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Proof-of-Work: Bitcoin consensus algorithm – The Cryptonomist

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

Proof-of-Work (PoW) is a consensus algorithm used by many blockchains to verify the validity of transactions made on the network, which are grouped into blocks and then recorded on the public ledger in a way that can be accessed by anyone. Some of the most popular blockchains using PoW are Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Monero.

In todays article, we will explain how the consensus algorithm works and analyse its strengths and weaknesses.

First theorised by Hal Finney in 2004 as Reusable-Proof-of-Work (RPOW), a precursor to the model later presented by Satoshi Nakamoto in his famous whitepaper, the PoW is a consensus algorithm that aims to ensure the proper functioning of a decentralised network of anonymous participants without them having to trust each other.

Since blockchains by design do not have a centralised authority (such as a bank) to act as an intermediary between network participants, this task falls to the consensus algorithm, which has the important task of ensuring that each actor is incentivised economically to perform the action that most benefits the network itself.

In fact, miners are incentivised to correctly validate transactions and ensure the security of the network through block rewards, i.e. the issuance of new cryptocurrencies that are rewarded to miners after they have done their job correctly.

Let us now look at the specific case of Bitcoin to understand how the PoW ensures the security of the worlds most famous blockchain.

When transactions are executed on the bitcoin blockchain, they are grouped together before being verified and waiting to be placed in a block.

Each block contains information about the date, wallet addresses and transaction amount, which are recorded in the block header, a hexadecimal (i.e. base 16) number generated by the blockchains hash function. Each block that makes up the blockchain also contains the hash of the previous block, so it is impossible to change a single block without necessarily changing all the previous ones as well, making the operation incredibly complex and expensive.

Before a new block can be added, its hash has to be verified by miners by solving a complex cryptographic puzzle that requires a lot of computing power.

As mining is a competitive process, miners compete with each other to be the first to solve the puzzle, validate the block and receive the reward, which consists of $BTC from block rewards and transaction fees.

In order to increase their competitiveness and chances of receiving rewards, miners form mining pools and share their computing power and rewards. Due to the extremely competitive nature of mining today, it is currently almost impossible to receive rewards without being part of a mining pool.

Over time, there has been no shortage of criticism of PoW and mining, focusing mainly on two key issues: environmental impact and centralisation.

In terms of environmental impact, the criticism is based on the high energy consumption associated with a high-intensity activity such as mining.

While it is undeniable that cryptocurrency mining consumes a lot of energy, several initiatives have emerged in recent years that aim to use renewable and/or green energy for mining, thus significantly reducing the emissions of the networks.

In terms of centralisation, critics argue that there is currently an imbalance in the composition of miners pools, with the largest pools controlling a large proportion of the networks hash rate.

As the graph shows, the top four mining pools controlled approximately 77.2% of the networks hash rate over the last 24 hours.

Despite the fact that the adoption of Proof-of-Stake (the other dominant consensus algorithm in the crypto landscape) has grown significantly in recent years, especially after the Ethereum Merge, which sanctioned the transition of the network from PoW to PoS, Proof-of-Work is still used by many large cap protocols because of the high level of security it guarantees.

Is PoW in danger of being completely replaced by PoS in the next few years, or will it remain one of the consensus algorithms most widely used by blockchains to guarantee their security?

Florida Rejects Dozens of Social Studies Textbooks, and Forces … – The New York Times

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

Florida has rejected dozens of social studies textbooks and worked with publishers to edit dozens more, the states education department announced on Tuesday, in the latest effort under Gov. Ron DeSantis to scrub textbooks of contested topics, especially surrounding contemporary issues of race and social justice.

State officials originally rejected 82 out of 101 submitted textbooks because of what they considered inaccurate material, errors and other information that was not aligned with Florida law, the Department of Education said in a news release.

But as part of an extensive effort to revise the materials, Florida worked with publishers to make changes, ultimately approving 66 of the 101 textbooks. Still, 35 were rejected even after that process.

Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, has campaigned against what he has described as woke indoctrination and a leftist agenda in the classroom. Last year, the state rejected dozens of math textbooks, saying that the books touched on prohibited topics, including critical race theory and social emotional learning, which have become targets of the right.

The states review of social studies textbooks, which is conducted every few years, was widely expected to raise similar objections.

The state education department released a document outlining several revisions that it said publishers had made at its request. But the document did not list the titles or publishers of the revised books, making the claims difficult to independently verify.

The revisions outlined by the state included:

An elementary school textbook no longer includes home support guidance on how to talk about the national anthem, which had included advice that parents could use this as an opportunity to talk about why some citizens are choosing to take a knee to protest police brutality and racism. Florida officials said that content was not age-appropriate.

A text on different types of economies was edited to take out a description of socialism as keeping things nice and even and potentially promoting greater equality. The description was flagged as inaccurate, and mention of the term socialism was removed entirely.

A middle school textbook no longer includes a passage on the Black Lives Matter movement, the murder of George Floyd and its impact on society. The removed passage described protests, noting that many Americans sympathized with the Black Lives Matter movement, while other people were critical of looting and violence and viewed the movement as anti-police. The state said the passage contained unsolicited topics.

Manny Diaz, Jr., the Florida education commissioner, said in a statement that textbooks should focus on historical facts and be free from inaccuracies or ideological rhetoric.

Teaching about race has become a lightning rod nationally, but especially in Florida, where Mr. DeSantis, who is widely expected to announce a 2024 presidential bid, has made it a signature political issue.

Yet the tone of this years announcement by the state was softened, compared with last year.

When the state rejected the math textbooks in 2022, the announcement was made in a splashy news release emphasizing the rejections: Florida Rejects Publishers Attempts to Indoctrinate Students.

This year, by contrast, state officials emphasized the percentage of textbooks that had been approved, and how the state had worked with publishers to increase the number of approvals.

At a news conference at a classical charter school on Tuesday morning, Mr. DeSantis signed a package of education legislation and emphasized other topics, including $1 billion in funding to increase teachers pay.

The governor put little focus on the social studies textbooks, though at one point he appeared to allude to reporting by The New York Times, which found that a publisher, Studies Weekly, had rolled back discussions of race in its submissions in Florida, including in the story of Rosa Parks.

If you are trying to create narratives that something like a Rosa Parks book is not allowed, that is a lie, Mr. DeSantis said on Tuesday.

Studies Weekly has said that it had been trying to decipher how to comply with a new Florida law, known as the Stop W.O.K.E. Act. Signed by Mr. DeSantis last year, the law prohibits instruction that would compel students to feel responsibility, guilt or anguish for what other members of their race did in the past. The law has at times created confusion, and Studies Weekly later apologized for what it described as an overreaction by its curriculum team.

(Studies Weeklys social studies submissions were not approved for use in Florida.)

The states approved list of social studies textbooks will have a significant impact on how history is taught to nearly three million Florida public school students, on topics ranging from slavery and Jim Crow to the Holocaust.

Floridas textbook approvals can also influence what students learn in other states. Fewer than half the states approve textbooks at a statewide level, but those that do include Florida, Texas and California, the three biggest markets. Publishers often cater to these states, using them as a template for the materials they offer in smaller markets.

Florida rejected some textbooks from large national publishers, like McGraw Hill and Savvas Learning.

We are reviewing the situation, McGraw Hill said in a statement. At this point, we do not know why these titles were not recommended. Savvas did not respond to interview requests on Tuesday.

Another large publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, did not even bid in Floridas social studies market this year.

Adam Laats, a historian of education at Binghamton University, said that for more than a century, American publishers have revised textbooks to appease political concerns, sometimes using razor blades to remove material on topics like evolution or Reconstruction.

The push to censor school materials has often come from conservatives, Professor Laats said and in Floridas announcement, he heard echoes of old battles. He noted that state policymakers cited age appropriateness in asking one publisher to remove the discussion of athletes taking a knee during the national anthem.

While the subject of police violence may indeed be disturbing to children, Professor Laats said, the state made no objection to another reference to violence and death on the very same page of the lesson: Talk to your child about our military and how they sacrifice their lives for us, the text states.

Using age appropriateness is a strategic or tactical move, he said, adding, Parents and other stakeholders tend not to like the idea of textbooks having important information cut out. But parents are friendly to the idea of age appropriateness.

The rest is here:

Florida Rejects Dozens of Social Studies Textbooks, and Forces ... - The New York Times

Commemoration of Victory in Europe Day and Liberation Day in … – Vindobona – Vienna International News

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer spoke at a commemorative event at the Federal Chancellery to mark the end of one of the darkest chapters in Austrian history. Millions of people were murdered, tortured, and humiliated during World War II. The event was attended by researchers, politicians, and an ensemble from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Nehammer stressed the importance of remembering the atrocities committed during the war. He stated that the National Socialists had the goal of erasing people's memories by assigning them numbers. Only then have the National Socialists truly failed. The Chancellor emphasized that the purpose of the culture of remembrance is to restore the dignity of those who had it taken away. He also stated that it is our "common and valuable task" to remember.

Nehammer also spoke about the need to restructure the culture of remembrance in Gusen. The concentration camp in Gusen was the site of countless murders, tyrannies, and enslavement of people from many countries. The Austrian government has established a fund to allow all school classes to visit the memorial sites in Mauthausen and Gusen. Furthermore, police and military personnel will be trained there to reflect on the atrocities and draw lessons from them.

The Chancellor also addressed Austria's participation in the war and the country's responsibility for the crimes committed during that time. He stated that many Austrians were actively involved in war crimes, and it is necessary to recognize and acknowledge that fact. Only then can we pass on the responsibility to future generations to prevent such horrors from happening again, he added.

Nehammer emphasized the importance of creating a resilient democracy that can resist ideologies that promote radicalization, racism, and antisemitism. He stated that we must explain how these extremist ideologies poisoned people's souls and led to the horrors of the past. Only then can we work to prevent such atrocities from happening again.

The Chancellor's speech highlighted the importance of remembering the past to build a better future. By acknowledging our past mistakes and taking responsibility for them, we can ensure that such atrocities never happen again.

Diplomats in Vienna commemorate

Diplomats in Vienna, including U.S. Ambassador Victoria Kennedy, commemorated the 78th anniversary of the liberation from National Socialism at the Mauthausen concentration camp.

On the anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, we honor all the victims from over 40 nations who were held here, and those who liberated it 78 years ago. @StateSEHI Ellen Germain #NeverForget pic.twitter.com/YTwTV8dwUq

Finish Counsellor Sebastian Gahnstrm attended a commemoration ceremony in honor of the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp. The camp, located in Austria, was one of the largest and deadliest Nazi concentration camps, where over 100,000 prisoners lost their lives during the Holocaust.

Yesterday, 7 May, Counsellor Sebastian Gahnstrm represented Finland at the commemoration of the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, where more than 100 000 people died during the Nazi regime. #NieWieder #niemalsvergessen @MauthausenMem pic.twitter.com/FBgRF1xpZo

The ceremony was held to pay tribute to the victims and to remind the world of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. Counsellor Gahnstrm represented Finland at the event and joined other diplomats in Vienna to remember those who suffered and died at Mauthausen.

U.S. Army 1st Squadron @2dCavalryRegt @VCorps traveled from Germany to join our commemoration today and to honor the bravery and sacrifice of the inmates and liberators. Together we are committed to ensuring their story is never forgotten. pic.twitter.com/YIG01FNujM

The ceremony included a private commemoration by Paul Kosiek, son of Mauthausen and Gusen liberator Albert Kosiek, who played taps to honor his father's memory. U.S. Defense Attache Col. Erik Bauer's remarks set the moving tone of the ceremony. The U.S. Army 1st Squadron 2dCavalryRegt and VCorps traveled from Germany to join the commemoration and honor the bravery and sacrifice of the inmates and liberators. The message emphasized the importance of combating hate wherever it is encountered and never forgetting the victims from over 40 nations who were held in Mauthausen.

Federal Chancellery of Austria

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Commemoration of Victory in Europe Day and Liberation Day in ... - Vindobona - Vienna International News

Inclusiveness, Pedagogy, Identity, Ideology, and the Epistemology of … – E-International Relations

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

My home state of Florida has been undergoing a number of controversial changes in its approach to teaching and education.As someone who is just right of center, I tend to agree with many of the changes for various reasons, which may become apparent below. I prepared the following statement for my students regarding inclusiveness; pedagogy; identity politics; my own identity, ideology, and/or epistemological approach(es) to the social sciences; as well as how and why we might address some controversial questions regarding which many people, otherwise, may not want to know. The language uses first-person, singular, to reduce formality and to provide students with oft-sought and seldom delivered information regarding their professors pedagogical and epistemological processes.

Because of the (sometimes controversial) topics that I teach, it has relieved tensions for students to know, rather than not to know, who their professor is at least to that degree.Public trust in faculty does not appear to be particularly high, and attendance at universities is declining, nationally. Attendance at Florida colleges and universities appears to be stable but wobbled, somewhat, with the Covid-19 lockdowns. Still, even accounting for Covid-19, given population growth, the national-level decline is notable and unsettling. While some lack of trust may result from political discourses that do not value their faculty as (a form of) civil servants particularly if one teaches at a state university some of it might possibly be ameliorated by allowing students (and the public) to know their faculty better in intellectual and cultural terms. As a heterogeneous state, we come from a wide range of cultures once expanding out from the basic civic culture and social contract that we all share.The statement below addresses the students as novices, but also as potential intellectual-equals-in-training that can be made better through the studies and training that they do during their university time and with their university faculty.They are, after all, our next generation of leaders in just about all areas, themes, topics, and professions.

Notes on inclusiveness and pedagogy

Mens and womens voices, and voices from every religion, ethnicity, race, etc., are welcomed in my classroom. Students from urban and rural backgrounds are welcomed.Overseas students are welcomed.All students are welcomed.

There is no political litmus test in my classroom.All participants (students, faculty, and/or any guest speakers) in my classes are asked and expected to be respectful to one another during discussions and other class exercises, remembering that your student body includes intelligent people of vastly ranging political, religious, social, and other opinions, subject positions, and epistemological frameworks. Discourse in this class is expected to cover a wide range of views and subject positions in a way that is civil at all times. We will practice how to do so in class. Sometimes it is hard work. Every effort will be made to avoid ethnic or racial bias in the classroom discussions in regard to any perceived or realmajority or minoritycommunity; or any perceived (as dominating or hegemonic) or real religion, gender, or other group identity. Your cooperation in this effort will be greatly appreciated!

