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Artist Basic Income Take Me Somewhere

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

Deadline: 23:59 Monday 5th September 2022

Take Me Somewhere is offering a regular basic income to two currently practising contemporary performance artists in the form of 213* per week (c915 per month) for a 9 month period, as a contribution towards living costs. (*please scroll down to FAQs for explanation of how we calculated this amount)

We believe that major, structural, financial interventions are essential in order to sustain and secure peoples livelihoods, particularly in the post-pandemic landscape and in combating societal inequality and the cost of living crisis. Although we recognise there is a wide need for this across the country, as an arts organisation our modest pilot focuses on artists/ performance makers working in the area of contemporary performance.

There will be no expectations attached to the funding in terms of artistic creation. This fund is not a full artist salary, it is intended to supplement other forms of income such as artist fees or project funding. We expect it to be used broadly towards living expenses. The two artists selected will be paid additionally for their time to measure the potential impact made.

Our ambition is to add to conversation surrounding sustainability and wellbeing in the current moment but also to look at the particular ways the artists we work with feel challenged and can be supported. We are especially interested in finding out what a basic income does for creative practice, health & wellbeing, relationships and financial sustainability. By actively engaging with new artist funding models even on a small scale, we hope to become better advocates for contemporary performance artists within Scotland. We will work with an outside evaluator and make clear our findings, which may be more qualitative than quantitative in nature.

Two selected artists will:

Receive 213 per week for 9 months between October 2022 and June 2023, paid directly into their bank account. (This is likely to be subject to tax as self-employed freelance income, depending on your particular circumstances).

Be required to take part in an evaluation and monitoring process (paid for separately).

Remain anonymous in Take Me Somewheres public facing communications on the project (there is no requirement for artists to remain anonymous if they do not wish to; however Take Me Somewhere will not announce the selected artists through our channels)

You must be:

Over 18.

Currently practising, & having over 5 years professional experience working as a contemporary performance artist, outside of education and not including years studying. (years within FE/HE education will not count as professional experience).

Based in Scotland.

A professional artist working in contemporary, live practice, with capacity to evidence this via the application process. Please see supporting evidence of existing practice.

Willing to complete the evaluation process.

Tax compliant.

You must not:

Be in full time education.

Must not be in full time employment during the period of this project.

Be in receipt of private funding or regular financial support from family/friend, a significant other, private benefactor or trust and foundation. (Please see Financial Stability section 7).

Use this income as a substitute for Creative Scotland Open Project Funding or as match funding towards this endeavour.

Key Dates:

Applicatons Open: 1st August 2022

Applications Close: 5th September 2022

Random Selection Process & Applicants Informed: Week of 12th September 2022

1st Meeting (overview of scheme and establishing evaluation* processes, 1.5 hours): End of September 2022

1st Payment: Weekly BACS payments from 7th October 2022

Midpoint Evaluation Meeting (2 hours): mid-January 2023

Endpoint Evaluation Meting (2 hours): mid-June 2023

Last payment and project ends: 30th June 2023

* In addition to start, mid and end of project evaluation meetings, the successful participants will be expected (and paid separately) for approx 30 mins of time spent on evaluation per month from October - June 2023.

TMS recognises the systemic exclusion within the performance sector and is striving to put equity at the heart of our decision making. We are committed to increasing the diversity of people working in performance and especially encourage applications from those who identify as having characteristics currently under-represented in the cultural sector: including but not limited to artists with lived experience of being Black, Asian, Mixed Heritage and/or a Person of Colour, Refugee, D/deaf, Neurodivergent, from Working Class background, Disabled, Primary Carers (including parental) and/or LGBTQIA+.

Selection ProcessThe process of selection is a non-competitive lottery process. We will pick an application from a random, number generator while still considering equalities, diversity and representation. In order to ensure that at least one of the applicants comes from a self identified, under-represented group we will have two separate draws:

Applications close.

First draw: Is exclusively for applicants who self-identified as being part of an underrepresented group

Second draw: All remaining applications, including those remaining from the first draw, are drawn at random.

Drawn applications checked to ensure they meet the minimum eligibility criteria, including documents related to proof of income and years practising, in case they arent sufficient, then there is a redraw.

We looked at a lot of examples of non-competitive processes and looked at resources including Jerwood in Practice. The recipients of the award will remain anonymous although our findings will be made public (there is no requirement for artists to remain anonymous if they do not wish to; however Take Me Somewhere will not announce the selected artists through our channels). Some of the data we acquire from the evaluation will be quantitative and qualitative and possibly personal in nature hence the requirement for anonymity. We are also keen not to prejudice any future work or income the selected artists may receive within that period.

Artists will be asked to fill out a basic eligibility questionnaire.

Proof of Professional Artistic Practice in Contemporary Performance.Applicants should provide one piece of evidence from each of the following two categories:

1. Proof of income from your work as a professional contemporary performance artist (within the last 5 years). One piece of evidence from the following list:

Grant Award Letter

Creative Scotland Funding Award Letter or email

Commissioning agreement or residency/presentation contract

Invoice or payslip (not from non-artistic roles)

2. Proof of active engagement within contemporary performance (within the last 5 years). One piece of evidence from the following list:

This scheme is intended to provide a financial buffer and be a small step towards removing financial barriers and hardships that exist for artists when making work.

This is not the right opportunity for someone that is receiving other significant sources of support, is inherently financially comfortable, or for whom it would not make a significant difference to their practice and way of working and living in the world. Because this initiative is aimed partly at supporting individuals financially, we politely ask you not to apply if you are financially secure and in receipt of:

Financial support from friend or family

Rent from additional property (or in kind rent support)

Investment income

Significant inheritance

International government support

Regular funding from a trust or foundation that supports your practice (as opposed to project funding)

PHD funding

Other regular private financial support that supports your artistic practice.

We do not include government benefits or income from other part-time employment that you may currently use to support your work within this definition of income. However, please see below for more information on how this might affect any benefits you receive and how to decide if this is the right opportunity for you.

We ask that you carefully consider if accessing this opportunity will negatively affect any benefits that you receive. We do not intend that the scheme makes people worse off financially and expect you to check in advance of applying whether additional income will affect this or not.

Whilst this is not an employment offer it is likely, depending on your own specific circumstances, that the payments will be treated as income for tax purposes and/or affect any benefits or social welfare that you receive.

Applicants are required to investigate what their own particular tax and social welfare situation may be should they receive payment. Those in receipt of a social welfare payment who will be asked to confirm that they have advised the Department of Social Security/Job Centre Plus of this change in their circumstances.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says this: A UBI based on current benefit levels would bring clear gains for those who are currently ineligible, where they are on a low income but are shut out, or fall out, of the existing system; it would probably bring smaller gains for many of those successfully claiming current benefits.'

You can check how our Artist Basic Income opportunity might affect benefits on the UK Government website or at the entitledto website. It is our intention that the payments are made to two artists whom this will make a financial difference to, rather than having a negative impact and we ask that you check this before applying. Further useful information about benefits can also be found on MoneySavingExpert or at Citizens Advice.

As part of the evaluation we will measure against baseline outcomes at the start, middle and end of the programme. We will ask you to log some comments under certain themes in a journal* in the intervening months. We imagine this to take up 7 hours of time over the 9 month period. There is a payment of 287 for successful applicants.

We will aim to measure things like your current financial sustainability, capacity to research and develop new creative work, your capacity to practise self-care, or the hours you are able to spend on creative work versus other employment at the start, middle and end of the project to get a sense of impact over time. This not exhaustive. Evaluation categories will include:

Creative Practice - Learning and Development

Health and wellbeing

Relationships

Financial Sustainability

*If writing is a barrier to you then we can look at ways in which to support the process through other means.

Is this Universal Basic Income ?It is important to note that our Artists Basic Income is not a Universal Basic Income. This is a sectoral intervention to support practising artists to focus on their creative practice. As a small organisation we are not in a position to offer more than 2 opportunities, although it draws on the similar principle and we believe that this type of support should be made available to all people.

Is this expected to be a Living Wage? No. This a contribution towards living costs. The two people taking part in our pilot will be professional artists, who can still earn income from their artistic practice or other work.

Am I expected to work full time as an artist & live off this amount?No. This 213 a week / 915 a month (approx. week x 4.3) is intended as a non-outcome driven contribution to living costs, supplementing other work or artist fees.

How was the amount calculated?213 per week was budgeted in Oct 2021 & based on Scottish Government led pilots. We also looked at other European pilots, the largest being Spain (1,015 per month /852.04 or 198 per week). The Green Party have been campaigning for a Universal Basic Income at 85 per week. The only scheme we have seen which is higher is Ireland (1,169.60 325 per week /272), which was annouced in April 22 after we had made our application to Creative Scotland for this funding. These initiatives offered a contribution to income with artists also earning income from artistic projects.

This is distinct from the Living Wage which is about meeting the real cost of living as is currently set at 19,305 per year (1,608.75 per month or 371.25 per week). The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, state: It is important to distinguish UBI from a Minimum Income Guarantee, which at its most basic is simply a set of policies designed to ensure no one falls below a set income level.

I am an artist but dont work in contemporary live performance. Am I eligible?No. Unfortunately this pilot is only for artists working in contemporary live performance. Our vision is that Scotland is the place to experience and create radical performance and our mission is to create unparalleled conditions for this to transpire. To see the kind of work and artists we support please read our curatorial statement here.

I have a job and I am on PAYE, can I apply?Yes. If you have a part-time PAYE job that supports your practice then you are still eligible to apply.

I receieve benefits, should I apply? We advise you to check whether recieving the income will affect any benefits before applying. Further information is included in the documenation above.

I am studying or recently graduated from college/university?You must have 5 years of professional experience as an artist that is outside of study. We will not accept applications from those in study or who have graduated in the last 5 years.

Can I apply as a collective / group?No. We will only receive applications from individuals. This is about supporting individuals to increase their financial sustainability and develop their own practice.

Can I put this towards a project or use it as partnership funding?No. This is a pilot that is geared towards allowing more time to develop artistic practice. It should be invested in you and in ways that will affect your creative practice, health and wellbeing, relationships and your financial sustainability.

I work in the arts, but Im not an artist, can I apply? Applicants who cannot demonstrate that they have a professional creative practice that centres contemporary performanceare not eligable. This includes:

Full-time students

Arts Administrators

Producers

Promoters and agents

Artist managers

Marking and PR professionals

Craft makers

Designers (e.g. lighting, industrial, product, interior, VR, AR & MR, jewellery, graphic design etc.

Production Managers

The list is for illustrative purposes only and is not exhaustive.

How will I be paid?Payments will be made automatically and directly into your bank account on a weekly basis.

Is this taxable? It is likley that this income will be taxed. Findings from the Scottish Government pilot highlighted issues around any tax and benefit leglistlation required being reserved to the Department of Work and Pensions in Westminster. It is important to understand whether you will be disadvantaged by receiving this income.

What do you mean by evaluation? Our intervention in this area is small - we see this as an artist supportproject that like all of our projects will be evaluated. There have been large government fundedprojects thathave extensive data available. In our modest project our hope is that a learning by doing approach allows us to remain closer to the needs and challenges of artists working in a particular, relatively small sectorial area and at a particular moment in their career. By actively engaging and evaluating even on a small scale we hope to become better advocates for contemporary artists within Scotland. We will work with an outside evaluator and make clear our findings whichmay be more qualitativethan quantitative in nature.

Will there be value / merit assessments made of applications?No. Once an applicant satisfies the eligibility criteria they will be included in the randomised selection process which will determine the participants. We will not make any value judgments as long as the applicant is eligible.

For any further questions you can email connect@takemesomewhere.co.uk

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Artist Basic Income Take Me Somewhere

Universal Basic Income fails to get to the root of urban poverty – 2UrbanGirls

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

How UBI proposals distract from the real problem: housing costs.

By: Chares Blaine

In an effort to reduce poverty in their cities, eleven mayors have signed on to a push to guarantee abasic incomefor the more than 5 million people they collectively represent.

The first U.S. city to move forward on this initiative was Stockton, California, but the effort has gained more steam given the unemployment uptick due to Coronavirus-related government shutdowns of the private sector.

While the policy is well-intentioned, its far from the most effective way to eradicate poverty in Americas cities and, in the long-term, could have unintended consequences on the exact people the mayors hope to help.

Read the full article here.

**Editors note**

Since this article was written in 2020, cities like Compton (Compton Pledge), Los Angeles (Big Leap), and LA County (Breathe) have implemented similar programs designed to give free money to less than 1,000 residents as an experiment of sorts to see if the money, with no strings attached, elevate the recipients out of poverty without addressing problems such as rising housing costs, inflation, how to either maintain and/or expand the program without reliance on private donors and one-time monies received through the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA).

The daughter of the owner of the LA Times is being accused of seeking to reduce police budgets to pay for such programs. Nika Soon-Shiong is the mastermind behind the Compton Pledge and reducing the law enforcement budget in West Hollywood.

She announced last month she is leaving Los Angeles to return to Oxford to finish her doctoral studies with a thesis centering around cash transfer systems in India. Real convenient to kick up dust around public safety then leaving others behind to deal with the fallout.

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Universal Basic Income fails to get to the root of urban poverty - 2UrbanGirls

GROUNDUP OP-ED: Basic income grant separating the facts from the populism – Daily Maverick

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

The possibility that a universal basic income guarantee (Ubig) could be introduced in South Africa has sparked a lot of debate over the last two years.

Its advocates say this grant could address our extremely high rates of poverty and ensure that all people have an adequate standard of living. Its detractors say it would bankrupt the country.

In this three-part series from the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ), we cover the basics of a basic income grant. In our first article, we gave an overview of what a universal basic income guarantee is and what transformative potential it could have.

In this, our second piece, we cover the evolution and current state of the debate in South Africa. Our final piece will focus on how we could finance it.

The idea of a basic income grant (BIG) in South Africa goes back to the late 1990s, when organised labour proposed that the idea should be investigated by the government at the 1998 Presidential Jobs Summit. In 2002, the report of the Taylor Committee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive System of Social Security for South Africa proposed a basic income grant of R100 per person, per month.

But then the debate disappeared for two decades. The recommendations of the Taylor Committee were ignored. The ANC was largely opposed to the Ubig during this period, influenced by concerns about hand-outs and dependency.

As successive governments pushed different growth agendas, there was less political interest in social security as a developmental strategy. It took time for the ineffectiveness of these growth agendas to become clear: massive unemployment persisted, inequality worsened, poverty deepened.

When the Covid pandemic hit, the Ubig debate re-emerged.

The temporary Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant of R350 a month was introduced by the government as a response to the impact of the pandemic and related lockdowns.

This was the first grant that able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 59 could receive. Until then, even though a large proportion of this group had no other income and were shut out of paid work due to South Africas structural unemployment crisis, they were not covered by the social grant system.

Civil society organisations began to call for a permanent Ubig to replace the temporary SRD grant, and the government listened.

In December 2021, a panel of experts commissioned by the Department of Social Development and the International Labour Organization found that while the SRD grant had provided a lifeline for many, it had not made a sufficient impact on poverty because it was too small. In South Africa, four million households, comprising 11 million people, have income below the food poverty line (FPL), which was R595 per month in 2020.

According to the panel, a BIG introduced at scale, worth at least the FPL, would almost eliminate poverty in South Africa. The panel recommended that the SRD grant should be made permanent, and progressively increased over time. They said that no alternative measures could reasonably address the widespread and urgent income support needs of South Africans.

In January 2022, a coalition of civil society organisations met President Cyril Ramaphosa to argue that the SRD grant should be made into a universal basic income guarantee. They said that it should be increased first to the FPL and then by 2024 to the upper bound poverty line (R1,335 per month in 2021). These proposals were recently supported by a resolution of the ANC Policy Conference in July this year.

But support for a Ubig has not been unanimous.

Opponents of the grant, which include some groups in business and the National Treasury, have variously claimed that it is unaffordable, that its costs would overshadow any benefits, that it is a populist party-political tactic and that it would further a culture of dependency.

Critics of the Ubig say that it will cause the economy to slow down. The Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), for instance, argues that while the Ubig will raise beneficiaries consumption, causing a boost to the economy, this will come at the cost of reduced consumption elsewhere.

Visit Daily Mavericks home page for more news, analysis and investigations

This argument does not account for the extent to which a Ubig can boost local economies. It is not just increased spending that will result, but it can allow more people to become active participants in the economy, which would grow as a result.

Ubig beneficiaries will spend the money in their local communities, which stimulate these industries and increase tax revenues through increased VAT payments.

