected this, the answer is yes, and much of what I say here is scattered throughout my book. But this is not the end. Race is always there, and frequently the breakout of race-related protests and violence is just the beginning. But it is never the end because Americas original sin still haunts it, and goodwill and wishes are just words. So, the U.S. begins the 2020s, a decade of transformation, as it began other transformations with the matter of race.

George Friedman is chairman ofGeopolitical Futuresand author ofThe Storm Before the Calm: Americas Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond. (Doubleday, 2020)

More:The only way to truly solve the race problem in America is to narrow the wealth gap, black economists say

Plus: George Floyd, white supremacy and the otherization of African-American men

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We are not even close to the end. America faces another economic and social upheaval and once again it includes race - MarketWatch

Matt Pavia, a teacher at Darien High School, chats with students during a reception for his book An American Town and the Vietnam War at Darien High School in 2018.

Matt Pavia, a teacher at Darien High School, chats with students during a reception for his book An American Town and the Vietnam War at Darien High School in 2018.

Photo: Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

Matt Pavia, a teacher at Darien High School, chats with students during a reception for his book An American Town and the Vietnam War at Darien High School in 2018.

Matt Pavia, a teacher at Darien High School, chats with students during a reception for his book An American Town and the Vietnam War at Darien High School in 2018.

Opinion: CT teacher questions what he thought he knew of racism

If Im being totally honest with myself, I have to admit that even though I grew up in a city as proudly multicultural as Stamford was in the 1980s and 1990s, and had friendships with all kinds of kids, it took me longer than it should have as a young person to truly, fully comprehend how deep the roots of American racial inequality spread in all directions.

I want to be careful not to impugn the abilities or the motives of my teachers; they were, to a person, dedicated, talented people who chose to teach in a school system that embraced diversity before it was a buzzword. Yes, we were taught that slavery was part of our creation, and that it was unequivocally evil. But the Civil War ended slavery, the story went, and then the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments made clear what should already have been obvious. Yes, we learned about segregation in the South, and we watched the films of peaceful protesters being attacked by fire hoses and police dogs. There was no ambiguity about those evils, but I sort of got the sense that Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Civil Rights Movement fixed it. I dont know that I learned what racism really was.

To be fair, there may have been more nuance to the curriculum than I recall. Plus, we were kids; perhaps the adults believed that our early encounters with American history needed to highlight justice prevailing over evil so we didnt become dispirited or cynical at a young age.

But the unintended consequence for a white, middle-class student like me whod never been personally subject to discrimination was that I grew up believing racism was mostly just a feeling, the way that an individual, immoral person might act. No one in my world acted or spoke hatefully, so the sources of the evil seemed to have been overcome. Even after watching the 1992 Los Angeles riots on TV after school as a sixth-grader, it didnt fully sink in that what had happened to Rodney King after a routine traffic stop was anything more than an anomaly. Those police officers were so clearly out of control; there was no way a civilized society would let that kind of thing happen more than once.

And yet, I have clear memories of certain things I observed as a kid that troubled me: a conversation I overheard a few of the Black kids in my fifth-grade class having at lunch about what they heard a police officer in their neighborhood say; the way clerks eyes followed certain kids (but never me) around the store; the unmistakable whiteness of the honors classes at Stamford High School in the mid-1990s; or that the white kids I knew all seemed to live in one half of the city, while most of the Black and Hispanic kids lived in the other.

Reconciling these inequities with my early education about America has been a decades-long process of questioning what I thought I knew. Only in college the first time Id ever heard the terms restrictive covenant, Black Codes, one-drop rule, and concerned citizens councils did I start to see a larger, more complicated reality: that no matter how many individuals feelings about people of color had changed, no matter how many white people had genuine friendships with Black people, the combined legacy of lynching, segregation, unconscious bias, and wage discrimination had been embedded into the structure of our society even in the North. It didnt require Jim Crow laws or lynchings to do its damage; it could be just as effective working through zoning laws, redlining, the War on Drugs, mandatory minimum sentencing, or the way our states fund their school systems.

This was a hard thing for a young person whose family had only ever benefited from Americas opportunities to accept. If the opportunities that allowed my forebears to climb the socio-economic ladder and enable my success had been systematically denied to an entire group of people, what had I really earned? That kind of question triggers defense mechanisms, the minds way of shutting out the cognitive dissonance.

After a period of wrestling with this contradiction, I stopped fighting myself. I was exhausted by the effort it took to square my overwhelmingly positive experience as an American with the much harsher experiences of so many African Americans and people of color. It ceased to be a question of whose lived experience in America was the true one. Both of these Americas exist side by side, though too often they fail to acknowledge each others existence.

To accept that the America of 2020 is hobbled by the lingering effects of racist laws and policies is not to place blame on any individual white American, though to us it might sometimes feel that way. In almost 20 years of teaching American literature, Ive seen how hard it can be for good-natured students to push through their instinctive (and very human) defensiveness, to reassure them that frank discussions about race are not predicated on blaming them for the sins of the past. And yet, if we refuse to face our nations past without fear of what we find if we do not force ourselves to ask why certain injustices persist and why our perceptions of America are so polarized we deny ourselves the possibility of a future free from ghosts of the past.

Since were being honest, let me suggest a choice: we can search our memories until were blue in the face for some long-lost era when America was great, or we can embrace the notion that Americas greatness has always been aspirational just over the horizon, just beyond our reach. It resides in our capacity to change, but it requires the courage to acknowledge injustice and make good on the promises of our founding.

Matt Pavia is a native of Stamford and a 1998 graduate of Stamford High School. He teaches English at Darien High School, and is the co-author of An American Town and the Vietnam War, published by McFarland & Co. in 2018.

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Opinion: CT teacher questions what he thought he knew of racism - The Advocate

It is no news that COVID-19 has changed the way we live our lives! In these unprecedented times every organisation has had to adapt. The lucky ones are challenged to keep up with increased demand and the less fortunate are managing decreased revenue, or worse, having to close their doors.

Desperate times call for desperate measures has been proven to ring true with governments and organisations under pressure to perform, cut costs and meet demand, but how is this going to impact quality and ethics?

Nationally and internationally, normal ways of working have been adjusted to comply with government guidelines put in place to ensure the safety of their citizens. Social distancing, border closures and halts on production have all had significant impacts for most Australian workers. And we are still not clear about the long-term consequences of this extraordinary event.

Statistically, low-skilled workers are more likely to be exploited, often due to cost reduction strategies implemented for financial gain. For those on minimum wage, the repercussions of the current working climate can be debilitating particularly when it comes to seeking secure income. Thus, the defenseless may face greater risk of succumbing to modern slavery or exploitation.

Modern slavery describes serious exploitation in the workplace, such as human trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced labour, amongst others. Findings from the Global Slavery Index estimate there were approximately 15,000 people living in conditions of modern slavery in Australia in 2016.

Coronavirus has made it clear that the Western world is certainly not immune to exploitation, with countries such as the USA using prison labour to create medical-grade facemasks and hand sanitiser in exchange for less than minimum wage. Opportunities to exploit Australians are heightened during times of crisis where people may:

The desperate times call for desperate measures mindset is not only relevant to the government and large corporations. Struggling Australians are more likely to be exploited while seeking alternative methods of income in times of crisis, where desperation can often be more powerful than the elusive search for fair and just employment. Often it is too late by the time these workers recognise the unstable and risky circumstances they find themselves in. Thus, the cycle of modern slavery continues.

To avoid subjecting vulnerable Australian workers to mistreatment, organisations of all sizes need to ensure there is transparency across every phase of their supply chain. Transparency from suppliers and third-party operators is key in maintaining an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable supply chain strategy.

Businesses must maintain supplier relationships and open communication around the Human Rights risks associated with COVID-19 and its carryover effects. Supplier liaison is essential in ensuring organisations support their vulnerable workers through flexibility to the ever-changing situation. It is

crucial to communicate and reinforce the rights and roles of each operational party that is from the CEO down to the line workers. This includes access to sick and carers leave, the correct protective equipment, the availability of grievance mechanisms and whistleblowing options, and availability of increased cleaning and sanitisation in workplaces.

Support network groups such as employee, investor, civil society, peak bodies, and suppliers provide collaboration opportunities to create solutions-based approaches particularly when adapting to industry changes to safeguard ethical workplaces. This includes educating staff around the current situation and identifying what modern slavery is and how it can happen during the existing pandemic.

Lastly, staying up to date with national and international legislation and resources will support operations and assist practical application of any relevant changes in line with the current trading climate. Practicing human rights, fair trade and fair labour guidelines should be an ongoing part of your business strategy and process. If we can learn anything from COVID-19, it is the importance of ethical and transparent trade.

But little has been done yet to look to the future, i.e. what are we learning? How can we better integrate sustainability into all supply chain processes? How can we use this experience as a catalyst for change? It is imperative that we, as a society, move towards a structure that equally promotes ethical economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

Nicholas Bernhardt is the CEO of Informed 365. With a passion for sustainable workplaces and positive world change, Nicholas started Informed 365 after seeing a disconnect in organisations corporate social responsibility and the tools at their disposal to harness and understand data. Informed 365 is now the leading tech solution for over 3,000 Australian companies legally required to report under the Modern Slavery Act with high-profile clients such as the Property Council of Australia, Wesfarmers Industrial & Safety, Origin, Zoos Victoria, and Michael Hill.

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How COVID-19 can push modern slavery into the Australian supply chain - Anthill online

Anti-Racism June 7, 2020 Richard Greeman

Sparked by the police murder of George Floyd and fueled by Minneapolis authorities reluctance to arrest and charge the murderers three police accomplices, mass protests have been sweeping across the US with an intensity not seen since the 1960s. In over 150 cities, African Americans and their allies have flooded the streets, braving the COVID-19 pandemic, braving police violence, challenging centuries of racial and class inequalities, demanding liberty and justice for all, day after day defying a corrupt, racist power structure based on violent repression.

Today, after ten consecutive days in the streets, this outpouring of popular indignation against systematic, historic injustice has opened a number of breaches in the defensive wall of the system. The legal authorities in the state of Minnesota, where George Floyd was murdered, have been forced to arrest and indict as accomplices the three other policemen who aided and abetted the killer, against whom the charges were raised from third to second degree murder. A split has opened at the summit of power, where the Secretary of Defense and numerous Pentagon officials have broken with their Commander in Chief, Donald Trump, who has attempted to mobilize the US Army against the protestors.

This historic uprising is an outpouring of accumulated black anger over decades of unpunished police murders of unarmed African-Americans. It articulates the accumulated grief of families and communities, the sheer outrage over impunity for killer cops in both the North and the South. It reflects anger at capitalist Americas betrayal of Martin Luther Kings dream of non-violent revolution and horror at the return to the era of public lynchings cheered on by the President of the United States. It impatiently demands that America at long last live up to its proclaimed democratic ideals, here and now. In the words of one African-American protester, William Achukwu, 28, of San Francisco: Our Declaration of Independence says life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We are only dealing with the life part here. This is a first step. But liberty is what a lot of people are marching for.

It came as no surprise that local and state officials across the US reacted to largely peaceful, spontaneous mass protests against police brutality and racism by unleashing a maelstrom of militarized police violence. For a generation, the Federal government has been quietly gifting huge stocks of surplus military equipment, including tanks, to local police forces and sheriffs offices eager to play with lethal new toys designed for counter-insurgency in places like Afghanistan. Under both Democrats (Clinton, Obama) and Republicans (Bush, Trump) the federal state has been arming law enforcement in preparation for a preventive counter-revolution. This is precisely what President Trump is calling for today: full dominance by means of military crackdowns, mass arrests, and long prison sentences in the name of law and order. Thanks to the determination of these masses of militant but largely non-violent protestors, the military is divided, and Trump will not have his way.

Apropos of violence, it was feared at first that the numerous incidences of setting fires, smashing shop fronts, and looting, especially after dark when the large, orderly crowds of mixed demonstrators had gone home, would in some way spoil the uprising and provide a pretext for the violent, military suppression of the whole movement, as called for by Trump, who blamed it all on an imaginary terrorist group called ANTIFA (short for anti-fascism, in fact, a loose network). At the same time, reports of gangs of young white racists wearing MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats committing vandalism, of accelerationists systematically setting fires in black neighborhoods to provoke revolution, and of violent police provocateurs are not entirely to be discounted.

Such actions play into Trumps hands. On the other hand, the more reasonable voices of the hundreds of thousands of angry but nonviolent protestors might not have been listened to by the authorities if it had not been for the threat of violence from the fringes if their voices were ignored. Instead of burning their own neighborhoods as has happened in past riots, todays militants are strategically hitting symbols of state repression and capitalism lighting up and destroying police property, trashing the stores of million-dollar corporations, and even pushing against the gates of the White House. In any case, as far as looting is concerned, as the spokeswomen of BLM argued at George Floyds memorial, white people have been looting Africa and African-Americans for centuries. Pay-back is long over-due.

What is especially remarkable and heartening to see as we view the impassioned faces of the demonstrators through images on videos, newspaper photos, and TV reports is the realization that at least half the demonstrators in the crowds proclaiming Black Lives Matter are white people! Here again, a serious breach has been opened in the wall of systemic, institutionalized racism that has for centuries enabled the US ruling class to divide and conquer the working masses, pitting slave labourers and their discriminated descendants against relatively privileged white wage slaves in a competitive race to the bottom. Today, they are uniting in the fight for justice and equality. Equally remarkable is the continuing. leadership role of women, especially African American women in the founding of both the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the Womens March against Trumps Inauguration. The participation of young and old, LGBT and physically challenged folks is also to be remarked.

This convergence of these freedom struggles across deeply-rooted racial divides promises to open new paths as US social movements emerge from the Covid confinement. Even more remarkable, albeit limited, are incidents, also recorded on citizen video, of individual cops apologizing for police violence, hugging victims, and taking the knee with demonstrators. Public officials, like the Mayor of Los Angeles, have also been obliged to meet with the protestors and to apologize for the previous racist remarks. Moreover, as we shall see below, serious cracks have emerged in the unity of the US military, both among the ranks, which are 40 per cent African American, and also among top officers. Such is the power of this massive, self-organized, inter-racial movement demanding freedom and justice for all (as stated in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Republic).

Today, after ten days, during which the protests have continued to increase numerically and to deepen in radical content, cracks have opened in the defenses of the ruling corporate billionaire class and have reached the White House, where Donald J. Trump, the self-deluded, ignorant bully and pathological liar supposedly in charge, has finally been challenged by his own appointed security officials.

It must be said that todays billionaire ruling class has the representative it deserves in Trump, and the Donalds ineptitude, visible to all, is symbolic of its historic incapacity to retain the right to rule. Trumps flawed, self-centered personality incarnates the narrow class interests of the 0.01% who own more than half the wealth of the nation. His obvious selfishness exemplifies that of the billionaires he represents (and pretends to be one of). Out of his willful ignorance, Trump speaks for a corporate capitalist class indifferent to the global ecological and social consequences of its ruthless drive to accumulate, indifferent to truth and justice, indifferent indeed to human life itself.

Trumps clownish mis-rule has embarrassed the state itself. First came the childish spectacle of the most powerful man in the world hunkering down in his basement bunker and ordering the White House lights turned off (so the demonstrators outside couldnt see in?). Then came the order to assault peaceful protestors with chemical weapons so as to clear the way for President Trump to walk to the nearby Presidents Church (which he never attends and whose pastor he didnt bother to consult) in order to have himself photographed brandishing a huge white Bible (which he has most likely never read) like a club.

Trump, whose only earned success in life was his long-running reality-TV show The Apprentice, apparently devised this bizarre publicity stunt to rally his political base of right-wing Christians and show how religious he is. But it backfired when the Bishop of Washington pointed out that Jesus preached love and peace, not war and vengeance. The next day, even demagogues like Pat Robinson of the far-right wing Christian Coalition spoke out against him, while the anti-Trump New York Times triumphantly headlined: Trumps Approval Slips Where He Cant Afford to Lose It: Among Evangelicals.

Let us pause to note that American Christianity, like every other aspect of American civilization, is a knot of contradictions all rooted in the fundamental problem of the color line. Although the racist, conservative, pro-Israel, Christian right has been the core of Trumps support, liberation theology and the black church have long been the base of the Civil Rights movement for equality. Indeed, George Floyd the murdered African-American (known as Big Floyd and the Gentle Giant) was himself a religiously motivated community peacemaker. So are many of the demonstrators, white and black, chanting No Justice, No Peace.

Trumps phony populist act may have helped catapult him into office in 2016 (thanks to Republican-rigged electoral system and despite losing the popular vote by three million votes), but as Abraham Lincoln once remarked of the American public, You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cant fool all of the people all of the time. Today, Trumps time is up.

To me, the most emblematic image of the moment is that of a self-deluded Donald Trump, huddled (like Hitler) in his underground bunker with the White House lights turned off, shivering with fear and rage at the demonstrators outside, and threatening to sick (purely imaginary) vicious dogs on them. Trump has the Doberman mentality of the junk-yard owner from Queens he incarnates; he is the spiritual descendant of the slave-catcher Simon Legree chasing the escaped slave Eliza with his dogs (see Uncle Toms Cabin).

Vicious dogs of the bourgeoisie: thats what the police are paid to be (even if a few of them may turn out to be basically friendly German Shepherds underneath, like those who took the knee with the protestors). Their canines are the sharp teeth of the American state. Along with the Army, cops are the essence of the actual deep state which Marx defined as special bodies of armed men, courts, prisons, etc. (as opposed to the people armed in democratically-run popular militias).

Although subservient to the bourgeois state, this police apparatus, like the Mafia with which it is sometimes entwined, has a corporate identity of its own based on omert or strict group loyalty. This unwritten rule is the notorious Blue Wall of Silence which prevents cops who see their brothers committing graft and violent abuses from speaking out or testifying against them. The blue wall assures police impunity and is organized through police unions which, although affiliated with the AFL-CIO, are violently reactionary, anti-labour, and pro-Trump. The President of the International Police Union has been filmed wearing a red Make America Great Again hat and shaking hands with Trump at a political rally, while protesters in Minneapolis have been calling for the ousting of Bob Kroll, the local police union president who has been widely criticized for his unwavering support of officers accused of wrongdoing.

The Blue Wall of silence extends up the repressive food chain to prosecutors, District Attorneys, and even progressive mayors, like New Yorks Bill Di Blazio, who defended New York police driving their SUVs straight into a crowd of demonstrators, although his own mixed-race daughter was arrested as a Black Lives Matter demonstrator! Di Blazio, like his reactionary predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, former law and order District Attorney and current Trump advisor, knows that his political future is dependent on the good will of the Police Union (like junk-yard owners who are afraid of their own vicious dogs).

This customary coddling of the police even extended to the New York Times initial coverage of violent police attacks on members of the press in Minneapolis and elsewhere. In its report, The Times hid behind a twisted notion of objectivity (blame both sides) to avoid pointing fingers at cops, thus observing the blue wall of silence even when reporters are victims. (At this writing, over a thousand such attacks have been recorded.) Using passive voice rather than naming the actual assailants (brutal racist cops), the New York Times report conflated a single isolated incident where a crowd attacked news people from Trumps FOX network, with systematic, nationwide police attacks on members of the media.

A week later, that sacrosanct Blue Wall is beginning to crumble. Not only have the D.A. and Governor of Minnesota been forced to escalate the charges against Derek Chauvin, George Floyds killer, to second degree murder (why not first?) and arrest his three police accomplices, the latter have begun to rat each other out. Facing 40 years in prison and a bail of at least $750,000, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, both rookies, are blaming Chauvin, the senior officer at the scene and a training officer, while Tou Thao, the other former officer charged in the case, had reportedly cooperated with investigators before they arrested Chauvin.