No person in my classroom was involved in historical events (such as colonialism) that have been interpreted by some scholars to have had deleterious effects upon one group/community or another; we may study those, or equally controversial arguments,as scholarly arguments; but it does not in any way imply guilt or responsibility on the part of a living ethnic or racial community represented in my classroom. In our research in the field, scholars of comparative politics encounter some things thatno onewants to see or to think about; and we see many uplifting and wonderful phenomena. You will never hear about most of it.Some western scholars have made a point of having certain scholarship and arguments published in western languages, either from overseas or domestic works, so thatwe will knowthe arguments that are out there.Why?Because those arguments, if left without any attention, can cause war and major conflict under some circumstances.So, we study these controversial arguments under the premise that we do better by knowing more.That is, knowledge empowers peacemakers and the forces of stability on all sides; and lack of knowledge can lead to significant destabilization in important locales, or even on a global scale (e.g., a politics of the street, and other examples). An informed electorate is also better equipped to make decisions. We will, therefore, study some difficult issues that are controversial among some communities such as religion and secularism.I tend to teach with a glass is half full approach even as we do so.Every effort will be made such that you will not be burdened by issues beyond scholarship. We also study some uplifting and encouraging themes and phenomena.

In my classroom, you are asked to practice respect for one another in your comments in class discussion regarding the readings; we will seek to avoid personal opinion, although we may include personal experience beginning at some point during the semester.You are each individual budding adults, scholars, and intellectuals and are asked to use your discretion in this scholarly endeavor. Likewise,you are not required tobelievean argument from the professor or from the readings.You are asked in this class to be able to reproduce, analyze, and evaluate such arguments on their own terms; and you may be asked to compare, contrast, and to evaluate analytical merits among them. What you believe or ultimately decide to hold as your own analytical (value-neutral) or normative (value-related) opinion is wholly up to your own analytical and normative discretion.It is hoped that my courses will help you in your development of both the analytical skills to make such decisions about your own neutral-analytical and normative-valuative views, and to have increasing confidence in your own skills and ability to do so.

Note on identity

If you are a student who is interested in identity politics for whom it is important to know something regarding my own, you are welcomed to read the following.I receive many questions regarding my identity, and a sizable number of questions regarding my own politics and ideolog(ies).You can find some answers here, as I do not usually talk about it in class. It may stem from the topics that I teach, which include but are not limited to Jewish Studies, Islamic Studies, Middle East and North Africa politics, and Israel politics; some number of people want to know where I am coming from geographically and ideologically. It may stem from phenotype many students notice that I have, naturally, dark olive-green eyes and medium-to-light brown hair.It is a relatively unusual combination in the U.S. It took many years of study and travel for me to know some of the regions in which those phenotypic traits are common:Central and East Asia, some parts of Russia, Germany, Poland, southern Europe, and South America.I spent most of my youth growing up with one side of my family rather than the other, so I have had to learn by study over time perhaps more than most the origins of some of my own basic genealogical traits.I grew up in a rather rarified, almost, but not quite secluded, existence in the remote country learning classical piano; reading various classical literatures (e.g., fiction, biographies, and travelogues); and learning equestrian and animal husbandry (in addition to many traditional womens duties, such as baking, sewing, knitting, embroidery, and a bit of crocheting).The benefit of (relative) seclusion was a somewhat classical European education, development of certain skills, and the life of the mind; the drawback was, of course, less time with family and friends.

Many people assume that I am Jewish because of my professional work; I receive anti-Semitic quips periodically.Others assume that I am Muslim or Palestinian because of my professional work; I receive those quips as well.I have been studying Jewish Studies since I was 19 years old, and Islamic Studies since I was 20 years old, so I have heard such periodically throughout my adult life. But I am, myself, none of the above; although I do have first, second, and more distant family cousin ties to both religions and to most of the major world religions, including various forms of Christianity, as well as religions more remote to us here in the U.S., such as Shinto.I am American, born in Alaska after it became a state. I practice an Asian form of Buddhism (a moderate Orthodoxy). I was born Roman Catholic and of Eurasian origins with ties to the Philippines; Spain; Prussia (e.g., Russia, Poland, and Germany); Ireland; and Holland.I have cousins amongst the Arctic Asian peoples, both asiatique and Prussian. In that sense, I consider myself Eurasian and asiatique (asiatique is a French term referring to Asiatic peoples, which can mean both Asian and Eurasian depending upon context, ranging the Arctic north of Asia & Europe, primarily, but also including Arctic Alaska, Canada, and other areas). I spent part of a summer as a small child in a coastal Inuit village in Alaska, where we lived in Inuit furs by ice fishing; and I saw polar bears and whales from a kayak. I have traveled and lived on several continents.More details on all of it and how it relates to my teaching; pedagogy (teaching models that I follow); and epistemology (my thinking regarding certain aspects of Knowledge, and what is knowable) below.

Like most people, I am proud of my identity and am happy to provide certain information in regard to it.Students are not required to share their identities in my classroom. In class, I make a concerted effort to let you know when I am providing my own view of a thematic course issue (as grounded in the literatures that we read, and others, on that topic); and when I am outlining views from the literature, per se.I lean toward the latter in terms of what I provide most often. In comparative politics, we seek to leave out the normative most of the time, as someone needs to be able to provide information that is as clean of personal normative assumptions and biases as possible. So, students may only rarely hear about my own normative positions in class.You can see some of my own normative starting points below.

Notes on ideology, and the epistemology of the professor

I have lived in western cities and in remote rural areas, and in both cities and rural areas of developed and developing countries.As mentioned, I grew up involved in animal husbandry; classical piano; and a fair bit of readings in English, American, and a few European literary classics in translation (Russian, Spanish, French, a few Latin American classics, as well as one Polish classic[Pad Tadeusz],and one classic in Philippine nationalism[Noli Mi Tangere]).

I approach social science as an ongoing effort to bring together human, social, and political themes and research questions into the framework of the scientific method.I am a neo-positivist, meaning that I still accept that there is a material world that is out there regardless of our presence or observation of it (e.g., the tree falls in the forest whether we are there to see it, or not). In this neo-positive world that is out there regardless of ourselves, there is a Truth (or, in some cases, at least multiple truths) that we can go out into the world, find, and observe.In that way, I am influenced by positive analysis and the effort to engage in causal inquiry (e.g., What,a,caused,b,in the socio-political world?).

What is positive about positive analysis is a clear link between analytical components of the argument such that an argument as a whole or by components is falsifiable.Another scholar can go out into the same world, observe, and say that we were right, or that we were wrong, in our argument.The neo in neo-positive means, likewise, that I am influenced by the post-modernist admonition to bemore modestregarding those concepts / notions / phenomena to which we ascribe the elevated notion of Truth (without relinquishing the concept of truth altogether).But I do not believe in relativism as taken to the extreme by which there is no longer any truth, and all fields, themes, and human phenomena are thrown to randomness, anarchy, or to so many truths as to hold the concept of truth no longer meaningful (and the human world, thereby, un-knowable in any scholarly and/or scientific terms).

In the late-19thcentury, Truth in the social sciences was often associated with notions of primitiveness, superiority, and an assigning of different communities, peoples, and places to relative positions between those two poles; Truth in the sciences had, sometimes, scary implications, long since debunked to my knowledge, as found in the Eugenics movement of that day, etc.

With that in mind, I subscribe to a modified and hopefully more modest notion of truth, without which there is no material world to observe.In this type of framework, we look forpatterns,processes, andcompeting truths(and/ornarratives), seeking to find an analytical link between eachcompeting truth(and/ornarrative), a range of demographic and/or ideological components, and specific parts of a political argument or phenomenon.Analytically, it is the best that we can do.

The linking of the social science argument that comes out of this type of research with social theories, already present, leads to increased Knowledge over time (see, for example, Yin 2003: 28-33).Increasing (responsible and ethically-derived) Knowledge, as I understand it, is the first goal of scholarship.In that way, my work is not normative (e.g., taking one ideology or another regarding a research theme) but is deeply impressed by the effort to remain even with such qualitative tools and data within the scientific method.

I do have my own ideologies, and they tend toward simple value of all human life and cultural pluralism (but not relativism for me, it stops at certain types of human rights violations, or, in religion, ritual practices involving certain types of violence against others). I try to keep anything else out of my scholarship.While in no way a sociological expert on him, in terms of applying social theory to the material themes in comparative politics, I am a Durkheimian to the core (e.g., culture drives human societies, economies, politics, and history, etc., and social solidarity matters or we end with anomie), and influenced by Pierre Bourdieu, Jacques Derrida, Clifford Geertz, Irving Goffman, Victor Turner, and others in their observations and theories regarding relationships between power; words, symbols, and narratives; performativity; and human ritual.

I am influenced by Max Weber, Samuel Huntington, and Michael Mann in an interest in effective, rational, systematic bureaucracy, and that it be held in the hands of democratically-or participatory-governance-oriented persons rather than their antithesis (e.g., Mann and Hannah Arendt show us quite well, I believe, that bureaucratic institutions are normatively neutral and may be used for great good or great evil depending upon who is holding their reins) (see Mann 2003, 60; Mann 1986, 26; and Arendt 2006). I like to tell my students that, having lived in both democratic regimes and dictatorships, effective, rational, systematic bureaucracy is a Beauty (in terms of Virtues) that we should not take for granted (for example, obtaining and renewing ones drivers license with simple, systematic fees, lines, and rational-bureaucratic order; not needing special permissions to travel from one city or town to another; and passports and travel visas on a rational, non-personalist basis with no need for connections or protectsia). To the extent that we are able to live in such conditions, we should be reasonably and rightfully very proud.It means that, as individuals and communities, we are making (in my view) great choices regarding the personal self-restraint required to create and maintain a democratic social order.War and conflict often mitigate against such systematic, bureaucratic freedoms (although, if we are speaking about my own normative positions, on rare occasion, war may be correct and necessary). I believe in individualrights as against both state and community (in that way, I tend toward the right-of-center and Liberal rather than the communitarian, although I can appreciate communitarian arguments); popular sovereignty; political representation; and the consent of the (wide set of communities of the) governed.

If we are going to talk about Marx, that great purveyor and object of Cold War suspicions, I would want to talk about him in terms of Trotskys read of him (ongoing revolutionary democracy, e.g., social democracy, as in Scandinavia or in Israel) (see Hoidal 2013); not Lenins or Stalins read of him, which I see as invalid in their emphasis on extreme centralized state authority in the hands of the few also called tatism (for example, Lovell does not see Trotsky as entirely freedom loving but he, nonetheless, casts doubt on Lenins interpretation of Marx regarding authoritarianism, see Lovell 1984; and Marx 2005, where Marx lambastes the authority of the new post-revolutionary, centralized state).But I am not a Marxist. I am a culturalist.They areopposing sociological positions and frameworks for understanding the human world. I have great appreciation for Marxs sociological work as a (and perhaps the first ever) political ethnographer of labor and factories in the industrialization period (see Marx 2004, especially chapters 10 and 15).But I am a moderate libertarian and a culturalist.

Marx shares with some classical Liberals (such as David Ricardo) and Neoliberals the assumption that economics drives human societies, cultures, politics, and history (see Wallerstein 2004).That is, they are part of the same ballpark (or sociological-theoretical domain) in terms of social theory frameworks for understanding causal relationships in human societies. I am with Durkheim, and sometimes I am also with Max Weber (e.g., rationalized, merit-based bureaucracy; ideas and culture as driving economic institutions, etc.). It should be noted that both Marx and Durkheim were, nonetheless, structuralists; but that is at a higher level of generalization.They were structuralists with opposing ideas aboutwhatstructures human life: economics and culture, respectively.

I teach some whole courses on religion and politics in various national or regional contexts, or in broad comparative terms. And I often teach course segments related to religion and politics.Thus, I tend to teach my courses under the assumption that many forms of non-western and religious epistemologies are equally valid to western and non-religious epistemologies (indeed, religious epistemologies are natural in the west as well); and under the premise that their own cultural epistemologies arevery importantto peoples around the world (including ourselves). In addition, the U.S. includes many types of epistemologies among our peoples, many of which are influenced by non-western epistemologies and cultural systems; to my understanding, that is part of what it means to be a melting pot.Personally, I tend toward the former (e.g., religious epistemologies) in, at the least, a sympathetic approach as outlined by Religion scholar, Wilfred Cantwell Smith (Smith 1984); although I like the freedom that some forms of secularism bring in terms of freedom of thought and expression (noting that some forms of secularism can be totalitarian, such as national socialism).Wilfred Cantwell Smiths approach aids in researching and teaching topics in religion and politics for obvious reasons, and, also in other courses that address multiple cultural sources, communities, histories, identities, conflicts, construction of institutions, and other politics. Likewise, I willsometimeshighlight instances in which religious vs. secular epistemologies (or other sorts of epistemologies) come into play, or into conflict, relating to a given theme, topic, or event that we are studying in this class.

A few pointers regarding academic training

If I were to frame my experience in terms of advice, I would say, college is your opportunity to train yourself broadly for your professional work as well as for life.There is time to take courses such as music or art (if they are not your major) if you start organizing your ideas about your own training from year one.Likewise, university is a unique opportunity as a concentrated period of study.You can get on-the-job training later in life, but it is apt to be infrequent over time. Make the most of the opportunity by organizing your ideas about courses as soon as possible (and in an ongoing way, since some courses are not always available).Train yourself broadly in choosing your classes in terms of methods, experiential learning, and skills development; and with focus in terms of topical and thematic center.That is, there is always a balance to be had between breadth and depth. If you are in Political Science, there is a lot of room in our major to develop a balance between the two. You can also double-major to expand your areas of training.In addition, I would encourage students not to underestimate the power of a student job in your training.A university is an exceptional locus of opportunities for extra and important training in student jobs, which exist across campus in clerical and entry-level positions in departments, libraries, centers, schools, museums or galleries, and other programs.You can get entry-level type of on-the-job training in those jobs, which may come in handy or even be critical down the road in your studies and/or professional work.

And, finally, in terms of life preparation (as well as preparation for good studying), I would say, learn to type and learn to cook.No matter what anyone may tell you, typing speed and precision matters to life success in a world of computers.Similarly, if you do not know how to cook already, take a gourmet cooking class or, better yet, three (I recommend one on how to cook with eggs, one on baking, and one on holiday meals).If you are interested in international or cross-cultural questions, take international cooking classes while you are on campus.In the spirit of keeping it simple, and thinking in terms of the political economy of daily life, cooking for yourself and others is a great cost saving measure in addition to providing you with sustenance that supports excellence in training and in studying.Strive to enjoy yourself and develop your own inner calm even while you increase your intellectual prowess and professional efficiencies.

References

Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Bourdieu, Pierre. The Force of Law: Toward a Sociology of the Juridical Field inHastings Law Journal38 (1987): 814-853.

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Inclusiveness, Pedagogy, Identity, Ideology, and the Epistemology of ... - E-International Relations

From the archives The Nakba at 50: In the chains of theocracy … – Ahram Online

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

Fifty years after its establishment on the foundations of the Palestinian Al-Nakba (catastrophe), the Jewish state is still in the midst of a continuous process: that of realising the goals of the Zionist colonialist enterprise. From the start, the Zionist movement set itself the goal of establishing an exclusivist-Jewish state in the territory of historical Palestine, by dispossessing the Palestinians of their land and their homeland. This goal was only partially achieved in 1948, and was completed in 1967 with the conquest of all of Palestine.