Informal sector workers would use a portion of their basic income to invest in self-employment and productive activities.

These types of positive spin-offs can, over time, resolve South Africas pressing challenges such as inequality, unemployment and poverty. This means that the net cost to the government decreases.

The benefits of a Ubig are far greater than the initial cost of its implementation.

The CDE also says that the only reason why a Ubig is now on the national agenda is that the governing party needs to shore up support.

But in a democratic system, we should expect parties to pursue policy platforms that they expect to have widespread support, and benefit their constituency. We should also respect voters rights to judge the merits of such policies. The popularity of a policy is by no means an inherent argument against it.

This argument also ignores the pronounced and profound economy-wide impact of the Covid pandemic that led to the introduction of the R350 SRD grant. It also ignores the large number of civil society organisations and social movements that are calling for the adoption of a Ubig.

Another line of attack from Ubig detractors, including the Minister of Finance, is to claim that providing grants will create a cycle of dependency. This argument is not based on evidence.

The evidence of a large number of studies on cash transfers in Africa and other low- and middle-income countries demonstrates that Ubigs make people more productive.

Studies have shown that even meagre basic income support for vulnerable people increases autonomy and enables job-seeking, investment in productive assets, a transition from poor quality and exploitative jobs to more decent work as well as self-employment, small business creation, and womens economic empowerment.

As we mentioned in our previous article, basic income support helps people to join the formal labour market as it gives people money to look for a job.

The reality is, given the chance, people consistently seek ways to increase their economic participation and security.

Concerns about the affordability and sustainability of Ubig proposals have also come from the business lobby. The CDE and Intellidex argue that paying for a Ubig would require income tax increases or taking on debt that South Africa cannot afford. Income tax increases would lead to emigration and other destabilising economic effects, and South Africa already has a high debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio, they say. CDE and Intellidex argue that tougher taxes on the wealthy would compound the economic problems in South Africa.

They conclude that a Ubig is unaffordable.

But Ubig will act as a stimulus to the economy. Part of the cost associated with it will be recouped by the government through VAT. The remaining net cost can be sustainably financed through progressive taxation.

South Africas income and wealth inequality is a destabilising factor in the economy. Taxing and redistributing income more progressively using a Ubig could shift persistent structural inequality in the economy, as argued by IEJ director Gilad Isaacs in response to the Intellidex report.

This argument has found unusual supporters. In August this year, the historically conservative Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) came out in favour of a Ubig as a safety net, and a more redistributive tax system.

The IEJs analysis suggests that UBIG is achievable in South Africa in the short-term and would carry little risk if it is phased in carefully and responsibly. We have proposed an initial Ubig valued at R624 per month (the food poverty line at September 2021) that would overtime be increased.

In the final part of this introductory series, we will look at how we could finance this. DM

Vuyisiwe Mahafu is a Budget Policy Intern at the Institute for Economic Justice.

First published by GroundUp.

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GROUNDUP OP-ED: Basic income grant separating the facts from the populism - Daily Maverick

This 28-year-old is on track to save $1 million by her 30s: How she visited 7 countries in Europefor just $2,800 – CNBC

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

I started pursuing FIRE an acronym for "financial independence, retire early" when I was 22 years old.

It was 2016, and I was making $15 an hour as a marketing associate. I knew it would be many more years until I'd achieve my goal of having a $1 million net worth in my 30s, but I was ready to hunker down.

I embraced frugality and shopped at thrift stores. I waitressed on weekends. I boosted my income by switching jobs. I invested my money wisely.

All that has paid off immensely. I'm on track to meet my goal by 2029, when I turn 35. In August this year, I reached a net worth of $282,000 (via my investment accounts, including my 401(k), Roth IRA and HSA, along with cash in my checking and savings accounts).

But one of the biggest unexpected benefits of my FIRE plan happened this summer: I was able to afford a month-long trip to Europe.

I visited seven countries Iceland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Denmark, Norway and Sweden and spent less than $2,800 on the entire trip. Here's how I did it:

Like so many companies, my employer made a big push to bring people back into the office.

So naturally, I was nervous about negotiating with my bosses for this trip. I worried that they would question my loyalty, or that I might miss out on work opportunities by taking time off.

But ultimately, I knew that if I lost my job, I'd still have a financial cushion. Thanks to my money-saving efforts, I had enough in my savings to cover living expenses for at least eight years.

I drafted a comprehensive request for two weeks of paid time off, and 12 days of working abroad. I came prepared with details and points about why my bosses wouldn't have to worry, and how much value I brought to the company.

Knowing what you want to experience the most and spending your money on it is a key component of financial independence.

During my Europe trip, I realized that it was important for me to fill my emotional tank with things I love, like art and architecture.

So I budgeted accordingly and bought tickets in advance for castle and museum visits, and taking a chairliftride over scenic mountains.

A view of Stortorget Square in Stockholm.

Photo: Darcy of We Want Guac

My trip was made all the sweeter because I had a clear and specific itinerary that I had planned ahead of time. I didn't have to fight crowds of other tourists or wait in lines or get sidetracked at luxury stores and spending money on things that didn't matter to me.

The most valuable thing I learned from people in the FIRE community (via blogs, online forums and YouTube videos) was how to maximize my credit card points.

I booked over $1,400 worth of flights and hotels with the points I earned from my Chase Sapphire Preferred card. I booked low-cost Airbnbs in advance and only brought carry-ons, which saved me hundreds of dollars in luggage fees.

Oslo, Norway

Photo: Darcy of We Want Guac

Getting flights via credit card points meant I had leftover money to visit more places, such as Aarhus, Denmark and Bergen, Norway.

Throughout my trip, I found myself having to deal with several unexpected changes, like a tour cancellation in Iceland. I also had only a few days to find a new place to stay in Oslo when my Airbnb fell through.

In the past, my default would have been to panic. But instead, I took a breath and looked at my options.

My first thought was no longer "How will I be able to afford something else so last-minute?" Now, I simply ask myself: "What is the best alternative I can do at the last minute?"

In Norway, I booked several different stays, and even though it meant a lot of luggage-moving, I ended up seeing more of what I had planned to. In Iceland, I sprung to explore even more of Reykjavik, including seeing the city from their waterfall church, checking out the opera house, and trying some fermented shark.

Darcy is the founder of personal finance website We Want Guac. She won a Plutus Award for Best Generational Financial Literacy Content and has been featured across multiple publications and podcasts, including MarketWatch and ChooseFI. Follow her Twitter and Instagram.

Don't miss:

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This 28-year-old is on track to save $1 million by her 30s: How she visited 7 countries in Europefor just $2,800 - CNBC

Financial independence can be achieved easier than you might think post-divorce. Heres how – The Southern Maryland Chronicle

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

When couples divorce, one of the biggest challenges they face is financial independence. Without a joint income, paying for expenses can be difficult, especially if you have children.

However, there are some ways to make the transition to financial independence easier. One option is to take out best emergency loans. These loans can provide you with the funds you need to pay for essential expenses, such as housing and food. Another way to achieve financial independence is to get a job. This can be difficult if you have been out of the workforce for a while, but there are many programs and resources designed to help people re-enter the workforce.

Finally, you may also want to consider downsizing your lifestyle. This can mean anything from moving to a smaller home to getting rid of unnecessary luxuries. By making small changes, you can free up more money to cover essential expenses. With a little planning and effort, financial independence after divorce is achievable.

1. Get organized

The first step is to get organized. Gather all the important documents relating to your finances, including bank statements, investment portfolios, tax returns, and bills. This will give you a clear picture of your financial situation and where you need to make changes.

2. Create a budget

Now that you have a handle on your finances, its time to create a budget. Track your income and expenses so you know where your money is going. This will help you make informed decisions about your spending and ensure that you are meeting your financial goals.

3. Build up your savings

One of the most important aspects of financial independence is having a safety net in case of emergencies. A good rule of thumb is to have three to six months worth of living expenses saved. This will give you peace of mind in knowing that you can cover unexpected costs if they arise.

4. Invest in yourself

Investing in yourself is one of the best things you can do for your future finances. Whether its taking a course to improve your job skills or investing in a solid financial education, making sure you are equipped with the tools you need to succeed will pay off in the long run.

5. Create a debt repayment plan

If you have any outstanding debts, its important to create a plan for paying them off. Start by listing all of your debts, including the interest rate and minimum payment for each one. Then, make a budget and allocate funds each month to pay down your debts. By doing this, youll be on your way to becoming debt-free and financially independent.

Following these steps will help you achieve financial independence post-divorce. It may take some time and effort, but it is possible to find success on your own.

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Financial independence can be achieved easier than you might think post-divorce. Heres how - The Southern Maryland Chronicle

How Bitcoin Educates The World About Finance – Bitcoin Magazine

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

This is an opinion editorial by Pierre Corbin, the producer and director of The Great Reset And The Rise of Bitcoin documentary.

In his book, William N. Goetzmann describes that there have been periods in history during which people had greater financial education than the general public has today.1 One such period was during the great times of Ancient Greece, particularly in Athens.

Athens in 400 BCE was very special, and remains special to our history, because this is where democracy was invented. Their democracy was different from our modern democracy, though. In particular, when it comes to the involvement their citizens had in the day to day activities of the government. Athens had created a complex system of bankers and insurers to simplify the trade of grain and increase the security of investors portfolios. Many ships sunk in the Aegan sea during these times, and these financial instruments allowed them to protect ones investment and share the risk of their business with the industry, through insurance.

Of course, there were often disputes around these topics that needed to be settled in court. The court system in Athens was built to accommodate this particular type of issue, and was used for every other topic, too. Here are a few rules on how their court system worked that Goetzmann shares in his book1 :

Athens, at its peak around the 4th century BC, had 30,000 adult male citizens entitled to vote in the assembly (there were an additional 70,000 citizens that were women, children and other men that were not allowed to vote. There were also 150,000 aliens and slaves living within the city walls who were not counted as citizens and did not take part in the decisions of the city), so 500 people involved in each trial represented 1.6% of the population.

Imagine this in todays world: 5.3 million Americans would have to be part of each jury. Or 22 million Chinese citizens would be involved. Sounds impossible, although we do have one technology that didnt exist in Athens that could simplify the matter: the internet. Maybe this kind of jury could be re-adapted today? The outcome of trials wouldnt be the source of such debate because 1.6% of randomly selected individuals can be considered a big enough sample to represent society as a whole for a given trial. Beyond leading to a fair trial system, it also leads to more transparency and lowers the powers of influence that sometimes exist for the important trials.

In his lifetime, the average Athenian attended multiple trials, including the complex ones, and faced topics such as finance, risk, long term investment, compounding, etc. Today, we still have records of such trials. One example is the story of Demosthenes, an Athenian that had his heritage stolen by his uncles because he was too young when his father died. As an adult, he took his uncles to trial. Here is an extract of his depiction of the situation:

My father, men of the jury, left two factories, both doing a large business. One was a sword-manufactory, employing thirty-two or thirty-three slaves, most of them worth five or six minae each and none worth less than three minae. From these my father received a clear income of thirty minae each year. The other was a sofa-manufactory, employing twenty slaves, given to my father as security for a debt of forty minae. These brought him in a clear income of twelve minae. In money he left as much as a talent loaned at the rate of a drachma a month, the interest of which amounted to more than seven minae a year... Now, if you add to this last sum the interest for ten years, reckoned at a drachma only you will find that the whole, principal and interest, amounts to eight talents and four thousand drachmae".1

How many average citizens of our modern world would be able to follow such an argument? It mentions two businesses, loans, interest rates and their compounding effects. Today, most people dont understand what compound interest is, and it is one of the most simple long-term thinking concepts in finance.

Our financial system has been layered with many levels of complexity and is presented as a complex topic, including when it comes to personal finance. I believe this has been done through time by the people working in the industry for two reasons:

Today, people are starting to understand the impact inflation can have on their lives. They dont necessarily understand where it comes from, but they understand that they need to do something about their personal finances or their savings will slowly be crushed by inflation. This inflationary way of thinking has always been there. This is part of the reason why people invest in real estate and has pushed the prices so high. Today, it is pushing people towards even riskier investments. This is part of the reason why the cryptocurrency world has seen such a boom and seems so attractive to many high reward, but also high risk.

People entering the cryptocurrency space will slowly start making the distinction between bitcoin and altcoins at some point (often because of a shitcoin losing 99% of its value or a hack making them lose their funds). We will write a follow-up article about this topic in particular: Bitcoin is not crypto.

Because of the way Bitcoin is built, people gain their financial independence. You are the sole owner of your assets and no-one can take control of your assets unless you give access to them. This is extremely empowering, but can also be a scary endeavor: it has the potential of opening users up to more risk. This means that people need to take responsibility for their financial decisions. Every decision is their own, and in order to avoid mistakes, people need to educate themselves.

This education starts with understanding bitcoin wallets, but quickly moves on to more complex topics:

And many more that one by one open up the mind to the way our financial system works. There are many great thinkers and contributors in the space that help understand these points.

People are now forced to take control of their own funds and take responsibility for their personal finance. The veil that has always laid on the world of finance is slowly being lifted, and what used to be seen as very complex topics are becoming day-to-day topics for many. This is due to the fact that the trust that we once had in centralized financial institutions is now gone because of decades of abusing customers, bailouts and more.

The Athenian system was not able to scale with the growing number of people in cities and in countries. But given our current technologies, is a similar system so hard to imagine today? Maybe bitcoin can be the asset that leads the way in this direction, thanks to its cryptographic properties, but also thanks to the added benefit of its passive properties, including the fact users need to educate themselves, which can only benefit them and our society.

This is a guest post by Pierre Corbin. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

How Bitcoin Educates The World About Finance - Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin: After Nearly 14 years, Has BTC Met Expectations? – BeInCrypto

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

Bitcoin: Freedom, backed by real-world utility, and a solid tokenomics will enable the fulfillment of Bitcoins original mission, says Jin Gonzalez, Chief Architect of Oz Finance.

When the worlds first cryptocurrency was born in 2008 most people hadnt heard of it, and those that had didnt understand it or made it a punchline.

Things have changed drastically since then. And not just the price of Bitcoin, which rose from a fraction of a penny to close to $70,000 in November 2021, and back to around $20,000 over the last several months. This exciting period witnessed new industries grow, expand, and trigger other sub-industries.

Bitcoin has been the driving force behind all of it, establishing itself as the benchmark store of value and means of exchange with over 81 million wallets in existence. Still, its becoming increasingly clear the worlds first cryptocurrency has yet to fulfill its promise of gaining global adoption as a functioning legal currency, or as an inflation hedge.

In addition to not achieving widespread adoption as a functioning currency, Bitcoin, or any cryptocurrency for that matter, hasnt provided the benefits and freedoms that they originally intended.

In the early days of Bitcoin, staunch advocates believed that the coin would offer complete discretion, privacy, security, and most importantly financial independence. Despite there still being many hardcore Bitcoin believers, many began to realize that Bitcoins public nature doesnt ensure all this because its quite easy to track transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain.

People are still taxed on profit realized on Bitcoin. The blockchain can be used to identify individuals and monitor transactions, and the ledger can be used as evidence against an individual who is compelled to submit their KYC. Then Bitcoin, and by extension all crypto, expanded its vision of freeing the masses from traditional finance to other use cases. That is, as a hyper-secure and efficient transfer of value, a store of value, an inflation hedge.

That didnt quite work out. Instead, it finds itself mimicking the stock market and, in particular tech stocks, albeit with higher degrees of volatility. This doesnt bode well for those who sought to diversify their portfolios in defense against exploding inflation. The current on-going market downturn has exposed Bitcoin as not being truly independent of the mainstream financial world. This is due to its fluctuations being in lockstep with international markets.

Bitcoin actually got a second chance to prove itself as a functioning currency when El Salvador became the first country to pass legislation making Bitcoin a legal tender. But even after that, many businesses in the country El Salvador were unable to accept Bitcoin for a myriad of reasons. And this is on top of a laundry list of other problems plaguing the Bitcoin launch in the small Central American nation of six million.

El Salvadors half-baked launch of Bitcoin so far hasnt produced the results that many citizens and Bitcoin evangelists were hoping for, when the historical announcement was made last summer. Given the idea that Bitcoin hasnt provided the basic freedoms it sought to enable, do cryptocurrencies have a real future going forward?

Crypto has staying power, and this bear cycle has enabled an industry-wide shift that has refocused the emphasis on building. The previous bull cycle placed too much emphasis on token launches and hype. But not enough on building actual products and services to support the tokens value. This is being corrected as we speak, but the industry is still suffering from a lack of real-world utility.