Such is the power of todays mass Black Lives Matter uprising, that it has opened a breach in US capitalisms most important defense wall: the military. For if the police are American capitalisms junk yard Dobermans, the Armed Forces are basis of its domination over the world. And if the cry for equal justice has opened a tiny crack in the Blue Wall of Silence, the breach in the ranks of the US military, which is 40% colored and recruited from the poorest classes of American society, is more like a gulf.

The rank and file in todays US Army, Navy and Air Forces are a reflection of American society, of a population of mainly poor and minority people for whom the military provides one possible solution to unemployment and discrimination. The mood of the troops reflects that of the communities they are recruited from, and their officers, who are responsible for their morale, discipline, and loyalty, must be sensitive to their feelings. This situation is epitomized by the following quotations from the New York Times:

Chief Master Sgt. Kaleth O. Wright of the Air Force, who is black, wrote an extraordinary Twitter thread declaring, I am George Floyd.

The Navys top officer, Adm. Michael M. Gilday, said in a message on Wednesday to all sailors: I think we need to listen. We have black Americans in our Navy and in our communities that are in deep pain right now. They are hurting.

Although Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, released a message to top military commanders on Wednesday affirming that every member of the armed forces swears an oath to defend the Constitution, which he said gives Americans the right to freedom of speech, The Generals and Admirals, retired and active, who have been speaking out for racial justice and the rights of demonstrating citizens this week are not all sudden converts to the cause of peace and justice. Rather, the America officer class is sharply focused on its global mission, which is to protect American domination around the world by leading these troops to kill and be killed in bloody civil war situations in mainly non-white countries.

We are at the most dangerous time for civil-military relations Ive seen in my lifetime, Adm. Sandy Winnefeld, a retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an email. It is especially important to reserve the use of federal forces for only the most dire circumstances that actually threaten the survival of the nation. Our senior-most military leaders need to ensure their political chain of command understands these things.

For the troops, policing the world for capitalism is an endless, incompressible and demoralizing mission of violent counter-insurrection from which they return physically and psychologically damaged, often haunted by guilt, only to face unemployment and lack of support from the public and the underfunded Veterans Authority. As for the officers, it is a question of maintaining discipline and morale. The top brass know that deploying troops trained in counter-insurrection to control civil disturbances on US soil would inevitably have one of two negative results (if not both): 1. Un-acceptable violence against civilians and/or 2. fraternization with the protestors, mutiny, and disobedience among the ranks. Hence the Pentagons open break with their law and order Commander in Chief. The danger of fraternization is especially real in National Guard regiments, whose troops are drawn from the populations of the states their families live in.

Senior Pentagon leaders worry that a militarized and heavy-handed response to the protests, Mr. Trumps stated wish, will turn the American public against the troops, like what happened in the waning years of the Vietnam War, when National Guard troops in combat fatigues battled antiwar protesters at Kent State. Adm. Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, denounced the use of the military to support the political acts of a president who had laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country.

Although the eternal showman Trump apparently appointed Mark Milley chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the basis of the Generals physical resemblance to John Wayne, Milley happens to be a serious military historian. So is Secretary of Defense Esper. Both are aware that revolutions can only happen when there is a split in the ranks of the soldiers. In their West Point courses on counter-insurgency, they have certain read of the classic example of Russia in 1917 when the Cossacks were sent to block the demonstrators in St. Petersburg. These fierce cavalry men sat passively still on their horses as the strikers dove between their legs, leading Trotsky to famously remark that the revolution passes underneath the belly of a Cossacks horse. And indeed, not long after this incident the Russian soldiers formed Soviets (councils) and joined the workers and peasants in overthrowing the Czar.

Of course Russia in 1917 was in the middle of a social crisis, led by an inept, self-deluded Autocrat, bleeding lives and treasure into an endless, pointless foreign war. Nothing even vaguely similar could ever happen in optimistic, triumphant, happy, America under the firm leadership and uniting presence of our loveable President, Donald J. Trump.

American society has been riddled with contradictions since its beginnings, and these contradictions, rooted in race and class, are still being played today out in the streets of over 150 US cities. Todays uprisings, interracial from the beginning, express popular frustration that after centuries of struggle against slavery, after a bloody fratricidal Civil War in the 1860s and after the second American revolution of Reconstruction, after the Civil Rights movement and the urban riots of the 1960s, the lives of the descendants of black slaves are still not safe in the land that first proclaimed the human right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The American Revolution of the 18th century professed the universal principle, as expressed in the 1776 Declaration of Independence that All men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights. Yet, despite the participation of free blacks in the Revolution (Crispus Attucks), that promised equality was quickly contradicted by the inclusion in the US Constitution of notorious clauses which not only institutionalized black slavery in the American Republic, but also assured the permanent predominance in the federal government for the slaveholding Southern states.

The electoral system created by that slave-owners Constitution was based on the relative male populations of the several states, however allowed the Southerners to include their slaves as three fifths of a man (!) in the census. Thus the minority of white Southerners could always outvote the more populous North and dominate the Union. This hypocritical compromise was the price of national unity in a nation half-free and half-slave. Accordingly, ten of the first twelve American Presidents were slave-owners, and more and more such compromises favoring the slave-owner interests were introduced as new states were added to the Union, spreading the Southern slave empire further and further west. This rickety, lopsided Federal Union based on Southern domination held until 1860.

However, when Northern moderate Abraham Lincoln took office as President in 1861, most of the slave-owning states seceded from the Union, formed a rebellious Confederacy, launched a war on the United States, and sought recognition from Great Britain the Confederacys main customer for slave-grown cotton. It is often been argued that the bitterly fought US Civil War, which lasted four years and registered higher casualty rates than even WWI, was not really about slavery. But it was. To hide this ugly truth, the white Southerners still call it the War Between the States. Yet the war was precipitated by white Abolitionists like John Brown, who aided and provoked slave rebellions. Moreover, the huge numbers of young farmers and mechanics who volunteered and even re-enlisted to fight for the North knew they were fighting for human freedom, as their correspondence with their families and hometown newspapers indicated.

Finally, the Civil War, long a bloody stalemate, was won by the Union North only after Lincoln unleashed the fighting power of the Negro slaves in the South by reluctantly issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, as Karl Marx, writing on behalf of anti-slavery British textile workers, had urged American President in a famous letter. Soon, slaves began escaping from their plantations and flocking to the Union Armies, depriving the white South of much of its black labour force. The Union Army fed them, immediately put them to work, and later enrolled them in Negro regiments who fought bravely and effectively to defeat the slaveocracy. Not about slavery?

Marx, speaking for the boycotting white English textile workers, had explained their unity with the slaves: Labour in the white skin can never be free as long as labour in the black skin is branded. A century and a half later, African-American workers in the US are no longer branded like their enslaved ancestors, but even today the color of their skin brands them and makes them prey to oppressors, like bosses, landlords, discriminatory banks, and the violent racist police who, up to now, have correctly assumed they can mistreat and even murder them with impunity.

The tragedy of the Civil War, which as we have seen was fought over slavery, is that although the North won the War, the South won the peace. Lincoln was shot in 1865, and his Vice-President, a border state Republican name Johnson, had strong pro-slavery Southern sympathies, and he used his power to sabotage the efforts to reconstruct the slave South on a new basis of freedom and equality. Although the Union passed three Reconstruction Amendments to the US Constitution, granting the former slaves and their descendants citizenship and full civil rights including the ballots. Reconstruction of the South was a Second American Revolution, making real and legal the freedom and equality promised by the Revolution of 1776.

Tragically, under President Johnson the former Confederate leaders, instead of being tried for treason, were pardoned and allowed to take high office. Supported by armed mobs of whites, they proceeded to discourage the newly-freed slaves from voting and owning property through Ku Klux Klan racist terror, even though the South was still occupied by victorious Union troops. President Johnson was impeached (but not convicted) by Congress, and by the time President Grant took office and attempted to use the Federal Troops occupying the South to protect the nascent democracy of elected Negroes, it was too late. Thousands of Northern whites went South to help newly freed blacks through literacy and political education, at the risk of being lynched by local racists. Great progress was made and Americas first free public school system established (only to be later forcibly segregated and privatized by racists).

Through armed white violence, slavery had been replaced by segregation, inequality and a racist economic system of boss over black. In 1876, twenty years after the Civil War, the ruling classes of the industrial North and formerly rebellious cotton-producing South united politically. They celebrated this ruling class unity by withdrawing the Federal occupation from the south, leaving the Negroes helpless before the armed KKK and racist local authorities. Why? The troops were needed in the North to crush the violent strikes of the industrial workers, who were organizing unions (but largely on a whites only basis). Later, unwitting blacks were brought North by train to be used as strikebreakers another ploy in the capitalists racist divide and rule.

By 1900, W.E.B. Dubois, the black Marxist sociologist, historian of Reconstruction, and founder of the NAACP, was describing the US as a country with two working classes, one black one white. African American troops fought bravely (in segregated units) for the United States in the First World War in the hope of having their manhood recognized, but they returned to face increased racist repression. President Wilson pronounced Griffiths racist pro-KKK film Birth of a Nation a masterpiece, and 1919 was a record year for lynchings, especially of uppity black soldiers who returned in uniform.

The struggle to make the Second American Revolution established by the post- Civil War Reconstruction Amendments a reality was resumed after the Second World War and gave birth to the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s in the hope of completing Americas promise, the dream of Martin Luther King. Federal troops were once more mobilized to prevent white racist mobs from attacking African Americans to exercise their legal right vote and attend the same schools as whites: by Eisenhower in 1956 at Little Rock and by JFK in Mississippi in 1962. Yet once again, despite legal victories and more blacks in visible the media and government, nothing fundamental changed on the ground. Sixty years later, African Americans are just a poor, just as segregated, just as excluded from first-class health, education and housing services, and just as subject to racist police violence as were their grand parents.

The murder of George Floyd is said to be the straw that broke the camels back. It was the straw that set fire to the haystack of anger and frustration that was smoldering for generations. Will this blaze be yet another fire of straw, fated to die out? I think not. The context has changed. US society, like the whole capitalist world, is in crisis. The economy, with productivity declining, with inequality and unemployment increasing, with debt and speculation ballooning was already in crisis. The pandemic pushed it over the top, and the resulting recession has only just begun. Thirty years after the post Cold War new world order of democracy, peace and un-ending growth was proclaimed, few Americans believe that their lives and those of their children likely to improve, what with social and ecological doom impending. The system has little to promise them and its leaders little to inspire confidence in them. In other words, they are no longer politically and socially hegemonic and must depend on coercion to hold power. Today, the credibility and legitimacy of that coercive power, the cops and army, is being called into question by the masses, white and colored, demanding justice and equality.

The police may well continue to attack the demonstrators and while Trump and his followers call for militarization of the country in the name of protecting property, law, and order, it is clear that a breach has been opened in the Blue Wall of Silence protecting the privileges of the billionaire class against the power of the working masses who today face not only a political crisis but also the crisis of an ongoing pandemic, the crisis of poverty and mass unemployment, and the impending climate crisis of which Covid is a symptomatic forerunner.

Throughout US history, from the white Abolitionists, to the Yankee Civil War volunteers, to the Northern carpetbaggers who worked for Reconstruction, to the white Civil Rights marchers of the 1960s to the millions of whites in the streets proclaiming Black Lives Matter today, the unity in struggle of Americas racialized peoples has brought about whatever progress in freedom and democracy this race-benighted Republic has ever known.

Like the British workers in Marxs day, todays privileged white demonstrators, themselves victims, to a lesser degree, of American capitalism, know in their hearts that they can never be free and never be safe from state violence until Black Lives really do matter and black skins are no longer branded. They know that Black and White Unite and Fight is the only possible way to block authoritarian government, prevent fascism, establish democracy, institute class equality and face the future with a modicum of hope.

Richard Greeman has been active since 1957 in civil rights, anti-war, anti-nuke, environmental and labour struggles in the U.S., Latin America, France (where he has been a longtime resident) and Russia (where he helped found the Praxis Research and Education Center in 1997). He maintains a blog at richardgreeman.org.

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Ten Days that May Have Changed the World - The Bullet - Socialist Project

Published: 6/5/2020 10:00:22 PM

Modified: 6/5/2020 10:00:10 PM

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said a riot is the language of the unheard. While not condoning violence, much less encouraging it, I am compelled to observe that the sometimes-violent methods recently adopted by protestors seeking redress of long-festering social issues is, sadly, understandable. When a match is tossed into a pile of dry brush, the result is as predictable as it is tragic.

The unrest seen in many parts of our nation this past week following yet another egregious policing overreach that caused the death of a fellow citizen, a black American, is not, in my view, an overreaction.

This unrest rises from a deep foundation: more than four centuries of exclusion, injustice, emotional abuse, lack of basic human decency, and yes violence systematically perpetrated by our establishment institutions and, via our votes, by ourselves upon our fellow American citizens of differing genetic lineage.

Violence begets violence; mistreatment begets mistrust. Slavery. The lack of any meaningful economic justice post-slavery. Lynching. Jim Crow. The unrealized promise of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Separate but equal. Systemic racism. Mass incarceration. Wage inequality. Opportunity inequity. Rising from all of these, black Americans to this day have a palpable fear of being found suspect based only on the color of their skin, a fear I can never know.

Whatever the recent violence, it falls far short of the cumulative scale of these past sins, sins so long unaddressed as to embed them in the American soul. We reap what we sow, and weve been sowing a crop of racism in this nation for a very long time.

Therefore, the noteworthy news is not the violence but rather, in the face of the past, the praiseworthy restraint exhibited by the vast majority of protestors.

MARK KIRK

Unity

Rising to meat demand (May 24) is another Valley News article fostering animal cruelty. The demand for animal flesh, secretions and dead embryos is a false demand there are no nutritional needs to eat animals and therefore no ethical reasons exist to force-breed and kill animals for consumption. And Vermont Packinghouses claim of humane slaughter is a joke. Unnecessary killing is not humane.

Animal-free diets are not fads; they are the only ones humans can afford if we want a future. Popular Mechanics reported that plant-based diets are healthiest for humans, the planet and animals. The World Health Organization categorizes processed meat as a carcinogen. A number of studies have suggested that dairy products are a risk factor for prostate cancer. These science-based truths are what our family, including the dogs, live by without problems.

Kaiser Permanente, the largest health care management company in the U.S., has a 36-page ebooklet about the advantages of plant diets. Humana, the third-largest insurance company, trains doctors in plant-based health. The U.N. urges everyone to eat plant-based diets as the surest and least destructive way to slow global warming and to end hunger and starvation because 80% of farmland grows monocrops for farmed animals, croplands that in the U.S. alone could feed 800 million people. Worldwide, farmlands could produce ample food to feed all humanity healthful plant-based meals, and reduce the greenhouse gases from the farmed animal industry that drive global warming, and dramatically reduce the poisoning of the land, water and life with runoff from farming animals fed antibiotics and ground up garbage. And it would end the slaughter of 3 trillion animals annually for human food.

Why does the Valley News promote animal-based foods and print articles about slaughterhouses, for example, as if they are necessary? Why take the corporate oppressors side with language like stunning unruly animals instead of writing animals struggling for their lives? To not tell the whole story with compassion is lazy reporting.

MARGARET D. HURLEY

Claremont

My name is Keith Stern and I am announcing my campaign for a Windsor County Senate seat.

Some of you may recognize me as a candidate for governor two years ago. My platform has not changed. I want to see a more responsible budget, end Act 46, and make sure Act 250 goes back to its original goal and not become an excessively restrictive hurdle to responsible development. Above anything, the federal and state constitutions must be followed to avoid an abusive government.

Humorist Dave Barry once said that Democrats are good people with good intentions but are incompetent. They would stop to help someone change a tire and end up setting the car on fire. They have good intentions but they fail to understand how to accomplish their goals, so they end up hurting us with ineffective and restrictive laws. We can see this every day with struggling businesses, low wages and an overall cost of living that exceeds our wages. Affordable housing is a major issue here because of excessive regulations for building, high property taxes, and lack of landlord protection against destructive, disruptive and deadbeat tenants. Ultimately, it isnt the landlords who bear the cost, it is the tenants. I will work to fix these issues to create more affordable housing. At the same time, I will introduce an effective tenant protection bill as well.

The cost of health insurance is very high in comparison to other states, again due to overregulation. I will introduce a bill that will lower health care and health insurance costs.

I hope you visit my Facebook page, Keith Stern for Windsor County, and see how a vote for me will be a vote for lowering taxes, a better, more cost-effective education system, and a stronger economy.

KEITH STERN

North Springfield

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Forum, June 6: America is reaping what it has sown - Valley News

Starting with the original sin of slavery, those in our nation who were born White have exerted power over those who were born Black. Black Lives Matter is a powerful response to the implicit attitude that Black lives are disposable.

As horrific as it was to watch the torture and murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police, all of us owe a debt of gratitude to the brave young woman who captured it on video for all the world to see. (She is being rewarded with harassment and the need to move to an undisclosed location.)

In response to that unspeakably painful video, people are rising up across the country in massive protests seeking to finally eradicate the systemic forces that led to Mr. Floyds torture and death. An underlying message of the protests is that if any of us is treated as disposable, we all are in danger.

Those protesting represent all races, ages, genders, and sexual orientations. One of the tens of thousands of Americans who joined protests demanding that our country value Black lives was Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old peace activist. During the June 4 protest in his hometown of Buffalo, Gugino unthreateningly walked up to a group of police. They responded by violently shoving him, knocking him to the ground, where he hit his head and lay unmoving and bleeding.

"An underlying message of the protests is that if any of us is treated as disposable, we all are in danger."

The police let him lie on the ground, by himself, unconscious, blood pouring from his head. He was eventually taken to a hospital, acutely injured, in serious condition. Gugino is White, but because of his decision to stand up for Black lives, his life was treated as disposable, too.

In blasting the unconstitutional, dictatorial use of force by President Donald Trump against peaceful protesters, General James Mattis stated, Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that The Nazi slogan for destroying us ... was 'Divide and Conquer.'

The Normandy invasion marked the turning point in our fight against Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime, which saw many lives as disposable. The German language even has words for these supposedly lesser humans. Untermensch are sub-humans, those who are useful for slave labor. Lebensubwertes leben are an even lower category, life unworthy of life. Those the Nazis deemed unworthy of lifeJews, homosexuals, people with disabilities, among otherswere taken to concentration camps for extermination.

If you dont understand that todays protests are in opposition to the same forces that motivated Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime, you are part of the problem. It is time for people of all races, all ages, all religions, genders, and sexual orientations to stand together in solidarity and protest under the banner of Black Lives Matter.

Former President Jimmy Carter clearly sees the deeper connection: People of power, privilege, and moral conscience must stand up and say no more to a racially discriminatory police and justice system, immoral economic disparities between whites and blacks, and government actions that undermine our unified democracy.

As humans, all of us are physically vulnerable. From the dawn of humanity, we have engaged in collective activity to reduce that physical vulnerability. Police, in theory organized to reduce our common physical vulnerability, have instead become an instrument of increased physical vulnerability of some humans simply because of the color of their skin.

"It is well past time for systemic police reform. To those who say that it is just a few bad apples, they should remember that a few bad apples rot the entire bunch."

It is well past time for systemic police reform. To those who say that it is just a few bad apples, they should remember that a few bad apples rot the entire bunch. A 2006 FBI report reveals that law enforcement has been infiltrated by White Supremacists.

The institution of White Supremacy cannot be reformed. It must be dismantled to safeguard everyone. We need accountability, including the following actions:

1. Defund police budgets by at least 15 percent and allocate those funds to social programs and affordable housing.

2. Every year in cities across this country, millions of dollars are awarded in civil lawsuits to settle cases of police misconduct. Instead of the money coming from the citys budget in general, it should be taken from both the police department budget and the salary/pension of the officer in question. This, more than anything else, will immediately alter the behavior of rogue cops.

3. Prohibit asset forfeiture unless there is a conviction; when there is, the funds should go to the community, not to the police, who should not have a self-interest in forfeitures.