Nevertheless, the Oslo Accords were needed so that world public opinion, Arab states and the Palestinians themselves could legitimate the Zionists' preferred "solution to the Palestinian problem": continued Israeli control over the territories occupied in '67, both by direct annexation (including, but by no means limited to, the settlements and bypass roads), and by means of a small Palestinian client state on Bantustan lines in areas with high concentrations of the Palestinian population. The emerging apartheid system here is thus designed to meet the ideological requirements shared by all streams of Zionism, including the Zionist Labour movement: separation to establish exclusive Jewish sovereignty.

COLONIALISM: On its 50th anniversary, the colonialist policies of the state of Israel are still in force, and are also applied to those Palestinians who remained within Israeli borders after the expulsion of most of the Palestinian people from their homeland in 1948. As is the case in the territories occupied in '67, within the green line the attack continues on what little land remains in Palestinian hands after 93 per cent was declared "state land", i.e. land on which only Jews are permitted to settle.

Similarly, the discriminatory planning and development policies instituted by all previous Israeli governments remain in force: to severely restrict construction and building in the "recognised" Arab towns and villages, and to destroy the approximately 180 "unrecognised" ones altogether by refusing to grant building permits or to allow such elementary infrastructure as water and electricity, and such basic services as education and health care.

The Zionist movement itself, and the colonialism of the state of Israel, is designed first and foremost to serve the regional interests of Western imperialism. Currently it is the US's interest in controlling the oil resources of the Middle East within a neo-liberal framework that is being introduced to the region, and is beginning to be implemented in Israel.

The policies of a "free" economy are destroying the remnants of the universal welfare state within Israel, leading to fierce unemployment rates and the pauperisation of broad sectors of the working class and petite bourgeoisie. In the 50th year of a state designed, ostensibly, to provide prosperity to all the Jewish people who settled in it, the gaps between rich and poor are among the widest in the Western world.

The pauperisation taking place now is not the fruit of Netanyahu's policies alone. It is the result of the cumulative effects of long-standing policies implemented by the Zionist Labour movement, whose continuous hegemony in the pre-state Zionist movement and in the state of Israel was interrupted only in 1977, when the Likud won the elections. The subsequent Labour governments, like the opposition Labour Party today, were not in principle any different from the Likud with regard to the policies of privatisation and a "free" economy, and the neo-liberal ideology that accompanies them.

In parallel to the convergence of Labour and Likud around neo-liberalism's economic policies, the differences between their respective programmes for the final solution under Oslo are becoming ever more blurred. The essence of the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan of March 1996, which Arafat recently announced is acceptable to him, will leave most of the Israeli settlements in place; on the territory that remains (not more than 50 per cent of the West Bank) a Bantustan state will be established, with its capital in the village of Abu Dis (adjacent to Jerusalem). This programme is now accepted (although not explicitly) by both Netanyahu and Labour.

The main difference, however, under Netanyahu's reign is the nature of the political regime, which is designed to mobilise support for neo-liberalism: the destruction of the old political parties and the old elites, the tendency to blur the distinctions between the three branches of the government, the refusal to cooperate with the Knesset and the criticism of the Supreme Court: these authoritarian features of Netanyahu's government are paving the way to a populist regime based on a direct, charismatic connection between the leader and the "people". Such a regime is reminiscent of the contemporary South American-style neo-Peronism, whose Israeli version is characterised by the close union of Zionist colonialism and aggressive clericalism.

In place of traditional party politics, Netanyahu conducts a "sectoral politics" consisting of the cultivation and bribery of the political representatives of various groups, including the Russian immigrants, ultra-Orthodox groups and the Shas movement, which sponsors a network of community health and education services.

This sectoral bribery serves neo-liberalism, as it both reflects the ideological preference for private charity over the principle of the universal rights of the citizen and is economically advantageous: the cost of sectoral bribery is less than that of financing a universal welfare policy.

THE SECULAR-RELIGIOUS RIFT: Granting power to the Orthodox establishment is not a novelty introduced by the Netanyahu government, but rather one of the structural features of the state of Israel since its establishment. During the years of Labour Party rule, however, there was a coordinated division of labour between the state and the Orthodox establishment in the form of the Supreme Rabbinate, initiated and supported by the nationalist-religious party within the Orthodox community (as opposed to the various ultra-Orthodox groups, who relied on their own religious authorities, and who were rather alienated from Zionism and the state).

The active cooperation of the nationalist-religious sector with Zionism and the state led the rabbinical establishment to adopt a more moderate position. This prevented them from interfering with secular life beyond the borders of the agreement known as the "status quo", and allowed them to play the role of mediator between the state and the Orthodox.

The power of the Chief Rabbinate was weakened, however, as the young generation of the nationalist-religious sector turned to both ultra-Orthodoxy and extremist Zionism, a process which began after the '67 War.

These young people now look to the heads of yeshivoth (religious seminaries) in the Occupied Territories and Israel as an alternative source of authority. This process, together with the ongoing "orthodoxisation" of the once secular extreme right, has led to the increasingly arrogant interference in secularist life by ultra-orthodox circles, with the Chief Rabbinate trailing behind.

The sharpening of the religious-secular rift was recently revealed during the main ceremony commemorating the 50th year of the state, which was characterised by militarist and religious symbols intended to mark the "victory of Zionism": the modern dance Anaphasa, by the Bat Sheva Ballet Troupe, was censored at the last moment under pressure from a middle-ranking Orthodox official (the deputy mayor of Jerusalem), because the dancers stripped down to short pants as the hymn "God Is One in Heaven and Earth (from the Passover ritual) was heard. The troupe refused the compromise solution suggested by President Weizman -- to wear long underwear -- and cancelled their appearance. None of the other distinguished Israeli artists who were scheduled to perform joined the dancers, and only the next day did dozens of artists organise a militant demonstration. It was the first demonstration ever organised by Israeli artists against the ongoing violations of the right to free artistic or political expression in either Israel or the territories occupied in '67. The demonstrators pledged to continue the struggle against "religious coercion" and for "artistic freedom".

The mass media hastened to describe these events as the beginning of a "cultural war" and an indication of "the greatest rift in Israeli society, one which threatens its unity". But even a superficial examination of the discourse which developed around this incident throws light on the ideological chains that secular Israelis place on themselves, and which prevent them from developing a principled and systematic struggle against the rule of religion. These chains are their deep commitment to Zionism and the Jewish state, which from its beginning has been half theocratic.

The most senior artists and writers, Israeli cultural heroes, the majority of whom support and celebrate the Oslo "solution", have repeatedly emphasised, in the debate which followed the incident, that they are struggling for "a Jewish and Zionist-democratic state, without religious coercion".

Their discourse, however, has not reached the point of speaking in the name of universal rights, including freedom of expression in the areas of the press and politics; nor have they mentioned the rights of more than two million Palestinians in the territories occupied in '67 and the discrimination against them in Israel. After all, such an attitude would have forced them to identify the essential contradiction between the Jewish-Zionist state and secular liberal democracy.

ZIONISM AND RELIGION: As Professor Zeev Sternhall of Hebrew University indicates, the conceptual-ideological framework in which Zionism operates has been shaped by the organic, tribal nationalism of "blood and soil" which developed in eastern and central Europe as the antithesis to the liberal nationalism with values rooted in the notions of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

This organic nationalism defined national belonging not according to political-legal criteria, but on cultural, ethnic, and religious bases -- which could easily be perceived as reflecting biological or racial uniqueness. The individual is not perceived as an intrinsic entity or value, but as an integral part, regardless of personal choice, of the national unit, to which he or she owes absolute loyalty.

The Labour Zionist movement, in addition to this "organic nationalism", also adopted national socialism in its Israeli version, known as "constructive socialism". This variant of socialism in the service of the nation required the subjugation of social and economic demands and the interests of the working class to "national aims".

Mobilising the working class to build the capitalist economy of the Zionist state-in-the-making was one of its "national aims". Building an egalitarian society was not among the goals of the leaders of the Labour movement. They were satisfied with existence of a system of services, such as health and education, which would prevent "excessive" inequality from undermining the foundations of national unity.

Religion was always a central component of national identity for organic nationalists. The centrality of the Bible in Zionism, however, helped make the religious dimension of Zionism even stronger than in other radical national movements. The Bible was used by Zionism not only as a means of cultivating national unity, but also as a source for legitimation of the Zionist claim of exclusive rights to all of Palestine.

As Baruch Kimmerling, professor of sociology at the Hebrew University, claims, "from the beginning, the Zionist project was made captive by its choice of Palestine as its target territory for colonisation and as the place for building its exclusive Jewish state. Neither the nation nor its culture could be built successfully apart from the religious context. This has been so even when its prophets, priests, builders and fighters saw themselves as completely secular."

Thus, Zionism preserved religious myths and symbols among its central symbols, including the cardinal "commandment" of Zionism: immigration to Palestine ("Eretz Israel"). The biblical connection to the land and the connection between the Bible and present-day life in the "old-new land" were strongly emphasised, both in the pre-state secular Jewish community (in which one used to learn the Bible six days a week) and in the state of Israel. Moreover, "the nucleus of the state's symbols remain today Jewish-religious. The rest is but a thin veneer of what only appears to be secularism [...] All the civic symbols and essentially the entire collective identity became subservient to religion, and Zionism itself turned into a sort of Jewish religion, incorporating civic elements as well."

This was the basis for the support of the leaders of the Labour Party (not just the Likud) for the settlements in the '67 Occupied Territories. They had inherited from the founders of Zionism the belief in the exclusive Jewish claim to Palestine as the ethical and moral basis for Jewish national existence. On the other hand, the '67 occupation necessitated a renewed and even more unequivocal religious legitimation. The heretofore small and marginal groups of religious Zionists became of central importance: the colonising and fighting pioneer vanguard, marching before the Zionist camp.

As Kimmerling states: "The settler with the kipah (skullcap) on his head and submachine gun in his hands is the most authentic representative of the hard core of their collective identity, whether Israelis want it to be or not. It cannot even be said that this is a distortion of Zionism, but rather that it is its logical expression, carried to the point of absurdity."

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ARABS: The notion of an exclusive Jewish state is built on the identity between nation and religion accepted by Zionism. Three fundamental laws enacted in the first years of the state's establishment, and based on the religious definition of the "national" collective, were meant to ensure exclusive Jewish sovereignty, given the continuing presence of Palestinians within the borders of the state, even after 1948.

The first two of these laws are the Law of Return (1950) and the Law of Citizenship (1952), which allow any Jew to immigrate to Israel and to automatically become a citizen, while at the same time, deprive all Palestinian refugees outside the borders of the state of the possibility of returning to their homes. The third basic law, the World Zionist Organisation-Jewish Agency (Status) Law (the "WZO Law"), ensures that Jews, in actual practice, enjoy preference over the Palestinian citizens of the state i all matters pertaining to land ownership and budgetary allocations for building and development.

The WZO Law does this in a most cunning and hypocritical way: it authorises the various Zionist bodies, founded in the early 1900s, to function in Israel as quasi-governmental entities, in order to further advance the goals of the Zionist movement. They were assigned the functions of maintenance and support of cultural, educational and welfare activities, as well as the work of developing land, building projects in the existing Jewish communities and the establishment of new Jewish localities.

The religious definition of citizenship in the state of Israel, on which these discriminatory laws are based, violate the norms of modern nation-states, in which citizenship is generally defined in universal terms of political allegiance. The state of Israel is not defined as a state of all its citizens, but rather as the state of all the Jewish people throughout the world. In other words, the right to "membership" in the state, with all the rights that it entitles one to enjoy, is determined by the religious criterion of religious affiliation.

Two additional laws ensure the perpetuation of discrimination against non-Jewish citizens: the Amendment to the Basic Law: The Knesset (1985), provision 7(A), and provision 5(1) of the Law of Political Parties (1992). According to the Israeli Supreme Court's interpretation of these laws, a political party platform which calls upon the state of Israel to provide full and equal rights to Palestinian citizens, and/or challenges the Jewish character of the state, might find that it is disqualified from running in the national elections.

DEFECTIVE DEMOCRACY: Inevitably, however, the "Jewishness" of the state, which "justified" the denial of Palestinians as full citizens, boomeranged and denied a substantial part of basic civil rights to the Jews as well, both secular and religious.

Thus, the Orthodox establishment and the Chief Rabbinate were given control of the delineation of the national-collective borders which determine who is entitled to full membership in the Jewish state (an individual born to a Jewish mother or a convert in accordance with the definition of Orthodox Jewish religious law). This was done by means of absorbing religious personal status law as the law of the state and by assigning exclusive jurisdiction in this area to the rabbinate and its courts.

In other words, the legal and judicial system that relates to marriage, divorce and even burial, and which is based mainly on the Orthodox interpretation of the religious law, was assigned to the religious courts, and is not under the full control of the state.

Moreover, the incorporation of the Jewish religious laws into the corpus of state legislation (particularly in the area of personal status) confers on the Orthodox establishment the authority to enforce them on the Jewish citizens (equivalent powers have been given to Muslim, Christian and Druze courts to rule the personal lives of the state's Palestinian citizens). And indeed, in "the only democracy in the Middle East", civil marriages are not available to the citizenry to this day.

Of course, it is women who are the most discriminated against in accordance with religious law. Thus, for example, a Jewish woman cannot even obtain a divorce without the consent of her husband, even if he beats her, or is in prison or insane -- or if he has been missing for years but is not known to be dead.

It was not "religious coercion", however, that turned Israel into a half-theocratic state. This was made possible by the above-mentioned "status quo" arrangement, which was proposed to the Orthodox party, Agudat Israel, by the secular leader of the Zionist movement, David Ben Gurion, in June 1947, five months before the United Nations vote approving the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Palestinian states. According to this arrangement, the religious and Orthodox parties were promised that, in the ewish state which was about to be established, the Sabbath and laws of kashrut (Jewish dietary laws) would be enforced.

The Zionist movement also accepted the authority of the Orthodox Jewish establishment over all legislation having to do with birth, marriage, divorce and burial. In return the Orthodox, who until then had fiercely rejected Zionism, accepted the Zionist leadership as a representative of the Jewish people, came to terms with the state, and even signed the Declaration of Independence and participated with the Zionist religious party in the first government.

The violation of citizens' freedom of conscience in general, and that of women in particular, inherent in the Israeli laws of marriage and divorce never particularly bothered the leaders of the secular Zionist parties, including those of the Zionist left, because of their indifference to and even contempt for civil and women's rights. Even now, as in the past, they are prepared to sacrifice full, universal civil rights, especially women's rights, on the altar of tribal unity around the fragile "status quo".

The delay in enacting a secular constitution has been one of the main mechanisms perpetuating the suffocating sentence the secular Zionists have imposed upon themselves. A constitution would ensure the implementation of the promise made in Israel's Declaration of Independence to provide equal rights to all its citizens "without regard to gender, race or religion".