Crypto and blockchain projects need to go a different route than they have been. Instead of rushing to pump a new hyped-up token into the oversaturated market, the focus should be on how to provide the benefits that Bitcoin and blockchain initially intended. This means providing financial freedom through privacy protection, balanced regulatory cover, and a fair-tax regime. Now neither Bitcoin or any other major token or cryptocurrency truly provide this.

Crypto and the greater Web3 environment is still full of potential. But to ensure that this bear cycle produces results, the main priority needs to focus on the freedoms of privacy, regulatory, and tax protections. These freedoms, backed by real-world utility, and a solid tokenomics will enable the fulfillment of Bitcoins original mission.

An ideal token should think big but act local at the onset, meaning gaining recognition and regulation from a national or regional government before expanding or doing an IDO (initial DEX offering). Legal reviews and smart-contract audits can be leveraged to provide transparency and build credibility. This lays the groundwork for legal onboarding into a structured environment with proper regulatory cover.

Crypto projects must wake up and realize Bitcoin has fallen short. If the industry is going to spur a financial revolution and usher us into a Web3 future, it needs to be done by a coin that provides something more than just speculative hype. A crypto industry that prioritizes developing and innovating new products and services, while offering these freedoms, will indirectly benefit Bitcoin as it would benefit the entire crypto ecosystem. Going forward it is imperative that we support projects and use cases that translate in the real world or else this bear market will never go into hibernation.

Jin Gonzalez has established six startups over the years, including two successful exits. Prior to founding Oz, a digital assets project with the aim of connecting a network of special economic zones across the globe, he was responsible for pioneering the adoption and embracing of blockchain technology at the Union Bank of the Philippines, as their Director of BD, Fintech, and Blockchain. Gonzalez is also the Executive Director of the Distributed Ledger Association of the Philippines.

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Bitcoin: After Nearly 14 years, Has BTC Met Expectations? - BeInCrypto

How Pope Francis’ welcoming message transformed a trans community in Rome – Religion News Service

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Church of the Immaculate Blessed Virgin looks out onto the Mediterranean from Torvaianica, a beach town just 20 miles from Rome known more for its Mafia incursions, drugs and sex trafficking than its scenery. On a recent gray morning on its littered streets was a single pigeon wing debris from fights with local gulls.

Immaculate Blessed Virgins high red brick faade conceals a rather low-vaulted interior, which on this morning was fragrant with the perfume of the lilies strewn on the floor, left over from a celebration for the Assumption of Mary a few days before. A handful of middle-aged parish volunteers were at work cleaning up the church.

The Rev. Andrea Conocchia, the pastor, showed up in sweatpants and a T-shirt reading God is great and Jesus loves me, a gift for his 25th anniversary of celebrating his first Mass. He apologizes for his voice, still worn out from guiding the Mary procession down the windy beach.

Conocchia said hes a big fan of liturgies, Masses and processions, but he prefers ministry that is immersed in his community. His primary tools as a priest appear to be a bright orange car and his cellphone, which erupts constantly with WhatsApp messages. His favored office is the coffee shop overlooking the beach just off Torvaianicas main square.

Im not just a priest at the altar. I am a priest right now! he explained as he loaded up with cups of espresso and chunks of jam tart in the coffee bar for the team tidying up after the revelries.

But in the past two years, Conocchia has gained fame for serving a particular community that found him shortly after he arrived at Blessed Virgin: a group of trans women whose lives he has changed both practically and spiritually. Since April, at the invitation of the Vatican, Conocchia hasbrought four groups of LGBTQ people to meet Pope Francis and receive needed medical care.

The trips, he said, have allowed fathers struggling with their childrens sexualityto find redemption. Since becoming known for his work in Torvaianica, he conducts prayer sessions via Zoom with disenfranchised LGBTQ Catholics across Italy.

The trans women in Torvaianica sought out Conocchia for basic needs. Most of them sex workers, they had been left without clients, and therefore income, by the pandemic. Because many are HIV-positive, they are at higher risk for serious illness. As immigrants, they could not take advantage of Italys health care system.

When the pandemic hit, we as trans people had to knock on doors because we had nothing to eat, said Claudia Salas in a mix of Italian and her native Argentine Spanish. When I went to the church, they closed the door on me, she said about a nearby parish. They suggested to go to the parish of Torvaianica.

Don Andrea was the only one to bring God to us, Salas said, her grief repeatedly spilling over into tears. She said Conocchia brought pasta, vegetables and other staples to their homes.

After meeting Conocchia, Salas, who transitioned when she was 11, urged other trans women to go to the parish at Torvaianica.

Conocchia had arrived at Blessed Virgin months before from a small chapel in Lido dei Pini, a half-hour down the coast. Given the chapels tiny capacity, he said, he spent much of his time preaching on the streets it was in Lido dei Pini that he traded his cassock for the more practical pants and T-shirt. Torvaianica was a shock at first. Everything was locked, he said. It was like entering a cloistered monastery.

As the pandemic descended on Italy, the Italian government demanded that churches close. Conocchia obeyed until one morning after saying Mass to the nuns who live at the church complex, he saw a line of people in the churchs piazza. They were families, people dependent on undeclared or seasonal work, migrants, and in the crowd there were three trans women, he said.

Despite fears of spreading COVID-19, not least to his aging mother who lives with him, Conocchia opened the doors. The second day there were four trans women, he said; the next there were eight.

At first, he offered the trans women food and money through the local chapter of Caritas, the Catholic charitable organization. He helped Salas get documented and find work as a cleaner, seamstress and cook to get her off the streets.

As their numbers continued to grow, he came up with idea of having the women write to the pope. They told him they were ashamed to describe their lives to the pope. Several wept to think of it.

But the letters went to Rome, and in April 2020, the pope sent money and food to Blessed Virgin through Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, the official dispenser of Francis philanthropy. The 58-year-old Pole is known for diving into sewers to restore electricity to Roma refugee camps. More recently Francis sent Krajewski to Ukraine, where he has met with refugees and blessed mass graves.

Since early in his pontificate, Francis has taken a novel approach to LGBTQ issues, beginning with his reply in 2013 to a question about gay priests: Who am I to judge? He has met with a Spanish trans man and his partner at the Vatican and praised the work of the Rev. James Martin, the American Jesuit who advocates for inclusion for LGBTQ Catholics.

Last year, not long after the Vaticans office of doctrine issued a document calling the blessing of same-sex couples a sin, Francis overhauled the office and removed those responsible.

Francis has stopped short of definitively changing Catholic teaching, which still regards homosexuality as intrinsically disordered. He has called gender theory a form of ideological colonization, especially when taught in schools. Measured against this doctrinal stance, the popes steps toward openness to the LGBTQ community are mere gestures, but outside Vatican circles they have been seen as earthshaking.

At Easter 2021, Krajewski called Conocchia to tell him to bring the trans women and others in need to the Vatican to receive COVID-19 vaccines and health checkups. When Conocchia arrived at the Vatican City gates with two busloads in tow, Vatican officials asked the pope whether they should be allowed inside. Francis ordered them to be admitted, saying, Ask for their names, ask for anything they need, but do not ask them about their sex, according to activist Juan Carlos Cruz, a friend of the popes.

The next day at the papal audience, Conocchia ushered the women forward to meet the pontiff. When I touched his hand, I was lost for words, Minerva Motta Nues said. She offered him a traditional leather cup from Peru, where she was born.

Afterward, Conocchia said, the pope told him: Keep going, continue in this ministry, you are doing well.

Conocchia said he has been reinvigorated by the popes approval, especially after Conocchias efforts to open the church to the LGBTQ community have led to pushback.

Some in Torvaianica were angry that the trans women received the vaccine before other residents. Conocchia admits that its not uncommon for disapproving members of his flock to casually ask him for how long he thinks he will be stationed at the parish.

Two local priests, both from Africa, support the pope and his message of inclusion but say focusing on questions of sexuality seems terribly out of touch with the demand for food, medicine and financial independence in their native countries.

The Rev. Blaise Mayuma Nkwa, from Congo, where there are more Catholics per capita than any nation in Africa, wont go on Conocchias trips in the company of the trans women. When the subject comes up at lunch, the otherwise cheerful priest turns quiet.

The Rev. Omero Mananga, Conocchias deputy, displays both respect and skepticism. He worries about explaining Francis vision to the die-hard core of old ladies at Blessed Virgin. Conocchia asks in reply, What will happen when our little old ladies die? before answering, mostly to himself: It will be all over preaching to no one in empty chapels.

According to 2021 data from Italys statistics agency, ISTAT, more than 30% of those who attend Mass once a week are above the age of 75. The same report found that even in Catholic Italy, only 19% of people attend religious services regularly.

We cannot go back, Conocchia said one afternoon after presiding at back-to-back funerals. Pope Francis has pushed the church in a new direction, and I worry about what will happen if we revert to the old ways.

The trans women feel the division between Francis vision and the reality of the church differently. Nues was raised Catholic but avoids attending Mass for fear of judgment. I cant separate myself from what I do, said Nues, hinting at her work as a prostitute, because Im always met by the prejudice of people and the church.

Salas echoed this feeling of rejection. People in the pews shake her hand at the sign of peace but wont give her a glance when they pass on the street.

But Marcella Demarco Muniz said that when she was ushered forward at the general audience to meet Francis in April, he told her in Spanish: Dont worry, we are all the same in the eyes of God. If she could, she said, she would visit him at every general audience.

They believe Francis message of inclusion is slowly changing the church. The pope has opened many doors, said Nues.

Demarco said she loved St. John Paul II and remembers his visits to South America when she was young. But Pope Francis is everything for us, she said. Hes from South America and has a way with everyone.

He moves forward as the world moves forward, she added.

If so, it will be because Francis vision translates into changes like what has happened at Blessed Virgin. Conocchia sheepishly admits he has set a new standard for LGBTQ Catholics in Italy wishing to be reconciled with the church. After his openness toward trans women appeared in several newspapers, other groups from all over the peninsula contacted the priest seeking advice.

At lunch with his fellow priests, meditating on the future of the church, Conocchia had grown somewhat glum. But as he walks away to the jingling of his keys, he returns to his usual gaiety. They dont like it when I say it, he said, but this isnt a reform. Its a revolution.

How Pope Francis' welcoming message transformed a trans community in Rome - Religion News Service

The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminatedmillions in his quest for a co-called "Master Race."

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the Twentieth Century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate and Polytechnic benefactor Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles M. Goethe, as well as members of the California State Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Stamford, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims.

Stanford president David Starr Jordan originated the notion of "race and blood" in his 1902 racial epistle "Blood of a Nation," in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.

In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation's social service agencies and associations.

The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, trumped up confinement or forced sterilization.

The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California's quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as the Pasadena-based Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations--which functioned as part of a closely-knit network--published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such as Eugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis.

Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age. In 1863, Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people only married other talented people, the result would be measurably better offspring. At the turn of the last century, Galton's ideas were imported into the United States just as Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity were rediscovered. American eugenic advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man.

In an America demographically reeling from immigration upheaval and torn by post-Reconstruction chaos, race conflict was everywhere in the early twentieth century. Elitists, utopians and so-called "progressives" fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton's eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: populate the earth with vastly more of their own socio-economic and biological kind--and less or none of everyone else.

The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the earth. In the process, the movement intended to subtract emancipated Negroes, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East Europeans, Jews, dark-haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists.

How? By identifying so-called "defective" family trees and subjecting them to lifelong segregation and sterilization programs to kill their bloodlines. The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive capability of those deemed weak and inferior--the so-called "unfit." The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves.

Eighteen solutions were explored in a Carnegie-supported 1911 "Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder's Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population." Point eight was euthanasia.

The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in America was a "lethal chamber" or public locally operated gas chambers. In 1918, Popenoe, the Army venereal disease specialist during World War I, co-wrote the widely used textbook, Applied Eugenics, which argued, "From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself is execution Its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not be underestimated." Applied Eugenics also devoted a chapter to "Lethal Selection," which operated "through the destruction of the individual by some adverse feature of the environment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria, or by bodily deficiency."

Eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organized lethal solution. But many mental institutions and doctors practiced improvised medical lethality and passive euthanasia on their own. One institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk from tubercular cows believing a eugenically strong individual would be immune. Thirty to forty percent annual death rates resulted at Lincoln. Some doctors practiced passive eugenicide one newborn infant at a time. Others doctors at mental institutions engaged in lethal neglect.

Nonetheless, with eugenicide marginalized, the main solution for eugenicists was the rapid expansion of forced segregation and sterilization, as well as more marriage restrictions. California led the nation, performing nearly all sterilization procedures with little or no due process. In its first twenty-five years of eugenic legislation, California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. Many were classified as "bad girls," diagnosed as "passionate," "oversexed" or "sexually wayward." At Sonoma, some women were sterilized because of what was deemed an abnormally large clitoris or labia.

In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were performed, 700 of which were on women. The state's two leading sterilization mills in 1933 were Sonoma State Home with 388 operations and Patton State Hospital with 363 operations. Other sterilization centers included Agnews, Mendocino, Napa, Norwalk, Stockton and Pacific Colony state hospitals.

Even the United States Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. Three generations of imbeciles are enough." This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes's words in their own defense.

Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German officials and scientists.

Hitler studied American eugenics laws. He tried to legitimize his anti-Semitism by medicalizing it, and wrapping it in the more palatable pseudoscientific facade of eugenics. Hitler was able to recruit more followers among reasonable Germans by claiming that science was on his side. While Hitler's race hatred sprung from his own mind, the intellectual outlines of the eugenics Hitler adopted in 1924 were made in America.

During the '20s, Carnegie Institution eugenic scientists cultivated deep personal and professional relationships with Germany's fascist eugenicists. In Mein Kampf, published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. "There is today one state," wrote Hitler, "in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States."

Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the progress of the American eugenics movement. "I have studied with great interest," he told a fellow Nazi, "the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock."

Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenic leader Madison Grant calling his race-based eugenics book, The Passing of the Great Race his "bible."

Hitler's struggle for a superior race would be a mad crusade for a Master Race. Now, the American term "Nordic" was freely exchanged with "Germanic" or "Aryan." Race science, racial purity and racial dominance became the driving force behind Hitler's Nazism. Nazi eugenics would ultimately dictate who would be persecuted in a Reich-dominated Europe, how people would live, and how they would die. Nazi doctors would become the unseen generals in Hitler's war against the Jews and other Europeans deemed inferior. Doctors would create the science, devise the eugenic formulas, and even hand-select the victims for sterilization, euthanasia and mass extermination.

During the Reich's early years, eugenicists across America welcomed Hitler's plans as the logical fulfillment of their own decades of research and effort. California eugenicists republished Nazi propaganda for American consumption. They also arranged for Nazi scientific exhibits, such as an August 1934 display at the L.A. County Museum, for the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.

In 1934, as Germany's sterilizations were accelerating beyond 5,000 per month, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe upon returning from Germany ebulliently bragged to a key colleague, "You will be interested to know, that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought.I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people."

That same year, ten years after Virginia passed its sterilization act, Joseph DeJarnette, superintendent of Virginia's Western State Hospital, observed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, "The Germans are beating us at our own game."

More than just providing the scientific roadmap, America funded Germany's eugenic institutions. By 1926, Rockefeller had donated some $410,000 -- almost $4 million in 21st-Century money -- to hundreds of German researchers. In May 1926, Rockefeller awarded $250,000 to the German Psychiatric Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, later to become the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry. Among the leading psychiatrists at the German Psychiatric Institute was Ernst Rdin, who became director and eventually an architect of Hitler's systematic medical repression.

Another in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute's eugenic complex of institutions was the Institute for Brain Research. Since 1915, it had operated out of a single room. Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the Institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The Institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the Institute, once again, was Hitler's medical henchman Ernst Rdin. Rdin's organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others.

Beginning in 1940, thousands of Germans taken from old age homes, mental institutions and other custodial facilities were systematically gassed. Between 50,000 and 100,000 were eventually killed.

Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society declared of Nazism, "While we were pussy-footing aroundthe Germans were calling a spade a spade."

A special recipient of Rockefeller funding was the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin. For decades, American eugenicists had craved twins to advance their research into heredity. The Institute was now prepared to undertake such research on an unprecedented level. On May 13, 1932, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York dispatched a radiogram to its Paris office: JUNE MEETING EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS OVER THREE YEAR PERIOD TO KWG INSTITUTE ANTHROPOLOGY FOR RESEARCH ON TWINS AND EFFECTS ON LATER GENERATIONS OF SUBSTANCES TOXIC FOR GERM PLASM.