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4. For every police force, create a citizen review board with the power to fire, indict, and prosecute officers for misconduct.

5. Any officer who causes the loss of life of any person who is unarmed and found to be innocent of any felonious wrongdoing should be automatically fired and subject to prosecution.

6. Create national databases for all police shootings and for all complaints filed against individual police officers.

7. Require all police to wear body cameras and keep them turned on when in the community. If a complaint is made against a police officer whose camera was off, the irrebuttable presumption is that the complaint is accurate.

8. Ban all chokeholds and neck restraints.

9. Require police that work in a community to live in that community.

10. Restrict the power of police unions to negotiating only about wages, hours, and benefits. Eliminate their involvement in issues of police misconduct.

But reforming the police and increasing physical security is only the first step. To build a more perfect union, we must work for economic justice and security for all.

Measures that would benefit all of usbut especially Black people and other people of colorinclude increasing the minimum wage, strengthening workers ability to join together and collectively bargain, expanding Social Security, and enacting an improved Medicare for All. Increased economic justice and security also mean ensuring that we have clean water to drink and air to breathe, as well as safe food to eat.

"Measures that would benefit all of usbut especially Black people and other people of colorinclude increasing the minimum wage, strengthening workers ability to join together and collectively bargain, expanding Social Security, and enacting an improved Medicare for All. Increased economic justice and security also mean ensuring that we have clean water to drink and air to breathe, as well as safe food to eat."

The intertwined crises of a worldwide pandemic, economic collapse, and racial injustice have shined bright spotlights on long-simmering problems. Exposed by the crises is that people of color disproportionately hold essential jobs that are dangerous and life-threatening.

Laid bare is the fact that Black people have disproportionately suffered premature death due to a number of discriminatory factors, including the lesser ability to access high quality health care. Laid bare is their disproportionate economic insecurity. And laid bare is the fact that their lives are disproportionately treated as disposable.

People of color disproportionately suffer these threats, but no one is immune. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick infamously called on older Americans to sacrifice their lives to protect Wall Streets profits because theres more important things than living.

Similarly, Rep. Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN), argued that saving the economy was more important than preventing the deaths from COVID-19, disproportionately suffered by seniors, people with disabilities, and Black people. He condescendingly claimed that deciding to treat some lives as disposable was to put on our big boy and big girl pants and say This is the lesser of these two evils.

No life is disposable. No human is inherently superior to any other. Today is one of those moments in history when the impossible turns into the inevitable. The nations Founders wrote that all of us are created equal, endowed with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. If all of us stand together and make our voices heard, we can finally, together, make that inspiring goal a reality for one and all.

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Solidarity Will Turn the Impossible Into the Inevitable - Common Dreams

People Post is a space for opinion pieces, letters to the editor and guest submissions from members of the Long Beach community. The following is an op-ed submitted by L.S. Pearce, a Long Beach based therapist and clinician, with a lifelong passion for supporting human rights, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Long Beach Post.

Editors note: This opinion piece contains language some readers may find objectionable.

I was 12 when the Rodney King riots happened. A group of cops was seen on tape beating a black man senseless, and for maybe the first time white America got to witness for itself the disparity between black and white policing and get a glimpse of the divide that not all men are equal in America.

It was something people of color had been saying for 100 years and no one was listening, or maybe nobody cared. And so when the cops were acquitted, the rage bubbled over. I lived in Long Beach at the time and I could feel the tension in the air; I remember understanding in my adolescent way that something important was happening, something I wanted to be a part of, but knowing I was too young to be out in the streets with the adults.

That was almost 30 years ago, and its true what they say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Were seeing a particular story emerge as the media attempts to control the narrative, the same way they have with BLM, with Occupy, with the WTO. Newscasters keep referring to the protests as violent, which is a dangerous tactic to demonize protesters, in order to legitimize the eventual use of vicious and abhorrent force that the cops and National Guard will visit upon citizens.

Lets get really clear about something: Property damage is not violence. Violence is what you do to another human being, a living thing, not an inanimate object or a bunch of drywall and bricks in the shape of a building.

Violence is kneeling on a mans neck for 9 minutes while he begs for his life until he dies.

Violence is bursting into the wrong apartment in the middle of the night and gunning a sleeping woman down in her bed.

Violence is shooting a young man with a cellphone in his grandmothers backyard, or a little boy playing with a toy gun.

Violence is shooting a man while he livestreams it, and then joking on video that hes going to need a closed casket.

Violence is 400 years of slavery and rape and whippings and public mutilations that were so commonplace and accepted by society that they were the subject of postcard photos, with a hundred white people standing around smiling and taking an ear or toe of the murdered person home as a souvenir.

Violence is a 150 years of Black Codes and lynchings and Jim Crow and a criminal justice system that targets people of color and ruins families and lives.

You cannot do violence to things. Violence is what you do to people. And so far, I have not seen citizens attacking each other; I have seen them attacking the symbols of their own subjugation: police stations, banks, corporations, the media. And when you decry the violence of smashing a window with the sameor moreferocity than youve decried the brutality and murder of your fellow citizens for hundreds of years, you demonstrate to the black community, to your peers, to your family, to God, that you value insured property that isnt even yours more than human life. Personally, I dont give a fuck about a Starbucks. Burn it to the ground in the neighborhood it gentrified.

A few years ago I read about an epidemic of elderly people choosing suicide rather than homelessness when they have to choose between medicine and housing. Unless something major changes financially in my own life within the next 30 years, Ive gotta be honest, suicide is my retirement plan too. Boomers can turn a blind eye as they enter their golden years, but our generation doesnt harbor any illusions about the grim reality and futures we face. We inherited a dying planet and a nation being constantly plundered by politicians and the companies that own them.

Most of the people of my generation will never be able to buy homes or start families, and we will never be able to retire, working to support ourselves until we literally drop dead. Deaths of despairdrug overdose and suiciderun rampant in economically depressed areas; not just urban centers, but rural communities where coal mining or factory jobs have disappeared.

Mental health problems are on the rise even for people doing well by societys standards, with 1 in 6 Americans being prescribed a psychiatric drug. Wages have been stagnant since the 70s, weve been working harder and longer hours for less and less while the CEOs take home ever more astronomical salaries as they bust unions, automate our jobs away or send them overseas.

The fifth of our earnings removed through tax money rarely goes into infrastructure, education, healthcare, taking care of the elderly, homeless, or veterans or building up our communities in any way, but instead to offset an endless parade of tax cuts and bailouts for the rich, to fund the surveillance infrastructure of our own enslavement, and endless wars to dominate and exploit the resources of other nations. Its been getting worse and its only going to keep getting worse for as long as we let it. And if at this point you cant see any of this incredibly large and legible writing on the wall, well, Id have to question your intelligence. And if you can see it but want to continue to champion a dog-eat-dog system of selfishness and murder and environmental degradation and wage-slavery on the hope of that 0.00000001% chance that you will one day join the 1% and get your own turn at the enhanced exploitation of your fellow human beings and the natural world, well, I would certainly have to question your morality and indeed, your humanity.

This system is sick and evil. That is not to say that we as individuals are evil. Nevertheless, we passively participate in evil every day whether we want to or not. We fund the wars, we buy the cellphones containing materials that were mined with child labor and made in sweatshops so terrible that the companies put out suicide nets. We stand by and film the murder of our neighbors by police because we feel powerless to do anything else. But the truth is, there are other ways. Those ways may be uncomfortable to get to, but are we comfortable now?

In reality, nobody with power ever willingly surrenders it; you take it. America was founded on taking what was not given by the British Empire: our independence. Every meager scrap of human rights has had to be fought and scraped and in some cases died for: womens rights, gay rights, labor rights, civil rights, disability rights. And that fighting and scraping and dying has not been pretty; it has not been warm and fuzzy. That is what we are experiencing now: the discomfort of change, of growth. There is enough on this planet for everyone if we distribute it more equitably rather than allowing 1% to hoard almost 50% of the worlds wealth, and it can be had in ways that dont destroy our own habitat. We just have to decide that enough is enough and were willing to fight for it.

So when I hear people complain about the riots or rather, the REVOLT I hear people crying But why would you burn down your own plantation?! White people, rich people, you are on this same sinking ship, you just have better seats. The poor and the people of color will go under first but it wont be long before you too are thrashing about in the icy sea that will snuff out your life.

Just how long do you think your skin color will protect you when you lose your job in a failing economy, and become one of the desperate dispossessed that the police have free rein to brutalize when you do whatever you need to do to feed your family? Just how long do you think money will isolate you from the ravages of a crumbling society on a dying planetexactly how much money will you need to pay your armed guards to save YOU and YOUR RESOURCES instead of saving their own loved ones?

We can come together, now, while we still have a chance to save ourselves and the whole damn world. Or we can descend over the next two decades into madness and chaos, tearing at ourselves and each other while the world burns around us.

This is nothing new; civilizations have fallen here and there into periods of chaos and destruction throughout time. The only difference is that now we live in a global community and so this time, it will be a global collapse (consider the virus, spreading rapidly around the world and all the shortages and supply chain disruptions it brought, as the dress rehearsal). The only difference is that now the planet is getting hotter and the waters are rising and the land is less farmable and the species we rely on to survive are going extinct.

I am personally very happy and excited that people are rising up and I hope it continues. Because I recognize that Kali is the goddess of both destruction and creation. You cant build a new home until you raze the old one; you cant plant your crops until you till the field. Our society is sick. Burn it all down and lets build something new.

I believe that within the next 30 years, we as individuals will either witness or participate in a fight to the death. Either we will crush this system and crush capitalism, or the system and capitalism will crush us. If we win, we dont know what will happen. Maybe the fault is in our stars and humans are innately terrible and we can never create anything better. We would certainly be stepping into the unknown and that is scary. But if we fail, we do know what will happen: The whole world will perish.

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Opinion: Why the rage? Some words about violence and human rights - Long Beach Post

Why am I a Democrat?

I am a Democrat because I believe in social justice. I believe in equality before the law for every person, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or social status. The American ideal is in the Declaration of Independence, which says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". As a nation we have never achieved that lofty goal, but since our founding, we have moved slowly and unevenly toward it.

No political party is perfect, but the Democratic Party has done by far the most to bring about social justice in our country. Since the coming of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in 1932, the Democratic Party has given us Wage and Hour laws, Child Labor laws, the G.I. Bill, the Federal Housing Act (FHA), the FDIC, Medicare, Medicaid, The Affordable Care Act, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Head Start, the Peace Corp, the National Institutes of Health, the National Labor Relations Act, and many more. The Republican Party has opposed or tried to water down those progressive laws but there is no doubt that we have all been elevated because of them.

My life experience as a Baptist Christian, a lawyer and a historian has molded me into a strong believer in social justice. The Bible has over 2,000 passages in it emphasizing social justice, and Jesus' earthly ministry was about justice for the poor and downtrodden. My profession as a trial lawyer has driven me to believe in the rule of law, and to fight for justice for my clients. As a historian I have studied our slow and uneven progress toward equality for all Americans. In my long life I have personally witnessed the collapse of Jim Crow laws, Segregation and the success of the Civil Rights Movement but now I am seriously concerned about the present state of our country. For the past forty years, our progress toward equality under the law has stalled, and now some people want to turn back the clock. America's great middle class is shrinking, not growing. When the top 1% of our population possesses 40% of the nation's wealth, and the bottom 80% possesses only 7%, something is seriously wrong. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. That has never worked in any nation, and it must be must be reversed. I'm not against people getting rich and I don't support state socialism, but serious reform is needed, and only the Democratic Party has proposals that can accomplish it. We need fairer tax laws and more social programs that promote legal equality and more opportunity for the underprivileged and less fortunate, and the dwindling middle class must be preserved. But we need more than changed laws. We need changed American hearts, minds, and attitudes about "the least of these" in our society. "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" means universal medical care, a good education for all of our children, accessibility to decent housing, a fair minimum wage, and an absence of discrimination because of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. "A rising tide lifts all boats" and the water is very shallow in today's America.

We are at a critical point in our nation's history. The 2020 election is the most important since 1860. What direction are we going to take? Are we going to move toward the Constitution's goal of "forming a more perfect union", or are we going to stay divided and unequal? History will be kind to leaders who, although imperfect, are dedicated to the principle "that all men are created equal". The choice is clear. Either we continue down the disastrous road of division and inequality or we move toward the goal of equality and "a more perfect union". I know that if America continually moves toward the ideal set forth in the Declaration of Independence, we will be prosperous and unified. America's "original sin" of slavery, white supremacy, and racism must be expunged from our national culture. The Democratic Party is the only party moving in the right direction toward being "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Martin Luther King, Jr. quoting a pre-civil war preacher said, "The arc of moral history is long, but it bends toward justice". I believe that and that is why I am a Democrat. I hope that someday soon I can say that is why I am an American, because when that day comes, America will truly be great.

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A WORD FROM THE CHAIRMAN - TheRecordLive.com

African Americans are used as prison labor a.k.a. slave labor in prisons.

By Lynda Carson - June 8, 2020

There was a time when families, children women and men were sold only two streets away from the present site of the New York Stock Exchange, in New York City.

Reportedly, during the 19th century some of the Wall Street corporations involved in the slave trade included New York Life, AIG, AETNA, and JP Morgan Chase. Some of the former companies that became what are now known as Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo reportedly have also profited from the slave trade.

The largest sugar refiner in the U.S. used to be Domino Sugar, and slave-grown sugar cane was processed by the company.

Brooks Brothers used to process southern cotton grown by the slaves into high-end fashion for the wealthy, and Americas railroads profited from the slave trade.

Presently, China is reportedly is using forced labor in factories that make products for American companies, including the GAP Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, Apple which is headquartered in nearby Cupertino, Cisco Systems which is headquartered in San Jose, and Google which is headquartered in Mountain View, including other major corporations.

In 2007, activist attorney Tony Serra sued the federal government over slave labor practices occurring in the prisons.

According to Wikipedia, Penal labor in the United States is explicitly allowed by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Private publicly traded corporate prison companies such as the GEO Group, and CoreCivic, also profits from penal labor that is also known as slave labor.

George Zoley, is the the CEO of the GEO Group. The GEO Group, Inc., Political Action Committee presently has $644,249 in total receipts.

Another corporate profiteer making lots of money from penal labor also known as slave labor is Damon T. Hininger, CEO of CoreCivic. Presently, the CoreCivic Inc., Political Action Committee (CORECIVIC PAC) has around has $162,329 in total receipts.

During 2019, the Geo Group and CoreCivic faced class action lawsuits alleging prisoner slave labor practices. According to Prison Legal News, Washington State alleged that GEO violated its minimum wage statute, which requires pay of at least $11 an hour, and sought recovery of wages owed to people confined by the company on civil charges. Colorado and California also sued GEO for requiring prisoners to work maintenance jobs for $1 a day, whereas the company receives $160 a month for each prisoner it confines.

Both CoreCivic, and the GEO Group are public trading corporations on Wall Street with stock priced at more than $13 a share presently.

The Federal Prison Industries, Inc., known as Unicor also profits from penal labor also known as slave labor that pays the inmate anywhere from $0.23 to $1.15 per hour.

Reportedly, prison inmates in California are used for firefighting and are only paid slave wages of $2 a day, and $1 dollar an hour for risking their lives to fight active forest fires. Meanwhile, their salaried firefighter co-workers earn around $74,000 a year plus benefits.

It appears that now is the time for Black Lives Matter to seek reparations for slavery and slave labor practices from the Wall Street corporations for African Americans. Especially now while they presently have a lot of attention because of the murder of George Floyd, and other African Americans murdered because of police brutality, and killer cops.

See a few more links below about documented slavery and slave labor practices.

Lynda Carson may be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com

>>>>>> Slavery Era Insurance Registry

http://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/150-other-prog/10-seir/

>>>>>> Slave Era Insurance Registry Report

http://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/150-other-prog/10-seir/slavery-era-report.cfm

>>>>>> List of slaveholder Names

http://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/150-other-prog/10-seir/slaveholder-names.cfm

>>>>>> List of slave names

http://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/150-other-prog/10-seir/slave-names.cfm

>>>>>> Policy documents submitted by AETNA.

http://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/150-other-prog/10-seir/upload/PolicyDocuments.pdf

>>>>>> New York Life Cancelled Policies

http://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/150-other-prog/10-seir/upload/NYLife_Cancelled_Policies.pdf

>>>>>>

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Reparations to African Americans should be payed by Wall Street - SF Bay Area Indymedia

Protesters and police in Seattle, Washington, on May 30, 2020. Image: Flickr / Kelly Kline

A Statement from Scholars for Social Justice

At the end of May streets once emptied by COVID-19 have filled with protesters in over 700 U.S.cities and towns. They demand justice in the wake of a new wave of state-sanctioned violence against black peoplein particular the brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arberythat recall with sickening familiarity the police murders of Eric Garner, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, and so many other black Americans. They were mothers, fathers, daughters and sons, leaving behind grieving friends and family members and a collective sense of outrage. The Trump administrations ineffectual, race-baiting, and militaristic response to the uprising has only served to heighten the crisis.

Emotions are raw in a nation already mourning a COVID-19 death toll of more than 108,000. The disease has disproportionately taken black and brown lives and pushed low-wage people further into the margins where so many are facing an uncertain economic future. People have taken to the streets to vent their anger and demand systemic change. Black Lives Matter, Justice for George, Say Her Name, and I Cant Breathe have become global rallying cries as protest has spread to Europe, Africa, and South America.

Racism doesnt look only like a knee on the neck. The fires burning on U.S. streets are symbolic of fires that have smoldered for some time. The foundation of racial capitalism produces and reproduces vast racial disparities in wealth, income, job opportunities, education, and health care. Indeed the wealth of the United States was built on a long history of looting the land, labor, and lives of racialized peoples. Many of the most prestigious institutions of higher education where we were trained profited from their involvement in the system of slavery and the continued exploitation of black labor in the years after the end of the Civil War.

Racism doesnt look only like a knee on the neck. The fires burning on U.S. streets are symbolic of fires that have smoldered for some time.

Black people who were able to gain an economic foothold faced violence and looting. During the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, white mobs attacked one of the mostprosperous African American communities in the nation. Over several days the vicious attack on this black communityknown as the Black Wall Streetleft 300 people dead, and businesses looted and destroyed, yet it has been excised from U.S. history. Colonialism and imperialism from Hawaii to Puerto Rico and beyond has generated enormous wealth for the United States, often at the expense of black, indigenous, and other people of color. Immigrant workers, from migrants on farms to employees of meat processing plants toiling in unsafe and exploitative conditions, are criminalized and debased as intruders while simultaneously deemed essential to the U.S. food chain and economy and exploited for their labor. This history of dispossession persists through predatory lending, payday loans, municipal fines and forfeits, and institutionalized disparities in wages and benefitsand it has often been supported by state-sanctioned violence.

In response to protests, many public figures have praised nonviolent demonstration but staunchly condemned more direct forms of confrontation with police. The demand for peaceful, civil, respectable law-abiding engagement with an uncivil and oppressive system negates a long history of civil disobedience, insurgency, and righteous anger by dissenting groups. Protesters disrupt. The impulse to sort protesters and their strategies into acceptable and unacceptable categories reflects Americas racial logic: it tolerates heavily armed, white right-wing protesters and white sports fans destroying property, breaking windows, and setting fires after a victorious game, while criminalizing people defending black lives and opposing police violence.

The impulse to sort protesters and their strategies into acceptable and unacceptable categories reflects Americas racial logic.

Enraged by police executions of unarmed black peopleon top of what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls the organized abandonment of black communitiesprotesters have in some cases engaged in direct action, disruption, and disorder. That said, the majority of protests have been peaceful despite provocation and violence from the police. Much like the civil rights movement, the violence in todays movement has come largely from the state; over a hundred incidents of police attacks on journalists and countless other episodes of brutality have been recorded since the start of the protests. The police chief in Louisville was fired after officers involved in the fatal shooting of a black business owner had not activated their body cameras, and six officers in Atlanta have been charged after the televised taser attack on two black college students.