In the first days of the state, and despite a promise contained in the Declaration of Independence, the coalition headed by Mapa'i, the predecessor of the Labour Party, decided not to enact a constitution immediately, but instead to rely on a gradual enactment of basic laws -- without committing themselves to completing them within a definite time period. Thus, until 1992, not even one basic law which relates to the issue which is the heart and rationale of any constitution -- namely the defence of the basic rights of minorities and individuals -- was enacted.

The basic law designed to deal with this subject, the "Human Rights Law", was introduced in the Knesset, but got bogged down for years in various committees until, under the pressure of the religious parties, it was split into several separate basic laws. Only two of these have been enacted till now (both in 1992): the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation (1992) and the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom (1992), which is considered a mini-bill of rights by Israeli legal scholars. However, it lacks any clear clause guaranteeing equality of rights to all citizens, and any clauses explicitly protecting freedom of the press, expression and the right to demonstrate -- which are the foundations of democracy.

Moreover, the Human Dignity and Freedom Law explicitly declares that its aim is to anchor "the values of the state as a Jewish and democratic state". Thus, on its face, the law entrenches the superiority of the Jewish majority and ignores the Arab-Palestinian citizens in Israel. However, this superior status, which is based on the legal and ideological definition of Israel as a Jewish state, is also responsible for the denial of the basic rights of secular Jews as well.

The interpretation of the term "Jewish state" by Justice Aharon Barak, a secular Zionist thought of as representing the "liberal" position within the Supreme Court, locates his views very close to the religious perception of the Bible and tradition as the sovereign authority on the life of the Jews.

"[The] Jewish State is, therefore, the state of the Jewish people... It is a state in which every Jew has the right to return... It is a state of which the language is Hebrew, and most of its holidays represent its national rebirth... A Jewish state is a state that developed a Jewish culture, Jewish education and a loving Jewish people... A Jewish state is also a state where the Jewish Law fulfills a significant role... A Jewish state is a state in which the values of Israel, the Torah, Jewish heritage and the values of the Jewish halacha [religious law] are the bases of its values."

Thus, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, Israeli society finds itself paying the price of its commitment to the ongoing Zionist colonial project, in its new Oslo form. It needs, perhaps now more than ever, religious legitimation for the "exclusive historic right" of the Jewish nation to all of Palestine.

As long as it continues to apply religious criteria to determine which members of society are entitled to full citizenship rights in the Zionist state, however, the Jewishness of the state will continue to generate chains of clerical control that prevent the realisation of full rights for the Israelis themselves.

Therefore, the opposition expressed by broad secular circles to "religious coercion" appears pathetic: their commitment to the Jewish-Zionist state -- and thus their collective identity, which is religious in essence -- distorts their very humanity when it comes to all that concerns the Palestinians. This prevents them from realising their own full civil rights, and freeing themselves from the chains of religion.

Translated from Hebrew by Yochanan Lorwin

*The writer is the editor of News from Within, published by the Alternative Information Centre, Jerusalem/Bethlehem.

* This story was published in Ahram Weekly on 21 May 1998

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From the archives The Nakba at 50: In the chains of theocracy ... - Ahram Online

Dan Rodricks: Deep down and all politics aside, mothers know best … – Baltimore Sun

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

If you gathered a million American mothers and asked them what the country needed, I bet this would be the consensus: More doctors, nurses and caregivers; better pay for teachers and social workers; affordable health care for everyone, including a holistic system for treating people with mental illness; and big national campaigns to reduce guns and gun violence, promote nutritious food and exercise, fund the best education system in the world, encourage young people to consider public service and shame haters into growing up and being better human beings.

That would be for starters.

On Mothers Day 2023, we should look around at the many things that make the most prideful Americans despondent and ask: What would mother say?

I know what mine would say. The late Rose Popolo Rodricks would remember growing up during the Great Depression and the New Deal, and starting a family during World War II, and shed look at America today and say the country needs to stop arguing and take better care of itself, that weve let too many problems fester for too long, and ought to be ashamed of it.

Case in point, right here in the blue state of Maryland: We still have people with mental illness, some of them acutely psychotic or suicidal, languishing in jails, waiting for treatment in an appropriate facility. Five years ago, a Baltimore Circuit judge held the states health secretary in contempt for failing to place criminal defendants in state psychiatric hospitals. Fix this problem, and do it now, Judge Gale Rasin said.

While Maryland and other state governments try to make improvements, it never seems adequate or sustained.

Meanwhile, conservative politicians who refuse to deal with the nations gun crisis point to mental illness as the core problem when it comes to violence, and yet they refuse to adequately fund treatment.

Apprised of this, a million mothers would say shame on us. Shame on us for not building more hospitals to replace our prisons. Shame on us for being in denial about too many problems. Shame on us for letting partisan politics or ignorance get in the way of a better country.

How else to explain the rights opposition to an affordable health care system? How else to explain the reluctance to vaccinate and, more generally, the denigration of our best medical minds?

A majority of my theoretical million mothers would say listen to the doctors, not extremist politicians or talk-show hosts.

Theyd say the decision on whether to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor. I am sure most mothers would trust science; they would respect the educated and experienced researchers at the Food and Drug Administration to have made the right call about the abortion drug mifepristone. Most mothers would be highly suspicious of loudmouth pols who claim to know more about whats good for the public health than men and women with medical degrees.

Dr. Jack Resneck, president of the American Medical Association, warns that disinformation and the encroachment of political ideologies on the delivery of health care have created pressures that doctors never expected to experience, adding to the career burnout many of them already feel. Im angry about how science and medicine have been politicized, Resneck said, about the flood of disinformation that seeks to discredit data and evidence [and] undermine public health.

Coming out of the pandemic, an extensive AMA survey found that one in five doctors and two in five nurses planned to leave their careers by some time this year.

A majority of mothers would call that a national crisis and demand that the country immediately go in a new direction.

Of course, thats easier said than done. Getting Americans whove eschewed critical thinking for conspiracy theories is going to be hard.

But mother would say the best of us need to keep to the high road, and you do that by standing up for whats right and not just for personal benefit but for the common good: A better educated and skilled workforce; a social safety net that lifts people out of poverty; a fully accessible and adequately staffed health care system; prisons that make rehabilitation a robust priority, a full-throttle race toward the green energy future.

This isnt socialism. Its motherism, and the nation needs a big dose of it.

Ill tell you what else a million American mothers would say.

Theyd say, deep down and all political tribalism aside, the country needs some hard introspection. It needs to understand that, as powerful as we remain economically and militarily, were underperforming on many levels. Thats why the word broken appears so often as a description of things our politics, the immigration system, student achievement, our care for mentally ill people and the drug-addicted, and our willingness to deal with the gun crisis.

Republicans, Democrats or independents would agree with that assessment. Theyd say its time to stop all the nonsense and grow up, time to stop electing liars and ignoramuses to public office, tolerating crassness and mediocrity, and abiding the debilitating gun violence that takes place every day. A million moms would say its time to get serious about fixing the country.

Several years ago, a Baltimore drug dealer told me he had decided to come off the street and find a regular job. Time to stop shaming my mother, he said. Thats what Im talking about.

Dan Rodricks: Deep down and all politics aside, mothers know best ... - Baltimore Sun

Keir Starmer’s new Labour formula has one kernel of truth at least – The National

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

But names can be deceptive particularly in politics. Our collective unconscious is often eloquent. Political parties are drawn to titles which precisely invert what they really stand for.

In Poland, the Law and Justice Party have stoked controversy and faced EU sanctions by undermining the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan heads up the Justice and Development Party having developed Turkey from a parliamentary system into an increasingly unjust, autocratic one.

Dig through the roster of international campaign outfits, and youll discover a long and shabby list of undemocratic democrats, unrepublican republicans and illiberal liberals vying for their nations votes.

READ MORE:Humza Yousaf: Labour a 'replica' of the Tories

Conservative (adj.) Definition: Averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values.

We have a new contender for the title of Britains conservative party this weekend. Speaking to the Progressive Britain annual conference, Keir Starmer announced yesterday that Labour are the real conservatives now. Somebody has got to stand up for the things that make this country great and it isnt going to be the Tories, he said, urging Labour to change its DNA in a political project he characterised as Clause IV on steroids.

Clause IV famously pledged the Labour Party to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production.

Tony Blair persuaded his party to ditch this commitment in 1995 a move widely regarded as pivotal in signalling a transition from Labour old to new, shifting emphasis towards an equality of opportunity discourse which remains with us to this day. The moment has been presented both as a flight from socialism and a necessary compromise with political and economic realities in modern Britain delete as your political inclinations tend.

Sir Keirs body-snatching, mad-scientist routine might sound a bit febrile and gruesome but theres the kernel of something interesting in his analysis, above and beyond the familiar idea that the Labour leaders main job is to transfuse the policy preferences and talking points from Britains feral media into party policy.

Starmers right to this extent: the Tories have always had Jekyll and Hyde tendencies about what their governing purpose really is. With the Conservative and Unionist Party, it has never been a simple matter of just being averse to change, tending Englands green and pleasant land and preserving cherished national institutionsTM. In the DNA Starmer is so keen to transplant into the Labour Party, theres simultaneously a strong desire to wreck the joint.

It rather depends, I think, how you choose to remember Margaret Thatcher. Was the Iron Lady a smasher and a vandal, or a compromising politician who was often willing to trim her sails to political headwinds till she entered the final imperial phase of her premiership?

This probably strikes you as a silly question. Thatchers folk memory only goes one way. Both her critics and her superfans tend to see her as a hard-as-nails, no-compromises kind of gal.

Certainly, she once asked what great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: I stand for consensus? She characterised consensus as the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved.

But in truth, Thatchers stint in government is considerably more complex than the myth would have it. The patron saint of the modern Tory Party didnt shrink from certain fights inside and outside her party but in other respects, the Sainted Margaret demonstrated a capacity for worldly compromise which her contemporary cheerleaders in the Tory Party tend to forget.

This doubleness lives on in the modern Conservative party, combining reflexive defence for certain elements of the status quo with a powerful but deeply unconservative desire to burn down major components of public life in the UK.

Late-career Thatcher contributed to this myth-making. Political senility is a common fault in former politicians. Having handed back the levers of power, an amazing number of leading politicians suddenly discover that their dearest political wish was to introduce a series of reforms they didnt advocate when they had the power to do so. Ideas which were shunned in office suddenly become de rigueur when you have time on your hands, no red boxes and nobody calls.

IN retirement, Gordon Brown has discovered a remarkable enthusiasm for the kind of constitutional change he refused to countenance in office with a working Labour majority. Leaving Bute House seems to have transformed Alex Salmond from a fawning royalist into a geriatric Robespierre. Better one sinner repenteth, as he likes to say.

But theres always been a part of the Tory soul that begins to hear voices in the bitter watches of the night. This inclination towards smash-and-grab politics was memorably encapsulated by the brief but lasting mayhem of Liz Trusss stint of misrule.

This was the kind of conservatism that thinks the punters will be fine with turning the Cotswold into Mordor, geligniting the village cricket pitch, and in Britains brooks and waterways, letting the slurry rip. Truss promised creative destruction. Politicians are often accused of ratting on their promises. Truss at least achieved half of what she set out to do.

The British press have largely internalised this sense that radical reforms ought to involve setting one or more cherished national institutionsTM on fire. Anything which doesnt involve pandemonium tends to be dismissed as boring, bureaucratic or half-hearted.

In Scottish politics, by contrast, we have the opposite problem. Proposals attracting anything less than full-throated support from business or civic society are now almost immediately catastrophised in the media or attributed to government incompetence rather than recognising that political interest groups often have divergent political interests and decision-making on the allocation of benefits and burdens tend to create winners and losers, and recognising that losers can be expected, rightly or wrongly, to girn about it.

Starmer is right to perceive that his main opponents have created an opening for a party offering the illusion of managed continuity with less of the paranoid politics. The Tory Partys list of unpatriotic elements has grown remarkably lengthy as its stint in government peters out.

Much of civic society and most of the major institutions of public life in Britain are now included in the Tory list of enemies of the people. Theres the old bogeymen of trade unions and foreigners to which theyve now added the BBC, Channel 4, lawyers, judges, junior doctors, senior doctors, nurses, teachers, universities and the whole of the civil service, which has been intermittently denounced as obstructive, snowflake and idle.

Starmer also offered a degree of existential security in his big speech, suggesting that only Labour can bring the current flux to an end. Promising the punters a quiet(er) life is a familiar Tory move. But Sir Keir has more to work with here.

Political, economic and social life in the UK has been characterised by a sustained period of instability and uncertainty for years, through Brexit, Covid and the energy, inflation and associated cost of living crisis it precipitated.

Where this rhetoric gets suspicious is the idea a new UK government can inoculate us against these uncertainties particularly one which has pre-emptively committed to no big changes on public spending.

READ MORE:Coronation: Orbs, potholes, carriages and protesters being arrested

Karl Marx who I can quote so Sir Keir doesnt have to famously argued that one feature of capitalist society was that all that is solid melts into air.

No respecter of persons or traditions, capital production and destruction unsentimentally assembles and disassembles the public domain, builds up and knocks flat our built and natural environment, making and unmaking peoples lives in the process.

This gave rise, he said, to uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation. Marx thought this social flux and the anxiety it gave rise to would ultimately force humanity to face with sober senses their real conditions and change them.

If Starmers speeches are anything to go by, he thinks the Labour Partys historic role is to present the punters with an illusion of continuity, and call it conservatism.

D.C. tenants demand mayor and council cap the rent in District-wide … – Liberation

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

On April 29, just two days before the largest rent hike in more than four decades would take effect in Washington D.C., the Party for Socialism and Liberation and local D.C. residents mobilized in the neighborhoods of Mount Pleasant, Shaw and Congress Heights to demand that Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council use their authority to cap the outrageous increase.

The day of action was the culmination of weeks of outreach and organizing, and sought to give voice, credence, and solidarity to people in D.C. already struggling with poor living conditions. Speak-outs across the District provided a platform for people to voice their concerns and to see the breadth of support coming from organizers, tenants unions, and working-class tenants facing the brunt of rent aggression. Despite warnings of rain, PSL members, the Woodner Tenants Union, and others came together to support one clear message: Rent-control must mean rent controlled.

On the corner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Avenue in Southeast D.C., one Congress Heights resident spoke for unity: We all need to step up and protest this, it affects everybody except the rich!

In late February, the council quietly approved an 8.9% allowable increase in rent for rent-controlled housing units, an allowance that took effect on May 1. PSL members conducted on-the-street flyering and postering campaigns for over a month to bring the rent increase to the attention of District residents.

Rent-controlled housing is vitally needed in Washington, D.C. The overall cost of living in D.C. is 53% higher than the national average, while the average cost of housing on its own is 144% higher than the national average. The average individual income in D.C. is slightly over $50,000 a year, while the average cost of living in the District is just under $80,000.

The contradictions of housing under capitalism have been cast in sharp light. With rent increases allowed every year, one would expect to see a corollary increase in wages and income. In reality, the median household income in the District of Columbia has been decreasing since 2019. We cannot continue to have our rent increase exponentially when our wages are not doing the same, said Howard University student and D.C. PSL organizer Delaney Leonard in Congress Heights.