At the time of Rockefeller's endowment, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a hero in American eugenics circles, functioned as a head of the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. Rockefeller funding of that Institute continued both directly and through other research conduits during Verschuer's early tenure. In 1935, Verschuer left the Institute to form a rival eugenics facility in Frankfurt that was much heralded in the American eugenic press. Research on twins in the Third Reich exploded, backed up by government decrees. Verschuer wrote in Der Erbarzt, a eugenic doctor's journal he edited, that Germany's war would yield a "total solution to the Jewish problem."

Verschuer had a long-time assistant. His name was Josef Mengele. On May 30, 1943, Mengele arrived at Auschwitz. Verschuer notified the German Research Society, "My assistant, Dr. Josef Mengele (M.D., Ph.D.) joined me in this branch of research. He is presently employed as Hauptsturmfhrer [captain] and camp physician in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Anthropological testing of the most diverse racial groups in this concentration camp is being carried out with permission of the SS Reichsfhrer [Himmler]."

Mengele began searching the boxcar arrivals for twins. When he found them, he performed beastly experiments, scrupulously wrote up the reports and sent the paperwork back to Verschuer's institute for evaluation. Often, cadavers, eyes and other body parts were also dispatched to Berlin's eugenic institutes.

Rockefeller executives never knew of Mengele. With few exceptions, the foundation had ceased all eugenic studies in Nazi-occupied Europe before the war erupted in 1939. But by that time the die had been cast. The talented men Rockefeller and Carnegie financed, the institutions they helped found, and the science it helped create took on a scientific momentum of their own.

After the war, eugenics was declared a crime against humanity--an act of genocide. Germans were tried and they cited the California statutes in their defense. To no avail. They were found guilty.

However, Mengele's boss Verschuer escaped prosecution. Verschuer re-established his connections with California eugenicists who had gone underground and renamed their crusade "human genetics." Typical was an exchange July 25, 1946 when Popenoe wrote Verschuer, "It was indeed a pleasure to hear from you again. I have been very anxious about my colleagues in Germany. I suppose sterilization has been discontinued in Germany?" Popenoe offered tidbits about various American eugenic luminaries and then sent various eugenic publications. In a separate package, Popenoe sent some cocoa, coffee and other goodies.

Verschuer wrote back, "Your very friendly letter of 7/25 gave me a great deal of pleasure and you have my heartfelt thanks for it. The letter builds another bridge between your and my scientific work; I hope that this bridge will never again collapse but rather make possible valuable mutual enrichment and stimulation."

Soon, Verschuer once again became a respected scientist in Germany and around the world. In 1949, he became a corresponding member of the newly formed American Society of Human Genetics, organized by American eugenicists and geneticists.

In the fall of 1950, the University of Mnster offered Verschuer a position at its new Institute of Human Genetics, where he later became a dean. In the early and mid-1950s, Verschuer became an honorary member of numerous prestigious societies, including the Italian Society of Genetics, the Anthropological Society of Vienna, and the Japanese Society for Human Genetics.

Human genetics' genocidal roots in eugenics were ignored by a victorious generation that refused to link itself to the crimes of Nazism and by succeeding generations that never knew the truth of the years leading up to war. Now governors of five states, including California have issued public apologies to their citizens, past and present, for sterilization and other abuses spawned by the eugenics movement.

Human genetics became an enlightened endeavor in the late twentieth century. Hard-working, devoted scientists finally cracked the human code through the Human Genome Project. Now, every individual can be biologically identified and classified by trait and ancestry. Yet even now, some leading voices in the genetic world are calling for a cleansing of the unwanted among us, and even a master human species.

There is understandable wariness about more ordinary forms of abuse, for example, in denying insurance or employment based on genetic tests. On October 14, America's first genetic anti-discrimination legislation passed the Senate by unanimous vote. Yet because genetics research is global, no single nation's law can stop the threats.

This article was first published in the San Francisco Chronicle and is reprinted with permission of the author.

Excerpt from:

The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

Eugenics Wars | Memory Alpha | Fandom

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

Multiple realities(covers information from several alternate timelines)

Eugenics Wars

"Superior ability breeds superior ambition."

The Eugenics Wars (or the Great Wars) were a series of conflicts fought on Earth between 1992 and 1996, and during the 21st century (aka as the Eugenic War, Second Civil War and World War III). (SNW: "Strange New Worlds") The result of a scientific attempt to improve the Human race through selective breeding and genetic engineering, the wars devastated parts of Earth, by some estimates officially causing some thirty million deaths, and nearly plunging the planet into a new Dark Age. (TOS: "Space Seed"; ENT: "Borderland")

The script of "Borderland" stated forthrightly, "The Eugenics Wars are a dark subject."

Records from this period are fragmented, but what is known is that the wars' roots lie in a group of Human scientists' ambitious attempt to improve the race through selective breeding and genetic engineering. They created a race of "supermen," popularly known as the Augments, who were mentally and physically superior to ordinary men and women. They were five times stronger than the average person, their lung efficiency was fifty percent better than normal, and their intelligence was double that of normal Humans. They also had enhanced senses, including an ability to hear beyond that of Human capabilities. (TOS: "Space Seed"; ENT: "Borderland", "Cold Station 12")

The Augments were created by the scientists in the 1950s Cold War era in the hopes that they would lead Humanity into an era of peace in a world that had only known war. (Star Trek Into Darkness) One aspect these scientists overlooked was the personality of the Augments. Along with their superior abilities, the Augments were aggressive and arrogant, flaws which the scientists were unable to correct at the time due to the infancy of the science. One of the Augments' creators realized the error, writing that "superior ability breeds superior ambition." That same scientist was ultimately killed by one of his own creations. (TOS: "Space Seed"; ENT: "Cold Station 12", "The Augments")

Khan Noonien Singh in the 1990s

The Augments rose to power and held dominance over a large portion of Humanity, beginning in the early 1990s. Among the most notorious of these superhuman conquerors was Khan Noonien Singh, who in 1992 became the "absolute ruler" of more than a quarter of the planet, from Asia through the Middle East. (TOS: "Space Seed")

The following year, a group of fellow "supermen" followed in Khan's footsteps, and simultaneously seized power in over forty nations. The people of these conquered nations, in most cases, were treated as little more than slaves by the Augments. Khan considered himself "a prince, with power over millions". It was unknown how he viewed or treated those under his rule, although they had very little freedom. Unlike the other Augment despots, however, Khan's reign had enjoyed peace. The people were not massacred, and Khan avoided war until his region was attacked. Khan considered himself a benign dictator or one who led by a form of "gentle authoritarianism", as such he was thus among the most admired of the so-called "tyrants" into the 23rd century, being called the "best of the tyrants" by James T. Kirk. (TOS: "Space Seed"; Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; ENT: "Borderland")

Reports as to exactly how the wars began vary; some claim that Humanity rose up against Khan and his fellow "supermen," while others believe the Augments began to fight among themselves. Regardless of their origin, two factors were certain: the Eugenics Wars had a devastating impact on Earth, as entire populations were bombed out of existence, and that humanity had ultimately deposed the Augments. (ENT: "Cold Station 12"; TOS: "Space Seed")

Among the areas affected by the wars was North Africa. One conflict that occurred there involved a battalion of soldiers that included the future great-grandfather of Starfleet Captain Jonathan Archer. In this encounter, Archer's great-grandfather was able to convince the Augment commander of his enemy's forces to hold their fire long enough to evacuate a school that was directly between them. Some or all parts of that account may be non-factual as Archer was evidently in an altered state of mind around the time he disclosed it. (ENT: "Hatchery")

The Augments were eventually defeated by Humans who were not genetically enhanced. Khan was the last of the tyrants to be overthrown, in 1996. Khan and over eighty of the "supermen" were condemned to die as war criminals. They however went unaccounted for, a fact the governments of the time did not disclose to the public in order to prevent panic. Rumors were later confirmed in the 23rd century that Khan and 84 of his followers had managed to flee the planet aboard an early sleeper ship, the SS Botany Bay. (TOS: "Space Seed"; Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; Star Trek Into Darkness)

The official number of casualties from the wars was placed at 30 million, although some historians believed it to be closer to 35 million, with another figure established as being 37 million. Although the wars may have ended, Humanity's fear of genetically-engineered beings remained well into the 24th century. (ENT: "Cold Station 12"; TOS: "Bread and Circuses"; DS9: "Doctor Bashir, I Presume")

Following the wars, controversial debates ensued between Earth's governments regarding the fate of thousands of Augment embryos. Uncertain of how to handle the issue, the governments opted to have the embryos placed into cold storage. This fact was also kept from public knowledge. The issue of genetic manipulation and Human genome enhancement continued to plague Earth well into the 21st century. In 2024, Doctor Adam Soong began examining an old file from 1996, which was called "Project Khan." This was no doubt a project masterminded by scientists who had the intention of making augments similar to Khan, who disappeared in 1996. Presumably, Adam Soong went forward with that project sometime after 2024. this would have been around the time of the Second Civil War, which eventually became another Eugenics War that in time escalated into what was known as the Third World War. (ENT: "Borderland", "Cold Station 12", "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" historical archive; TOS: "Space Seed"; PIC: "Farewell"; SNW: "Strange New Worlds")

As both conflicts were fought over the issue of genetic manipulation, this suggests the Eugenics Wars were regarded as the initial cause and prelude for the Third World War, much like how the Second World War is often seen as a result of the First.

Doctor Keniclius

Soong and the Augment embryos

Genetic engineering of Humans was ultimately banned on Earth, as the concept was considered anti-Humanistic by Earth leaders. As a result of this, Doctor Stavos Keniclius was exiled from his community, which eventually led him to depart Earth permanently. The ban was placed primarily as an attempt to prevent another event like the Eugenics Wars, and to ensure that Humanity did not endure the wrath of another Khan Noonien Singh-type tyrant. (TAS: "The Infinite Vulcan"; DS9: "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", "Statistical Probabilities")

The ban on genetic engineering was challenged by the geneticist Arik Soong in the 2130s, when he stole some of the Augment embryos left over from the wars which were being stored at Cold Station 12. Soong believed that genetic engineering was the key to improving Humankind and preventing illness, and that it should be given another chance. By raising the Augments himself, Soong believed he could prevent them from behaving like their brethren from the Eugenics Wars. His plan failed as the aggressive nature of the Augments dominated, and they threatened to incite war and cause mass murder. Starfleet's mission to hunt down and capture the renegade "supermen" ultimately led to the destruction of the Augments, as well as most of the embryos. (ENT: "Borderland", "Cold Station 12", "The Augments")

Not all of the embryos were destroyed, though. Some found their way into the hands of Klingons who, believing Humans were improving themselves in order to conquer the Klingon Empire, attempted to use the DNA from the embryos to enhance themselves. The end result was a mutation of a highly-contagious virus that caused massive changes in physical appearance, biological structure, and even basic personality traits of large portions of the Klingon race. (ENT: "Affliction", "Divergence")

The continued banning of genetic engineering ultimately became a point of contention between the Federation and the Illyrian race. Since the Illyrians were known for using genetic modification within its members, Illyrians were usually barred from entering service into Starfleet and even use of their medical technology became banned within the Federation. The mixing of Human and Illyrian blood was similarly banned. (SNW: "Ghosts of Illyria")

In the 2260s, after the Enterprise encountered a spaceship from the 1990s, Spock described the mid-1990s as the era of the Human crew's "last so-called world war", which was affirmed by Doctor Leonard McCoy to be the Eugenics Wars. (TOS: "Space Seed")

In "Space Seed" the "supermen" of the Eugenics Wars were said to be the products of selective breeding; this was later retconned into genetic engineering.

Both "Space Seed" and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan give the dating of the Eugenics Wars as the 1990s. At one point during that decade in reality, Ronald D. Moore and Ren Echevarria had a discussion in which they observed it as odd that the Eugenics Wars seemed to basically be the only evidence of genetic engineering in Star Trek. "It's virtually never discussed, aside from the fact that there was this thing called the Eugenics Wars at some point, and Khan came out of it," stated Moore. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion(p. 431)) Consequently, while writing DS9 Season 5 installment "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", Moore focused on the idea that the Eugenics Wars had motivated the Federation into deciding not to meddle with genetic engineering. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 29, Nos. 6/7, p. 49)

In contrast to the Eugenics Wars having previously been established as taking place in the 1990s, "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", set in 2373, references the Eugenics Wars as having occurred two centuries prior to the episode, placing the Wars in the late 22nd century. As Ronald D. Moore later admitted, this statement was a production error, a line he had taken from The Wrath of Khan, but he had accidentally forgotten to account for the episode being set a century later than the film. (AOL chat, 1997) Confessed Moore, "It was simply a mistake. The date of the Eugenics Wars is something that we have been studiously trying not to pin ourselves down about, because obviously they aren't happening around as we speak [....] What looked like the distant future in 1967 is not so distant any more. I don't blame them for not having the foresight to see that in 30 years this would become important in the series." A production staffer from Star Trek: Voyager suggested the date had deliberately been changed on DS9 to account for the Eugenics Wars having not been mentioned in the "Future's End" two-parter. Moore flatly rejected that theory and responded, "We never talked to Voyager about it." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 29, Nos. 6/7, p. 50)

The original dating of the Eugenics Wars was reaffirmed by Phlox stating in "Borderland" that Arik Soong's Augments were pretty sophisticated for 20th century genetics. Phlox later mentions to the Klingons that genetic engineering on Earth was "banned decades ago," suggesting that the ban was not necessarily adopted by Humans immediately after the Eugenics Wars.

Manny Coto was a fan of this series of conflicts. "I was always fascinated by this idea of this Eugenics Wars," he commented. "I love the backstory of that story. I just found that just compelling, the idea that it was instigated by these genetically superior individuals." ("Inside the Roddenberry Vault, Part I", Star Trek: The Original Series - The Roddenberry Vault special features)

In "Space Seed", Spock describes the mid-1990s as "the era of your last so-called world war," with Leonard McCoy directly referencing the Eugenics Wars in response, suggesting this conflict could be World War III. In TOS: "Bread and Circuses", Spock states that thirty-seven million people died in World War III consistent with Phlox's assertion that over thirty million died in the Eugenics Wars (again connecting World War III and the Eugenics Wars) but not Riker's claim that six hundred million died in the nuclear conflict in Star Trek: First Contact, and again repeated by Burnham in "New Eden". As Spock was speaking in the context of despotism, and what constitutes despotic "responsibility" is open to interpretation, his statement may not give the total death count.

In TNG: "Up The Long Ladder", Data states that Humans were still recovering from the effects of World War III in the early 22nd century. This statement makes more sense within the context of a mid 21st century war than that of a late 20th century war, suggesting that World War III and the Eugenics Wars are not the same conflict, as confirmed in Star Trek: First Contact.

According to show runners, Spock was wrong and that Eugenics Wars happened much later during 21st century. Terry Matalas: "We discussed endlessly. We came to the conclusion that in WW3 there were several EMP bursts that kicked everyone back decades. Records of that 75 year period, the 90s on were sketchy. Maybe Spock was wrong?" In response Khan's own references to the 1996 date, that they simply have be ignored to make the series more relatable to the present; "No easy way to do it if you want the past to look and feel like today. Maybe because in 1967 they didn't anticipate the show still going for another 6 decades." Aaron J. Waltke added: "There's also the ripples of the Temporal Cold War shifting the Prime Timeline in Enterprise at least until the Temporal Accords put an end to that wibbly wobbliness." [1]

The Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars books portray a different view on the Eugenics Wars as being a more covert hidden battle between the genetically engineered "supermen" rather than an overt one in an attempt to marry the original dates of the Eugenics Wars with the events of the present day. This explains why the United States of America is seen as relatively unaffected in the episode "Future's End" and also raises the quite logical hypothesis that Gary Seven, who was present on Earth at the time of Khan's birth and would have known of the eugenics movement, was involved in the overthrow of Khan and the other tyrants. Numerous 20th century Trek characters appear in the story, including Rain Robinson (who at the end of the second book becomes Roberta Lincoln's assistant), Ralph Offenhouse (an early financial backer of the genetic engineering program), Clare Raymond (her death is not an embolism but collateral damage from a nerve gas attack, Khan's assassination of Vasily Hunyadi, the fellow Augment secretly behind the Balkan conflicts of the early 1990s), Gillian Taylor, Flint (as "Wilson Evergreen"), and Jeff, who designed the Botany Bay with Shannon O'Donnel and Walter Nichols involved in the project primarily with technology reverse-engineered from Quark's Treasure.