In the past, urban rebellions served as important seedbeds for raised consciousness and political organization. Members of the Oakland Black Panthers worked tirelessly to channel anger into organization. Prominent members of organizations like the League of Revolutionary Black workers in Detroit had taken part in the Detroit Uprising in 1967. Welfare rights activists demanding state assistance organized disruptive demonstrations targeting welfare offices. The current protests have targeted businesses and property, not innocent bystanders, unlike the New York City Draft riots of 1863 or the Tulsa Riot of 1921, in which hundreds of black people were murdered.

White supremacist organizations and agent provocateurs have also attempted to sow strife and make the mobilization against police violence seem chaotic and destructive, obscuring the political content that is at the core of the protests. Simultaneously, the outside agitator narrative has been weaponized by politicians to fuel harsh and militaristic crackdowns on sincere dissent. The news medias disproportionate coverage of fires, theft, and vandalism, at the expense of more systematic analysis of the root causes, has opened the door for President Trump to insist that he is the friend to all peaceful protesters, while berating governors nationwide for their weakness, demanding arrests and domination, and threatening to turn the military against citizens and residents. The phrase law and order is a racist dog whistle used to appeal to conservatives and liberals who might decry police violence, but who ultimately support tough policing and believe current problems can be addressed through piecemeal reforms.

As the COVID-19 crisis opened a wedge for unprecedented political possibility, the changes it imposed have also pushed longstanding goals of the left into the mainstream.

But COVID-19 makes a return to normal impossible and presents an opportunity for imagining a new world. Indeed a transformative vision has the potential to erupt from the ashes. Longstanding local organizations and community activists are calling for political accountability, structural transformation, prison abolition, democratic engagement, and social investment. In this moment of crisis people are coming together across difference, building and rebuilding, protecting each other and finding mutual goals. Recently, in Washington, D.C., dozens of protesters found overnight shelter in the home of a stranger who protected them from arrest. While some black women mayors have emerged as keepers of law and order, black women and feminist activists on the ground are exercising a different kind of leadership. Their leadership is horizontal, collaborative, group-centered, decentralized, and does not rely on a singular figure or a centralized authority. The Movement for Black Lives, for example, organized a nationwide call on to forge abolitionist strategy during a week of action as part of the people of colorled Rising Majority coalition.

As the COVID-19 crisis opened a wedge for unprecedented political possibility, the changes it imposed have also pushed longstanding goals of the left into the mainstream. Decarceration has unprecedented traction as jails reduced their detained populations, in humanitarian releasesdemonstrating, in effect, that many people in jails did not need to be there in the first place. Domestic violence and homelessness, likewise, gained new visibility as stay-at-home orders highlighted the precarity of those who could not shelter in place safely. Essential workers, the elderly, people without resources, black, indigenous, and other people of color have been COVID-19s greatest victims, setting in sharp relief the glaring economic disparities in the United States. While they have been forgotten by policy makers, they have gained greater visibility. They have organized work stoppages in Amazon warehouses and hospitals and created mutual aid networks. They have gained support beyond daily 7 p.m. clanging of pots and pans, a sound which has been drowned out by protest and demands for even more far-reaching reforms.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets to reopen the United States in ways that seemed unimaginable just one week ago. And as protests spread globally, it echoes a rich history of both international support for the black liberation movement as well as the black freedom movements support for national liberation struggles all over throughout the world.

These protests are too widespread to simply go away. Protesters have made it clear that there will be no peace without justice on a multiple of terrains: from prisons, to voting rights, policing, extreme inequality and corporate greed, excesses of U.S. foreign policy, intimate partner violence, environment, and health care. The uprisings have pushed us further from the notion of a return to normal. What are the possibilities for a more just future?

Original post:

The Fire This Time - Boston Review

The US is on the brink of becoming a racist failed state. It is no accident that this terrible moment arrives in the midst of a global pandemic; an escalating economic crisis; an oil sector meltdown. This is a perfect storm of simultaneous, complex crises. How did we get here? How do we solve this?

If were not confused, perplexed and alarmed about this intensifying sequence of overlapping crises, we are not paying attention.

Its time to start paying attention. Right now: We, the human species, stand at the dawn of a great civilizational inflection point. This is the fork in the road. The decisions we, you, make in this moment are about to make history.

The convergence of events we are witnessing is a symptom of a wider process of global systemic decline. This convergence is happening due to the unsustainable nature of a system that can no longer keep going in its current form without sparking further crisis. The ultimate hidden driver is a way of living and being premised on self-maximization through plunder of the Other: whether Others are different humans, different species, or the planet itself.

That is what the Black Lives Matter protests are. They are an uproar from centuries ofinter-generational traumarooted in the systematic enslavement from which the modern industrial capitalist world system emerged, a system that is now in overshoot of planetary boundaries. And so the crisis of white supremacism in the United States is not just about America and its not just about race: its about the Earth, and how American racism represents our broken relationship with our own planet.

So we need to face up to reality if we want to get through this: Until we begin developing the capacity to see and adapt to the complex interconnections between human systems and the wider natural systems in which they are embedded, we will be unable to move off a trajectory of accelerating societal collapse.

Ten years ago, if youd said that America would become engulfed by race riots that would make a civil war look possible, most people would have laughed you out the room. At that time, Id warned that the failure to address the root structural causes of the Crisis of Civilization would lead world governments to become increasingly militarized and authoritarian. Business-as-usual would intensify the risk of political conflict and civil unrest, I argued, and countries like the US would see an escalation of such unrest along ethnic, religious and class lines.

In my book,A Users Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It which integrated the analysis of crises across climate change, energy, food, the economy, state-militarization and terrorism through a systems-lens I urged the need to recognize that all these crises are deeply interconnected through the operation of a single global system.

The failure to do so would guarantee short-sighted emergency responses that focus on the symptomsof crisis rather thanchanging the systemsbehind them government would react to public outrage and political instability through attempting to expand political and military policing powers to stave off growing instability. Id warned that if these trends continue unchecked, our societies will sacrifice liberal values for increasingly polarizing and exclusivist conceptions of group identity which normalize political violence:i.e., militarization.

The events of the past decade have borne out this assessment.

In 2014, in the wake of the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, IinterviewedPentagon defense analyst and Iraq War veteran Terron Sims, who is also president of the North Virginia Black Democrats. He told me that if we dont deal with the root cause in terms of widespread racial discrimination against black people, this will be our tomorrow therell come a point where the combination of unaccountable, rampant and racist police repression will inflame community tensions in circumstances of growing levels of deprivation and hopelessness. And thats where race riots could become far more of a norm than we might expect. So unless something changes, yes, Ferguson is our future.

Two years after I spoke to Sims, Iinterviewed Professor Johan Galtung, the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated founding father of peace and conflict studies as a scientific discipline, who had previously predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, along with many other major geopolitical events. Galtung went on to predict that US global power would come to an end by 2020, amidst the emergence of a new phase of reactionary fascism. The election of Donald Trump, he told me, was consistent with his forecast. Many of the processes he described to me as key features of US collapse are accelerating right now in the wake of the pandemic: resurgent white supremacism; deteriorating conditions for minorities; US withdrawal from the very international institutions it helped create as instruments of power projection from the UN, to the WHO to the WTO; and the descent of domestic US politics into polarization and unrest.

Galtung foresaw these events on the basis of a sophisticated complex systems analysis of 15 structural contradictions across, political, economic, cultural, environmental and social spheres. If left unresolved, he argued, these would unravel US society as we know it.

That process is now underway. The great unravelling is happening right now, beneath our feet.

The prescience of both Galtung and Sims demonstrates that we cannot understand this crisis if we insist on seeing racial injustice as separate from wider social, cultural, political and ecological crises.

The eruption of protests across at least 140 cities in the United States, triggered by the racist murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, is the worst outbreak of civil unrest since the 1960s. In at least 21 cities, the National Guard has been deployed as clashes between protestors and police have turned violent.

The protests represent a point-of-no-return emerging from a history of rising civil unrest and entrenched institutional racism, rooted in an inherently destructive model of life. That model connects rampant white supremacism with a predatory socio-economic order hellbent on the destruction of Others a system which Otherizes not just humans, but other species, and even the very natural environment in which we are irretrievably embedded yet blind to in the everyday.

The crisis has prompted further radicalized state, police and military responses, risking an unprecedented expansion of authoritarian powers exemplified in President Donald Trumps call on the US military to quell ongoing unrest in the homeland under the Insurrection Act (which was in play since two years ago as Ivepreviously reported).

Why are these protests happening right now? Why are they unfolding in the midst of a global pandemic? Is there a connection? Or is it just a case of bad luck?

In reality, it is no accident that this unprecedented socio-political crisis is occurring in the midst of a long anticipated pandemic, which as of the end of May had killed 100,000 Americans and driven 40 million into unemployment while overwhelmingly and disproportionately impacting Black and ethnic minority communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the staggering racial divide that plagues our societies, and our planet. In the US, Black Americans are dying from the disease at a ratenearly three times higherthan white people. In the UK, Black and Asian minority groups aretwice as likely as white Britonsto die if they contract the disease according to Public Health England, with people of Bangladeshi background facing the biggest risk. Other studiessuggestan even worse picture, that Black men andwomen fou>r times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white people. Similar trends have emerged in Europe. In Norway, residents originally born in Somalia faceinfection ratesmore than 10 times above the national average.

We still dont know for sure why this is happening, but the factors arecomplex. Studies indicate that entrenched socio-economic and health inequalities play a direct role, but not the only role. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) tells us that chronic conditions associated with worse COVID-19 outcomes (like diabetes, asthma, hypertension, kidney disease, and obesity) are all more common in ethnic minorities than white populations. But the CDC also identifies other factors: ethnic minorities are more likely to live in more densely populated areas and housing, to rely on public transport, and work in lower paid service jobs with no sick pay. In the UK, many ethnic minorities disproportionately suffer from overcrowding and work as keyworkers or as frontline healthcare staff.

Which makes it all the more shocking given that just days after US police officers wilfully suffocated George Floyd to death, the UK governmentcensoredevidence from its own review into the ethnic disparities in COVID-19 deaths, highlighting the potential role of structural racism and discrimination in driving poorer life chances for minorities. That evidence was supplied by over a thousand community organizations and individuals representing Britons from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds. Their voices were silenced.

When wetrace these complex factors back, we are led inexorably to the elephant in the room: the societal prevalence ofstructural racism.

According toProfessor Sandro Galeaof the Boston University School of Public Health, the core problem is that our society is structured in a way that can deny minority populations, particularly black Americans, access to the resources that generate health.

Health is a symptom and signifier of much deeper socio-economic and political systems. African Americans have the highest poverty rate among racial and ethnic groups, at 27.4 percent. Only 57 percent of black students can access all of the math and science courses needed for college readiness. Black Americans are more likely to live in segregated, economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

This is not an isolated problem. It is global and systemic.

In 2012, theAnnual Review of Public Healthauthoritativelyconcludedthat:

Disparities in the health of socially and economically disadvantaged compared with more advantaged populations are observed worldwide.

Health disparities are a result of a failure of societies to distribute equitably the resources needed to support health for all. The implications for the injustice of the COVID-19 pandemic are stark. If more minorities are dying, it is because their ethnicity puts them at a health and social disadvantage rooted within the institutions, social stratification, and cultural norms of societies. These are entrenched societal characteristics that are difficult to change, because they provide the underpinnings of power, privilege, and social advantage.

In other words, if more black and brown people are dying from COVID-19, itsbecause our societies are designed that way.

The social structures, that you and me are part of and perpetuate, are killing minorities extending and amplifying the inter-generational trauma thatconnectshistoric colonial structures with contemporary racism directed most viscerally against Black communities.

But the immediate impacts of the pandemic are just the beginning. It is Black and ethnic minorities who have experienced the brunt of the economic fallout. While unemployment rates are rocketing for everyone in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns, they have beeneven higherfor Black people. The pandemic has amplified pre-existing structural disparities that have meant that minorities are more likely than their white counterparts to be unemployed or in zero-hour contracts.

As COVID-19 lockdowns around the world have ushered in more draconian policing to monitor and enforce social distancing restrictions, it is Black people who face the biggest fall out fromincreasing acts of police brutality and violence this time justified in the name of public health. In the US, Black people are nearlyfive times more likelyto experience police-related injuries than white people. And those who get injured are twice as likely to die from those injuries as their white counterparts. Most people who get stopped by police are Black or Latino. Men who get stopped frequently by police are three times more likely to exhibit post-traumatic stress disorder and high anxiety. People in neighborhoods where pedestrians are more likely to face police questioning are also more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma and obesity the very same illnesses which lead to the most severe COVID-19 symptoms.

The pandemic has wrought a perfect storm of disease, violence and poverty onto Black and minority communities across the Western world, amplifying problems they were already facing. In doing so, the murder of George Floyd was a catalyst, a match to long-burning flames, tipping over a declining system into a spiral of chaos.

But this perfect storm of structural racism, effectively weaponized by the COVID-19 pandemic, cannot simply be removed with platitudes of support, affinity and allegiance, or goodwill gestures of solidarity.We have to start by recognizing this structural racism for what it is the extension and legacy of a global imperial system, premised on ecological plunder: A system of accelerating resource extraction and wealth centralization premised on imperial violence that is literally destroying the ecosystems on which all life on Earth depends.

The structural racism behind current national and global health inequalities was woven from the blood of slaves. Slavery lives on in the discriminatory structures that inflict health inequalities across our societies today. In the words of public health expert Professor Sando Galea:

The legacy of slavery, especially, remains core to many present health challenges, undermining health through segregation, mass incarceration, and other pernicious influences. There are even patterns of present-day poor health which roughly match the geographic outlines of where slaves were imprisoned. For example, a high concentration of stroke mortality in the US, especially among African Americans, aligns with where slaves were concentrated in earlier eras a haunting rejoinder to those who would dismiss history as irrelevant to contemporary life and health. These stroke patterns also inform yet another racial health disparity black Americans are at greater risk of stroke than any other group in the US; risk of experiencing a first stroke is about twice as high for blacks than for whites.

As Africana studies pioneer Professor Locklsey Edmondson of Cornell Universitywroteover twenty years ago, the consequences of the slave trade are still secreted in the contemporary world. By conditioning the nature of developing contacts between Europe and Africa, slavery affected the original systematization of white-world and black-world relationships as part of a developing European and white-world search for global influence and power. It thus laid the foundation for emergent patterns of a white dominant international order.

The systemic enslavement of Africans was integral to the emergence of the global economy as we know it. It was part of a trans-Atlantic emerging capitalist world system, designed to establish a labour force for the expansion of plantations across colonial America, which fuelled Britains industries and helped augment the processes behind the Industrial Revolution.

The acceleration of slavery also coincides with the dawn of the age of the Anthropocene, what some scientists consider to be an entirely new geological era characterized by the predominant impact of human activities on the Earths geological processes. British geographers Simon Lewis and Mark Maslinput the pivotal datefor the onset of this new geological epoch at 1610. This date marks the irreversible exchange of species following the collision of the Old and New worlds, which coincided with an associated unusual drop in atmospheric CO2 captured in Antarctic ice cores.

Its truly shocking that this historic drop in CO2, visible today in the ice cores, resulted from vegetation regrowth on abandoned farmlands following the deaths of 50 million indigenous Americans (mostly from smallpox brought by Europeans), write Lewis and Maslin. The annexing of the Americas by Europe was also an essential precursor to the Industrial Revolution and therefore captures associated later waves of environmental change.

This dating for the Anthropocene associates it directly withthe violence of empire, with the 1610 date bridging the destruction of mass Native Americans with the mass slavery of Africans, both acts ofgenocidal violenceintegral to the emergence of capitalist industry.

From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, between nearly 17,000,000 and 65,000,000 Africans were killed in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, according to R. J. Rummel in hisDeath by Government.

University of Essex sociologist Robin Blackburn inThe Making of New World Slaverydemonstrates the centrality of slavery to the emerging extractive capitalist economy. The momentous profits of slavery were accumulated in the triangular trade between Europe, Africa and America, and contributed directly to Britains industrialization. Profits from triangular trade for 1770 would have provided from 20.9 to 55 per cent of Britains gross fixed capital formation. These profits werereinvestedin manufacturing, ship-building, canals and coal-mining the core arteries of British industry which in turn triggered industrialization across Europe, and beyond.

The dawn of industrialization was, in turn, an inflection point for the human species. It ushered in the age of fossil fuels oil, gas and coal which enabled a bold new era of exponentially increasing material throughput, fuelling a new paradigm of endless growth economics.

This economic paradigm haswidened income inequalitiesfor more than 70 percent of the world population, even as it has also escalated the destruction of natural ecosystems.

We have produced and consumed at rates equivalent to the exploitation oftwo whole planets.

And worse, multiple warnings backed by aglobal consensusof climate scientists have warned that human activities, through the escalating consumption of fossil fuel resources, is destabilizing the Earths natural carbon cycle with potentially catastrophic consequences for al life on the planet within our lifetimes.

For hundreds of thousands of years, the planet has sustained an equilibrium,a safe operating spaceoffering an optimum environment for human and other habitation in which the quantity of carbon emitted and absorbed by planetary ecosystems remains stable.

But since the Industrial Revolution, built on the back of empires enabled by the sinews of slavery human civilization has inexorably expanded, consuming greater quantities of fossil fuel energy along the way, and exponentially increasing associated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions overwhelmingthe planets capacity for absorption. The result has been a steady increase in global average temperatures. Scientists warn that the extra addition of CO2 into the atmosphere, capturing greater heat, is in turn playing havoc with the Earths climate, weather and ecological systems.

As human civilization continues its expansion, burning up escalating quantities of fossil fuels along the way, the climate science community warns that above a certain level of CO2, planetary ecosystems could shift passed a key tipping point into a new, dangerous era one outside the stable boundaries of the preceding hundreds of thousands of years, and certainly outside anything human beings have ever experienced.

Our civilization is on the brink, right now. A landmarkstudyin theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesfound that at the current level of an approximate 1C temperature rise above the pre-industrial average, we are already breaching so many planetary boundaries at such scale, that we could be at immediate risk of triggering a cascade of runaway processes leading to an uninhabitable planet. The complexity of these boundaries is such that wemaynot even be able to detect whether these processes are in play until after the fact. We just dont know.

What we do know for sure is that if we continue on this pathway of business-as-usual, conservative projections suggest we are heading towarda 3 to 6 degrees Celsiusglobal average temperature rise within 80 years. Even a 2C planet, to which at minimumwe are already heading within 16 years, should be considered extremely dangerous for human societies; and a global average temperature rise within the 34C threshold would probably create conditions that makethe core infrastructures of human civilizationincreasingly unviable.

The same process of relentless global industrial expansionlaid the conditionsfor the COVID-19 pandemic. As industrial activities have grown exponentially, they have encroached increasingly onto wildlife and natural habitats, forcing animals carrying tens of thousands of unknown exotic diseases into closer interaction with human settlements. Thats why scientists havewarnedfor decades that a pandemic would be inevitable this century.

Yet this very expanding global industrial system which is breaching planetary boundaries and triggering increasingly dangerous disease outbreaks is the legacy of colonial racism.

It is a legacy all too few of us are aware of, and so it lives on in invisible structures and institutions shaped by a grim history of imperial bloodshed and conquest. The global expansion of industrialization was inseparable from the empires that enabled it, via the systematic construction of new racial categories designed to legitimize imperial conquest and expansion.

It was precisely within the crucible of colonization that we saw the dawn of scientific racism, the biologically-justified concept of multiple races, the grotesque legacy of which we continue to struggle with today. The idea that there are different races can be traced back to the political appropriation and distortion of neo-Darwinian theories of evolution. The concept of race was used to underpin racial hierarchies which positioned white Europeans at the pinnacle of civilized human advancement in this juggernaut of global industrial expansion.