Another such contradiction is the high rate of homelessness in the nations capital. How in the world can we have all this homelessness in Washington, D.C., and all these luxury houses nobody can afford? questioned Brookland Manor Coalition and resident Cheryl Brunson. According to the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, On any given night in the District of Columbia there are 3,403 single persons and 1,007 adults and children in 347 households experiencing homelessness. On top of these harrowing figures, nearly 84% of people experiencing homelessness in the District are also Black, pointing to the highly racialized structures guiding gentrification.

Each year, the maximum amount landlords are legally permitted to raise rent is calculated based on the rate of inflation reached in the previous year. The Consumer Price Index used to determine inflation rates is exceptionally high in D.C. coming out of 2022 in no small part due to the U.S. war drive against Russia and China.

D.C. residents, despite being taxed to the full extent of the law, have no representation in government. When Congress approves measures that will spike inflation, it is done without any shred of democratic consent from the people who live and work in the District. Such stark increases in rent are part of a historic strategy of gentrification to expel longtime, working-class, predominantly Black residents to make way for affluent, predominantly-white newcomers to the area.

Exactly how much the rent will increase (less than or equal to 8.9%) will vary from unit to unit depending on how much more money individual landlords would like to take for themselves. A system reliant on the goodwill of a small minority of barons ransoming out shelter to the highest bidder is an unacceptable system. These circumstances are not the sole result of conniving land owners, as a tenant of the Woodner importantly acknowledged: Landlords have been given the power to be as greedy as they want to be by squeezing the hard earned money from the pockets of working-class people. Landlords are only able to expropriate as much of the income of working people as the government will allow.

The permittance of a nearly 9% increase in rent for people living in rent-controlled housing units is a bold-faced reminder that the interests of landlords and developers have not only come to possess the operations of the council and mayor, they have declared the working-class and oppressed people as their enemies. We, the makers of all values and functions in D.C., would do well to remember those who have positioned themselves against us, our needs, and the tides of human liberation.

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D.C. tenants demand mayor and council cap the rent in District-wide ... - Liberation

The Great Caution on Nigerias Trending Street Slang on Twitter – Tekedia

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

Recent tweets about Idan, a Yoruba word for supernatural power, have brought to light the political and ideological dimensions of language use in Nigerian society. The use of Idan to describe extraordinary people raises important questions about how we perceive success and power in Nigeria. Based on 22 narratives drawn from 76 tweets posted by Nigerians between 1 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., our analyst argues that people should be cautious of how they use the word in political and wealth contexts.

By focusing on individual achievement and power, we risk ignoring the social and political structures that enable or hinder success. Success is not simply a matter of individual effort or ability; it is also shaped by factors such as social class, access to resources, and systemic inequality. When we focus exclusively on individual achievement, we may overlook the ways in which systemic inequality and injustice limit opportunities for many Nigerians.

By idolizing individuals with extraordinary achievements, we risk overlooking the collective efforts and contributions of ordinary Nigerians who may not have achieved such spectacular success but who nonetheless play important roles in building our society.

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When we celebrate individuals solely for their achievements, we may overlook their flaws and shortcomings as leaders. This can create a culture of impunity and corruption in which leaders are insulated from accountability and scrutiny.

When we celebrate only those individuals who have achieved extraordinary success, we may overlook the perspectives and experiences of ordinary Nigerians who may have different ideas and values. This can lead to a political system that is disconnected from the needs and aspirations of ordinary Nigerians.

Our analyst submits that while celebrating individual achievement and excellence is important, we must also be mindful of the social and political structures that hinder success. We must also recognize the contributions of ordinary Nigerians and prioritize shared values and principles over personal loyalty and patronage in politics for us to build a more inclusive and just society for all Nigerians.

Political orientations and ideologies in the tweets

Pan-Africanism: The reference to Idan as a source of power that transcends national boundaries and unites people of African descent suggests a pan-Africanist perspective, which emphasizes the solidarity and unity of African peoples across the world.

Socialism: The reference to Idan as a force for the common good and the upliftment of the masses implies a socialist or social-democratic ideology, which emphasizes the importance of social justice, equality, and the welfare of the people.

Populism: The use of emoticons such as ?? and ? suggests a populist tone, which seeks to mobilize popular support for a charismatic leader or cause by appealing to peoples emotions, values, and aspirations.

Anti-establishment: The reference to Idan as a means of challenging the status quo and disrupting the existing power structures implies an anti-establishment or radical political orientation, which seeks to overthrow or transform the dominant political and economic system.

Identity politics: The use of the term Yoruba first in one of the tweets suggests an identity politics perspective, which emphasizes the importance of group identity, representation, and recognition in politics.

Overall, these political orientations and ideologies reflect a diverse range of views and values that are shaped by historical, cultural, and social factors, and which continue to shape the political landscape of Nigeria and the wider African continent.

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The Great Caution on Nigerias Trending Street Slang on Twitter - Tekedia

Never Content: On Don Hamerquist’s A Brilliant Red Thread – lareviewofbooks

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

TODAY WE FACE a bewildering conundrum, writes Luis Brennan. [M]illions of people are ready to engage in active combat with the ruling capitalist order, but we have not seen the emergence of a viable social force that articulates a promising alternative to that order. Faith in capitalist governments, whether liberal-democratic or outright authoritarian, is eroding worldwide as crises proliferate, and even the wealthiest and most plunderous nation-states are proving incapable of sustaining the quality of life that ensures their working populations docility. We therefore enter a dangerous political era, when the operative question seems not to be whether serious alternatives to global capitalism will emerge, but whether they will come from the left or the right. And there is no preordained outcome; victory will go to those who fight the hardestand the smartest.

Toward this end, Brennan, himself an experienced labor organizer, has edited a stellar collection of essays by its titular octogenarian American revolutionary, A Brilliant Red Thread: Revolutionary Writings from Don Hamerquist (Kersplebedeb, 2023). It is a work that juxtaposes soaring theoretical insights with a great humility of prose and posture exceedingly rare among leftist theoreticians. Hamerquist has long shunned the cult of celebrity embraced by many intellectuals, opting instead to stay in intimate contact with a small network of comrades concerned with working-class organizing and direct action. But Hamerquists rightful place among the United States foremost revolutionary thinkers is long overdue; the lessons of his nearly 70 years of agitating and theorizing toward human liberation constitute some of the freshest and most novel political writing available in our moment. And befitting its authors lifelong dedication to placing well-measured political activity above pontification for its own sake, A Brilliant Red Thread is not intended for passive contemplation or rhetorical posturing. This book is a weapon, writes Brennan, to be turned on the powerful for maximum impact.

The unique political interventions offered in A Brilliant Red Thread are inseparable from the life experiences of its author. Don Hamerquist was born in 1939 and lived in a cabin deep in Washingtons Olympic Peninsula. His parents were members of the American Communist Party (CP), and his father, a logger by trade, organized with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the original Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). As Joseph Stalins icy grip on international communism hardened, the couples antiauthoritarian approach to politics placed them at odds not just with US eliteswhose blacklist prevented Hamerquists father from retaining regular work or traveling to nearby Canadabut also CP leadership, who ultimately expelled them as dissidents. In both cases, the Hamerquists were unapologetic. Their son recalls the frequent counsel of his father: [T]hink for yourself; dont get too enthused about individual leaders; its more important to question leadership than applaud it.

Hamerquist joined the CP himself in 1958 and spent years working in logging and trucking, punctuated by an abortive stint at Reed College. The party had become more outwardly tolerant of subversives, welcoming the elder Hamerquists back into its ranks in the early 1950s, and subsequently encouraging the young Don to dabble in the growing youth movement that would become the New Left. Described as handsome and hardworking in an otherwise hostile 1967 profile by Time magazine, Hamerquist became a protg of General Secretary Gus Hall, near the center of the American partys bureaucracy.

But the growing New Left challenge to party hierarchy and inertia, coupled with a rebellious streak inherited from Hamerquists parents, made this an uncomfortable fit. By 1968, Hamerquist was out, but not before a Kafkaesque process that ended when he unsuccessfully argued for his own expulsionwhile leadership countered that he had simply resigned. Regardless, as a public staffer, Hamerquist promptly filed forand receivedunemployment checks from New York State.

Like many in the New Left, by the mid-1960s, Hamerquist felt the urgent need to rethink communist orthodoxy amid a rapidly changing world. In particular, the 1968 general strike in France, the Prague Spring, and the emergence of strident Black and Brown revolutionary movements in the United States and around the world all pointed to emergent forms of rebellion emanating from below and organized horizontally, far removed from the top-down stewardship of professional politicians and trade-union bureaucrats that had urged tepid reforms toward a vanishing horizon. Though feeling as little fidelity to Beijing as he did to Moscow, Hamerquist did have sympathy for one slogan of Chinas Cultural Revolution: Bombard the Party headquarters.

In 1969, Hamerquist co-founded the Sojourner Truth Organization (STO), a small yet impactful grouping in the so-called New Communist movement, alongside a core of innovative young Marxist thinkers descendent from the New Left. At its best, this group, which persisted well into the 1980s, emphasized experimental praxis, and practiced rigorous critique of itself and its surrounding world. STO proposed that revolution in the United States would not be initiated by the protracted and deliberate initiative of large formal organizations, including traditional parties and labor unions, but would arise instead from the contradictions structuring daily life, under which people labor and live in close cooperation, while enacting a social order that degrades and deforms their common humanity, engenders perennial crises, and places them in competition with one another.

As chronicled in Michael Staudenmaiers book Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization, 19691986 (AK Press, 2012), STO engaged in vigorous debate about the forms adequate to relate to rebellion from below and to help it generalize into outright insurrection. Rather than a solution to the question worked out on paper, this framework invites organizers and agitators to take equally seriously the twin perils of spontaneous struggle simply burning out for lack of coherence and consistency over time, or else its dynamism and radical potential being crushed by the imposition of too much formal structure. Needless to say, the question remains an open one.

Moreover, at a time when a popular movement slogan ran Black and White, Unite and Fight, STO argued that the color line itself must be smashed by a new type of solidarity between white and Black workers. White workers should not organize as white workersbeneficiaries of a series of now-famous privileges underlying their compliance with the bossbut must advance the demands of the Black and Brown workers at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. In subsequent decades, so-called privilege theory was watered down to a business-friendly exercise in scolding workers because somebody somewhere has it worse than them. But it originated as a communist praxis of workplace organizing, first formulated by another STO founder, Noel Ignatiev, who put it succinctly: Treason to Whiteness Is Loyalty to Humanity.

Like most of STOs best work, these theories were not formulated in abstraction, but came from members participation in factory struggles in the Steel Belt, with a ground zero of Chicago, where Hamerquist lived for many years. STO had no interest in apologetics for the increasingly farcical and barbarous regimes of actually existing socialism in Russia, China, or anywhere else. As believers in the vision that animated these revolutions, they argued that the end result had to be honestly assessed by those who sought to realize it. The sum total of these political positions was a unique political orientation, at once internationalist and distinctly American, which characterizes the writing featured in A Brilliant Red Thread.

While Hamerquist has been diligently writing and arguing for most of his political life, the offerings contained in A Brilliant Red Thread begin in 2000, long after Hamerquist left STO and became something of an elder statesman among anarchists and unorthodox communists. Most of the entries began as correspondence with organizers trying to make sense of the present struggles they were engaged in and the changing world around them. And activists go to Don with such questions because they know they will not be served up reheated leftovers from the 20th century; while Hamerquist draws deftly on his considerable experiences, his reflections are grounded in the present, even the near future.

Sometimes the topics of these exchanges are what we may call niche, such as the controversy within the present-day IWW over whether or not to form legally recognized unions. But the depth of Hamerquists hard-won, deeply practical wisdom, coupled with the lapidary editing work of Brennan and a small circle of confidants, allows these correspondences to stand on their own as much broader political reflections. A common theme uniting these diverse interventions is also a consistent feature of Hamerquists political life: the imperative to reflect critically on the present terrain of struggle, unclouded by sentimentality or dogmatism, leaving no axiom untested by critical scrutiny or practical experimentation.

These interventions take place on several interrelated levels. The first is a sophisticated analysis of the changing nature of transnational capitalism, its relationship to nation-states, and the makeup of states themselves. Hamerquist draws on a fusion of postautonomist philosophers Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri and military theorist John Robb to depict global capital as increasingly usurping the power of nation-states, including in the so-called West, and depriving states of their ability to weather the crises inherent in capitalism in ways that do not immediately serve short-term profit motives. Call for new New Deals all you like, Hamerquist argues. No executive power exists to bring them into being. Even as devolving quality of life in the wealthiest countries threatens open revolt, considerable internationally organized ruling-class power pushes against strong state policy, or redistribution in any direction but up.

In one profound entry, written in 2009 to the small communist cadre organization Bring the Ruckus, Hamerquist discusses the diminishing importance of white Americans in the international division of labor, which has led to the erosion of much of the privilege on which STO focused so intently. The loyalty of US white workers is no longer worth as much, he argues, and less will be paid for it. This of course threatens the historical alliance between white workers and white elites, on which much of US society has been built since colonial Virginia. While this prediction has proven prescient, and the increasing devaluation of the wages of whiteness have been a boon to right populism and outright fascism in white America, there is presently no organized bloc of state powers or capitalist firms willing or able to intervene decisively to reverse this trend.

While Hamerquist gestures toward the possibility of coherent global powers greater than todays states, which might handle crises in a more far-sighted way, this moment has not yet arrived. Todays political terrain remains a fraught mixture of increasingly hollow states, drained of their ability to manage society by means other than the brute force of police and military, and multinational corporations that simply chase profit margins and presently do not have the capability, if they have the desire, to effect long-term planning.

The second level is a close consideration of the complex struggles on the local level, where a crowded field of actors seek to push the momentum of mass struggle either back into the legitimate organs of the state, or into extraparliamentary right-wing politics the likes of which we saw on January 6, 2021. Hamerquist has helped theorize this terrain as a three way fight. Whereas leftist orthodoxy treats fascism as an option freely chosen by ruling classes in the face of social disintegrationthereby dismissing self-identified revolutionary fascists as mere puppets of elites, often while making coalitions with progressive elites to defeat themHamerquist argues that fascism can be a political form distinct from liberal-democratic capitalist society, and its third-positionist adherents are not mistaken that it would represent a revolutionalbeit toward barbarism. Once we take fascism seriously as a challenge to the capitalist status quo, Hamerquist argues, we must confront the frightful possibility that growing anti-capitalist sentiments worldwide will not find an adequate expression in left politics, and will instead find it in the right.