In the Star Trek: Khan comic book series associated with the alternate reality, the creative team went with a portrayal of the wars as being an open conflict that outright affected the whole planet. The depiction of the wars however was filtered through the lens of Khan telling his own version of the events to a Federation court. As such, the series frequently cast doubt on how much of the events he depicted were actually true to his memory and how much of it was perhaps Khan simply spinning a fanciful version that would garner him sympathy with those present to hear his words.

In "The Rules of War", a short story from the anthology Strange New Worlds 9, the enemy commander whom Archer's great-grandfather Nathan Archer negotiated with in North Africa is Stavos Keniclius.

Here is the original post:

Eugenics Wars | Memory Alpha | Fandom

Margaret Sanger – Wikipedia

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

American birth control activist, educator, and nurse

Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins; September 14, 1879September 6, 1966), also known as Margaret Sanger Slee, was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.[2]

Sanger used her writings and speeches primarily to promote her way of thinking. She was prosecuted for her book Family Limitation under the Comstock Act in 1914. She feared the consequences of her writings, so she fled to Britain until public opinion had quieted.[3] Sanger's efforts contributed to several judicial cases that helped legalize contraception in the United States.[4] Due to her connection with Planned Parenthood, Sanger is a frequent target of criticism by opponents of abortion. However, Sanger drew a sharp distinction between birth control and abortion and was opposed to abortions throughout the bulk of her professional career, declining to participate in them as a nurse.[5] Sanger remains an admired figure in the American reproductive rights movement. She has been criticized for supporting eugenics.[7]

In 1916, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, which led to her arrest for distributing information on contraception, after an undercover policewoman bought a copy of her pamphlet on family planning. Her subsequent trial and appeal generated controversy. Sanger felt that in order for women to have a more equal footing in society and to lead healthier lives, they needed to be able to determine when to bear children. She also wanted to prevent so-called back-alley abortions, which were common at the time because abortions were illegal in the United States.[10] She believed that, while abortion may be a viable option in life-threatening situations for the pregnant, it should generally be avoided.[11] She considered contraception the only practical way to avoid them.[12]

In 1921, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In New York City, she organized the first birth control clinic to be staffed by all-female doctors, as well as a clinic in Harlem which had an all African-American advisory council,[13] where African-American staff were later added.[14] In 1929, she formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, which served as the focal point of her lobbying efforts to legalize contraception in the United States. From 1952 to 1959, Sanger served as president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. She died in 1966 and is widely regarded as a founder of the modern birth control movement.[4]

Sanger was born Margaret Louise Higgins in 1879 in Corning, New York,[15] to Irish Catholic parentsa "free-thinking" stonemason father, Michael Hennessey Higgins, and Anne Purcell Higgins. Michael had immigrated to the United States aged 14, joining the Army in the Civil War as a drummer aged 15. Upon leaving the army, he studied medicine and phrenology but ultimately became a stonecutter, chiseling-out angels, saints, and tombstones.[16]:1213 Michael became an atheist and an activist for women's suffrage and free public education.[17]

Anne accompanied her family to Canada during the Great Famine. She married Michael in 1869. In 22 years, Anne Higgins conceived 18 times, birthing 11 alive before dying aged 49. Sanger was the sixth of 11 surviving children,[19] spending her early years in a bustling household.

Supported by her two older sisters, Margaret Higgins attended Claverack College and Hudson River Institute, before enrolling in 1900 at White Plains Hospital as a nurse probationer. In 1902, she married architect William Sanger, giving up her education. Suffering from consumption (recurring active tubercular), Margaret Sanger was able to bear three children, and the five settled down to a quiet life in Westchester, New York. Margaret would become a member of an Episcopal Church which would later hold her funeral service.[21][22]

In 1911, after a fire destroyed their home in Hastings-on-Hudson, the Sangers abandoned the suburbs for a new life in New York City. Margaret Sanger worked as a visiting nurse in the slums of the East Side, while her husband worked as an architect and a house painter. The couple became active in local socialist politics. She joined the Women's Committee of the New York Socialist party, took part in the labor actions of the Industrial Workers of the World (including the notable 1912 Lawrence textile strike and the 1913 Paterson silk strike) and became involved with local intellectuals, left-wing artists, socialists and social activists, including John Reed, Upton Sinclair, Mabel Dodge and Emma Goldman.[23][pageneeded]

Sanger's political interests, her emerging feminism and her nursing experience all led her to write two series of columns on sex education which were titled "What Every Mother Should Know" (191112) and "What Every Girl Should Know" (191213) for the socialist magazine New York Call. By the standards of the day, Sanger's articles were extremely frank in their discussion of sexuality, and many New York Call readers were outraged by them. Other readers, however, praised the series for its candor. One stated that the series contained "a purer morality than whole libraries full of hypocritical cant about modesty".[23]:65 Both were published in book form in 1916.[24]

During her work among working-class immigrant women, Sanger met women who underwent frequent childbirth, miscarriages and self-induced abortions for lack of information on how to avoid unwanted pregnancy. Access to contraceptive information was prohibited on grounds of obscenity by the 1873 federal Comstock law and a host of state laws. Seeking to help these women, Sanger visited public libraries, but was unable to find information on contraception.[25] These problems were epitomized in a story that Sanger would later recount in her speeches: while Sanger was working as a nurse, she was called to the apartment of a woman, "Sadie Sachs", who had become extremely ill due to a self-induced abortion. Afterward, Sadie begged the attending doctor to tell her how she could prevent this from happening again, to which the doctor simply advised her to remain abstinent. His exact words and actions, apparently, were to laugh and say "You want your cake while you eat it too, do you? Well it can't be done. I'll tell you the only sure thing to do .... Tell Jake to sleep on the roof."[26] A few months later, Sanger was called back to Sadie's apartmentonly this time, Sadie died shortly after Sanger arrived. She had attempted yet another self-induced abortion.[28][29] Sanger would sometimes end the story by saying, "I threw my nursing bag in the corner and announced... that I would never take another case until I had made it possible for working women in America to have the knowledge to control birth"; biographer Ellen Chesler[Wikidata] concluded that Sachs may have been "an imaginative, dramatic composite".[23]:63

This storyalong with Sanger's 1904 rescue of her unwanted niece Olive Byrne from the snowbank in which she had been leftmarks the beginning of Sanger's commitment to spare women from the pursuit of dangerous and illegal abortions.[29][30][31] Sanger opposed abortion, but primarily as a societal ill and public health danger which would disappear if women were able to prevent unwanted pregnancy.[32]

Given the connection between contraception and working-class empowerment, Sanger came to believe that only by liberating women from the risk of unwanted pregnancy would fundamental social change take place. She launched a campaign to challenge governmental censorship of contraceptive information through confrontational actions.

Sanger became estranged from her husband in 1913, and the couple's divorce was finalized in 1921. In 1922, she married her second husband, James Noah H. Slee.[34]

In 1914, Sanger launched The Woman Rebel, an eight-page monthly newsletter which promoted contraception using the slogan "No Gods, No Masters".[b][36] Sanger, collaborating with anarchist friends, popularized the term "birth control" as a more candid alternative to euphemisms such as "family limitation"; the term "birth control" was suggested in 1914 by a young friend called Otto Bobstei[23]:97[38] Sanger proclaimed that each woman should be "the absolute mistress of her own body."[39] In these early years of Sanger's activism, she viewed birth control as a free-speech issue, and when she started publishing The Woman Rebel, one of her goals was to provoke a legal challenge to the federal anti-obscenity laws which banned dissemination of information about contraception.[40] Though postal authorities suppressed five of its seven issues, Sanger continued publication, all the while preparing Family Limitation, another challenge to anti-birth control laws. This 16-page pamphlet contained detailed and precise information and graphic descriptions of various contraceptive methods. In August 1914, Margaret Sanger was indicted for violating postal obscenity laws by sending The Woman Rebel through the postal system. Rather than stand trial, she fled the country.[3]

Margaret Sanger spent much of her 1914 exile in England, where contact with British neo-Malthusians such as Charles Vickery Drysdale helped refine her socioeconomic justifications for birth control. She shared their concern that over-population led to poverty, famine and war. At the Fifth International Neo-Malthusian Conference in 1922, she was the first woman to chair a session. She organized the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth-Control Conference that took place in New York in 1925.[23]:225 Over-population would remain a concern of hers for the rest of her life.

During her 1914 trip to England, she was also profoundly influenced by the liberation theories of Havelock Ellis, under whose tutelage she sought not just to make sexual intercourse safer for women but more pleasurable. Around this time she met Marie Stopes, who had run into Sanger after she had just given a talk on birth control at a Fabian Society meeting. Stopes showed Sanger her writings and sought her advice about a chapter on contraception.[45][46]

Early in 1915, Margaret Sanger's estranged husband, William Sanger, gave a copy of Family Limitation to a representative of anti-vice politician Anthony Comstock. William Sanger was tried and convicted, spending thirty days in jail while attracting interest in birth control as an issue of civil liberty.[47][48][49] Margaret's second husband, Noah Slee, also lent his help to her life's work. In 1928, Slee would smuggle diaphragms into New York through Canada[23]:255 in boxes labeled as 3-In-One Oil.[50] He later became the first legal manufacturer of diaphragms in the United States.[51]

Some countries in northwestern Europe had more liberal policies towards contraception than the United States at the time, and when Sanger visited a Dutch birth control clinic in 1915, she learned about diaphragms and became convinced that they were a more effective means of contraception than the suppositories and douches that she had been distributing back in the United States. Diaphragms were generally unavailable in the United States, so Sanger and others began importing them from Europe, in defiance of United States law.[23][pageneeded]

On October 16, 1916, Sanger opened a family planning and birth control clinic at 46 Amboy Street in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, the first of its kind in the United States.[52] Nine days after the clinic opened, Sanger was arrested. Sanger's bail was set at $500 and she went back home. Sanger continued seeing some women in the clinic until the police came a second time. This time, Sanger and her sister, Ethel Byrne, were arrested for breaking a New York state law that prohibited distribution of contraceptives. Sanger was also charged with running a public nuisance.[53] Sanger and Byrne went to trial in January 1917. Byrne was convicted and sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse but went on a hunger strike. She was force-fed, the first woman hunger striker in the US to be so treated.[55] Only when Sanger pledged that Byrne would never break the law was she pardoned after ten days.[56] Sanger was convicted; the trial judge held that women did not have "the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception."[57] Sanger was offered a more lenient sentence if she promised to not break the law again, but she replied: "I cannot respect the law as it exists today." For this, she was sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse. An initial appeal was rejected, but in a subsequent court proceeding in 1918, the birth control movement won a victory when Judge Frederick E. Crane of the New York Court of Appeals issued a ruling which allowed doctors to prescribe contraception. The publicity surrounding Sanger's arrest, trial, and appeal sparked birth control activism across the United States and earned the support of numerous donors, who would provide her with funding and support for future endeavors.<

In February 1917, Sanger began publishing the monthly periodical Birth Control Review.[c]

After World War I, Sanger shifted away from radical politics, and she founded the American Birth Control League (ABCL) in 1921 to enlarge her base of supporters to include the middle class.[61] The founding principles of the ABCL were as follows:[62]

We hold that children should be (1) Conceived in love; (2) Born of the mother's conscious desire; (3) And only begotten under conditions which render possible the heritage of health. Therefore we hold that every woman must possess the power and freedom to prevent conception except when these conditions can be satisfied.

After Sanger's appeal of her conviction for the Brownsville clinic secured a 1918 court ruling that exempted physicians from the law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptive information to women (provided it was prescribed for medical reason), she established the Clinical Research Bureau (CRB) in 1923 to exploit this loophole.[23][pageneeded] The CRB was the first legal birth control clinic in the United States, staffed entirely by female doctors and social workers.[64] The clinic received extensive funding from John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his family, who continued to make anonymous donations to Sanger's causes in subsequent decades.[65][23]:425

John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated five thousand dollars to her American Birth Control League in 1924 and a second time in 1925.In 1922, she traveled to China, Korea, and Japan. In China, she observed that the primary method of family planning was female infanticide, and she later worked with Pearl Buck to establish a family planning clinic in Shanghai.[67] Sanger visited Japan six times, working with Japanese feminist Kato Shidzue to promote birth control.[68]

In 1928, conflict within the birth control movement leadership led Sanger to resign as the president of the ABCL and take full control of the CRB, renaming it the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (BCCRB), marking the beginning of a schism that would last until 1938.[69]

Sanger invested a great deal of effort communicating with the general public. From 1916 onward, she frequently lectured (in churches, women's clubs, homes, and theaters) to workers, churchmen, liberals, socialists, scientists, and upper-class women.[16]:366 She once lectured on birth control to the women's auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey.[16]:361,3667 In her autobiography, she justified her decision to address them by writing "Always to me any aroused group was a good group," meaning that she was willing to seek common ground with anyone who might help promote legalization and awareness of birth-control. She described the experience as "weird", and reported that she had the impression that the audience were all half-wits, and, therefore, spoke to them in the simplest possible language, as if she were talking to children.

She wrote several books in the 1920s which had a nationwide impact in promoting the cause of birth control. Between 1920 and 1926, 567,000 copies of Woman and the New Race and The Pivot of Civilization were sold. She also wrote two autobiographies designed to promote the cause. The first, My Fight for Birth Control, was published in 1931 and the second, more promotional version, Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography,[16] was published in 1938.

During the 1920s, Sanger received hundreds of thousands of letters, many of them written in desperation by women begging for information on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies.[71][72] Five hundred of these letters were compiled into the 1928 book, Motherhood in Bondage.[73][74]

Sanger worked with African American leaders and professionals who saw a need for birth control in their communities. In 1929, James H. Hubert, a Black social worker and the leader of New York's Urban League, asked Sanger to open a clinic in Harlem.[76] Sanger secured funding from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and opened the clinic, staffed with Black doctors, in 1930. The clinic was directed by a 15-member advisory board consisting of Black doctors, nurses, clergy, journalists, and social workers. The clinic was publicized in the African-American press as well as in Black churches, and it received the approval of W.E.B. Du Bois, the co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the editor of its magazine, The Crisis.[77][78][79][80] Sanger did not tolerate bigotry among her staff, nor would she tolerate any refusal to work within interracial projects.[81] Sanger's work with minorities earned praise from Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr.; when he was not able to attend his Margaret Sanger award ceremony, in May 1966, Mrs. King read her husband's acceptance speech that praised Sanger, but first said her own words: "Because of [Sanger's] dedication, her deep convictions, and for her suffering for what she believed in, I would like to say that I am proud to be a woman tonight."[82]

From 1939 to 1942, Sanger was an honorary delegate of the Birth Control Federation of America, which included a supervisory rolealongside Mary Lasker and Clarence Gamblein the Negro Project, an effort to deliver information about birth control to poor Black people.[83] Sanger advised Dr. Gamble on the utility of hiring a Black physician for the Negro Project. She also advised him on the importance of reaching out to Black ministers, writing:[84]

The ministers work is also important and also he should be trained, perhaps by the [Birth Control] Federation [of America] as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

New York University's Margaret Sanger Papers Project says that though the letter would have been meant to avoid the mistaken notion that the Negro Project was a racist campaign, detractors of Sanger, such as Angela Davis, have interpreted the passage "as evidence that she led a calculated effort to reduce the Black population against its will".[85][86][87] Others, such as Charles Valenza, state that this notion is based on a misreading of Sanger's words.[88] He believes that Sanger wanted to overcome the fear of some black people that birth control was "the white man's way of reducing the black population".[88]

In 1929, Sanger formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control in order to lobby for legislation to overturn restrictions on contraception.[89] That effort failed to achieve success, so Sanger ordered a diaphragm from Japan in 1932, in order to provoke a decisive battle in the courts. The diaphragm was confiscated by the United States government, and Sanger's subsequent legal challenge led to a 1936 court decision which overturned an important provision of the Comstock laws which prohibited physicians from obtaining contraceptives.[90] This court victory motivated the American Medical Association in 1937 to adopt contraception as a normal medical service and a key component of medical school curriculums.[91]

This 1936 contraception court victory was the culmination of Sanger's birth control efforts, and she took the opportunity, now in her late 50s, to move to Tucson, Arizona, intending to play a less critical role in the birth control movement. In spite of her original intentions, she remained active in the movement through the 1950s.[91]

In 1937, Sanger became chairman of the newly formed Birth Control Council of America, and attempted to resolve the schism between the ABCL and the BCCRB.[92] Her efforts were successful, and the two organizations merged in 1939 as the Birth Control Federation of America.[93][e] Although Sanger continued in the role of president, she no longer wielded the same power as she had in the early years of the movement, and in 1942, more conservative forces within the organization changed the name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a name Sanger objected to because she considered it too euphemistic.[23]:393[94]

In 1948, Sanger helped found the International Committee on Planned Parenthood, which evolved into the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1952, and soon became the world's largest non-governmental international women's health, family planning and birth control organization. Sanger was the organization's first president and served in that role until she was 80 years old.[95] In the early 1950s, Sanger encouraged philanthropist Katharine McCormick to provide funding for biologist Gregory Pincus to develop the birth control pill which was eventually sold under the name Enovid.[96] Pincus had recruited Dr. John Rock, Harvard gynecologist, to investigate clinical use of progesterone to prevent ovulation. (Jonathan Eig (2014). "The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution." W. W. Norton & Company. New York. London. pp.104ff.) Pincus would often say that he never could have done it without Sanger, McCormick, and Rock. (Ibid., p.312.)