Racism, then, is not discrimination against other races. It is the very act of creating the notion of distinctive races of people who possess fixed, generalized characteristics and behaviours within a hierarchy of superiority.

In the early nineteenth century, racism manifested largely as a religious ideology linked to interpretations of the Bible, viewing non-European groups as inherently inferior due to their heathen beliefs and ancestry, and frequently targeted Jews. From the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, racism evolved on the basis of scientifically-justified biological theories which attributed fixed traits, behaviours, characteristics, abilities and disabilities to constructed groups of people based on their supposedly distinctive biological characteristics. Since then, racism has continued to evolve until it became underpinned by subliminal cultural theories.

The late sociologist Stuart Hall famously described race as a floating signifier. Rather than being a fixed concept, he explained, race has always been an inherently political construct, projected by powerful dominant groups, justifying unequal power relations with other groups. As such, it is a construct that changes and adapts to historical circumstances of power. That is why the new cultural racism focuses on the imagined fixed cultures of imagined fixed groupings of people, permitting homogenized abstractions about their natures, beliefs and practices, projecting a hierarchy of inferior and superior cultures with Western Europeans consistently at the apex. Racialized stereotypes can then cut across colour divides, while encompassing non-racial categories like faith, culture and civilization, which end up becoming racist code for the same brand of longstanding discriminatory practices.

Thats why contemporary racism has become so insidious and difficult to detect. It often operates by disavowing its biological roots. So Black people and other minority groups are still homogenized and demonized as repositories of inferior behaviour and characteristics such as crime, terrorism, lawlessness and beyond, without necessarily believing in biological or genetic inferiority, enabling the refrain, I have Black friends. I dont hate people because of their skin colour. Im not racist. But

And this is why identity-politics has not gone away.Thats whyracism is deep-rooted, because its structural; itsembeddedin our societies; racisms impacts and consequences and behavioural patterns and assumptions areembedded in who and how we are, due to the power relations that define our ways of living and being.

Racism therefore wont be fought by parading ourselves as wonderful non-racists, but only by owning up to this horrifying heritage so that we can learn how to move beyond it by creating new systems, behaviours and understandings.

As industrial civilization continues on its relentless path of maximum extraction, exploitation and centralization of resources, its power centers continue to invent and entrench multiple ideological dividesbetweenhuman beings, andbetween human beings and the natural world, to justify its unequal power relations. And so, the devastating impacts of the Earth system crisis remain racialized, with the worst consequences disproportionately affecting poorer, darker peoples all over the world.

Thus, the pandemic and the protests are interlinked in complex ways which our prevailing institutions of government, media and education are largely blind to. They are twin sides of a single coin of global systemic decline, representing its most core interacting components: Earth system disruption and human system destabilization.

It is Earth system disruption that destabilizes human systems. This destabilization and the inequalities, chaos and violence it perpetuates inhibits us from seeing and responding adaptively to Earth system disruption. The result is that we are more vulnerable than ever to the next cycle of Earth system disruption and human system destabilization, which continue to feed into each other on a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

We need to break the cycle. But we cant break what we refuse to see.

Its only by facing up to the mistaken choices weve made as a species, by taking responsibility for who we are and what weve done, that we might be able to step-up together and make different choices that can convert this trajectory of systemic decline into a chance for civilizational renewal. But to do so we must accept some humility, recognize that we didnt see this coming, and know that this is because our current way of seeing the world largely misses the true, interconnected complexity of whats really going on.

The George Floyd protests follow on the back of a steady rise in the frequency and intensity of protest events, political instability and civil unrest, both in the US and around the world. They were preceded by a rising tide of racism and white supremacism in the US, and symbiotically interconnected with escalating political instabilities in many other parts of the world, from the 2008 Occupy movements to the 2011 and 2018 Arab uprisings.

As Ive shown in myscientific monograph,Failing States, Collapsing Systems: Biophysical Triggers of Political Violence(Springer Energy Briefs, 2017), this rising trend in political unrest correlates intimately with the escalation in Earth system disruption: the intensification of climate chaos, the diminishing returns from ever-expanding resource extraction, the widening of structural inequalities, and the increasingly complex intertwined impacts on food, water, energy, and health systems.

What we are experiencing right now, this intensifying convergence of crises across multiple simultaneous points of systemic failure, is part of a deeper transitional process.

We are in the midst of a global phase shift, a great transition from one systemic configuration to another.

The outcome of this transition is undetermined, except for one thing: the previous systemic configuration is in decline, and will not survive this century.

Clear economic and biophysical signals of this decline are legion, as long as one is brave enough to acknowledge them.

Prior to the pandemic, we were wildly spearheading near-exponential increases inenergy consumption,public debt,population growth,greenhouse gas emissions, andspecies extinctions. But this exponential growth has brought diminishing returns, which can be understood through the scientific concept of Energy Return on Investment (EROI).

The metric, pioneered by systems ecologist Professor Charles Hall of the State University of New Yorks College of Environmental Science and Forestry, is the foundation of the emerging discipline of biophysical economics.

EROI is designed to measure how much energy is needed to extract energy from a particular resource. Whats left is known as surplus net energy, which we can use to support goods and services in the economy outside the energy system. The higher the ratio, the more surplus energy is left for the economy. Over the last decades, that surplus has run increasingly thin.

In the early twentieth century, the EROI of fossil fuels was sometimes as high as 100:1. This means that a single unit of energy would be enough to extract a hundred times that amount. But since then, the EROI of fossil fuels hasdramatically reduced. Between 1960 and 1980, the world average value EROI for fossil fuelsdeclinedby more than half, from about 35:1 to 15:1. Itsstill declining, with latest estimates putting the value at between 6:1 and 3:1.

As we use more and more energy just to extract energy from our resource base, we are left with less net energy to support financing of public goods and services. This has acted as abackground brakeon the rate of economic growth for the worlds advanced industrial economies, which hasalso declinedsince the 1970s. In other words, industrial civilization is overshooting its own fossil fuel energy base, and as a result the economy is running out of steam. Everyone is feeling the squeeze, but the first people to do so at the highest intensities are Black people and minorities.

According to Professor Mauro Bonaiuti, an economist at the University of Turin in Italy, mainstream economics hasfailed to accountfor these key biophysical underpinnings of the economy: material flows are dependent on energy. Since the 1970s, industrial societies have been in a phase of declining returns, he argues, measured across GDP growth, EROI, along with labour and manufacturing productivity.

To make up the shortfall, Bonauiti argues, we have kept the economy growing based on accelerated levels of debt. After the 2008 financial crash, a massive program of quantitative easing (QE) drove global debt even higher than pre-crash levels barely sustaining a much slower level of GDP growth. But the scale of debt keeping the industrial machine chugging along far outweighs our energy resource base. At some point, he warned, this unsustainable heyday was bound to grind to a halt.

These dynamics have made the economics of oil particularly unsustainable. In 2005, conventional crude oil entereda long plateau. To meet growing economic demand the industry shifted to more expensive unconventional forms. Since then, US shale supplied some 71.4 percent ofglobal oil supply growth.

In February, as much of the world was sleepwalking into the COVID-19 pandemic, the Geological Survey of Finland a Finnish government agency overseeing the EUs mineral resource modelling publisheda comprehensive study. Although there is plenty of oil left, it is increasingly expensive to access, the report warned. Record shale oil production came at higher costs and declining well productivity. Most shale oil companies faced negative cash flow, compensated for by drawing down billions of dollars of unrepayable debt. The pandemic was a pin that burst this oil bubble.

Its not clear that this bubble can reinflate, but even if it can, doing so threatens the environment, and undermines the economy by requiring more unsustainable debt-expansion.

This is what planetary overshoot looks like from an energy perspective.

All this data begins to make sense when viewed inthe context of the life cycle of ecological systems, as defined pre-eminently by the late ecologist CS Holling who identified four stages in the growth and decline of a system, which we can apply to industrial civilization.

The first stage isgrowth. Industrial civilization has experienced its most rapid period of growth over around 200 years or so from the nineteenth century until the late twentieth century. But this growth stage did not begin in the nineteenth century. If we use thedataput forward by Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin, the crucial moment began in the 1600s, coinciding with the colonization of the Americas, and the emergence of trans-Atlantic slavery.

The second stage ofconservation during which a system self-consolidates reaching a phase of stability appeared shortly after the Second World War. It reached its strongest point of stasis between 1970 and the early 2000s, but even within this period, the seeds of decline began to be detectable in the slow-down in growth rates and many other trends.

During this conservation stage, the structural racism of the preceding centuries experienced degrees of rehabilitation and reconfiguration, as the systems expansion generated new arenas of conflict. The pressures and demands of industrial capitalist growth played key roles in the transition away from slavery toward new forms of wage-labour organization, with a need to absorb Black people and minorities into the circuits of fossil fuel-dependent capital accumulation in new ways. The combination of mass struggles with internal socio-economic and cultural changes helped drive the concessional legislative victories of the civil rights movements of the 1960s.

By the 1990s, the Otherizing dynamics of the expanding system were focused increasingly on external rather than internal enemies. The system shifted from theexaggeratedthreat of external Communists, toward making sense of the increasing geopolitical fractures across key areas in the Muslim world from the Middle East to Central Asia where the worlds largest reserves of fossil fuels can be found.

At some point in the twenty-first century, we began to enter Hollings third stage, thereleasephase a period of uncertainty and chaos as the system begins to decline. The weakening of the global system is visible most clearly in the mounting evidence of Earth system disruption, but is particularly conspicuous in the systems inability to sustain the material growth rates that brought its current structures into existence.

As Earth system crisis has accelerated, it has increasingly destabilized the human systems we have taken for granted in recent decades during the previous relatively stable conservation phase.

One of the most obvious dynamics we are seeing in this release phase is the heightening of Otherization through the stale, broken lens of national security: instead of recognizing the sequence of crises asa global systemic crisis, our institutions built from the sinews of slavery and empire are focused instead onsymptoms, on the upheaval ofpeoples, on the unravelling ofnations, on the weakening ofthe liberal order, and how thesethreaten the power relations that enable business-as-usual; so the locus of response is not system change, but escalating violence to crush those visible surface symptoms, those peoples, those nations, that liberal order, to defend the business-as-usual that seemed to be working so wonderfully a few decades ago.

As we are entering deeper into the release phase, human system destabilization is accelerating these Otherizing dynamics. One of its outcomes is the eruption, thelaying bare, of: the structural racism at the heart of this system; the increasing unbearableness of the consequences of this racism; and the tremendous, latent violence on which this system is premised.

Yet there is another dimension of the release stage that is crucial to recall. As the prevailing system declines, breaks down, weakens, elicits the unleashing of rage and angst, this very process of weakening creates a clearing of systemic uncertainty. That systemic uncertainty opens up new possibilities for change, where small perturbations in the system can have deep impacts in a way they could not do during the first and second phases of growth and conservation.

This is what I call theglobal phase shift. This is the transition point where small, local actions can have wider, accumulative, system-wide effects. This is the moment where each of our choices has a momentous, history-forging potential.

Because we are at the cusp of what Holling saw as a fourth stage in the life cycle of a system:reorganization.

As we move toward this fourth stage in the last stages of the life cycle of industrial civilization, the choices each of us make during the global phase shift play an integral role in determining the structures, values, behavioural patterns, and relationships of an emergent system, which will then form the basis of a new systemic life cycle for human civilization.

The decisions we make right now will plant the seeds for the task of rebuilding, redesigning, and recreating the next life cycle for our species.

Original post:

White Supremacism and the Earth System - Resilience

To the editor,

Yesterday at the Black Lives Matter protest in San Luis Obispo, California I was proud to stand in solidarity with black and brown people. It felt good to be a part of a movement with thousands of people standing up for justice. The speakers for Race Matters in SLO told us that they had worked with police so that they wouldnt wear riot gear near the protestors. At first, this seemed like a step in the right direction. As we marched I only saw cops on bikes in their normal uniform. However, as we turned away from the entrance of the freeway, it was clear that a large group of men in military riot gear were blocking the entrance to the freeway. The police were willing to meet the demands of the people only superficially. We were allowed to walk in a circle and not encounter riot gear, but if we had moved out of the permitted area, would we have been met with peace? These are the same police that tear-gassed peaceful protestors days before.

I also became disheartened as the speakers articulated their calls to action. The speakers asked us to vote, to read the book White Fragility and to meet with lawmakers. However, the biggest ask was to examine the racism in our own hearts.

Well, this is me examining the racism in my heart and also scrutinizing those calls to action.

I have family members who hold racist beliefs. Ive tried to talk to them about it and I have been outspoken. Sometimes there has been progress and sometimes not. But what if I was successful? What if every single one of my racist family members had a change of heart? Would that be successful in stopping the police brutality towards black, brown, and poor people?

We have been told that the battle against racism is one that occurs internally. While that work is important, it is also secondary. Changing hearts and minds is not enough. The hearts and minds of the people stood together against Trump during the Womens March, but did that do anything to actually stop Trumps action? Does putting a Resist sticker on a car bumper do anything to enact meaningful change? Honestly, Trump didnt give a shit that we set our hearts and minds against him.

So then, what is enough? What will actually bring about change in police brutality? I think in order to answer that question it is important to examine the actual reasons for the racist systems we have in place in America.

Mass genocide and exploitation in the Americas began with the white explorers and colonists brutality towards Native American people. Entire populations of indigenous people were wiped out by the white mans violence and disease. In school, we learn about the horrific massacre of indigenous people more now than we did a decade ago, but we still fail to examine the motivations for that genocide. White settlers werent just assholes with corrupt hearts and minds that wanted to inflict pain on Native people. They were assholes with corrupt hearts, but that internal violence was a product of their primary motivations: money, power, and capital. The explorers came to the Americas with the express purpose of enriching themselves and expanding the power of their nations. The greed of the explorers and the racism that festered in their hearts are intrinsically linked to one another.

The exact same motivations can be found in the enslavement of black people in the Americas. White people were not motivated by an innate desire to inflict pain on black people, they were motivated by a desire to make money and expand their personal power. In order to profit through agriculture in the South and in order to live luxurious lifestyles in the North, white people exploited the labor of black people. Although the exploitation of black people was present all across America, the Souths entire economic structure depended on the work of enslaved people in the fields. It is no surprise then that abolitionist movements started in the North, where the economic system was not directly dependent on the exploitation of labor. So how did racism play a role in this exploitation of human life? The racism in peoples hearts grew out of a justification for the brutality towards black people. White people cannot watch, or participate in, the beating, the rape, the lynching of another human being and not scramble cognitively for a justification of that violence. The justification must be that the person experiencing that violence is somehow less human and therefore less deserving of sympathy. The racism that grew, and continues to grow, in peoples hearts was a way of justifying the violence and dehumanization necessary for the exploitation of labor.

The 13th Amendment, which codified the end of slavery in the United States had one glaring exception. Slavery was prohibited except by punishment of a crime. Logically it is easy to dehumanize people who have committed crimes and justify their exploitation. It is no surprise that since end of slavery, incarceration levels have skyrocketed. We know that black and brown people are incarcerated at much higher levels than white people. Biden and other lawmakers wrote the Crime Bill in 1994 which extended the amount of time people were held in prisons. What was the reason for the exception in the 13th Amendment? What is the motivation for sending people to prison for longer? We know that prisons are overflowing and are extremely expensive for the taxpayer, so what could the benefit possibly be? According to the International Labor Organization, in 20002011 wages in American prisons ranged between $0.23 and $1.15 an hour. People in prison do not have the right to demand a living wage and can essentially be used as slaves in order to expand the profits of the rich and powerful. Again, upon inspection, it is clear that our prison system has grown out of the exploitation of labor.

Police are an integral part of maintaining a large prison system and therefore a large labor pool for exploitation. Many black people that were arrested decades ago for minor drug offenses have spent their lives in prisons. Recidivism rates, the tendency of someone convicted of a crime to be arrested again, across the country are extremely high. When you understand that it is the job of police to provide a large pool of people for labor exploitation, you understand that reforms to police are not enough. The Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 showed that when you task someone with the exploitation and subjugation of another person, it inevitably leads to abuse of power and violence. Having black and brown people in the police force will not stop the abuses. As long as the system is designed to provide labor for exploitation, police violence and brutality will continue.

Corporate Media and politicians play a major role in the continuation of this exploitation. I have yet to see a major news outlet show footage of police brutalizing peaceful protestors. The majority of the footage attempts to portray the protestors in a negative light. There is footage of fires and looting and possibly police brutalizing the press, but there is an unspoken agreement that the police brutality towards the protestors is less important than the destruction of property. This is not an accident. The corporate media benefits from the police protecting property. The main discussion between supporters and critics of the protest ultimately is centered around comparing looting and the destruction of property to the assault and murder of people. Take a moment and reflect on that. As a country, we are seriously asking ourselves if we care more about property or more about human life.

Politicians have largely failed to respond in any meaningful way. Republicans in general seem to side with the police and encourage the use of military weapons and tear gas against the people. Democrats, on the other hand, have been deploying the National Guard against their own constituents. Some of the most horrific abuse of protestors has happened in New York and Lost Angeles, blue cities that are in blue states. The Democratic platform advocates for small, incremental changes to the system as the solution. Those small changes, like banning police knee-holds, may seem positive at first glance, but upon closer inspection, they are even more insidious than the Republicans outright and honest violence against black and brown people. Those small changes fail to address the underlying problem that in our country we prioritize property over human life. However, achieving those small changes allows well-intentioned people to feel good about themselves, feel like theyve done something good, and relax back into complacency. President Clinton, President Obama, Governor Gavin Newsom, Governor Cuomo, Mayor De Blasio, Mayor Garcetti, Mayor Heidi Harmon, and other Democratic politicians have betrayed the public by diverting good intentions and the desire for meaningful change into fangless calls for self-reflection and incrementalism. There was a call to have more black and brown representations in politics and corporations. While again, that is a well-intentioned call to action, it ultimately fails to address the underlying systemic racism that causes police brutality. Having black and brown politicians and CEOs cannot and will not stop the exploitation of labor.

We cannot expect rules in a rule book to be enough to stop police brutality. We cannot expect a vote for a capitalist with nicer rhetoric to end the exploitation of labor. We cannot be content with conciliatory gestures or words. We cannot do the work within ourselves, but fail to do the work in the world around us.

The actions that need to be taken involve the dismantling of the capitalistic system that prioritizes profit over human life.

I understand that racism exists in each and every one of our hearts and minds. The work to recognize it is so important. But if we dont address the root cause of that racism, which is the continued oppression and exploitation of people, our minds will inevitably find ways to justify the continued violence. White minds will look for reasons for the violence towards black and brown people. Rich minds will look for the reasons for violence towards the poor, unemployed, unhoused and working class. This expands beyond the racism against black people. It includes the exploitation of undocumented workers, the colonization of Native Americans, the exploitation of Burmese factory workers, the persecution of the Rohingya, the drone bombing of Syrians, the invasion and massacre of Iraqi and Afghani people and many more atrocities. All of these evil acts have the same motivations: money, power, capital.

Cora KaramitsosPaso Robles

Editors note:Letters to the editorare personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Paso Robles Daily News or its staff. We welcome letters from local residents regarding relevant local topics. To submit one,click here.

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See the article here:

Letter: Changing hearts and minds about racism is not enough - Paso Robles Daily News

In late 2019, Sara Mokuria, associate director for leadership initiatives with The Institute for Urban Policy Research at the UTD and a co-founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality, helped organize a new network of activists under the name Our City Our Budget. The group advocated for including funding for a handful of deceptively simple programs in the 2019-2020 Dallas municipal budget.