This prospect is especially dangerous as the ruling class has taken on the rhetoric surrounding many bedrock leftist issues, including anti-racism and social justice, making them appear indissociable from big capital and state power at a time when these actors are quite unpopular. The saturation of media, workplaces, and schools with a business-friendly version of liberatory politics has made issues that impact some of societys most powerless people begin to appear elitist. A clearly demarcated anti-capitalist alternative, existing in laudable pockets here and there, has yet to coherethough it must. A final and related point Hamerquist emphasizes should be easy to grasp in 2023: ostensible gains and victories, no matter how definitive, can always be subject to reversal, sometimes abruptly. Nothing must be taken for granted. Things can always changequickly, for the worse.

This leads to the third level, where small groups of like-minded revolutionaries organize collective projects aimed at waging three-way fights, cultivating international ties, and ultimately building a postcapitalist society. While his rejection of top-down, bureaucratic organizing led Hamerquist out of the CP, he did not become a pure spontaneist, one who places faith in capitalism to mechanistically give way to communism through the unfolding of its intrinsic contradictions. Instead, Hamerquist believes that adequate political organization will make or break the historical trajectory presently undecided between Rosa Luxemburgs famous crossroads: socialism or barbarism. Hamerquist knows better than to offer ornate blueprints for diverse social and political landscapes. But he nonetheless has a clear sense of best practicesmany derived, as he is often quick to point out, from being intimately acquainted with the worst ones.

First, Hamerquist offers flexible criteria for organizing groupings and evaluating their success, proceeding from the premise that some kind of organization is necessary. I think that any revolutionary organization that does not expect minorities to accept majority decisions on basic issues, he writes, and that does not collectively evaluate everyones political work is an organization that will quickly become an ex-organization or an organization of ex-revolutionaries. Should projects then cohere around ornate theoretical unity, draped in all the vestments of the 20th-century revolutionary tradition? This might work, Hamerquist notes, but you dont know for sure what somebodys self-styled politics actually amount to, until action is required and risk enters the equation. The question thereby becomes a calculus of practical unity, underscoring the necessity to identify key points of necessary agreement.

In one critical letter to a nascent anarchist federation, Hamerquist outlines three necessary points of agreement:

First, we want people who arent reformists and whose orientation is to fight the system [] Second, we want people who believe that revolution must be achieved through the development and exercise of popular power, and who understand that political work must embody and develop this power as a practical content, not just an ultimate goal [] Finally, we want people who are willing to subject their ideas and activity to collective discussion and decision-making.

Relatedly, as scholar Orisanmi Burton recently put it, revolution is illegal. Hamerquist is insistent that sustained revolutionary efforts, in the best of possible outcomes, will quickly transcend the narrow confines of liberal-democratic participation and place their participants in growing danger, and there is no point in pretending otherwise. The question, then, is not whether to engage in activity that provokes state repression, but how to do so wisely. A survivor of COINTELPRO, Hamerquist cautions activists to develop a grounded assessment of state repression, and to avoid the twin scourges of disregarding it altogether, or allowing the assumed omnipotence of the state to paralyze. A student of state counterinsurgency strategies, Hamerquist argues that direct violence against movements is not the preferred method of effective counterinsurgents, and more complex operators aim at influencing the course of mass movements toward aims favorable to national and transnational elites.

Navigating state repression is a game of blind mans bluff: the necessity to act comes alongside the impossibility of knowing more than a small part of the whole. None of this, Hamerquist argues, gets any better if revolutionaries who face repression simply fall back on claims of free speech and insist that they were actually harmless all along. There is no doubt that the state is taking us seriously, he wrote in a 2001 editorial for the ARA Research Bulletin, a publication of the pugnacious leftist street organization Anti-Racist Action.

We should also take ourselves seriously. Playing the innocent victim is not serious. Treating repressive policies as if they were reflexive reactions of idiots and thugs is not serious [] We wont get anywhere or gain anything by reaction to incidents of repression with appeals to civil libertarian rights to protest. The state isnt committed to these rules of the game, and the movement isnt eitheror at least it shouldnt be.

The essays contained in A Brilliant Red Thread are the work of a political mind that never rests content with having the answers but strives instead for bigger and better questions, and experimental praxis suitable for trying them out. This is a book that must be read, debated, and otherwise reckoned with by all who believe themselves to be fighting for a world after capitalism. Hamerquist would be the last person to claim that any one text or individual can point us there, but this book takes us more than a few steps along the way.

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Never Content: On Don Hamerquist's A Brilliant Red Thread - lareviewofbooks

Democrat Colin Allred brings contrasting style to race against Ted … – The Texas Tribune

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

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WASHINGTON U.S. Rep. Colin Allred is gearing up to challenge U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2024 election, and the Democrats measured approach poses a sharp contrast to Cruzs bellicose style.

Allred doesnt shout during committee hearings or deride those he disagrees with both signature Cruz moves. He hasnt made headlines for epic political showdowns, nor has he positioned himself as a leader of an ideological movement.

Colleagues instead describe Allred as level-headed, eager to work across the aisle and accessible to constituents in his Dallas-based district.

Knowing how to work with everyone, knowing how to listen to people, how to engage, how to come up with solutions, and really, how to bring people together thats what leadership is, said U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, a Houston Democrat whose friendship with Allred grew after both flipped Republican-held seats in 2018. And frankly, thats the leadership we need in our state right now.

Allreds path to Congress wasnt typical but has deep roots in his district.

A Dallas native, Allred was born to a single mother who taught in Dallas public schools. The Hillcrest High School football star played for Baylor University on a scholarship before deferring law school for four seasons as an NFL linebacker for the Tennessee Titans beginning in 2007.

After attending law school at the University of California, Berkeley, Allred became a civil rights lawyer and served in the Office of General Counsel for the Department of Housing and Urban Development under then-Secretary Julin Castro, another Texas Democrat.

Allreds history has been integral to his campaigns and his time in office. He was the first member of Congress to take paternity leave from office and is part of a bipartisan group working to advance paid parental leave legislation.

I never knew my father, so I made a promise to myself a long time ago that when I became a dad, I would do it right, Allred said in his campaign announcement video.

Allred was elected to the U.S. House as part of a Democratic wave in the midterm elections during Donald Trumps presidency, defeating Republican Rep. Pete Sessions by 6.5 points. Sessions was a formidable opponent, an 11-term incumbent and chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Allred approached the election as a moderate who focused on kitchen-table issues such as health care access. Sessions returned to Congress representing a new district in 2020, and the two have since served together.

Since joining Congress, Allred has worked across the aisle to bring federal funds to local projects, including with Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Waxahachie, on creating a medical center for veterans in Garland and on acquiring almost $300 million for a Veterans Affairs health facility in Dallas. He collaborated with other North Texas representatives to ensure that Dallas-area projects received federal money in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure package, including upgrades at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Allred made a mark as an affable colleague shortly after arriving in Congress, according to others who were first elected in 2018. He was selected co-class president in his freshman term, and in his second term was elected to represent early-term candidates to Democratic leadership. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark named him as one of her 10 deputies in December.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, also joined Congress after the 2018 election and said Allred was someone who could turn down the temperature in sometimes volatile internal discussions on gun safety legislation and trade agreements with Canada and Mexico.

Colin was always a voice of reason, a voice of commonsense solutions, but also someone whose input was always very strategic and thoughtful, Escobar said. The Democratic Caucus is definitely a big tent, and we have very diverse views.

Allred is little known outside of Dallas or the halls of Congress. He rarely deviates from party leadership on votes and hasnt been fully tested in the rougher aspects of the job.

His committee assignments have been largely policy-focused and bipartisan, though that could change now that he serves on the House subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government a Republican-created panel formed to investigate the Biden administration and its policies. Allred said he wants to keep discussions grounded in reality on the subcommittee, which other Democrats have dismissed as a partisan farce.

The House Republicans ran, and won their narrow majority on lowering costs and reining in inflation something I am more than happy to work with them on, Allred said in a statement shortly after the panel was formed. Yet one of their first acts in power is to set up a committee to investigate civil servants across the federal government they disagree with.

Allreds methods sharply contrast with the rabble-rousing fire that Cruz brings to his Senate job.

Cruz bitingly told The Dallas Morning News that Allred was a Democrat congressman from Dallas whos done very little. Ive had no occasion to interact with him because hes not been involved in many significant issues in his limited time here.

Cruz will be a behemoth to conquer, a mainstay on the conservative stage whose influence has grown since he joined the Senate in 2013.

Cruz has a handsome campaign war chest starting with well over $3 million available and a deep presence in the right-wing media ecosystem with his thrice-weekly podcast. Democrats may revile him, but Cruz remains one of the most popular elected officials among Republicans in Texas.

After Allred announced his campaign against Cruz, Republicans immediately singled out his loyal voting record to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, casting him as a far leftist.

Allred wants men to compete in womens sports, isnt serious about addressing the crisis at the border, wants to take away law-abiding Texans guns, and is soft on punishing murderers, Cruz spokesperson Nate Maddux said. Bottom line, Allred is too extreme for Texas.

But Allred has a history of pushing back at times on his partys left flank. While negotiating the climate and clean energy provisions of Democrats cornerstone Inflation Reduction Act last year, Allred brought in his perspective representing oil and gas interests to push back on progressive talking points on fossil fuels. He voted with all Republicans and just over half of his party in favor of a resolution denouncing the horrors of socialism.

U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a fellow moderate Democrat from North Texas, said he valued Allreds perspective.

Hes been just someone that has been really good and gives a lot of really good insight on different pieces of legislation, particularly around the committees that he serves on before they go to the negotiating table with the Republicans to be able to hammer some agreements, Veasey said.

Veasey, who like Allred is Black, said some Republican representatives have approached him when they meant to speak to Allred. Though amusing, Veasey said it was a good sign that members from across the aisle so often look to talk to Allred.

In the 2018 election, Allred built a coalition of some unlikely bedfellows, gaining endorsements from the pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the powerful AFL-CIO union.

Byron Sanders, president and CEO of the Dallas-area youth organization Big Thought, has worked with Allred on youth issues and said Allred is accessible to community members, often forming committees of local leaders in a highly diverse district.

Hes held and maintains respect across the board, whether youre talking about law enforcement or community activists, Sanders said. Its kind of hard to give both of those camps the impression that youre willing to hear them out.

Allreds campaign also isnt shying away from attacking Cruz. His social media has repeatedly highlighted Cruz gaffes, including his infamous trip to Cancun during the 2021 winter storm that left millions of Texans without power. He contrasted himself with Cruz on the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when Cruz played a central role in objecting to certifying the 2020 election results.

Hell do anything to get onto Fox News but cant be bothered to help keep rural Texas hospitals open, Allred said in his campaign announcement video. The struggles of regular Texans just dont interest him.

The Senate in 2024 looks difficult for Democrats, with nearly all of the Republican seats that are up for election in comfortably red states. Democrats will be straining to maintain their razor-thin majority, while Republicans will be itching to flip the chamber after failing to do so in 2022. But Allred is off to a solid start, raising more than $2 million in the 36 hours after announcing his run.

Allred also may have to run a primary campaign against state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, who is expected to announce his own run against Cruz after the regular legislative session ends May 29.

In Cruzs last election, Democrat Beto ORourke lost by only 2.6 points, serving as a wakeup call for Texas Republicans.

John Cornyn, Texas senior Republican senator, said he heartily supports Cruz and that he doesnt see much opportunity for a Democrat to win in the state. But he added that if 2018 taught anything, it was that Cruz shouldnt rest on his laurels.

We cant take anything for granted, Cornyn said. Its going to perhaps set a new record for spending. All of these state Senate races in individual states now are national races because they determine the balance of power here in the U.S. Senate and in Congress. So I think this is going to be a big shootout.

Disclosure: Baylor University and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Democrat Colin Allred brings contrasting style to race against Ted ... - The Texas Tribune

FTC warns of scammers cloning voices with AI technology during phone calls – ABC NEWS 4

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV)

AI technology makes life easier in many ways, doing jobs or tasks that humans would normally do. It helps some people drive their cars, it helps doctors diagnose illnesses but it also helps scammers swindle unsuspecting victims.

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) issued a warning that scammers are now cloning people's voices in order to make phone scams sound more convincing.

The scams target victims who often give up money, believing the scammer is someone else often a family member who needs urgent help.

In "family emergency scams," a victim gets a call from someone who claims the victim's loved one is in trouble (in jail or in another country without a passport) and needs money. Senior citizens are often targets of these scams.

AI technology makes it very easy for fraudsters to clone a person's voice and use it during the scam phone call.

Amacher said with AI technology advancing very quickly, it takes just a small sample of someone's voice to create a voice clone.

Scammers can find samples of people's voices all over the internet on social media. They can use those samples to create a clone that says whatever they want.

Amacher said figuring out what's fake and what's real is a serious issue that our society will have to grapple with. He said we will have to be more careful about what information we give away and what we post on social media.

Katie Hart, Director of Utah Division of Consumer Protection said currently there are no local laws on the books to protect consumers who get ripped-off during AI scams.

For now, she said, the best protection for consumers is to be aware of these scams and question any phone calls that sound suspicious.

If you can't get a hold of that person, call someone else you can trust that can help verify they are in fact okay and not in need of money.

Utah lawmakers passed legislation in 2022 to form a cyber security commission, to "gather information and share best practices on cyber security".

The recently-formed commission has not yet addressed AI and scams.

Maggie Hutchens, a recent UVU graduate in UVU's cyber security studies program said laws have not caught up with AI scammers.

She said it's urgent for lawmakers to address this issue before more people are hurt. She said just like scammers use data to victimize people, lawmakers can use data to create policy to protect people.

"I don't think we need to wait for hundreds of thousands of dollars to be taken from people before we address the issue," she said.

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FTC warns of scammers cloning voices with AI technology during phone calls - ABC NEWS 4

A.I. Week: The future is here and it’s cloning your voice – WXYZ 7 Action News Detroit

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

(WXYZ) The future is here, and its using your voice. There are already apps available where you can use artificial voices, listen to them, or you can make one.

Now some of these voices are pretty familiar: JFK, Barack Obama, Kevin Hart, the list goes on.

"It's pretty scary," said one Shelby Township resident. Adding that she would "absolutely" believe that it was a real person.

Those voices were made using an app called Play.ht. The app can also create clones of voices. It took a couple hours but I created a clone of my own voice.

Artificial intelligence clones Sarah's voice

"Were at a point in time with artificial intelligence where you can recreate somebody's voice after just having 3 seconds of their audio," said Sinead Bovell, Futurist and WAYE founder.

WAYE is a company which educates on the future of technology. Bovell travels the world to talk about artificial intelligence.

While Bovell is worried about the technology, she said she feels in some ways we have been here before.

"When the radio was invented, it disrupted so many things and there was a lot of legitimate fear," she said.

As with most all progression, Bovell says there are pros and cons to the artificial intelligence.

Full interview with futurist and founder of WAYE

Pros: it can be used to give people with disabilities back their ability to speak and make a lot of peoples jobs easier when it comes to careers like podcasting and video creation.

Cons: alarm bells have been ringing as to artificial intelligence scams where bad actors have used A.I. voice cloning to pretend to be someone else, threatening them over the phone or attempting to gain access to bank accounts.