Sanger died of congestive heart failure in 1966 in Tucson, Arizona, aged 86, about a year after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which legalized birth control in the United States.[f] Sanger is buried in Fishkill, New York, next to her sister, Nan Higgins, and her second husband, Noah Slee. One of her surviving brothers was College Football Hall of Fame player and Pennsylvania State University Head Football coach Bob Higgins.[98]

While researching information on contraception, Sanger read treatises on sexuality including The Psychology of Sex by the English psychologist Havelock Ellis and was heavily influenced by it.[99] While traveling in Europe in 1914, Sanger met Ellis. Influenced by Ellis, Sanger adopted his view of sexuality as a powerful, liberating force.[23]:1314 This view provided another argument in favor of birth control, because it would enable women to fully enjoy sexual relations without fear of unwanted pregnancy.[23]:111117 Sanger also believed that sexuality, along with birth control, should be discussed with more candor,[23]:1314 and praised Ellis for his efforts in this direction. She also blamed Christianity for the suppression of such discussions.[102]

Sanger opposed excessive sexual indulgence. She wrote that "every normal man and woman has the power to control and direct his sexual impulse. Men and women who have it in control and constantly use their brain cells thinking deeply, are never sensual."[103][104] Sanger said that birth control would elevate women away from the position of being objects of lust and elevate sex away from an activity that was purely being engaged in for the purpose of satisfying lust, saying that birth control "denies that sex should be reduced to the position of sensual lust, or that woman should permit herself to be the instrument of its satisfaction."[105] Sanger wrote that masturbation was dangerous. She stated: "In my personal experience as a trained nurse while attending persons afflicted with various and often revolting diseases, no matter what their ailments, I never found anyone so repulsive as the chronic masturbator. It would not be difficult to fill page upon page of heart-rending confessions made by young girls, whose lives were blighted by this pernicious habit, always begun so innocently."[106] She believed that women had the ability to control their sexual impulses, and should utilize that control to avoid sex outside of relationships marked by "confidence and respect". She believed that exercising such control would lead to the "strongest and most sacred passion".[107] Sanger maintained links with affiliates of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology (which contained a number of high-profile gay men and sexual reformers as members), and gave a speech to the group on the issue of sexual continence.[108] She later praised Ellis for clarifying "the question of homosexuals ...making the thing anot exactly a perverted thing, but a thing that a person is born with different kinds of eyes, different kinds of structures and so forth ...that he didn't make all homosexuals pervertsand I thought he helped clarify that to the medical profession and to the scientists of the world as perhaps one of the first ones to do that.[102]

Sanger opposed censorship throughout her career. Sanger grew up in a home where orator Robert Ingersoll was admired.[109] During the early years of her activism, Sanger viewed birth control primarily as a free-speech issue, rather than as a feminist issue, and when she started publishing The Woman Rebel in 1914, she did so with the express goal of provoking a legal challenge to the Comstock laws banning dissemination of information about contraception. In New York, Emma Goldman introduced Sanger to members of the Free Speech League, such as Edward Bliss Foote and Theodore Schroeder, and subsequently the League provided funding and advice to help Sanger with legal battles.[110]

Over the course of her career, Sanger was arrested at least eight times for expressing her views during an era in which speaking publicly about contraception was illegal.[111] Numerous times in her career, local government officials prevented Sanger from speaking by shuttering a facility or threatening her hosts. In Boston in 1929, city officials under the leadership of James Curley threatened to arrest her if she spoke. In response she stood on stage, silent, with a gag over her mouth, while her speech was read by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.[113]

After World War I, Sanger increasingly appealed to the societal need to limit births by those least able to afford children. The affluent and educated already limited their child-bearing, while the poor and uneducated lacked access to contraception and information about birth control.[114] Here she found an area of overlap with eugenicists.[114] She believed that they both sought to "assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit." She distinguished herself from other eugenicists, by writing "eugenists [sic] imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her duty to the state. We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother."[115] Sanger was a proponent of negative eugenics, which aimed to improve human hereditary traits through social intervention by reducing the reproduction of those who were considered unfit.[7]

Sanger's view of eugenics was influenced by Havelock Ellis and other British eugenicists,[116] including H. G. Wells, with whom she formed a close, lasting friendship.[117] She did not speak specifically to the idea of race or ethnicity being determining factors and "although Sanger articulated birth control in terms of racial betterment and, like most old-stock Americans, supported restricted immigration, she always defined fitness in individual rather than racial terms."[118][23]:1956 Instead, she stressed limiting the number of births to live within one's economic ability to raise and support healthy children. This would lead to a betterment of society and the human race. Sanger's view put her at odds with leading American eugenicists, such as Charles Davenport, who took a racist view of inherited traits. In A History of the Birth Control Movement in America, Engelman also noted that "Sanger quite effortlessly looked the other way when others spouted racist speech. She had no reservations about relying on flawed and overtly racist works to serve her own propaganda needs." Sanger was supported by one of the most racist authors in America in the 1920s, the Klansman Lothrop Stoddard,[121][122] who was a founding member of the Board of Directors of Sanger's American Birth Control League.[123][124] Biographer Ellen Chesler commented: "Margaret Sanger was never herself a racist, but she lived in a profoundly bigoted society, and her failure to repudiate prejudice unequivocallyespecially when it was manifest among proponents of her causehas haunted her ever since."[23]:15

In "The Morality of Birth Control", a 1921 speech, she divided society into three groups: the "educated and informed" class that regulated the size of their families, the "intelligent and responsible" who desired to control their families in spite of lacking the means or the knowledge, and the "irresponsible and reckless people" whose religious scruples "prevent their exercising control over their numbers". Sanger concludes, "There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped."[126]

Sanger's eugenics policies included an exclusionary immigration policy, free access to birth control methods, and full family planning autonomy for the able-minded, as well as compulsory segregation or sterilization for the "profoundly retarded".[127][128] Sanger wrote, "we [do not] believe that the community could or should send to the lethal chamber the defective progeny resulting from irresponsible and unintelligent breeding."[129] In The Pivot of Civilization she criticized certain charity organizations for providing free obstetric and immediate post-birth care to indigent women without also providing information about birth control nor any assistance in raising or educating the children.[130] By such charities, she wrote, "The poor woman is taught how to have her seventh child, when what she wants to know is how to avoid bringing into the world her eighth."

In personal correspondence she expressed her sadness about the aggressive and lethal Nazi eugenics program, and donated to the American Council Against Nazi Propaganda.[128]

Sanger believed that self-determining motherhood was the only unshakable foundation for racial betterment.[131] Initially she advocated that the responsibility for birth control should remain with able-minded individual parents rather than the state.[132] Later, she proposed that "Permits for parenthood shall be issued upon application by city, county, or state authorities to married couples," but added that the requirement should be implemented by state advocacy and reward for complying, not enforced by punishing anyone for violating it.[133]

Margaret Sanger opposed abortion and sharply distinguished it from birth control. She believed that the latter is a fundamental right of women and the former is a shameful crime.[134]:3637[23]:125 In 1916, when she opened her first birth control clinic, she was employing harsh rhetoric against abortion. Flyers she distributed to women exhorted them in all capitals: "Do not kill, do not take life, but prevent."[135]:155 Sanger's patients at that time were told "that abortion was the wrong wayno matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer wayit took a little time, a little trouble, but it was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun."[16]:217 Sanger consistently distanced herself from any calls for legal access to abortion, arguing that legal access to contraceptives would remove the need for abortion.[136] Ann Hibner Koblitz has argued that Sanger's anti-abortion stance contributed to the further stigmatization of abortion and impeded the growth of the broader reproductive rights movement.[137]:182188

While Margaret Sanger condemned abortion as a method of family limitation, she was not opposed to abortion intended to save a woman's life.[138] Furthermore, in 1932, Margaret Sanger directed the Clinical Research Bureau to start referring patients to hospitals for therapeutic abortions when indicated by an examining physician.[23]:300301 She also advocated for birth control so that the pregnancies that led to therapeutic abortions could be prevented in the first place.[139]

Sanger's writings are curated by two universities: New York University's history department maintains the Margaret Sanger Papers Project,[140] and Smith College's Sophia Smith Collection maintains the Margaret Sanger Papers collection.[141]

Sanger's story also features in several biographies, including David Kennedy's biography Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970), which won the Bancroft Prize and the John Gilmary Shea Prize. She is also the subject of the television films Portrait of a Rebel: The Remarkable Mrs. Sanger (1980),[142] and Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story (1995).[143] In 2013, the American cartoonist Peter Bagge published Woman Rebel, a full-length graphic-novel biography of Sanger.[144] In 2016, Sabrina Jones published the graphic novel "Our Lady of Birth Control: A Cartoonist's Encounter With Margaret Sanger."[145]

Sanger has been recognized with several honors. Her speech "Children's Era", given in 1925, is listed as #81 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century (listed by rank).[146][147] Sanger was an inspiration for Wonder Woman, the comic-book character introduced by William Marston in 1941. Marston was influenced by early feminist thought while in college, and later formed a romantic relationship with Sanger's niece, Olive Byrne.[148][149] According to Jill Lepore, several Wonder Woman story lines were at least in part inspired by Sanger, like the character's involvement with different labor strikes and protests.[149] Between (and including) 1953 and 1963, Sanger was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 31 times.[150] In 1957, the American Humanist Association named her Humanist of the Year. In 1966, Planned Parenthood began issuing its Margaret Sanger Awards annually to honor "individuals of distinction in recognition of excellence and leadership in furthering reproductive health and reproductive rights".[151] The 1979 artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for her.[152][153] In 1981, Sanger was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[154] In 1976, she was inducted into the first class of the Steuben County (NY) Hall of Fame. In 1993, the United States National Park Service designated the Margaret Sanger Clinicwhere she provided birth-control services in New York in the mid-twentieth centuryas a National Historic Landmark.[155] As well, government authorities and other institutions have memorialized Sanger by dedicating several landmarks in her name, including a residential building on the Stony Brook University campus, a room in Wellesley College's library,[156] and Margaret Sanger Square in New York City's Noho area.[157] There is a Margaret Sanger Lane in Plattsburgh, New York and an Alle Margaret Sanger in Saint-Nazaire, France.[158] There is a bust of Sanger in the National Portrait Gallery, which was a gift from Cordelia Scaife May.[159][160] Sanger, a crater in the northern hemisphere of Venus, takes its name from Margaret Sanger.

Due to her connection with Planned Parenthood, many who oppose abortion frequently condemn Sanger by criticizing her views on birth control and eugenics.[161][162][g]

In July, 2020, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced their intention to rename the Planned Parenthood headquarters on Bleecker Street, which was named after Sanger. This decision was made in response to criticisms over Sanger's promotion of eugenics. In announcing the decision, Karen Seltzer explained, "The removal of Margaret Sanger's name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood's contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color."[163][164]

In 1930, Sanger opened a family planning clinic in Harlem that sought to enlist support for contraceptive use and to bring the benefits of family planning to women who were denied access to their city's health and social services. Staffed by a Black physician and a Black social worker, the clinic was endorsed by The Amsterdam News (the powerful local newspaper), the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the Urban League, and the Black community's elder statesman, W. E. B. Du Bois.

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The Supreme Court Ruling That Led To 70,000 Forced Sterilizations – NPR.org

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court decided, by a vote of 8 to 1, to uphold a state's right to forcibly sterilize a person considered unfit to procreate. The case, known as Buck v. Bell, centered on a young woman named Carrie Buck, whom the state of Virginia had deemed to be "feebleminded."

Author Adam Cohen tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that Buck v. Bell was considered a victory for America's eugenics movement, an early 20th century school of thought that emphasized biological determinism and actively sought to "breed out" traits that were considered undesirable.

"There were all kinds of categories of people who were deemed to be unfit [to procreate]," Cohen says. "The eugenicists looked at evolution and survival of the fittest, as Darwin was describing it, and they believed 'We can help nature along, if we just plan who reproduces and who doesn't reproduce.' "

All told, as many as 70,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized during the 20th century. The victims of state-mandated sterilization included people like Buck who had been labeled "mentally deficient," as well as those who who were deaf, blind and diseased. Minorities, poor people and "promiscuous" women were often targeted.

Adam Cohen is a former member of The New York Times editorial board and former senior writer for Time magazine. Eleanor Randolph/Penguin Press hide caption

Cohen's new book about the Buck case, Imbeciles, takes its name from the terms eugenicists used to categorize the "feebleminded." In it, he revisits the Buck v. Bell ruling and explores the connection between the American eugenics movement and the rise of the Nazi party in Germany.

Cohen notes that the instinct to "demonize" people who are different is still prevalent in the U.S. today, particularly in the debate over immigration.

"I think these instincts to say that we need to stop these other people from 'polluting us,' from changing the nature of our country, they're very real," Cohen warns. "The idea that those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it it's very troubling that we don't remember this past."

On the case of Carrie Buck

This is this poor young woman, really nothing wrong with her physically or mentally, a victim of a terrible sexual assault, and there's a little hearing, she's declared feebleminded and she gets sent off to the colony for epileptics and feebleminded. ...

Imbeciles

The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck

by Adam Cohen

When she's at the colony, the guy who is running the colony, Dr. Albert Priddy, is on the prowl. He's looking for someone to put at the center of this test case that they want to bring, so he's looking for someone to sterilize, and he sees Carrie Buck when she comes in, he does the examination himself, and there are a lot of things about her that excite him. She is deemed to be feebleminded, she has a mother who is feebleminded, so that's good because you can show some genetics, and then they're hoping that [her] baby could be determined to be feebleminded too, then you could really show a genetic pattern of feeblemindedness. The fact that she had been pregnant out of wedlock was another strike against her. So he fixes on her and thinks Carrie Buck is going to be the perfect potential plaintiff. ...

He chooses her, and then under the Virginia law, they have to have a sterilization hearing at the colony, which they do and they give her a lawyer (who is really not a lawyer for her; it's really someone who had been the chairman of the board of the colony and was sympathetic to the colony's side) and they have a bit of a sham hearing where she is determined to be a suitable person for sterilization; they vote to sterilize her, and that is the order that then gets challenged by Carrie as the plaintiff first in the Virginia court system and then in the Supreme Court.

On why he considers Buck v. Bell to be one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history

If you start by just looking at all the human misery that was inflicted, about 70,000 Americans were sterilized as a result of this decision, so that's an awful lot of people who wanted to have children who weren't able to have children. Also, we have to factor in all the many people who were being segregated, who were being held in these institutions for eugenic reasons, because they were feebleminded, whose lives unfolded living in places like the colony, rather than living in freedom. Beyond the human effect though, there was something just so ugly about this decision and when [we] think about what we want the Supreme Court to be, what the founders wanted the Supreme Court to be, it was supposed to be our temple of justice, the place that people could go when all the other parts of our society, all the other parts of the government, were not treating them right.

On how eugenicists sought to address the "threat" to the gene pool

The eugenicists saw two threats to the national gene pool: One was the external one, which they were addressing through immigration law; the other was the internal one what to do about the people who were already here. They had a few ideas.

The first eugenics law in the United States was passed in Connecticut in 1895, and it was a law against certain kinds of marriages. They were trying to stop certain unfit people from reproducing through marriage. It wasn't really what they wanted, though, because they realized that people would just reproduce outside of marriage.