At the time, the Dallas City Council, spooked by a record spike in crime, was promoting what they called a public safety budget. But Mokuria believed that directing money to the very programs the city planned to cut to afford more police officersparks, rec centers, homeless serviceswould have a better impact on public safety. We think we should be having an anti-poverty budget, not a public safety budget, Mokuria said at the time. And truly, an anti-poverty budget is a public safety budget. When you invest in the people, you dont have to police them.

In recent weeks, Mokuria has become one of a handful of prominent voices that have emerged from the protest movement to advance the call to defund or dismantle the police department. And while these words have quickly become weaponized to promote polarization around the issue of police reform, they arent new ideas in Dallas. Activists like Mokuria have been advocating for them for years. They represent a desire to change the publics perception about the role of policing in America, to recognize that pouring money into an increasingly militarized police force doesnt reduce crime; it does, however, terrorize many communities of color.

Defunding the police, Mokuria says, is simply a process of reallocating the citys resources toward programs and departments that are better suited at addressing the instability, inequality, and degradation that contribute to crime. It means no longer trying to address all of the citys problems by dumping more money into the police department, and instead funding mental health, drug addiction treatment, and better schools. Defunding is investing in cleanup of environmental racism, Mokuria says. It is addressing the housing crisis.

Perhaps the person who best articulated the need to defund the police was, somewhat ironically, former Dallas Police Chief David Brown. In the wake of the 2016 police shootings, Brown acknowledged that the tension between the police and the community is a result of a system that pretends that the police are the solution to too many societal problems.

Every societal failure, we put it on the cops to solve, Brown said. Not enough mental health funding, let the cop handle it. Not enough drug addiction funding, lets give it to the cops. Here in Dallas we have a loose dog problem. Lets have the cops chase loose dogs. Schools fail, give it to the cops. Seventy-percent of the African American community is being raised by single women, lets give it to the cops to solve as well. Thats too much to ask. Policing was never meant to solve all those problems. I just ask other parts of our democracy along with the free press to help us.

There are communities around the country that have already begun to address this over-reliance on police, most notably Camden, New Jersey, which has received a lot of attention as protests around the country have raised the volume on the call for a new approach to law enforcement. Camdens hand was forced by a budget crisis. In 2013, Camden ran out of the public funds necessary to chase the endless cycle of hiring more police to solve crime. Instead, they dissolved their police department and partnered with the county to establish a new law enforcement organization, which allowed the city to rewrite the rules around policing. They adopted an 18-page use-of-force policy and instituted stricter rules governing officer behavior. Excessive force complaints have since dropped by 95 percent.

Camden is not necessarily a model for Dallas, but it is an example of how it is possible to rethink policing and the roles we expect police officers to perform. Part of that rethinking needs to acknowledge that the modern police force is a relatively new historical invention, with roots that stretch back to armed guards used by the British to enforce colonial rule in Ireland, as well as armed bands that enforced slavery in the American South. This history sets a framework that understands law enforcement as an agent of population control, not population protection.

Rev. Dr. Michael Waters, senior pastor at Abundant Life A.M.E. church in Dolphin Heights, says the move to defund policing simply means recognizing that the disproportionate amount of funding Dallas pours into policing does not produce the results the city desires.

I think most reasonable persons are saying, You know what? We may not need that tank that we buy every other year, Waters says. Maybe the millions that are spent on a tank will be better served and providing resources to young people will be better served and addressing issues of housing or healthcare, providing jobs that provide not a minimum wage, but a living wage. (Actually, a lot of that military equipment has been given for free to police departments, which is part of the problem.)

There is a growing indication that this message is getting through to policymakers. Yesterday, 10 of 14 Dallas city council members signed a memo requesting that City Manager T.C. Broadnax include options for shifting funding away from the public safety budget and toward community programs that address underlying issues like poverty, education, and jobs in the upcoming budget process. Thats a remarkable shift since last year, when Mokuria and her fellow advocates struggled to be heard at City Hall. What changed? Simple, Waters says. Protests work.

We saw that even in the civil rights movement, Waters says. It was public protest that provided an opportunity to get to the negotiation table to bring about change, or it was public protest that ultimately enabled courts to take action.

Even as the Council proposes reforms, the protests will continue. Organizers recognize that direct action is helping to advance the push for reform, but the protests will also be sustained by their own organic nature. Long-term organizers have been struck by the sheer numbers of groups that have entered the space in recent weeks and the organizing in the suburbs, in particular. They suspect that some of the new groups were incubated on college campuses or have crossed over from other activist networks, such as the environmental movement. The examples of direct action have been variedfrom traditional marches to car rallies at local jails, banners hanging off overpasses to a temporary shutdown of Central Expresswaybut the message has been unified: defund or dismantle the police.

But even with council members expressing a newfound openness to this call for action, yesterdays memo also points to one of the underlying, systemic issues that inhibit Dallas ability to reform. Council members wrote to the Dallas city manager because he oversees the citys staff, which is tasked with creating the budget each year. That budget is then presented to the Council, which brings the recommendations to the community in a series of public meetings.

These meetings are often performative and lack substantial opportunities for feedback, collaboration, or revision from the community. In addition, staff often skillfully ties the hands of council representatives, making it difficult to make many meaningful adjustments to the budget based on what they hear from their constituents. As a result, not only is it difficult for communities to effect change, but it is easy for outside influence to work through staff and individual council members to protect business as usual at City Hall.

Thats why Mokuria wants to see more than just council members politely asking the city manger to throw the police reform movement a bone. To truly reform Dallas policing, she argues, you have to reform how Dallas sets its budget.

Ideally there would be an open and transparent and collaborative budget process at the city level, Mokuria says. In that process there is no holy grail. For too long we have not been able to touch public safety. Not allowed to take away from 60 percent of the budget. I dont think that is a fair and democratic process.

Mokuria would like the city move to a more participatory budgeting model, in which funding priorities are directed by communities, not city staff a way to budget that allows ideas to rise from the bottom up, not the top down. Again, there are models for this, and a number of cities around the country have adopted some form of participatory budgeting.

Mokuria has already seen what this could look like in Dallas. During a community meeting last year in a southern Dallas neighborhood, a few elderly women were shocked by the talk of redirecting funds away from the police. They love the police, they said, because there was no one else they could turn to for help. The more the women spoke, the more it became clear that the service the police provided these women had nothing to do with law enforcement. They relied on police for handling simple chores they couldnt manage and even for occasional conversation to break up their lonely days.

It was an illustration both of Browns observation that we ask police to do too much, and the reason why so many people are afraid of the words defund or dismantle the police. Even as so many people fear the police, for many other people in Dallas, the police exist to provide a feeling of comfort.

At the meeting, a 12-year-old boy had an idea. Rather than ask the police to come over and help their elderly neighbors, why not take some of the money from the police department and hire some young men and women in the neighborhood to check in on the women a few times a week? They could help them with their groceries, pick up trash around the yard, talk to them.

It was such a simple ideasomething that would never have been raised by a city staff member or at a Council budget retreat. It was a seed of real change.

Excerpt from:

'Defunding' the Police Is Not a New Idea in Dallas, It's an Overdue One - D Magazine

The world is gaining a conscience and it is powerful.

Since the killing of George Floyd in America, people across the globe have expressed their outrage on the injustice against black people and protests have been taking place in all states across America and cities across the UK.

In Lincoln, a protest has taken place in solidarity with the Black Lives Movement and has since confirmed another protest to take place on the 20th of June. The University of Lincolns ACS has expressed its support for the Black Lives Matter Lincoln Movement on social media.

In an Instagram post, the African Caribbean society announced they were working closely with Lincolns Black Lives Matter Movement to bring real change and representation in your lives, university, and city

They continued to say, Silence is not an option. We have debated too long the role a uni society should play in these times and how to best represent you. But the answer for us was simple. We are not like any other society. The very soul of our community is entwined in the love, tears, and very struggle of Black lives around the world. If we do not celebrate the culture and identity that birthed us, who are we? If we do not stand up for our rights to exist, to fight the racist colonial system around the world in every form it takes- what do we stand for?? If your society doesnt speak out for its people, it doesnt deserve to exist. We ARE Black Lives. And we are with you.

From today we will work united and spread awareness of Lincolns BLM movement: activities, protest dates, social distancing info, donation links- everything. we will promote the love of our community, help and share your art and poetry, businesses and successes. We WILL provide education, access to academic texts, advice and healing in this difficult time and enable you to support yourselves and the movement in the best way you can.

Spread the word to your friends and other societies, these are historic times and we must unite and be heard. Change is coming like a storm.

View this post on Instagram

IMPORTANT In these historic times ACS are proud to announce we are working fully and closely with @blacklivesmatterlincoln to bring real change and representation in your lives, university, and city. Silence is not an option. We have debated too long the role a uni society should play in these times and how to best represent you. But the answer for us was simple. We are not like any other society. The very soul of our community is entwined in the love, tears, and very struggle of Black lives around the world. If we do not celebrate the culture and identity that birthed us, who are we? If we do not stand up for our rights to exist, to fight the racist colonial system around the world in every form it takes- what do we stand for?? If your society doesnt speak out for its people, it doesnt deserve to exist. We ARE Black Lives. And we are with you. From today we will work united and spread awareness of Lincolns BLM movement: activities, protest dates, social distancing info, donation links- everything. we will promote the love of our community, help and share your art and poetry, businesses and successes. We WILL provide education, access to academic texts, advice and healing in this difficult time and enable you to support yourselves and the movement in the best way you can. Spread the word to your friends and other societies, these are historic times and we must unite and be heard. Change is coming like a storm. Love to you all, stay powerful BLACK LIVES MATTER

A post shared by Lincoln ACS (@lincolnacs) on Jun 8, 2020 at 11:01am PDT

The Tab Lincoln spoke with Hector Yapp, the Education Officer of the committee on their plans to work with the SU and university in bringing about real change.

He told us, We have big plans to create long-lasting positive change for students. Ive just now come out of a talk with the SU who have greenlit a referendum we as a society created alongside our members, students, and members of the BLM and the community! If it passes it will allow a great deal of improvements.

For instance, we will overhaul Octobers Black History Month to not only allow new students and societies to better engage with the uni and SU, but encourage and provide proactive education on black history, current black affairs and British colonial history that will continue all year, more BAME scholarships and inter uni opportunities, and tackling discrimination in lectures and SU club nights through streamlines anonymous reporting availability of CCTV evidence. We also help to aid those not familiar with BLM/critics by providing a greater platform for alternative ideas so that we can all educate each other.

From top left to right: CJ Sampson, Charles Buckman, Hector Yapp, Emmanuel Hagan, Amen Idele and Princess Lauryn Tamou

Hector also shared the work they plan to do with Lincolns Black Lives Matter movement,

Alongside this, were working with Lincolns fantastic BLM movement and community to engage with everything from businesses to schools to help educate about racial issues and support each other. BLM causes include LGBT+ issues and education, employability skills and workers rights, intersectionality, support for local businesses, and celebration of culture to name a few. ACS sees it as imperative we support and hold to these ideals in order to create real lasting improvements both at uni and in the local and global community.

Were also using our social platform to provide petition links, donation pages, and information everything from on how to peacefully protest and social distance to important educational literature, to promoting local BAME businesses.

There has been a wave of protests up and down the country in solidarity with the BLM movement. Hector sees the protests as something beautiful. The black community has been joined by the world in a show of pure burning love and support and in strong solidarity against the deep-rooted colonial system that enforces systematic racism as well as misogyny, wage inequality, homophobia and more evils everywhere. The protests have changed how we see the current system and allowed us to search for better alternatives. We are witnessing living, breathing history.

Most notably, over the weekend a statue of slave-trader Colston was torn down and thrown into Bristol harbour and since then there have been calls for other statues to be taken down in and around the UK.

As for the statues, and notably critics complaining about history or the legality of the acts slavery was once legal, as was segregation. Legality is not inherently connected to morality. The historical value of these statues is suspect. Tearing down the statue in Bristol did more to educate the public about Colston than it ever did. Hitler is remembered for his evils, yet we do not celebrate his autobahns with a statue. These times will make people uncomfortable, but his means they are listening and can grow. People are getting educated, checking their friends and family, and ultimately improving as people. The world is gaining a conscience and it is powerful.

If you wanna talk about racist statues, maybe consider King George III in Lincoln

End of the Rhodes: Protestors fill the streets of Oxford calling for removal of statue

To recognise BLM, you have to recognise how you appropriate black culture every day

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'We are witnessing living, breathing history.': Lincoln's ACS society on the future in Lincoln - The Tab

An old adage says that tragedies often come in threes. Certainly, the first half of 2020 has seen a version of this. First, the coronavirus that has infected millions of people and killed hundreds of thousands. Second, the response by most governments to the virus by commanding near universal business lockdowns and stay-at-homes that have wrecked economic havoc on the world economy. And, third, the horrific killing of George Floyd, an unarmed and handcuffed black man in Minneapolis by a policeman, that has served as the catalyst for demonstrations against police abuse and charges of racism all around the world.

They are tragedies that, for the most part, have been man-made. Yes, the coronavirus has been a force of nature, though the verdict is still out on the actual origin of the virus and how it first entered the general population in Wuhan, China and then began to spread from one continent to another. But what has become fairly clear is the human factor in analyzing and forecasting its likely impact on the world population, which, in turn, highly influenced government responses to it.

British Professor Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College in London, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), offered modeling projections about the likely spread and effect of the virus on the world population that greatly influenced the British and many other governments decisions to order business shutdowns and stay-at-home social distancing lockdowns. Partly because of this advice, much of the worlds social and economic life came to a halt.

The only problem, it turned out, was that access to much of the basic data upon which he made his forecast was not readily available to other researchers, could not be easily replicated by other qualified scientists, and worked on the bizarre assumption that there would be little or no human reactive response to the dangers from the virus unless government command and control methods were introduced. Ferguson had to resign from most of his positions when it came to public light in early May that he had violated the very stay-at-home rules he advocated to have a tryst with his lover. His own poor role-modeling was added to his other modeling errors.

There is absolutely no doubt that the coronavirus confronts the world with a serious health problem due to the contagiousness of the virus, especially for those in older age categories and with a number of pre-conditions that lower their immune systems in various ways. The virus has also impacted disproportionately certain racial and ethnic groups, the full reasons and causes of which have not as yet been satisfactorily determined. I personally know people who have come down with the virus and seem to have successfully survived it, and people whose relatives have died from it, and not in the most pleasant ways.

But once it was clear that the coronavirus was a serious health matter, the issue then arose about what should be the role of government. We live in a world in which the first response to almost any social or economic problem or crisis is to immediately turn to the government for solutions and directing leadership. So, and not too surprisingly, the answer from governments have been nearly all one-size-fits-all central planning policies.

The results have been disastrous. Depending upon the projection, global economic growth for all of 2020 may end up declining anywhere between 2.2 percent to more than 8 percent. The volume of world trade for the year may decline somewhere between 13 percent to 32 percent. In the first quarter of 2020, aggregate working hours around the world decreased by 4.5 percent and may be down an additional 10.5 percent by the end of the second quarter of 2020.

Here in the United States, unemployment reached a high of 14.7 percent in April 2020, and declined to 13.3 percent in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly Employment Situation Report (June 5, 2020). According to the BLSs wider U-6 measure of unemployment (which also includes discouraged workers, those working part-time wanting full-time employment, and those marginally attached to the workforce), unemployment was 22.8 percent in April and 21.2 percent in May.

The hardest hit by falling employment were the young. For men, in general, 16 year or older, unemployment was 13.5 in April and 12.2 in May. But for males between 16 and 19 years old, unemployment for April and May, respectively, was 27.6 percent and 28.6 percent. For men 25 years or older the April and May unemployment numbers, respectively were 12.1 percent and 10.5 percent.

For women 16 years or older, the April unemployment number was 16. 2 percent and 14.5 percent in May. For women between 16 and 19 years old, the numbers, respectively, for April and May were 36.6 percent and 31.3 percent. For females 25 years and older, unemployment for April was 14.2 and 12.8 percent in May.

For black Americans, for both April and May unemployment was between 16.7 and 16.8 percent. This more or less applied for both male and female black Americans during both months. The unemployment rate was noticeably high for those classified as Hispanic or Latino, with unemployment rates in April and May, respectively, at 18.9 percent and 17. 6 percent. While for Hispanic men the unemployment rates were 16.7 percent and 15.1 percent, respectively, in April and May, for Hispanic females, the unemployment rate in April was 20.2 percent and for May, 19 percent. Asian-American unemployment in April and May of 2020 was, respectively, 14.5 and 15 percent.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in its Interim Economic Projection Report for 2020 and 2021(May 19,2020), Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined at an annualized rate of 4.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020, and is projected to possibly decrease at an annualized rate of more than 37 percent during the second quarter. GDP is projected to increase at annualized rates during the third and fourth quarters of the year of 21.5 percent and 10.4 percent, respectively, but still down for 2020 as a whole by 5.6 percent. In 2021, the CBO anticipates, GDP will grow by 4.2 percent. But it should be kept in mind that CBO forecasts and projections are often notorious off the mark.

No doubt the U.S. economy would have taken a hit in terms of output and employment even if the government had done nothing, due to the impact of the coronavirus. Yet the magnitude and depth of what has actually been experienced in declines in production and rises in unemployment have one and only one primary and singular source: the federal and especially state government-ordered shutdowns across the country.

If the political authorities command the stoppage or radical reduction in lines of production viewed by them as unessential; if they decree which retail businesses must close their doors or reduce their activities and are told what they may sell and during what times of the day; and if they dictate that tens of millions of ordinary citizens may not go to work or shop for anything not considered essential by the politicians and bureaucrats, the economy as a whole cannot do anything except go into the catastrophic tailspin that we have witnessed.

Most of the political pundits and economic policy know-it-alls were surprised and shocked when those May 2020 employment numbers were released by the BLS in early June and showed that 2.5 million jobs had returned in May once state governments began to at least partly release the almost blanket restrictions on private sector economic activity. What? Jobs can be created and exist without government command, control and direction? How can that be? We know that private enterprise does not work, dont we? Some even wondered if Donald Trump had tampered with the numbers at the BLS to make the impression of fake jobs.

Some of those same state governments also have on their hands the deaths of many of those who have died from the coronavirus as well as from other possibly treatable illnesses due to the way those politically in charge micro-mismanaged instructions and use of retirement and old-age care facilities, and the decisions on what other serious ailments had to be put on hold in terms of hospital visits and surgical operations. All because government knew best how to prepare for the expected number of cases due to the virus; projections and restrictions that have done great harm to many caught in the web of bureaucratic decisions, who might have been saved or treated sooner.

The idea that society which means all of us as interacting and interdependent individual human beings might be able to deal with the coronavirus crisis with little or no government involvement or interference has failed to even enter into almost any of the discussions and debates. But there was a time when it was generally assumed and taken for granted that answers to social problems were better left in the arenas of market supply and demand and the institutions of voluntary civil society.

In the 1970s, the noted American sociologist, Robert Nisbet (1913-1996), analyzed the Twilight of Authority (1975). Historically and culturally, authority referred to the voluntarily won and recognized and respected possession of useful and valued knowledge, experience, and trust on the basis of which others in society deferred to a particular persons judgment and wisdom. Human associations and authorities were local, voluntary, mutually assisting, and supporting. They are the essential and central elements to the spontaneous order of a free society.

Governments especially in the 20th century, Nisbet argued, increasingly replaced civil society and its associations of voluntary authority and collaborative assistance in everyday affairs, as well as in times of hardship and emergency. The real and proper meaning of community in the voluntary, associative and market-based sense, has been replaced with political command and control, Nisbet explained.

We are, Nisbet warned, prisoners in the House of Politics:

Of all the consequences of the steady politicization of our social order, of the unending centralization of political power . . . the greatest in many ways is the weakening and disappearance of traditions in which authority and liberty alike are anchored . . .

Of all the needs in this age the greatest is, I think, a recovery of the social, with its implication of the diversity of social membership, that in fact exists in human behavior, and the liberation of the idea of the social from the political . . . Crucial are the voluntary groups and associations. It is the element of the spontaneous, of untrammeled, unforced volition, that is undoubtedly vital to creative relationships among individuals . . .