"As A.I. becomes more advanced and more pervasive that means things like phone calls and different video segments we may see, we have to think critically about how those were created or who is actually behind them," said Bovell.

She says there is artificial intelligence in the works to let you know if a voice is real or fake.

Its a bit of a cat and mouse game, but what you can do is call family or friends directly to confirm their identity, come up with a safe word, and be very careful with what phone numbers you pick up for, as well as with who you share your personal information.

Similar to when the internet came out, we all need to educate ourselves, and prepare to adjust.

"Kinda scary but at the same time I think its just the advancement of ... the world now," said Imani Jones of Detroit.

Bovell adds, "we really have been here before and we of course will find ways to move through it."

A.I. Week: The future is here and it's cloning your voice - WXYZ 7 Action News Detroit

When my mom died, I wanted to clone her – Insider

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

The author and his mother. Courtesy of the author

I suffered grief of biblical proportions when my mother died at 90 in 2018. In a haze of sadness, it seemed comforting to imagine cloning her in a fertility clinic lab, where I could raise her as my daughter.

My mother, Naimma, was born in a remote village by the Tigris river in Iraq, where she faced many hardships. She grew up in a small Arabic community that shared the Muslim religion. She was shaped by her parents, whom I never met. She mourned their early deaths, praying for them at the cemetery daily for years. She had an arranged marriage at 13 and welcomed her first child at 14. I was No. 5 of her six kids. She had just come to the US when I was born and had to learn English.

I was 12 when my father died suddenly in 1969 from a heart attack. My mother now had to navigate raising her children on her own. She took the GRE, worked hard at California State University, Los Angeles, and obtained her teaching credentials. She taught for the Los Angeles Unified School District in the inner city until she retired.

She was so proud that I was going to be a doctor and made it possible for me to pay for medical school in Los Angeles. I want to thank her for the sacrifices she made to ensure my life was better. I wished I could make her new life better.

But after re-tethering to reality about cloning my mother, I saw the futility in my fantasy. She would be a project, a designed object with unrealistic expectations. She would grow up loving me as a father. Parenting is a social activity, not purely biological.

My cloned mom would be over 90 years younger than my real mom. Though she might look like her eventually, she would not have the unique experiences that made her the woman I missed so much.

My cloned mom would not meet or marry my father. She would not have her hilarious malaprops, like "The Star Bangler Spangle" and, "You are a rat pack." She would not be guiding me to the hadj in Mecca and showing me the traditions of Ramadan.

Now religion would be her choice. She would not be underemployed because of her early limited access to education. Her eventual medical issues could be mitigated or even prevented, as I'd be aware of what her body did as she aged. I would not have to stand by watching her slowly slide toward dementia.

What relationship would my brothers and sisters have to a reincarnation of our mother? Some have already passed away, so even before my new mom was born, she would have children who died. The rest of them could be jealous that she would love me more than them. They would be confused aunts and uncles instead of sons and daughters.

A clone is not a perfect copy of an individual. If we cloned John F. Kennedy, Princess Diana, or Martin Luther King Jr., these children would be unlikely to meet the expectations to achieve what was accomplished by their genetic predecessors.

No, there would be no solace in attempting to recreate my mother. The new Naimma would be a completely different person, even if, anatomically, she had the same genome. She would not be my mom, whom I miss so much.

Samir Shahin, MD, is a family-practice physician in Los Angeles. He wrote a sci-fi romance novel, "Override," about sending embryos into space with an artificial-intelligence caretaker.

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When my mom died, I wanted to clone her - Insider

Ahsoka’s Baylan Actually Could Be This Huge Star Wars Character … – Screen Rant

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

The upcoming Ahsoka series will feature Ray Stevenson as Baylan Skoll, and this seemingly new antagonist could actually be an existing Star Wars character. Baylan was first revealed in the Ahsoka teaser trailer at Star Wars Celebration 2023, wielding an orange lightsaber and clashing blades with Ahsoka Tano. Not much is known about Baylan and his apprentice, Shin Hati, other than that they're working with Morgan Elsbeth, meaning they could team up with Grand Admiral Thrawn himself. While this would tie in nicely with Ahsoka's mission, it also hints at Baylan having a secret identity that will change the course of both Ahsoka and the Mandoverse.

Related: Ray Stevenson Gies Insight Into Ahsoka's Orange Lightsaber-Wielding Villains

If Baylan is revealed to be an existing Star Wars character, several story possibilities would open up based on that character's history. This would allow the team behind Ahsoka to tie Baylan's character into Thrawn's plan and create even more connections to the other Star Wars TV shows. The concepts that would become available could lead to a lot of really fun and creative moments in Ahsoka, taking the live-action Star Wars show to the next level. All of these possibilities hinge on Baylan being confirmed as an existing Star Wars character, and there's actually quite a bit of evidence to suggest that it will happen.

There's a good chance that Baylan is actually Joruus C'Baoth from Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy of books. In the Star Wars Legends timeline, Joruus C'Baoth was a mad clone of Jedi Master Jorus C'Baoth, who teamed up with Thrawn in Heir to the Empire as a means of achieving his own goals. He tried converting Luke Skywalker to his side, but Luke saw how he had fallen to the dark and refused, which led to a climactic duel at the end of the trilogy. Given the Star Wars TV shows' focus on Imperial cloning and C'Baoth's connection to Thrawn, making Baylan his canon equivalent would make sense for the story.

Thrawn first met Jorus C'Baoth in the years before the Clone Wars, where the two came into a conflict that ended with Thrawn destroying C'Baoth and the Outbound Flight project. Perhaps something similar happened in canon, which would explain Thrawn creating C'Baoth's clone, or discovering that Palpatine had created him, like in Legends. Baylan bears a striking resemblance to C'Baoth, albeit with much shorter hair, and being a dark Jedi could explain the meaning behind the orange lightsaber color. Perhaps Baylan will try to recruit Ahsoka as C'Baoth did with Luke in Legends, given that she's technically no longer a Jedi.

Baylan being Joruus C'Baoth would also set up more Jedi clones, just like in the Thrawn trilogy. In The Last Command, C'Baoth created a clone of Luke named Luuke Skywalker, grown from the hand that he lost in The Empire Strikes Back. Incorporating Luke as a villain would be an incredibly bold way to feature him in Ahsoka, and having a slightly altered clone would allow for a new actor, rather than another CGI recreation of Mark Hamill. This would also be a great way to continue Ahsoka's character arc, as an evil Luke would remind her of Anakin Skywalker and drudge up old wounds that she hasn't fully overcome.

Another shocking possibility would be Ezra Bridger, who was last seen disappearing with Thrawn into hyperspace. Since Thrawn knows that Ahsoka is looking for Ezra, perhaps he'll create a clone to fool her and eventually strike when Thrawn sees fit. This would make for an incredible twist if the show waited a few episodes before the reveal, and it would make the real Ezra's return even more satisfying. Star Wars Rebels briefly teased Ezra turning to the dark side in season 3, but this idea was quickly dropped, so having an evil Ezra clone is a great opportunity to build on this concept.

Related: Did New Ahsoka Footage Tease Ezra Bridger's Turn To The Dark Side?

If Ahsoka does bring back Joruus C'Baoth and even clones of existing characters, then Star Wars canon should also bring Mara Jade into the Mandalorian era. She was an integral part of the Thrawn trilogy, the former Emperor's Hand who had failed to kill Luke Skywalker, only to team up with him to stop C'Baoth. She was the one who killed Luke's evil clone and C'Baoth himself, so given how intertwined their stories are in Legends, she deserves to be brought back if he is. Of course, much of Mara's Legends story would no longer work in canon, namely her marriage to Luke, but there are ways to work around this.

If Luke and Mara were to meet in canon, then there could be some slight adjustments to their history. They could simply be friends or allies, or have a brief romance that doesn't lead to marriage, allowing some of their story to be the same without contradicting canon. Mara was eventually killed in Legends, so her death could be shifted to earlier in the timeline, explaining her absence in the sequel trilogy and maybe even allowing her and Luke to have been married after all. However, if Mara doesn't appear in Ahsoka, her role could be filled by a different character, such as a former Inquisitor or even Shin Hati.

Related: Ahsoka Villains Explained: Names, Identity, Weapons & More

Mount Tantiss is one of the most significant elements to be reincorporated into Star Wars canon, and it carries even greater importance if Baylan is in fact Joruus C'Baoth. The Emperor's secret cloning facility first appeared in Heir to the Empire, guarded by Joruus C'Baoth himself, which brought the mad Jedi into conflict with Thrawn before they agreed to work together. Mount Tantiss returned to canon in Star Wars: The Bad Batch, and this would be the perfect setup for Joruus C'Baoth to return in Ahsoka. Thrawn also used Mount Tantiss in Legends to create his own clone army, which ties in nicely with a Jedi clone.

Because Mount Tantiss was used for Palpatine's cloning project, a Jedi clone would set up his return in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The Star Wars TV shows have hinted that the various cloning projects all lead to Palpatine or Snoke, with Thrawn's "Project Necromancer" being the most recent hint. C'Baoth's appearance would honor the original Thrawn story, build on Star Wars' current projects, and set up the future timeline all at once. The Star Wars franchise has done an excellent job setting up a canon adaptation of the Thrawn trilogy, and having Ahsoka's Baylan be Joruus C'Baoth would serve as the final piece that brings it all together.

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Ahsoka's Baylan Actually Could Be This Huge Star Wars Character ... - Screen Rant

Star Wars Is Finally Getting Over Its Palpatine Obsession… But … – Screen Rant

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

Star Wars is finally moving away from its obsession with Emperor Palpatine, but a certain storyline involving Grand Admiral Thrawn could undo that progress. Palpatines return in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was highly controversial not only did it seem convoluted within the context of the Skywalker sagas overarching narrative, but it also came across as an attempt to cash in on nostalgia. Making Rey a Palpatine was unnecessary, but Star Wars has, at the very least, been trying to make more sense of Darth Sidious return through other media since The Rise of Skywalkers release.

These attempts include comic series like Charles Soules The Rise of Kylo Ren, which goes some way to explain how Palpatine manipulated Ben Solo through Snoke. Star Wars: The Bad Batch has also delved into the possible circumstances of Palpatines return, taking a closer look at the cloning research that occurred after the rise of the Empire. Even so, Star Wars is a franchise with endless possibilities it can, and should, move past Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader as its main antagonists. Thankfully, Star Wars has been taking steps in the right direction, with several upcoming projects seemingly neglecting Palpatine entirely. However, the threat of Palpatine could still be looming over a certain corner of the Star Wars universe.

Three recent and upcoming Star Wars projects have avoided Palpatine in their stories. While it seemed as though The Mandalorian would reveal its cloning storyline as being Palpatines failed attempts at Snoke, the clones turned out to be Moff Gideons instead even Grogus involvement was explained as Gideons plan to gain Force abilities himself. The Acolyte, an upcoming Star Wars show set during the tail end of the High Republic, cannot include Palpatine, as he wasnt even born yet. Reys new Jedi Order movie surely wont include Palpatine; his being resurrected once again would be a terrible decision and undermine what the movie is supposed to represent: the start of a new Star Wars era.

These projects are all the better because they exclude Palpatine. The Emperor is an iconic villain, one who has undoubtedly provided incredible storytelling moments and interesting plot twists. But a franchise as expansive as Star Wars cant rely on the legacy of one villain forever, and The Mandalorian, The Acolyte, the High Republic Era at large, and Reys upcoming New Jedi Order movie all prove why its so important to create new characters or focus on ones that havent had a chance to truly shine yet in live-action canon. Enter: Grand Admiral Thrawn.

As Ahsoka will partially function as a Star Wars Rebels sequel, its no wonder the show is bringing back Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn, both in canon and Legends, has proven to be a formidable enemy and tactical mastermind. He poses a serious threat to the heroes of the Mandoverse and will undoubtedly shake up the status quo. It seems likely that Ahsoka, The Mandalorian season 4, The Mandalorian movie, and perhaps even Star Wars: Skeleton Crew will tell an overarching canon adaptation of the Heir to the Empire storyline. Thrawn, on his own, is an incredibly compelling character, and yet certain hints from The Mandalorian season 3 may link his story to Palpatines.

Related: Who Is Grand Admiral Thrawn? Star Wars Villain Origin & Future

Should that link exist? Arguably, no, though its a tough line to walk. While Project Necromancer and Thrawns hinted cloning efforts could be part of Palpatines backstory, it seems a shame to have a character as interesting as Thrawn be merely another cog in Palpatines master plan. While Star Wars efforts to turn Palpatines resurrection into something more believable have been mostly successful, theres a risk of using the remaining Mandoverse story merely as a vehicle to make The Rise of Skywalker more meaningful. But doing that also makes sense, given the Mandoverses placement in the timeline. As long as Star Wars stories are being told between the prequel, original, and sequel trilogies, theres always a risk that Palpatine might overshadow the everything.

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Star Wars Is Finally Getting Over Its Palpatine Obsession... But ... - Screen Rant

Proof That a Complex Quantum Network Is Truly Quantum – Physics

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

May 11, 2023• Physics 16, s71

Researchers prove the fully nonclassical nature of a three-party quantum network, a requirement for developing secure quantum communication technologies.

In 1964, John Stewart Bell predicted that correlations between measurements made by two parties on a pair of entangled particles could confirm the fundamental nonclassical nature of the quantum world. In the past few years, researchers have performed various tests of Bells predictions that were rigorous enough to rule out classical explanations. Now researchers in China and Spain have done the same for a more complex systema quantum network in which three parties make measurements on pairs of entangled particles generated by two sources [1]. The researchers say that their stringent confirmation of quantum phenomena is encouraging for the development of future secure quantum communication networks.

To ensure a rigorous test of nonclassicality, and thereby prove that classical assumptions of local realism are invalid, the experiment must be carefully designed. If the parties making the measurements can communicate classically during the experiment, or if the two devices creating the entangled particles can influence one another, seemingly quantum behaviors can have classical explanations. In a quantum communication network these loopholes could allow eavesdroppers to listen in.

In their experiment, the researchers close these loopholes by placing each element of their network about 100 m apart. They also determine the measurement settings of the three parties using different quantum random number generators to make sure that the measurements are truly independent. These precautions allow the researchers to demonstrate that the network satisfies a condition known as full network nonlocality, which certifies that neither of the sources of entangled particles can be described by classical physics.

Marric Stephens

Marric Stephens is a Corresponding Editor forPhysics Magazine based in Bristol, UK.