So their next idea was what they called segregation. The idea was to get people who were deemed unfit institutionalized during their reproductive years, particularly for women, keep them there, make sure they didn't reproduce, and then women were often let go when they had passed their reproductive years because they were no longer a threat to the gene pool. That had a problem too, though. The problem was that it would be really expensive to segregate, institutionalize the number of people the eugenicists were worried about. ...

Their next idea was eugenic sterilization and that allowed for a model in which they would take people in to institutions, eugenically sterilize them, and then they could let them go, because they were no longer a threat. That's why eugenic sterilization really became the main model that the eugenicists embraced and that many states enacted laws to allow.

On deeming people "feebleminded"

"Feebleminded" was really the craze in American eugenics. There was this idea that we were being drowned in a tide of feeblemindedness that basically unintelligent people were taking over, reproducing more quickly than the intelligent people but it was also a very malleable term that was used to define large categories of people that again, were disliked by someone who was in the decision-making position. So, women who were thought to be overly interested in sex, licentious, were sometimes deemed feebleminded. It was a broad category and it was very hard to prove at one of these feeblemindedness hearings that you were not feebleminded.

On the involuntary sterilization procedure

For men it was something like a vasectomy. For women it was a salpingectomy, where they cauterized the path that the egg takes toward fertilization. It was, in the case of women, not minor surgery and when you read about what happened, it's many, many days of recovery and it had certain dangers attached to it, and a lot of the science was still quite new. ...

When you add onto all that, the fact that in many, many cases the women involved were not told what was being done to them, they might be told that they were having an appendectomy, they weren't being told that the government has decided that you are unfit to reproduce and we're then going to have surgery on you, so that just compounds the horror of the situation.

On how the Nazis borrowed from the U.S. eugenics sterilization program

We really were on the cutting edge. We were doing a lot of this in the 1910s and 1920s. Indiana adopted a eugenic sterilization law, America's first in 1907. We were writing the eugenics sterilization statutes that decided who should be sterilized. We also had people who were writing a lot of what might be thought of as pro-Aryan theory. So you have people like Madison Grant who wrote a very popular book called The Passing of a Great Race, which really talked about the superiority of Nordics, as he called them, and how they were endangered by all the brown people and the non-Nordics who were taking over.

On a 1924 immigration law, which was inspired by eugenicists, that prevented Anne Frank's family from entering the U.S.

Under the old immigration laws where it was pretty much "show up," they would've been able to emigrate, but suddenly they were trapped by very unfavorable national quotas, so this really was a reason that so many Jews were turned away.

One very poignant aspect of it that I've thought about as I was working on the book is in the late '90s some correspondence appeared, was uncovered, in which Otto Frank was writing repeatedly to the State Department begging for visas for himself and his wife and his two daughters, Margot and Anne, and was turned down, and that was because there were now these quotas in place. If they had not been, it seems clear that he would've been able to get a visa for his whole family, including his daughter Anne Frank.

So when we think about the fact that Anne Frank died in a concentration camp, we're often told that it was because the Nazis believed the Jews were genetically inferior, that they were lesser than Aryans. That's true, but to some extent Anne Frank died in a concentration camp because the U.S. Congress believed that as well.

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World Wars, Eugenics, Mass Extinctions: Would You Believe Were Talking About Splatoon? – Kotaku Australia

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

When Splatoon burst onto the scene in 2015 with its squids, who are also heavily-armed children, people were instantly drawn to its brightly coloured. The team-based multiplayer shooter, where matches are won by covering the ground with ink, is enjoyed by adults and kids alike. Its primary 4v4 Turf War mode drives Splatoons multiplayer, and thats where youll find most of its players on any given day. A single-player campaign teaches new players the basics and lets them try out different weapons in a safe environment, preparing them to join the multiplayer arena. However, because completing the single-player mode is not a pre-requisite for accessing multiplayer, many Splatoon players havent so much as looked at it. This means they have no real idea of the world these games take place in or how truly dark it is.

To learn about this, its probably best to start at the beginning. What follows is the incredibly bleak story of Splatoon.

Long before the events of the original Splatoon, humans were Earths most dominant species, though we had descended into frequent, pointless wars. Three more World Wars shook the planet, giving way to numerous civil wars. Finally, during the fifth World War, one country (it is no longer remembered which) launched a warhead at Antarctica, intending to melt it. The ultimate if we cant have it, no one can approach. Humans fled into large underground caverns to avoid the coming environmental decimation. It was all in vain. The planet was flooded entirely, and with it, humanity was destroyed.

As disaster loomed, a professor placed his pet cat, Judd, into a cryogenic chamber. Judd, it turned out, was a master tactician and had rendered sound judgment on every major human war. Because Judd had proven himself so tactically important, the professor chose to freeze Judd instead of himself. As a contingency plan, he created an AI, a keeper of all human knowledge; a torch passed to the next sentient species to help them avoid making humanitys mistakes.

This theming of genocidal global conflict and environmental destruction is a throughline in both games.Splatoon makes a very specific point: its characters live in the ecological wreckage of the human race. This, however, is just the beginning, and things are already fairly dire. But wait, it gets worse.

The next ten thousand years are fairly quiet. As the waters finally recede, some ocean-going life forms are forced to move onto land and evolve. Among these are the Inklings, the Octarians and the Jellyfish. At the same moment, Judd awakens from his cryogenic sleep. At first, relations between the species are cordial. They participate in friendly ink-based games with Judd adjudicating. However, over time, the water levels begin to rise once more. Water has become deadly to the evolved sea life now living on the surface. A rising sea level poses an existential threat.

And so, The Great Turf War began.

The Great Turf War tore the world into two groups, the Octarians and the Inklings. Though the lore never clearly explains their reasons for doing so, most other former sea creatures also took the Inklings side in the war. The Octarians, led by the terrible Octavio, are made up of intelligent octopi humanoids, Octolings, and their sentient appendages. The latter is kind of stupid and obedient and is created by any Octoling cutting off one of the tentacles on their head.

The first year of the Great Turf War saw the Inklings on the back foot as the Octarians raced to create weapons of mass destruction called the Great Octoweapons. With their backs to the wall, the Inklings answered in kind, building weapons of their own. Even with new armaments in their pocket, the Inklings were lucky to survive: a Sunken Scroll in the original game mentions that Inklings had a bad habit of sleeping in and missing battles.

In the wars second year, the Squidbeak Splatoon was created by Judd, Capn Cuttlefish, Ammoses Shellendorf and two other Inklings. This would ultimately prove to be the moment that changed the course of the war. The Inklings began to regain ground on the Octarians. However, what sealed an Inkling victory was that a plug powering the Great Octoweapons was accidentally removed. With the weapons non-operational, other species were able to claim the land. As a result, the Octarians moved underground into the humans old dwellings, using kettles as doorways. These underground settlements required a lot of energy to run, as the areas walls are made up of screens, imitating the outside world at all times.

As mentioned earlier, its never explained why or how the Zapfish are allied with the Inklings. Free of any context, the arrangement seems awfully one-sided. The Inklings use the electricity the Zapfish generate, and the Zapfish get freedom, perhaps? At the beginning of the original Splatoon, news reporters Marie and Callie announce that the Great Zapfish is missing. It would later turn out that the Octarians energy crisis was even worse than first thought and that they had kidnapped the Great Zapfish, hoping it could solve all their problems.

Capn Cuttlefish, believing the Octarians were to blame for the Great Zapfishs disappearance, finds an enterprising young squid they dub Agent 3, enlisting them in the brand new Squidbeak Splatoon. On Cuttlefishs orders, Agent 3 explores Octo Valley, now the games underground hub, via kettles to reach and free the Zapfish. Octo Valley is broken into five sections, each containing some of the Octarians Great Octoweapons. Defeating these weapons frees even more Zapfish. Agent 3 is also helped by Agent 1 and Agent 2, who are definitely not Callie and Marie in trenchcoats (it is). During their travels, Agent 3 fights a great number of Octarians. They also occasionally encounter the Octolings, who seem to have goggles as part of their uniform.

Agent 3 finally finds the Great Zapfish. They are moments from freeing it when its sucked up by DJ Octavio, the same Octavio who led the Octarians in the Great Turf War. Agent 3 struggles to defeat DJ Octavio, and, just as all seems lost, Callie and Marie arrive on the scene, singing Calamari Inkantation. Agent 3 is able to defeat a distracted DJ Octavio, but the music has an added effect: the goggles worn by the Octolings, secretly brainwashing tech created by Octavio, were left scrambled and inert. When Octavio had originally proposed his scheme, the Octolings vetoed the idea, refusing to join him. Instead, hed used the goggles to control the defiant populace. In the crowd of the Octarians is Marina Ida, who, after hearing Calamari Inkantation, defects from the Octarian army and heads to the surface. DJ Octavio is confined in a snow globe with Capn Cuttlefish to watch over him. The Great Zapfish is returned to his place on the antenna of Inkopolis Plaza.

Day-to-day life in Inkling society continues, none the wiser.

After a bruising final Splatfest in which Inkling society was asked if they preferred Callie or Marie from The Squid Sisters, the idol duo took a break to focus on their own things for a while. During this time, Agent 3 and Capn Cuttlefish went off to investigate some rumours theyd heard.

Octoling Marina, now on the surface after her defection, encounters an Inkling named Pearl on Nantai Mountain, practising her singing. Marina later pitches Pearl with a demo of a song she calls Ebb and Flow. The two agree to become a pop duo called Off the Hook. They enjoy a rapid rise to fame, eventually replacing the Squid Sisters as hosts of both the news broadcast and Splatfest.

The subject of one of Pearl and Marinas first broadcasts is a tragedy: Callie and the Great Zapfish, who had moved to Inkopolis square, are both missing. Most Inklings are relatively unconcerned, but Marie knows better. She goes to Octo Valley to confirm a hunch and, sure enough, finds DJ Octavios snow globe broken. Furthermore, there is no sign of Capn Cuttlefish. Keeping a low profile in Inkopolis Square, she approaches an Inkling to help her find out what exactly has happened. The newest member of the Squidbeak Splatoon is dubbed Agent 4 and sent off to explore Octo Canyon, the Octarian settlement near Inkopolis square. Weapons store owner Sheldon joins Agent 4, lending them fire support. Similar to the original game, Agent 4 encounters Octolings, all of them wearing the same suspicious sunglasses. As they progress, Squidbeak Splatoon receives repeated messages telling them to turn back.

The voice in the message sounds suspiciously like Callie.

This is confirmed when the three eventually find the Great Zapfish, Callie and DJ Octavio. Callie talks about how her shades make her look so fresh, and DJ Octavio explains that they are mind-control sunglasses. His latest brainwashing tech, he claims, is so strong that the Calamari Inkantation cant scramble them. Agent 4 must then face the combined might of DJ Octavio and Callie in a remix the duo calls the Spicy Calamari Inkantation. Agent 4 holds their own but is unable to gain any ground either. Thats when Sheldon and Marie show up in a flying truck. Maries uses her E-litre to knock the glasses off Callies face, allowing Agent 4 to attack. Once again, DJ Octavio is defeated, the Great Zapfish is saved, and Octolings can think for themselves. Several start to make their way to the surface, where the Inklings assume they are simply other Inklings following a weird hair trend.

(Editors note: How are the Inklings still alive? They dont seem very bright. David)

An Octoling wakes up in a subway with only the memory of the Calamari Inkantation. Capn Cuttlefish explains that he and Agent 3 were fighting our amnesiac Octoling when all three were knocked out. Unable to find Agent 3, Cuttlefish concedes he is willing to work with the Octoling to ensure their survival. Unfortunately, the only thing at their disposal is a telephone in the middle of the Platform. The phone explains that they are in the deep-sea metro and must find the promised land. The voice on the other end of the line calls the Octoling Test Subject 10,008, and says they must complete a series of challenges, including finding the four thangs. Capn Cuttlefish dubs the Octoling Agent Eight, and the phone, Tartar, gives them a CQ-80 to provide access to the tests. A train pulls in, and Agent 8 and Capn Cuttlefish board, ready to begin.

However, the moment theyre inside the train, two new players named MC.Princess and DJ_hyperfresh accidentally hack the CQ_80, offering to help them escape the facility.

After collecting the four Thangs and bringing them to Tartar, he asks a pair of important questions: is Agent 8 prepared for a higher plane of existence? Are they ready to be something bigger than themselves? It is revealed that the four Thangs fuse together to create a blender, with Tartar intending to turn Agent 8 and Capn Cuttlefish into raw material. If a test subject is smart enough to complete all the challenges and collect the Thangs, they receive the honour of being turned into primordial ooze. Tartar reveals that he is the AI left by Judds scientist friend to pass on the knowledge of humanity. Though Tartar was excited to pass on his knowledge when he saw the Inklings and Octolings evolving into their humanoid forms, he was dismayed to see them come into conflict. When he saw them fighting over what he deemed were trivial matters, Tartar created his own new directive: destroy them all and replace them with sanitised versions.

DJ_hyperfresh, (who is actually Marina in disguise) attempts to hack into the blender to prevent Agent 8 and Cuttlefish from being turned into a cephaloid slushie. Unable to break through, she sends out a distress signal. Agent 3 breaks through the roof, sending Tartar and the blender flying. Capn Cuttlefish decides to stay with the now unconscious Agent 3 but encourages Agent 8 to escape with Pearl (the disguised MC.Princess) and Marinas help.

Travelling through the structure, Agent 8 makes their way through sections of the facility, which are named after sections of the human digestive tract (and its kind of gross considering theyre moving through it backwards). During the Spinal phase, they are stopped by a partially sanitised Agent 3. The two Agents duke it out, with Agent 8 triumphant. Agent 8, Agent 3, and Capn Cuttlefish make their escape, ending up on a small island as Pearl and Marina swoop overhead in their helicopter.

As theyre getting ready to leave, the island begins to shake, rising out of the ocean. A giant human bust slowly rises from the seabed, with Commander Tartar at the controls. He tells the assembled Inklings and Octolings that he is so incensed by their treachery that he will coat Inkopolis in the sanitising liquid. This would destroy the free will of everyone in Inkopolis if it doesnt kill them first.

Marina realises that the statue is drawing solar power to charge itself and devises a plan to cover it in ink. Agent 8 has three minutes until the statue fires its sanitising doom laser. Marina offers Agent 8 prototype hyper bombs to help them ink the whole thing. Succeeding prevents the NILS statue from getting a full charge, but thats not enough to stop Commander Tartar, who decides to fire it anyway. Pearl unleashes a Booyah via a Killer Wail weapon so powerful it destroys the NILS statue and Tartar with it. Defeated, Tartar takes solace in the idea that he can be with his inventor, the professor, again.

Tartar was so upset with how the Inklings and Octolings had conducted themselves that he decided the answer was eugenics. Do you know who else came to that conclusion? It starts with H and ends with itler.

Now, up to this point, its been a secret that there is third species in the world of Splatoon: the Salmonids. They live in a dam and keep mostly to themselves, living in the water and only emerging every 70 years to spawn. Inklings are forbidden from having any contact with the Salmonids, but a shady corporation called GrizzCo hires Inklings to participate in a competition called the Salmon Run. Their goal is to collect Salmonid power eggs and the ultimate prize, golden eggs.

The Salmonids and the Octarians have a trade agreement. As long as the Octarians provide the Salmonids shields and technology, the Salmonids will supply the Octarians with power eggs. The golden eggs, however, are off-limits. Meanwhile, Salmonid meat is available for sale at Mako Mart, the Inkling supermarket. Salmonids view being eaten as the ultimate honour. Therefore, they are perfectly happy to be consumed. This law of consumption is a two-way street, however: Salmonids arent against eating Inklings either. Salmonids believe in the food chain and that eating (or being eaten) is natures way. While there is no mention of whether the Salmonids will eat each other, inklings can and will eat squids, their non-evolved forms. Is this technically cannibalism?!

So, to recap: the story of Splatoon contains six world wars, a mass extinction, numerous weapons of mass destruction, the despotic oppression of an entire people, eugenics, and kidnapping. With Splatoon 3 set to release with the Return of the Mammalians campaign, it could get even worse. The Octarians appear to be sprouting fur, which the Salmonids can eat. Is it some kind of virus spreading across the world? Possibly! Well find out when the game launches on September 9, exclusively on Nintendo Switch.