Voluntary associations have an importance well beyond what they do directly for their individual members. Most of the functions which are today lodged either in the state or in great formal organizations came into existence in the first place in the context of largely voluntary association. This is true of mutual aid in all its forms education, socialization, social security, recreation, and the like . . . It is in the context of such [voluntary] association, in short, that most steps in social progress have taken place. (pp. 241 & 270-271)

How much different and better, in my opinion, would be the world, including American society, if government was limited to its essential responsibilities of protecting each individuals right to his life, liberty, and honestly acquired property from domestic thieves and foreign aggressors directly threatening or attacking American territory and lives.

Nisbet added that, Pluralist society is free society exactly in proportion to its ability to protect as large a domain as possible that is governed by the informal, spontaneous, custom-derived and tradition-sanctioned habits of the mind rather than by the dictates, however, rationalized, by government and judiciary.

Yes, custom and tradition can be burdensome and may even seem oppressive to the free thinker and to the peaceful eccentric and Bohemian. But all custom and tradition really mean are the rules of interpersonal conduct and judgment that have emerged and evolved over the generations to establish non-coercive but influential procedures and standards for purposes of harmonious human cooperation and association and personal conduct.

And as disagreeable as some customs and traditions may sometimes seem, they can be ignored, disagreed with, and challenged, even if, sometimes, there are personal costs of going against the socially taken for granted and expected. But these can be far lower costs, in the longer run, than having to go against the coercively imposed and dictated commands and controls of government and its agents.

The voluntary institutions of civil society, both inside and outside of the marketplace, offer the adaptive and creative avenues to set to work as many minds as possible to solve the problems confronting society, including pandemics, rather than restricting the possible to what the minds of those in political positions of authority can image or appreciate. (See my articles, To Kill Markets is the Worst Possible Plan and Leaving People Alone is the Best Way to Beat the Coronavirus.)

And in a way, this gets us to the third of these recent tragedies, the murder of George Floyd and the public responses to it. On May 25, 2020, a store owner in Minneapolis, Minnesota called the police when he suspected that Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old black man tried to pass what the owner believed was a counterfeit $20 bill. After Mr. Floyd had been gotten on the ground, in handcuffs behind his back, a police officer proceeded to press his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes, during which Mr. Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe and asked not to be killed.

Pleas by bystanders who were videotaping the incident for the officer to take the pressure off his neck was to no avail, nor did other police officers directly nearby attempt to intervene. He was pronounced dead after finally arriving at a hospital.

This event has set off a huge response both in the United States and many other parts of the world, where mass demonstrations, mostly peaceful and some violent and destructive, against perceived police abuses of those arrested and taken into custody. Demands have been made for changes in police procedures concerning various methods of subduing a suspect and to restrict or abolish the partial immunity that law enforcement agents have against civil or criminal cases concerning their conduct in their professional duties.

All of these would, no doubt, be all to the good. It will remind police officers, who may have a tendency to forget with their legal authority to use force against members of the citizenry, that they are servants and not masters. Rule of law means no one, including police representatives of government, are above or outside the law and its procedures and restraints, which are meant to assure that everyone in society is secure from arbitrary and unwarranted abuses of their persons or property.

Some have also called for reducing police department budgets as a way of choking off the funds that are potentially misused in law enforcement activities. In my view, one way of making some of those funds unnecessary is to end the frequent sale of surplus military equipment to local police forces. This psychologically and sometimes in practice militarizes what is meant to be civil techniques of policing and law enforcement.

Another law enforcement tool that should be abolished is asset forfeiture practices that enable the police on very often arbitrary and unsubstantiated suspicions to seize on the spot cash money being carried by someone in their car who has been pulled over, or confiscating homes, bank accounts, and other real property with the accused not being presumed innocent until proven guilty. Indeed, the dispossessed finds himself having to prove his innocence through a labyrinth of costly legal procedures that give no guarantee that any or all of his money and other property will be returned, even if the courts find in his favor at the end of the day.

Also central to the frequency of misuses and abuses of law enforcement is the war on drugs. The criminalization of the growing, manufacture, and selling and buying of various substances considered socially harmful by government agencies has unjustifiably swelled the prison population, rationalized the abridgement of many peoples privacy, and created vast black market networks that spawn violence, corruption, and hypocrisy in respect for and obedience to the law.

We need to take to heart what the 19th century libertarian, Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) pointed out, that Vices are Not Crimes (1874). In a free society, when our friends, family members, or fellow citizens act in ways that we consider harmful or detrimental to themselves, the moral method of guiding them in better directions and ways of living is reason, persuasion, and the example of our own lives.

As Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises expressed it in Liberalism (1927): A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police (p. 33).

Some estimates say that nearly 50 percent of all those being held in federal prisons are there for drug-related offenses. If drug-criminalizing laws were repealed from the federal and state-level legal statutes, the dollar savings would be huge, policing budgets could be revised downwards, and it would radically reduce the frequency and types of police actions against members of society.

These types of legal and law enforcement reforms would dramatically transform the culture and practice of policing in the United States and would narrow the reasons and rationales for anyone to be of interest to and the target of police intervention into their lives. In other words, as Robert Nisbet said, we need to radically depoliticize as many corners of society as possible, by decriminalizing social life.

But the demonstrations that have followed the murder of George Floyd are not focused only or even primarily on police abuses, in general. The drive behind them is the concern that many in society have about racist attitudes and actions against minorities and especially black Americans.

It should be obvious to anyone even vaguely familiar with U.S. history that the most egregious blight across the land well into the 19th century was the institution of slavery. Millions of human beings were transported from Africa to the Americas in the 17th and 18th and even into the 19th century to serve as slave labor. Stolen from their homelands, brutalized by the slave traders who were, themselves, Africans as well as Arabs and Europeans, they were transported by ship in despicable conditions, and then sold and set to work for life, and that of their childrens lives, at the arbitrary control and command of those who had bought them.

Even after the Civil War and the formal end to slavery through Constitutional Amendment, the black man rarely could consider this fully his rightful and recognized home. In the North, where slavery had been ended in the early years of the 19th century, the free black was far too often ostracized, shunned, and discriminated against in terms of work and opportunity.

Not long after the Reconstruction period and the withdrawal of Union troops from the Southern states, white-controlled Southern state governments introduced segregation laws that legally reduced blacks to politically, socially, and economically second- if not third-class citizens. Well past the middle of the 20th century, far too many Americans of African descent were treated as not being fully part of the country into which they had been born. The Jim Crow laws made that clear each and every day in humiliating ways, particularly in the South. (See my article, George S. Schuyler, Anti-Racist Champion of Liberty.)

While it is very far from politically correct to say it, 2020 is not 1920 or 1940 or 1960. There may be racial prejudices by individuals inside and outside the business world. Some white people may not look at black Americans with the same innocuousness in which they notice whether someone is blond, brunette or redhead. But to say or insist that the United States is the same racist society that it was fifty years ago, or seventy-five or a hundred years ago is to possess little or no historical knowledge or context.

I am old enough to remember seeing as a small boy the television news of dogs and water hoses being turned on civil rights demonstrators in Southern states to prevent equal rights before the law for blacks in that part of the country; of church bombings and freedom riders being killed.

I remember going to a movie theater in 1971 to see the movie Shaft, in which actor, Richard Roundtree, plays a black private detective who, oh, no! has a scene with a white woman in the shower. That was considered to be a statement at the time. Fast-forward to 2015 to 2018, when the television show Scandal aired on American television, starring black actress Kerry Washington, who has sexual affairs with two white men almost at the same time, and one of them is supposed to be president of the United States. The public reaction? A yawn. Except for a small minority of stupid and ignorant people, nobody cares about these things anymore. Or interracial marriage or if a black man is elected president of the United States.

The vast, vast majority of white people dont care anymore who works next to them, or takes a swim in the same pool, or has dinner at the same restaurant or lunch counter or sits next to them at a sports event. Is America a color-blind society? Of course not. But America today, and most white peoples attitudes about black Americans, is light-years away from the 1950s or 1960s or 1970s or 1980s.

I am white. I live among a lot of white people. I talk to white people of a variety of socio-economic backgrounds, educational levels, and social standings. Guess what? Except when brutal acts like the murder of George Floyd occur or the murdering of nine blacks in a church by a white racist like happened in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015, for instance, the vast majority of whites do not express or verbalize any negative concerns about or thoughts on race and racial matters.

If anything, the large majority of whites attempt to be consciously open, differential, and supportive toward black Americans in various social and economic settings. Now this, in itself, of course, could be taken as a demonstration of a race consciousness among whites. But to the extent that this is the case, the question is, why?

If it exists, I would suggest, it does so for at least two reasons. First, the media, political groups, and progressive ideologues constantly and continuously insist that we must think along racial lines because America is presumed to be a racist society. So how can people not be pushed into thinking about each other in black and white terms when it is yelled in your ears that they are racist and have to be aware of your racism, even if they are not racist and you do all that you can as a person to treat and look upon others simply as individuals?

But what about those people who feel or believe that there is racism and racist behavior all around them? In my view, this shows how much of reality is really a state of mind. If someone thinks that a witch doctor pushing a pin into a doll will cause them pain, then, sometimes, the mind plays tricks and you can think you are experiencing pain seeing the pin pushed into the doll.

If every glance taken, if every word spoken, if every action made, if every event, near or far, is presumed to be inescapably embedded with racial and racist meaning, then you will consider everything in the world to be race and racist-based. When a Nazi in 1930s Germany considered that every misfortune suffered by the German people was caused by the Jews among them, and that the only way to overcome this was to get rid of the Jews, did that, in reality, make it so? But if enough people believe things that are objectively not correct or not connected, but act anyway upon their erroneous states of mind, bad things can happen.

If race is constantly pushed into peoples consciousness, if they are told that human beings are not individuals with various accidents of birth, but inescapable creatures of their racial and ethnic birth, defined and determined by their tribal origin, and that politics shall dictate their life chances and opportunities, what can it result in other than a race consciousness that runs counter to the very philosophical principles and ideals upon which the United States was founded? (See my article, An Identity Politics Victory Would Mean the End to Liberty.)

The second reason that race has been raised to the level of awareness in America has to do with the modern interventionist-welfare state. Again, in my view, it has been the role of government in racial policies that has prevented more of an improvement in the economic and social standing of black Americans.

In the 19th and a good part of the 20th centuries, white labor unions were notorious, in many instances, in using their strike threat power to exclude members of the black community from entering various segments of, especially, the skilled labor market.

At the same time, minimum wage laws have also worked to price many unskilled minority workers out of the labor market. It has legally prevented a member of a racial minority from making himself more attractive to a potential employer by offering himself at a wage (marginally) lower than, say, a white worker. This has limited the ability for market incentives to undermine and reduce racial discrimination in the marketplace over time.

Having been driven out of potential labor market opportunities due to minimum wage laws, government regulations of business have also often made it too costly for low income and relatively unskilled members of the black community to start their own private enterprises. As a consequence, it has made enterprise and employment in illegal black markets more attractive in some minority communities.

Locked away in government subsidized housing and dependent on government welfare payments and in-kind benefits, dealing in the illegal drug market has seemed to too many as a way to escape from poverty through the making of easy money. It has also resulted in a disproportionately high incarceration rate among young black men, who then have prison records that add to the difficulty of later finding their way into a better economic life.

In other words, the interventionist-welfare state has served as a mechanism in spite of many, no doubt, with good intentions to keep far too many in the black community separate and unequal. It serves the interests of too many in political power, especially, but not solely on the left, that segments of the population view themselves as victims who only government can help; people whose votes may be relied upon, since forms of redistributive largess comes from those members of the political class, but which continues to keep those segments of the black community in perpetual dependency.

This has been reinforced, as I suggested, by the focus on identity politics by many on the political left. However imperfect in practice, the idea and ideal of America have been the uniqueness, dignity and respect for the individual, regardless of that persons accidents of birth or country of origin. I consider this philosophic and political principle of individualism to be the source and the basis of all the advancements and improvements in American society, including for a growing number of those who are of African descent.

However, people are being forced back into a new tribalism and a new racial and ethnic collectivism in the public arena due to the renewed insistence on group-think that is reinforced by a variety of government policies. It has ended up compelling people to think about others and themselves not in terms of whom they are as individual human beings, but about what racial, ethnic or gender group they belong to and what politically bestowed benefits or disadvantages come with that collectivist classification.

What also stands out throughout the American experience is that in spite of these anti-individualist cultural trends and economic policies, there has endured enough of the American spirit of individualism and practice of free enterprise that has more than anything else succeeded in being the great and good force for reducing many of the racial animosities and tensions that may continue to linger in our society.

Do not get me wrong. The behavior of some police forces and some policemen around the country has been deplorable in terms of a disregard for a color-blind respect and enforcement of peoples rights in many black communities. The political left feeds off highlighting these egregious acts of abuse of police power. But their worldview is based and dependent on the belief and insistence that race relations are as bad as or even worse than in the bad old days.

This is flagrantly not the case by any reasonable historical standard. But the political lefts agenda and policies are helping to make us a far more race-conscious society once again, which can only bring with it serious negative consequences for American society as a whole. And the tragic events of George Floyds murder has only made this even worse.

[Originally posted at the American Institute for Economic Research]

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Tragedies of Our Time: Pandemic, Planning, and Racial Politics - The Heartland Institute

Through the public health crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are witness to another massive tragedy of workers being abandoned by their employers and, above all, by the state. The workers right to go home was curbed using the Disaster Management Act, 2005. No provisions were made for their food, shelter, or medical relief. Wage payments were not ensured, and the states cash and food relief did not cover most workers.

Full coverage | Lockdown displaces lakhs of migrants

Staring at starvation, lakhs of workers started walking back home. Many died on the way. More than a month later, the Centre issued cryptic orders permitting their return to their home States. Immediately employer organisations lobbied to prevent the workers from leaving. Governments responded by delaying travel facilities for the workers to ensure uninterrupted supply of labour for employers.

Employers now want labour laws to be relaxed. The Uttar Pradesh government has issued an ordinance keeping in abeyance almost all labour statutes including laws on maternity benefits and gratuity; the Factories Act, 1948; the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; the Industrial Establishments (Standing Orders) Act, 1946; and the Trade Unions Act, 1926. Several States have exempted industries from complying with various provisions of laws. The Confederation of Indian Industry has suggested 12-hour work shifts and that governments issue directions to make workers join duty failing which the workers would face penal actions.

Thus, after an organised abandonment of the unorganised workforce, the employers want the state to reintroduce laissez-faire and a system of indenture for the organised workforce too. This will take away the protection conferred on organised labour by Parliament.

The move is reminiscent of the barbaric system of indentured labour introduced through the Bengal Regulations VII, 1819 for the British planters in Assam tea estates. Workers had to work under a five-year contract and desertion was made punishable. Later, the Transport of Native Labourers Act, 1863 was passed in Bengal which strengthened control of the employers and even enabled them to detain labourers in the district of employment and imprison them for six months. Bengal Act VI of 1865 was later passed to deploy Special Emigration Police to prevent labourers from leaving, and return them to the plantation after detention. What we are witnessing today bears a horrifying resemblance to what happened over 150 years ago in British India.

Also read | The face of exploitation

Factory workers too faced severe exploitation and were made to work 16-hour days for a pittance. Their protests led to the Factories Act of 1911 which introduced 12-hour work shifts. Yet, the low wages, arbitrary wage cuts and other harsh conditions forced workers into debt slavery.

The labour laws in India have emerged out of workers struggles, which were very much part of the freedom movement against oppressive colonial industrialists. Since the 1920s there were a series of strikes and agitations for better working conditions. Several trade unionists were arrested under the Defence of India Rules.

The workers demands were supported by our political leaders. Britain was forced to appoint the Royal Commission on Labour, which gave a report in 1935. The Government of India Act, 1935 enabled greater representation of Indians in law-making. This resulted in reforms, which are forerunners to the present labour enactments. The indentured plantation labour saw relief in the form of the Plantations Labour Act, 1951.

By a democratic legislative process, Parliament stepped in to protect labour. The Factories Act lays down eight-hour work shifts, with overtime wages, weekly offs, leave with wages and measures for health, hygiene and safety. The Industrial Disputes Act provides for workers participation to resolve wage and other disputes through negotiations so that strikes/lockouts, unjust retrenchments and dismissals are avoided. The Minimum Wages Act ensures wages below which it is not possible to subsist. These enactments further the Directive Principles of State Policy and protect the right to life and the right against exploitation under Articles 21 and 23. Trade unions have played critical roles in transforming the life of a worker from that of servitude to one of dignity. In the scheme of socio-economic justice the labour unions cannot be dispensed with.

The Hindu Explains|How can inter-State workers be protected?

The Supreme Court, in Glaxo Laboratories v. The Presiding Officer, Labour (1983), said this about the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946: In the days of laissez-faire when industrial relations was governed by the harsh weighted law of hire and fire, the management was the supreme master, the relationship being referable to a contract between unequals... The developing notions of social justice and the expanding horizon of socio-economic justice necessitated statutory protection to the unequal partner in the industry namely, those who invest blood and flesh against those who bring in capital... The movement was from status to contract, the contract being not left to be negotiated by two unequal persons but statutorily imposed.

Any move to undo these laws will push the workers a century backwards. Considering the underlying constitutional goals of these laws, Parliament did not delegate to the executive any blanket powers of exemption. Section 5 of the Factories Act empowers the State governments to exempt only in case of a public emergency, which is explained as a grave emergency whereby the security of India or any part of the territory thereof is threatened, whether by war or external aggression or internal disturbance. There is no such threat to the security of India now. Hours of work or holidays cannot be exempted even for public institutions. Section 36B of the Industrial Disputes Act enables exemption for a government industry only if provisions exist for investigations and settlements.

Also read | Are Indias labour laws too restrictive?

The orders of the State governments therefore lack statutory support. Labour is a concurrent subject in the Constitution and most pieces of labour legislation are Central enactments. The U.P. government has said that labour laws will not apply for the next three years. Even laws to protect basic human rights covering migrant workers, minimum wages, maternity benefits, gratuity, etc. have been suspended. How can a State government, in one fell swoop, nullify Central enactments? The Constitution does not envisage approval by the President of a State Ordinance which makes a whole slew of laws enacted by Parliament inoperable in the absence of corresponding legislations on the same subject.

Almost all labour contracts are now governed by statutes, settlements or adjudicated awards arrived through democratic processes in which labour has been accorded at least procedural equality. Such procedures ensure progress of a nation.

In Life Insurance Corporation v. D. J. Bahadur & Ors (1980), the Supreme Court highlighted that any changes in the conditions of service can be only through a democratic process of negotiations or legislation. Rejecting the Central governments attempt to unilaterally deny bonus, the Court said, fundamental errors can be avoided only by remembering fundamental values, as otherwise there would be a lawless hiatus.

Also read | RSS affiliate BMS to protest against labour laws suspension in U.P., M.P., Gujarat

The orders and ordinances issued by the State governments are undemocratic and unconstitutional. The existing conditions of labour will have to be continued. Let us not forget that global corporations had their origins in instruments of colonialism and their legacy was inherited by Indian capital post-Independence. The resurgence of such a colonial mindset is a danger to the society and the well-being of millions and puts at risk the health and safety of not only the workforce but their families too.

In the unequal bargaining power between capital and labour, regulatory laws provide a countervailing balance and ensure the dignity of labour. Governments have a constitutional duty to ensure just, humane conditions of work and maternity benefits. The health and strength of the workers cannot be abused by force of economic necessity. Labour laws are thus civilisational goals and cannot be trumped on the excuse of a pandemic.

R. Vaigai and Anna Mathew are advocates practising at the Madras High Court

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Stop the return to laissez-faire - The Hindu

Labor, land, capital and entrepreneurship underlie all economic activity, and all four are so profoundly intertwined that when one falters, the others stumble too.