Xue-Mei Gu, Liang Huang, Alejandro Pozas-Kerstjens, Yang-Fan Jiang, Dian Wu, Bing Bai, Qi-Chao Sun, Ming-Cheng Chen, Jun Zhang, Sixia Yu, Qiang Zhang, Chao-Yang Lu, and Jian-Wei Pan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 190201 (2023)

Published May 11, 2023

A new kind of 3D optical lattice traps atoms using focused laser spots replicated in multiple planes and could eventually serve as a quantum computing platform. Read More

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Proof That a Complex Quantum Network Is Truly Quantum - Physics

Experiment contradicts Einstein and reveals spooky quantum action with superconducting qubits 30 meters apart – EL PAS USA

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

Quside/ICFOs ultra-fast and ultra-pure random number quantum generator used in the experiment.Quside/ICFO

Physicist James Trefil once said that quantum mechanics is a place where the human brain will simply never feel comfortable. This discomfort happens because nature, at a microscopic scale, obeys laws at odds with our perception of macroscopic reality. These laws include superposition (a particle can simultaneously be in different states, like Erwin Schrdingers live and dead cat), and quantum entanglement at a distance. Albert Einstein described the latter as spooky action at a distance, a principle allowing particles separated by distance to respond instantaneously and behave as a single system. A spectacular experiment that defies the speed of light was recently published in Nature by an international team of scientists led by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, collaborating with Spains Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) and Quside, a quantum computing company. The study demonstrated for the first time super quick quantum random number generators that enable spooky action at a distance between superconducting quantum bits.

This experiments results contradict Einstein, who once considered quantum entanglement impossible. The physicist believed in the principle of locality, which states that an object is influenced directly only by its immediate surroundings. But advances in quantum physics have shown that two entangled particles can share a single unified state, even if they are 30 meters apart, as in the Zurich experiment.

Einstein could not accept that an action in one place could have an instantaneous effect elsewhere. But John Bell proved in 1964 that quantum entanglement exists. Subsequent experiments with this property by John Clauser, Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger earned them a Nobel Prize in 2022.

A major achievement of the study published in Nature is that it experimentally demonstrated in Bell tests performed on pairs of spatially separated, entangled quantum systems that quantum physics does not follow the principle of local causality with no so-called loopholes. The absence of loopholes means everything happens exactly as predicted by quantum physics no communication between particles.

A similar experiment was conducted a year ago by Spanish physicist Adn Cabello of the University of Seville (Spain) with ytterbium and barium ions (Science Advances). But the Nature study raised the complexity level by using two superconducting qubits entangled at temperatures close to absolute zero (-273.15C or -459.67F) and 30 meters apart.

Simultaneous measurements of the two qubits showed synchronized responses consistent with spooky action or entanglement at a distance. To demonstrate the absence of loopholes (that the coordination of states did not come from signals sent between qubits), the scientists made random 17-nanosecond measurements, which is the time it takes light to travel five meters. A full measurement required another 62 nanoseconds, the time for light to travel 21 meters. Because the systems were 30 meters apart, communication between the two was impossible.

The new study is significant because it has practical applications beyond the theoretical proof. Morgan W. Mitchell, a professor at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and a co-author of the study, said, With ordinary computing, your home device communicates constantly through the internet with a server. But to do something equivalent with quantum computers, we need to communicate them somehow, but not using classical bits. We have to use quantum bits and entanglement is the most efficient way to do this.

Mitchell said, This study shows that experiments like this can be done with the same superconductors used by Google and IBM. Other experiments used systems with a single pair of particles, but ours created entanglement between many electrons at both sites. And we achieved this for the first time without loopholes.

According to Mitchell, their experiment made progress toward distributed quantum computing with multiple computers at multiple sites Its a long-term goal that were not going to achieve immediately. But this experiment demonstrated its feasibility.

Carlos Abelln an expert in photonics and Qusides co-founder and CEO, said the experiment created a spectacular and unique technology that synchronized two particles with unprecedented speed. This required generating quantum random numbers and extracting them at extraordinarily fast speeds (17 nanoseconds) to eliminate any possibility of communication between the qubits. We had to engineer new ways of generating and extracting the random numbers before the information reached the other side. We needed to double the speed of earlier systems, said Abelln. Instead of using one device for calculations, we connected eight devices in parallel, and then synchronized and combined the signals. This gave us 16 random number generators with double the speed. If we had taken 19 nanoseconds instead of 17, the experiment would have been invalidated.

The experiment proved that quantum information can be transmitted between separate superconducting circuits housed in cryogenic systems. In other words, it works with currently available quantum computing systems. But why two separate systems can behave as one is still unexplained. Its a question for the philosophers, and a very difficult one at that. You can ask 10 different physicists and youre going to get 10 different answers. Its a mystery for new generations to solve. But these experiments prove that it really exists, said Mitchell.

Experiment contradicts Einstein and reveals spooky quantum action with superconducting qubits 30 meters apart - EL PAS USA

Leading mathematician wants to solve the riddle of a million quantum particles: "It can only be done with a blackboard … – EurekAlert

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

image:Professor Sren Fournais of the University of Copenhagen view more

Credit: Jim Hyer/University of Copenhagen

"Imagine one of those spectacular opening ceremonies at the Olympics, where a huge crowd suddenly gathers as a unit and synchronizes its movements like a flock of starlings. In a few very special and strange cases, the same occurs in the world of atoms. In them, a million atoms that have all entered the same quantum state behave completely synchronously," explains University of Copenhagen math professor Sren Fournais.

Fournais is referring to the mysterious quantum phenomenon known as Bose-Einstein condensates. These can occur if certain kinds of atoms are successfully cooled to temperatures near absolute zero. Here, anywhere from 100,000 to several million atoms entangle, with all of them transitioning into the same quantum state at the same moment a point at which the substance is neither solid, liquid, gas nor plasma. It is often described as being in its own fifth state.

While Bose and Einstein predicted the existence of such a phenomenon in the 1920s, it wasnt until 1995 that a Bose-Einstein condensate was produced in the lab a Nobel Prize winning achievement. And even though researchers worldwide are busy exploring the new quantum state, much remains a mystery.

"Our general understanding of these extreme physical systems is incomplete. We lack the mathematical tools to analyse and understand condensates and thereby the ability to possibly put them to good use. The mathematical challenge is that you have a tremendous number of particles interacting with each other, and that the correlations between these particles are crucial for their behavior. The equations were written down a long time ago, but one cannot just solve them. In the years ahead, well focus on understanding these solutions," says University of Copenhagen mathematics professor Sren Fournais.

Fournais is one of the world's leading researchers in quantum mechanical equations and has already spent ten years of his career wrestling with the wondrous nature of Bose-Einstein condensates. He is now dedicating the next five years to getting closer to the phenomenons complex mathematical solutions. To do so, the European Research Council has awarded him DKK 15 million through one of its highly prestigious ERC Advanced Grants.

Quantum mechanics takes place in the micro-world of atoms, within which the quantum effects are so minuscule that we do not experience them in our daily lives. The truly fascinating aspect of a Bose-Einstein condensate is that because it is made up of huge masses of atoms, it is nearly large enough to be observed with the naked eye. This makes it ideal for teaching us about quantum mechanics and for conducting experiments on a scale large enough to actually see them.

Researchers around the world are working to exploit the quantum properties of Bose-Einstein condensates in various ways. In 2022, Dutch scientists built an atomic laser based on a Bose-Einstein condensate. Danish professor Lene Hau of Harvard University has demonstrated that she can stop the light using a Bose-Einstein condensate. Work is also underway around the world to base a quantum computer on these icy atoms. However, there are still plenty of bumps in the road and the condensates are still only used at the basic research level.

According to Sren Fournais, the missing answers are found in the equations or at least the theoretical answers:

"The beautiful and fascinating thing about mathematical physics is that we can write down the laws of nature in relatively simple equations on a piece of paper. Those equations contain an incredible amount of information in fact, all the answers. But how can we extract the information that tells us what we want to know about these wild physical systems? It's a huge challenge, but it's possible," says Fournais.

As with the phase transition that occurs when water freezes into ice, Bose-Einstein condensation, in which atoms transition to a quantum state, is a phase transition. It is this physical transformation that Sren Fournais dreams of finding the mathematical solution to.

"My big dream is to mathematically prove the phase transition that the Bose-Einstein condensation is. But demonstrating phase transition is notorious for being extremely difficult, because you go from particles moving randomly about to them sticking. A symmetry is broken. It is very difficult to see why the particles do so and exactly when it will happen. Consequently, up until now, there is only one physical system where we have succeeded in saying something mathematical about this phase transition," says Fournais, who adds:

"I think that its unrealistic to solve this task in five years but hope that the project will get us closer than we are today. And then we have many intermediate objectives that we hope to achieve along the way."

Over the past 5-10 years, Professor Fournais has been behind some of the most significant global breakthroughs having to do with the mathematical understanding of Bose-Einstein condensates. Among other things, he proved the formula for the ground-state energy of a Bose-Einstein condensate a question that had remained unanswered since about 1960.

So, how does one of Europe's leading mathematicians approach such a task? According to Sren Fournais, it doesnt happen in front of a computer:

"A computer can make a numerical calculation for 10 or 20 particles, but not a million. So, the computer is not a useful tool for us. Instead, it's a matter of a lot of coffee, good ideas and hard work at the blackboard with chalk," says the researcher, who concludes:

"A typical week begins with a few good new ideas from the previous weekend that you are eager to pursue. And then you work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday until it seems to be progressing. Except that on Thursday, you realize that it isnt. But you get wiser. And then, the next round of ideas for the following week is perhaps a bit more tested. And then at some point, everything falls into place."

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Leading mathematician wants to solve the riddle of a million quantum particles: "It can only be done with a blackboard ... - EurekAlert

Stephen Hawking and I created his final theory of the cosmoshere’s what it reveals about the origins of time and life – Phys.org

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Danzig

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The late physicist Stephen Hawking first asked me to work with him to develop "a new quantum theory of the Big Bang" in 1998. What started out as a doctoral project evolved over some 20 years into an intense collaboration that ended only with his passing on March 14 2018.

The enigma at the center of our research throughout this period was how the Big Bang could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. Our answer is being published in a new book, "On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory."

Questions about the ultimate origin of the cosmos, or universe, take physics out of its comfort zone. Yet this was exactly where Hawking liked to venture. The prospector hopeto crack the riddle of cosmic design drove much of Hawking's research in cosmology. "To boldly go where Star Trek fears to tread" was his mottoand also his screen saver.

Our shared scientific quest meant that we inevitably grew close. Being around him, one could not fail to be influenced by his determination and optimism that we could tackle mystifying questions. He made me feel as if we were writing our own creation story, which, in a sense, we did.

In the old days, it was thought that the apparent design of the cosmos meant there had to be a designera God. Today, scientists instead point to the laws of physics. These laws have a number of striking life-engendering properties. Take the amount of matter and energy in the universe, the delicate ratios of the forces, or the number of spatial dimensions.

Physicists have discovered that if you tweak these properties ever so slightly, it renders the universe lifeless. It almost feels as if the universe is a fixeven a big one.

But where do the laws of physics come from? From Albert Einstein to Hawking in his earlier work, most 20th-century physicists regarded the mathematical relationships that underlie the physical laws as eternal truths. In this view, the apparent design of the cosmos is a matter of mathematical necessity. The universe is the way it is because nature had no choice.

Around the turn of the 21st century, a different explanation emerged. Perhaps we live in a multiverse, an enormous space that spawns a patchwork of universes, each with its own kind of Big Bang and physics. It would make sense, statistically, for a few of these universes to be life-friendly.

However, soon such multiverse musings got caught in a spiral of paradoxes and no verifiable predictions.

Can we do better? Yes, Hawking and I found out, but only by relinquishing the idea, inherent in multiverse cosmology, that our physical theories can take a God's-eye view, as if standing outside the entire cosmos.

It is an obvious and seemingly tautological point: cosmological theory must account for the fact that we exist within the universe. "We are not angels who view the universe from the outside," Hawking told me. "Our theories are never decoupled from us."

We set out to rethink cosmology from an observer's perspective. This required adopting the strange rules of quantum mechanics, which governs the microworld of particles and atoms.

According to quantum mechanics, particles can be in several possible locations at the same timea property called superposition. It is only when a particle is observed that it (randomly) picks a definite position. Quantum mechanics also involves random jumps and fluctuations, such as particles popping out of empty space and disappearing again.

In a quantum universe, therefore, a tangible past and future emerge out of a haze of possibilities by means of a continual process of observing. Such quantum observations don't need to be carried out by humans. The environment or even a single particle can "observe".

Countless such quantum acts of observation constantly transform what might be into what does happen, thereby drawing the universe more firmly into existence. And once something has been observed, all other possibilities become irrelevant.

We discovered that when looking back at the earliest stages of the universe through a quantum lens, there's a deeper level of evolution in which even the laws of physics change and evolve, in sync with the universe that is taking shape. What's more, this meta-evolution has a Darwinian flavor.

Variation enters because random quantum jumps cause frequent excursions from what's most probable. Selection enters because some of these excursions can be amplified and frozen, thanks to quantum observation. The interplay between these two competing forcesvariation and selectionin the primeval universe produced a branching tree of physical laws.

The upshot is a profound revision of the fundamentals of cosmology. Cosmologists usually start by assuming laws and initial conditions that existed at the moment of the Big Bang, then consider how today's universe evolved from them. But we suggest that these laws are themselves the result of evolution.

Dimensions, forces, and particle species transmute and diversify in the furnace of the hot Big Bangsomewhat analogous to how biological species emerge billions of years laterand acquire their effective form over time.

Moreover, the randomness involved means that the outcome of this evolutionthe specific set of physical laws that makes our universe what it iscan only be understood in retrospect.

In some sense, the early universe was a superposition of an enormous number of possible worlds. But we are looking at the universe today at a time when humans, galaxies and planets exist. That means we see the history that led to our evolution.

We observe parameters with "lucky values". But we are wrong to assume they were somehow designed or always like that.

The crux of our hypothesis is that, reasoning backward in time, evolution towards more simplicity and less structure continues all the way. Ultimately, even time and, with it, the physical laws fade away.

This view is especially borne out of the holographic form of our theory. The "holographic principle" in physics predicts that just as a hologram appears to have three dimensions when it is in fact encoded in only two dimensions, the evolution of the entire universe is similarly encoded on an abstract, timeless surface.

Hawking and I view time and causality as "emergent qualities", having no prior existence but arising from the interactions between countless quantum particles. It's a bit like how temperature emerges from many atoms moving collectively, even though no single atom has temperature.

One ventures back in time by zooming out and taking a fuzzier look at the hologram. Eventually, however, one loses all information encoded in the hologram. This would be the origin of timethe Big Bang.

For almost a century, we have studied the origin of the universe against the stable background of immutable laws of nature. But our theory reads the universe's history from within and as one that includes, in its earliest stages, the genealogy of the physical laws. It isn't the laws as such but their capacity to transmute that has the final word.

Future cosmological observations may find evidence of this. For instance, precision observations of gravitational wavesripples in the fabric of spacetimemay reveal signatures of some of the early branches of the universe. If spotted, Hawking's cosmological finale may well prove to be his greatest scientific legacy.

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Stephen Hawking and I created his final theory of the cosmoshere's what it reveals about the origins of time and life - Phys.org

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