Economists refer to these as the factors of production. To understand how the COVID-19 pandemic will impact the economy, all four need examination.

More than 30 million people have filed claims for unemployment insurance since our governments began ordering businesses shuttered in March. The world has never seen the labor force contract on such an enormous scale or at such a rapid pace.

Unemployment rates will soon reach the mid-teens. The $600 a week federal supplement for workers who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 will help, but the bigger problem is those who do not qualify. They will weigh heavily on the economy.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Abbotts decision to resume business is reasonable given Texas tragic limitations

Land value is typically a reflection of a propertys income potential, either from commercial activity or residential use. When companies close, they struggle to pay leases. When people lose jobs, they fall short when the rent or mortgage comes due. Land values of all kinds are in trouble.

Americas pessimism shows up in the residential housing market, where new home sales are down 15 percent, and housing starts are down 22 percent, the Census Bureau reports. Construction workers are losing jobs, which contributes to the downward cycle.

Fewer people shopping for homes means sellers cut prices. Personal wealth evaporates, and people spend less.

Brick-and-mortar stores, already closing due to e-commerce, are creating even larger holes in the retail market. Nieman Marcus, JC Penney and J. Crew are among dozens of retailers considering or filing for bankruptcy.

Smart mall owners have been recruiting new kinds of tenants, such as restaurants, movie theaters and gyms. But consumers now avoid those businesses for fear of COVID-19.

More than a quarter of Houstons office space is already empty, with an astonishing 61 million square feet of available and another 3.4 million under construction, the Greater Houston Partnership reports.

San Antonio has a 10 percent vacancy rate with 1.5 million square feet under construction, according to NAI Partners, a commercial real estate firm. But more companies are moving out than moving in, according to data from the first three months of the year.

Office building tenants are also laying off workers or asking many to work from home. Companies desperate to save money will likely shrink their floor space as much as possible.

Landlords and banks are doing what they can to help struggling families and businesses. Mortgage companies have given 7 percent of their clients permission to skip a payment. Commercial landlords are providing shuttered businesses breaks on rent.

Yet such generosity has long-term effects on property values, according to MSCI, a global financial data analysis firm. When landlords see reduced income from their property, appraisers mark down its value.

We often hear that were all in this together, but that goes beyond the risk of disease. We need to remember we also share the same economy, which depends on the flow of capital.

The government and the Federal Reserve recognize that unemployment, lost rents and lower property values compound one another to worsen economic recessions. They have injected capital into the markets to prevent a death spiral.

President Donald Trump and Congress have authorized $3.6 trillion in spending, while the Federal Reserve has announced $8.6 trillion in financial support. About 95 percent of the money is going to businesses.

Stock markets rally on news of every new program because they hope the cash will spur companies to rehire workers, who will pay their rent and buy more stuff. But so far, the unemployment numbers keep climbing, lines at food banks get longer, and the economy keeps shrinking.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Oil collapse signals long-running economic crisis for Texas

If the numbers do not turn, we may discover that governments cannot spend their way out of this recession. In some places, the problems are more fundamental. If people do not resume travel, Houstons energy economy will not recover, and San Antonios tourism industry cannot restart.

The coronavirus experience is changing businesses and economies in unpredictable ways. Our fourth factor, entrepreneurship, will make the difference.

Successful entrepreneurs identify a societal problem and create a business to solve it: the more problems, the more opportunities. As COVID-19 changes our lives and presents new challenges, entrepreneurs will profit from addressing them.

The Great Recession led millions to give up wage slavery and open new businesses. Most new companies will need real estate as they grow, hire laborers and build capital.

This is, of course, the business cycle. As long as humans survive, we will be in one, and therein lies endless hope and optimism.

Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy.

twitter.com/cltomlinson

chris.tomlinson@chron.com

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Tomlinson: Business cycle is diving, but it will bounce back - Houston Chronicle

For quite a while now, Ramadan comes handy as the Holy month of spiritual grounding or for what Farid Esack, the South African Scholar and former Commissioner for Gender Equality under Nelson Mandelas government called rootlessness with the communities, in his thought-for-food book entitled Finding a Religious Path in the World Today .

Of course my spiritual grounding during the month of mercy-seeking is in Kaduna, Ilorin and Makkah (in-that-order!). For over a decade , Ramadan offers an ample flight from work- overload, a kind of un-official holiday from the endless distractive work schedules that toss one from one part of the world to the other.It is pleasant to be over-employed in the age of massive unemployment and underemployment.

But are we to live to work or are we working to live and worship? We definitely need some balance, which often tilts in favor of work drudgery or what V.I Lenin, the 20th Bolshevik revolutionary, aptly called wage-slavery. Its been a battle to harmonize my spiritual calendar with religion-blind work erratic schedules.

I recall that last year, I started 2019 Ramadan in Brussels where I attended IndustriALL Congress Working Group and Executive Board Meetings from 19th May to 23rd May 2019 at ITUC Trade Union House. The then Nigerian Ambassador, Alhaji Ahmed Inusa, to Belgium hosted me and other Nigerian Muslim brothers to Iftar at his Brussels residence.

I had enjoined countless generous Nigerias consular services abroad, especially in Geneva which hosts the ILO, that harbors labour market Stakeholders all over the world annually. I often agonize about the prospects of Ramadan coming to an end, as one is again severed from the month of piety and serenity to the cult of matter, gluttony, noise making, work and the newest anti-faith, fake news . I deliberately refused to attend ILO conference every year, as the calendar of the UN agency increasingly falls into Ramadan. Luckily, last year the opening session of the ILO 108th centenary Conference held first week of June after the Ramadan.

Managing the spiritual and the secular had been my lot in the last three decades of work without rest.The point cannot be overstated: our world is (or should be) both spiritual and secular.

Any attempt to separate the two pushes us further into the abyss of ruination, material and spiritual poverty.Certainly not at times like this. COVID: 19 pandemic, which has hit 4,197,142 million mark cases with over 277,000 deaths worldwide, tasks our imagination for both spiritual and scientific reflections. For the past five months, globally religion, spirituality and science, rationality and epistemology make up the two sides of the same existential coin!

The pandemic theme runs through many Ramadan messages by religious and temporal leaders.President Muhammadu Buhari had congratulated all Muslims who witness this challenging years Ramadan fast. Some 150 have died, as many as 4651 are infected, 901 have recovered.

No thanks to the pandemic. But these are loved ones, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, not just Statistics. With aspirations distorted.

The President was on point in urging for measured socializing to avoid risking spreading the Coronavirus during the Holy month.

The real significance of Ramadan however is in its intrinsic values that include forbearances, discipline, mercy, forgiveness and sacrifice. Its one of the five pillars of Islam.First it is obligatory with defined exceptions and the discipline it imposes. Muslims certainly dont need sermons again on the imperative of personal hygiene (washing of hands) which we are enjoined to do before all prayers. I am often reminded of-the Islams pragmatism. It makes Ramadan fasting a loud social compulsion as distinct from a private affair.

And think about it .How difficult it would have been for individuals to live their spiritual doors open, by abstaining from food, drink, sex from dawn to sunset for a full moon month while others keep their spiritual doors shut and neck and body deep in indulgence.

Muslims live in a world of diverse faiths but it is remarkable that even at best of times, Muslims and non-Muslim alike (who are under no spiritual obligation to fast) still respect this spiritual/ social month long compulsion. COVID-19 has paradoxically made this years Ramadan a kind of universal compulsion in Nigeria.

All spiritual and temporal doors are widely open in the effort to overcome the challenge of the pandemic.The undercurrent lesson of Ramadan at the time of pandemic is the need for communal solidarity to cement our collective God consciousness so as to tame the spread of the Virus through prayers and wearing of face masks, washing of hands and respect for all public health protocols.

A Virus is defined as an ubiquitous piece of parasitic DNA. A cupful of seawater is said to contain more viruses than the entire human population of 8 billion.

Just imagine how many viruses would fill a bucket or are in the seven seas that encircle our globe! Interestingly, out of the trillions of viruses, God empowers only 219 viruses to target humans. And if one Virus could put the whole world on a tenterhooks just within four months as Coronavirus is audaciously rampaging, its better imagine if additional one Virus is on the loose. We have revealed the Quran in the month of Ramadan says Allah in the Quran, a guidance for humankind.

Thus let those who witness the month fast.As for others who may be ill or travelling, let them complete it some other time. Allah desires ease for you and not difficulty or discomfort (Q. 2:185) Kindly note that the Qurans injunction addresses point-blank humankind not race, tribe or class and the injunction is all inclusive.

The exclusion is on the compassionate practical and verifiable grounds of illness and travelling and not our artificially created purchasable status of first class or VIPs or distinguished or Honourables. I bear witness that throughout this month the difference would not be clear between the hitherto visible rich and the obviously miserable poor before the Ramadan.

We are daily erecting class society as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Does it dawn on us that the rampaging Virus is also class and race blind? It takes head on some governors no less it attacks some Almajiris? We are at liberty to keep on agonizing about the unproved conspiracy theory of its causes.

We can even fuel unhelpful controversies over its cures. What is undeniable is its indiscriminate borderless spread. COVID-19 has exposed the futility of our fortress mentality expressed in thousands of artificially contrived walls, from border wall between Israel and the West Bank to proposed Donald Trumps Mexico border wall. Its clear that solidarity not personalization would assist to contain the infections.

If so why the selective criminalization and feverish deportations of Almajiris to their states of origin? Whence the empathy during the month we are all seeking for Allahs mercy and at times like this in which an infection to all is a threat to all?

The mosques and churches are rightly under lock and keys.But days and nights men and women of faiths especially during the last ten days of Ramadan, are still seeking extra bonus from Allahs bagful of mercies to forgive our shortcomings and make us overcome the present afflictions.

Ramadan Kareem.

Issa Aremu, Member, National Institute, Kuru Jos

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Ramadan in Times Like This - THISDAY Newspapers

For decades, prisoners in American correctional facilities have worked for no wages or mere pennies an hour. As the United States attempts to reduce transmission of COVID-19, more than a dozen states are now relying on this captive labor force to manufacture personal protective equipment badly needed by health care workers and other frontline responders.

Prisoners in Missouri are currently earning between $0.30 and $0.71 an hour to produce hand sanitizer, toilet paper, and protective gowns that will be distributed across the state. In Louisiana, prisoners are making hand sanitizer for about $0.40 an hour. And in Arkansas, where incarcerated workers are producing cloth masks for prisoners, correctional officers, and other government workers, their labor is entirely uncompensated.

This unprecedented health emergency is re-exposing how our countrys long-held practice of paying nothing or next-to-nothing for incarcerated labor, with no labor protections, is akin to modern-day slavery.

Prisoners are not protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal law establishing minimum wage and overtime pay eligibility for both private sector and government workers. In 1993, a federal appeals court held that it is up to Congress, not the courts, to decide whether the FLSA applies to incarcerated workers.

Courts have also ruled that the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees the right of private sector employees to collective bargaining, does not apply in prisons.

Even worse, prisoners are excluded from the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration protections that require employers to provide a safe working environment. This dehumanizing lack of protection for prison workers has long subjected them to conditions that have endangered their physical safety.

Amid a health threat that worsens in crowded environments, many prisoners are working without any mandated protections. Congress must amend the language of federal employment protections to explicitly extend to work behind bars.

Forced labor in prisons has its roots in the post-Civil War Reconstruction period, when Southern planters faced the need to pay the labor force that had long worked for free under brutal conditions to produce the economic capital of the South.

Though the 13th Amendment abolished involuntary servitude, it excused forcible labor as punishment for those convicted of crimes. As a result, Southern states codified punitive laws, known as the Black Codes, to arbitrarily criminalize the activity of their former slaves.

Loitering and congregating after dark, among other innocuous activities, suddenly became criminal. Arrest and conviction bound these alleged criminals to terms of incarceration, often sentenced to unpaid labor for wealthy plantation owners.

For news and guidance on organizing in your workplace during the coronavirus crisis, click here.

In the following decades, Southern states, desperate for cheap labor and revenue, widely began leasing prisoners to local planters and Northern industrialists who took responsibility for their housing and feeding, a practice known as convict leasing.

Under this system, the captive labor worked long hours in unsafe conditions, often treated as poorly as they had been as slaves. Records approximate that on an average day between 1885 and 1920, 10,000 to 20,000 prisonersthe overwhelming majority of them Black Americanscontinued to toil under these insufferable circumstances.

In the 1930s, a series of laws prohibited state prisons from using prison labor, but the federal government continued to rely on this workforce to meet the demands of the rapidly changing markets of mid-century. By 1979, Congress passed legislation allowing state corrections officials to collaborate with private industries to produce prison-made goods, birthing the modern era of prison labor.

Today, approximately 55 percent of the American prison population works while serving their sentences. Prison jobs are broadly divided into two categories: prison support worksuch as food preparation, laundry services, and maintenance workand correctional industries jobs, in which prisoners might make license plates, sew military uniforms, or staff a call center. It is prisoners in correctional industries who are currently being deployed to help meet the nations need for protective gear.

While so many behind bars are manufacturing items the country desperately needs to combat our health crisis, their low wages and lack of labor protections, among myriad other factors, mean they are not accorded the same benefits or recognition as other workers.

Whats more, the measly cents per hour that is typical compensation across often-dangerous prison jobs is not nearly enough to cover the court fees and fines, restitution, child support, and room and board expenses that most state departments of corrections deduct from prisoners earnings. When there is anything left, it is barely enough to pay for commissary goods such as food, hygienic products, and toiletries, let alone marked-up email services that prisoners rely on to stay in touch with their loved ones. Despite working for years, many prisoners are left with thousands of dollars in crippling debt by the time they complete their sentences.

In 2018, prisoners in dozens of facilities across the country went on strike and issued a list of demands, which included an immediate end to prison slavery and that prisoners be paid the prevailing wage in their state or territory for their labor.

This time of national emergency requires that everyone do their part to slow the spread of coronavirus. The significant shortage of face masks, protective gowns, and hand sanitizer that is putting the lives of our frontline workers in jeopardy necessitates bold and swift action. But if the states and federal government are going to rely on correctional labor to manufacture this equipment, they need to improve the wages and labor protections of our incarcerated workers. To fail to do so is not far off from the devaluation and brutalization of slave labor that was ostensibly abandoned a century and a half ago.

This piece originally appeared at the Brennan Center.

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Covid-19 Highlights the Need for Prison Labor Reform - Labor Notes

On Feb. 23, a 25-year-old black man named Ahmaud Arbery left his home in Brunswick, Ga., to go for a Sunday afternoon run. As he entered a nearby subdivision, he was followed and later shot dead by a father and son while their neighbor recorded the incident on his phone.

Mr. Arberys crime of running while black speaks to a history of racial surveillance and containment enforced by the American state and supported by white people with the means and opportunity to cause great harm.

Lately, the coronavirus has got me thinking a lot about the racial dynamics of containment. Under the quarantine, much has been made of Americans regulated lack of mobility. But our cities have long kept their black residents contained and at the margins. Populations trapped in place are easier to price-gouge and police. Capitalism and immobility work hand in hand.

The American state has restricted black peoples mobility at least since the time of slavery. These regulations included convict leasing, Black Codes, loitering laws, redlining, racial zoning, redistricting (legal and illegal), the prison-industrial complex and increased surveillance. This history has given us entire cities built to shepherd black labor and presence.

One might even consider the black experience as a kind of never-ending quarantine and indeed Jim Crow laws that grew partly out of concerns that black people spread contagion, like tuberculosis and malaria, affirmed as much. The eugenics movement, popular in the early 20th century, led many doctors and scientists to attribute the precarious state of black health to physiological, biological and moral inferiority, instead of structural causes like poverty and racism.

Nearly a century ago, my grandparents fled the Jim Crow South, joining the millions of black families that moved north and west as part of the Great Migration. No matter how many thousands of miles they crossed, they met the same thing: not freedom, but constraint. Even in some of Americas most progressive cities like San Francisco, where my family ended up, black people were relegated to parts of town with limited housing, overcrowded schools and low-paying jobs. The police were everywhere.

So black folks have been educated in a kind of quarantine since Day 1.

Yet mobility remains a big part of Americas narrative about freedom. The tone and complexion of the anti-quarantine protests shouldnt surprise us when white people have been accustomed to boundless freedom of movement.

Consider the glaring contrasts between the architecture and development of the large-scale public housing units and suburban bedroom communities of the 1950s. Two very different outcomes one black, one white from one ostensibly shared aim of creating affordable housing.

Black people were trapped in poorly maintained towers, like the notorious Pruitt-Igoe homes in St. Louis, that kept them far away from the citys arteries and public transportation. The 33 buildings of the complex were so uninhabitable that they had to be destroyed after only two decades.

Meanwhile, all-white suburbs like Levittown, N.Y., which also received government subsidies, were designed expansively with front lawns, public parks and wide sidewalks.

The same freeways and boulevards that made it easy for suburbanites like those from Levittown to zoom in and out of cities destroyed black neighborhoods, either by cutting them off or by bulldozing them entirely.

Now many of these roads are being retooled in the spirit of new urbanism to make way for more bike lanes and wider sidewalks. But who will these benefit the most? A wealthier and whiter population that wants better access to a walkable, gentrified city.

When black people can move freely about the city, that movement is often controlled by housing location, surveilled by the police and private security measures and allowed only in the service of providing cheap labor.

Today cities are asking, demanding and even coercing black people to shoulder the burden of work that is fundamental to their functioning, but without protecting those people in return. Whatever mobility people have is largely for executing low-wage jobs, which are now recognized as essential because they directly benefit white infrastructures.

This, in addition to the crowding in black neighborhoods, is one reason we see an overrepresentation of black people among the Covid-19 dead in places like Detroit; Chicago; St. Louis; Richmond, Va.; and Washington, D.C. Another reason is racial disparities in testing and treatment. In Illinois, just under 10 percent of those tested for the coronavirus are black. But among those who test positive, 18 percent are black. And among those who die, a stunning 32 percent are black.

Furthering the problem, some hospitals have turned black residents away, only for them to die, despite their showing the same symptoms as white people who receive testing and treatment. This suggests that bias is playing a role. If cities were to test all residents, treatment would not depend on any preconceived notions about who is deserving of care and who is not.

The historian Nikhil Pal Singh recently observed that the pandemic will not create the social transformation we need, but it will set the terms for it. The history of black quarantine provides us with our plan in reverse. Colorblind responses only make the problems worse.

Rather than corporate bailouts, we need a public bailout, one that involves an increase in public spending to support equal access to education, affordable housing and transportation. One that provides paid sick leave and health insurance for all.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has declared a temporary moratorium on foreclosures of Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages and evictions from public housing units. Several cities have offered similar solutions for their most vulnerable residents, and more should follow. Evictions disproportionately burden black people, especially black women, who experience homelessness at alarming rates.

Cities and the federal government should also come up with a plan for comprehensive debt forgiveness. This will make it easier for essential workers to pay for the increasing costs of education, food and transportation. Measures like these would actually contribute to the growth of our economy by freeing up capital for people to lead healthy lives.

We ask our cities to be smart, but are we asking them to be just? We talk about access in symbolic ways, but dont think about the core geographies of inequality that emerge in the making of a mobile, technologically driven city. The creative, progressive city with its fine dining, bike shares and crowded parks relies on the same workers of color that it relegates to the margins.

We can even take a lesson from the protesters demanding, wrongly, an end to the quarantine. We can fight for opening our cities politically, economically and racially with the same energy they are putting toward opening our streets. We must create solutions that benefit the masses, not a select few. A true end to quarantine demands ending the quarantining city. It may not be the best we can do, but its the least we can ask.

Brandi T. Summers, an assistant professor of geography and global metropolitan studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City.

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Ahmaud Arbery, Race and the Quarantined City - The New York Times