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World Wars, Eugenics, Mass Extinctions: Would You Believe Were Talking About Splatoon? - Kotaku Australia

The shameful support of eugenics by the Lewiston Evening Journal – Lewiston Sun Journal

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

Over the course of 175 years and more than 2 million pages of newsprint, its no surprise the Lewiston Falls Journal and its successors have on occasion gotten some things wrong, sometimes egregiously so.

For instance, consider the Lewiston Evening Journals August 1972 take on Watergate: An incident that must be rated as trivial compared to the major issues that should be the focal point of attention during the 1972 presidential campaign.

When Richard Nixon, who won the race, resigned in disgrace from the presidency two years later, the Journals editorial stood out as notably off the mark.

But shortsighted is one thing. Unforgiveable is quite another.

From 1900 through the 1930s, the Journal backed a movement mired in the pseudo-science of eugenics, which led followers to conclude that bettering the human race required active steps to prevent some people from having children.

The newspaper at times endorsed involuntary sterilization and flirted with the notion of having the government murder people to prevent them from having sex and potentially bring children into the world who might share qualities the movement frowned on, such as intellectual disabilities or addiction to liquor.

The Lewiston newspaper wasnt alone in its support for the real-life application of eugenics theory.

The ideas pushed by eugenics adherents proved so popular that many states passed laws allowing forced sterilizations, including Maine, and many prominent men and women, from Winston Churchill to Helen Keller, endorsed it.

The embrace of eugenics became common enough to be taught in many schools, touted in international conferences and endorsed by such diverse organizations as the U.S. Supreme Court and Germanys Nazi Party.

Nazi leader Adolf Hiter once told comrades, I have studied with interest the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock, according to the former head of his economic policy office, cited in Stefan Kuhls 1984 book The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism and German National Socialism.

The American eugenics movement began to fade in the 1930s and fell into disfavor nearly everywhere after Hitler carried its ideas so far that his minions slaughtered millions in a bid to snuff out people seen as unfit, including Jews, homosexuals, communists and people with mental and physical challenges.

Academics who have since delved into the eugenics push in America cite it as one of the intellectual foundations for Hitlers concentration camps.

PEACEFUL EXTERMINATION

Arthur Staples, who worked at the Journal for 57 years and edited it for two decades, laid out how he saw the problem in a 1925 column in which he complained, We have bred from the worst to the worst in the most foolish way.

As a result, Staples wrote, We are striving to lug along incompetents and feeble persons in the march of progress.

He pointed out how potato farmers throw away the small potatoes while society, coping with far more important choices, was attempting to raise the culls when it comes to people who are idiots, imbeciles and sub-normals.

Then Staples took an even greater leap.

He said men of conscience and courage no doubt including himself among them wonder if a certain form of peaceful extermination were not better.

Though Staples immediately said he wasnt advocating any such thing, merely pondering it, he proceeded to compare these poor travesties of human beings with demon-possessed swine.

Staples concluded society must take care that imbeciles and sub-normals do not reproduce, urging the state to sterilize them to improve the overall quality of Mainers.

The state, he said, must stop the growing rot in the seed of the race and not be squeamish about telling things as they are.

At the time, Staples and the Journal were hardly alone in their calls for government to sterilize people they regarded as lesser beings.

The Supreme Court, in the never-overturned 1927 case of Buck v. Bell, widely noted as one of its most dreadful rulings, agreed with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. when he insisted three generations of imbeciles are enough, in a ruling granting the right for states to sterilize residents to prevent feebleminded and socially inadequate people from having children.

It was a decision, and a movement, which led to the forcible sterilization of at least 60,000 Americans, many of them Black women. Maine was among the states to do so.

Not surprisingly, Nazi defendants at the war crimes trials at Nuremberg after World War II sought to justify their crimes by citing the precedent set in the United States for sterilization and extermination.

The judges didnt buy it. But there was some truth to their finger-pointing.

NEWS AND VIEWS SUPPORTING EXTERMINATION

On March 2, 1900, the Journal carried a news story under the headline By Painless Extermination.

Beneath it was a lengthy account of a new book by Dr. Duncan McKim of New York who proposed the betterment of society and the abolition of the evils of heredity by the gentle removal from this life of incorrigible criminals, idiots, imbeciles, epileptics and habitual drunkards.

He said they could be led into a lethal chamber where they could be gassed to death.

The painless extinction of these lives would present no practical difficulty, McKim said.

The number of individuals to whom the plan would apply is large, McKim wrote in his book.

The Journals story did not question either the idea motivating McKims proposal or his suggestion for implementing it.

McKims Heredity and Progress, published by G.P. Putnam, was part of a movement promoting the notion that people should, in effect, be bred like livestock or pedigreed dogs, aiming to improve the overall quality of humanity by culling the least fit.

It is not the mere wearing of a human form which truly indicates a man, McKim wrote. The idiot and the low-grade imbecile are not true men, for certain essential human elements have never entered into them, and never can; nor is the moral idiot truly a man, nor, while the sad condition lasts, the lunatic.

He wrote they are no more human than beasts of prey.

Once dismissed as mere animals, it wasnt hard for some in the movement to embrace the suggestion that involuntary sterilization or death was a reasonable solution to the problem McKim identified.

Its an idea the Journal found attractive.

In its Book Chat column on Feb. 24, 1900, the Journals illustrated magazine praised the volume and hailed McKims call for a gentle and painless death to those who are very weak and very vicious degenerates who are under the absolute control of the state, including murderers, habitual drunkards, nocturnal house-breakers and people with epilepsy, who were seen by some as a uniquely criminal class in those days.

Dr. McKim has brought the darker side of life before us in a clear and forceful manner and his arguments are logical and convincing, the Journal said.

It was a theme repeated now and again, with only occasional hesitation, in many of the papers stories and some of its opinion columns in the following decades.

In a 1904 front-page news story headlined Minds Mislaid And Minds Lost By Heredity And Vice, the Journal noted how Auburn schools had reported having 14 mentally incapacitated children.

The next sentences said, Criminal re-enforcement of decadents and imbeciles is a grave menace to the State. There are many cases where the reproduction of dangerous imbeciles has proved a fruitful source of municipal expenditure and moral waste. To prevent the breeding and intermarriage of decadent classes is essential to the well-being of the commonwealth.

It said feeble-mindedness is typically hereditary and that to descend from a long line of paupers is to descend further into pauperism.

In ancient Sparta, the story said, the answer would have been to lop the heads off the people it viewed as problematic, but the Journal noted with a tinge of regret that modern morality would not allow such barbarism.

In 1914, the paper reported favorably on the views of Gertrude MacDonald, principal of the State School for Girls in Hallowell, who told the Maine Federation of Womens Clubs that because defects are passed on in family lines, government should see to it that the continued pollution of its bloodstream must be checked by such means that have the approval of sane, far-seeing men.

Reproduction of the feeble-minded, the insane, the grossly immoral, the physically imperfect must be cut off, and it should lie within the power of the state to bring this to pass by segregation, for the most part, and more drastic means when absolutely necessary, MacDonald said.

In the same year, after a judge threw out a eugenics law in Wisconsin he deemed unconstitutional, the Journal wrote an editorial fretting that damaged goods would multiply as what it viewed as feeble-minded people reproduced until societys views on the issue change.

With better education, it said, we can climb the hill of the Capitol and get into written constitutions the better things needed by the nation namely a constitutional amendment to ease the way for the practical application of eugenics.

A BIG YEAR FOR BAD IDEAS

The push for forced sterilizations appears to have peaked in the Journal in 1925, the year Staples mused in his column about peaceful extermination of unfortunate Americans.

In June, the daily spotlighted an honor thesis by Bates College student Priscilla Frew that insisted defectives should be controlled so they cannot multiply, which means strict segregation or sterilization.

The following month, the Journal covered a talk to the Lewiston and Auburn Rotarians by Dr. Stephen Vosburgh, head of the Maine School of the Feeble Minded in Pownal. He told the group that segregation and sterilization were the only ways to stop the growth of feeble-minded Mainers.

Vosburgh told the Rotarians that tests given to new arrivals at his school determine with ease whether the newcomer is an idiot, with the mental capacity of a 2-year-old, or an imbecile who has the mental abilities of a typical child between the ages of 3 and 7, or a moron, whose mind is equivalent to a 7- to 12-year-old.

He said a state law prevented all of them from getting married but town clerks failed to enforce it, so the state passed a law that permits sterilization of the so-called feeble-minded under some circumstances.

Vosburgh also said there were many sub-normal (people) in alms houses and attractive women of child-bearing age who should be cared for and segregated in institutions until they were too old to have children. Otherwise, he said, the state would have too many morons.

In November 1925, the Journal wrote an editorial about the states insane asylum discussing a delicate subject that requires a lot of common sense.

The paper said Maine ought to extend the sterilization law for idiots and imbeciles in order to sterilize these people by the authorities without having to get so many permissions.

After all, it said, society would never allow unnecessary operations of this sort only those approved after a proper hearing.

The chances of the idiot or the imbecile or even the moron or subnormal reproducing like to like are almost certain, the paper said. The chances are small that these people will produce normals.

Nobody likes to discuss this subject, the editorial noted. Nobody likes to sponsor these profoundly personal laws. But what is to be done? Is society through a mawkish sentimentality to be permitted to go on doing what we do not permit cattle to do? Are we going to overload society with fools?

It went on to detail a misinterpreted and often mistaken 1877 study of an American family published by Richard Louis Dugdale as The Jukes: a Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity, Also Further Studies of Criminals.

Comparing the Juke family to the successful descendants of famed colonial-era preacher Jonathan Edwards, the Journal used their example to prove idiots produce idiots when allowed to have children and should not be allowed to reproduce.

It was a theme pushed repeatedly over the years by the Lewiston paper, until the scale of the eugenics-inspired horror unleashed by the Nazis became clear.

AFTER THE NAZIS

The Journal printed hundreds of news stories during and after World War II detailing German crimes. It wrote about the international tribunals prosecuting Nazi criminals. It published stories about concentration camp survivors and about the reality of the Holocaust they witnessed.

But it doesnt appear the Journal ever took note in later years of its own role in promoting eugenics or its complicity in the spread of a doctrine leading directly to the crimes against humanity laid out at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals.

That the Journal chose to push eugenics is made clear by comparing its coverage in those years to its morning counterpart, the Lewiston Daily Sun, which rarely mentioned eugenics and doesnt appear to have hailed it at all.

There is no apology possible for having played any role at all in laying the foundation for the Holocaust. But the paper can, at last, recognize its failure.

This was perhaps the worst thing the Journal and its successors ever did in 175 years of news coverage.

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The shameful support of eugenics by the Lewiston Evening Journal - Lewiston Sun Journal

The U.S. and the Holocaust. Revisiting America’s Role | THIRTEEN – New York Public Media – MetroFocus

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

How can we learn from the past? That is the profound question we face in the new documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust, a three-part, six-hour series, directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein, with narration by Peter Coyote. The film explores Americas response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the 20th century. Inspired in part by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museums Americans and the Holocaust exhibition, the film examines the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany in the context of global antisemitism and racism, the eugenics movement in the United States, and race laws in the American South revealing how as the catastrophe of genocide unfolded in Europe, the U.S. took in only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of refugees trying to escape the Holocaust. Read more about the film and learn about free panels to attend, below.

Get a roundup of broadcast and digital premieres, special offers, and events with our weekly newsletter.

Former prisoners of Buchenwald concentration camp. Elie Wiesel is in the second row of bunks, 7th from left, next to the vertical beam.Photo: National Archives & Records Administration.

Through riveting firsthand testimony of witnesses and survivors who endured persecution and violence as their families tried to escape Hitler, the series delves deeply into the tragic human consequences of public indifference, bureaucratic red tape, and restrictive quota laws in America. It tackles questions relevant to our society today, including how racism influences policies related to immigration and refugees, and how governments and people respond to the authoritarian states that manipulate history and facts.

Rabbi Stephen Wise addresses a crowd at a rally outside Madison Square Garden in NYC. Photo Library of Congress

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, Dorothy Thompson, Rabbi Stephen Wise, and Henry Ford are among the historical figures in the film, as well as Anne Frank and her family, who applied for but failed to obtain visas to the U.S. before they went into hiding in The Netherlands.

Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum, NYC Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise during a United Jewish War Effort event on W. 42nd Street. Circa, 1943. Photo courtesy US Holocaust Memorial Museum

History cannot be looked at in isolation, Ken Burns says. While we rightly celebrate American ideals of democracy and our history as a nation of immigrants, we must also grapple with the fact that American institutions and policies, like segregation and the brutal treatment of indigenous populations, were influential in Hitlers Germany. And although we accepted more refugees than any other sovereign nation, America could have done so much more to help the millions of desperate people fleeing Nazi persecution.

Virtual online panels related to this series will be presented by THIRTEEN and The WNET Group the week of The U.S. and the Holocaust broadcast. Visit our Thirteen.org/Community page for more information, soon.

Free RegistrationIn advance of the September 18 premiere, join a free virtual talk on Thursday, September 8 with two of the filmmakers, Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein, in conversation with Madlin Sadler, COO, International Rescue Committee. Jake Tapper moderates the discussion on The Holocaust and Refugees: Lessons for Today.

Marquee advertising a screening of U.S. Army Signal Corps film, Nazi Atrocities. New York City. May 8, 1945.

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The U.S. and the Holocaust. Revisiting America's Role | THIRTEEN - New York Public Media - MetroFocus

Families highlighted with books on history and cooking – Rochester Post Bulletin

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

When Mortals Play God: Eugenics and One Familys Story of Tragedy, Loss and Perseverance by John Erickson; publishes Sept. 15 by Rowman and Littlefield Publishers

This book by John Erickson focuses on Ericksons own family history and their generational tragedies to take a deeper look at the idea of eugenics in Minnesota and those who were and still are affected by it.

Erickson shares a very intimate look at a family punished for not being perfect in societys eyes a family whose struggles and tragic circumstances were during a time when society and those in power had very little compassion for those it deemed different.

It is very clear that Erickson put in a lot of time and effort to research his own family history as well as the history of the laws and the area that his family called home. His writing allows the reader to find not only relatable humanity but love and compassion for a family that was fundamentally failed by their community, society as a whole and by the government created to establish order and protection for its most vulnerable citizens. He allows the reader to walk a mile in their shoes.

contributed / John Erickson

This book is packed with Brainerd history, early logging and railroad history in Minnesota and early laws and treatment for those deemed feebleminded in and around the 1920s. This examination of a part of Minnesota history that is oftentimes overlooked because of its uncomfortable nature needs to not be forgotten and the real life account of Ericksons grandmother, Rose, and all that she and her family endured is an invaluable lesson that we can continue to learn from.

I really related to this family through Ericksons writing and could see how easily someone can be let down by a society over and over until they are then punished for those shortcomings or differences that were never aided. He shows how easily it could happen to almost anyone. I laughed and cried while reading this book.

John Erickson grew up in Minneapolis and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a journalism degree. He has spent more than 30 years in journalism and led coverage for multiple finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, including the winner for National Reporting in 1998. He was inducted into the Ohio Associated Press Media Editors' Hall of Fame in 2019. He now lives in Dayton, Ohio, with his family.

Fresh Midwest: Modern Recipes from the Heartland by Maren Ellingboe King; publishes Sept. 20 by Countryman Press

What do you get when you marry traditional Scandinavian cooking with modern culinary elegance? The answer is Fresh Midwest: Modern Recipes from the Heartland by Maren Ellingboe King. This hardcover book is filled with traditional Midwest comfort food blended with modern updates to make grandmas hotdish a stylish centerpiece.

"Fresh Midwest"

Cookbooks make me very excited, and this one caught my eye immediately. After making a few recipes from the book, I am really looking forward to making more. The flavor of the Garlic-Chive Mashed Potatoes was delicious and the Cheeseburger Hotdish will become a new regular in my house. My daughters and I had a lot of fun with the Norwegian Fondue and I really enjoyed the flavors.

Ellingboe Kings career as a food stylist is showcased in the recipes and one of the best parts of this book is the modern styling of the food that is shown spectacularly in the 100 color photographs featured in this book. So many family recipes get left on the shelf when they become dated. Ellingboe King has taken so many of these recipes off the shelf and given them a refresh to bring modern elegance to the table.

Maren Ellingboe King is a recipe developer and food stylist who grew up outside of St. Paul. A former Food & Wine editor, she has worked with the likes of Sunset, New York Times, Williams-Sonoma, Target, and more. She now lives with her family in Minneapolis.

Kelsey Hawley / Post Bulletin

Contributed / Countryman Press

Contributed / John Erickson

Book Nook is a feature that highlights books from Minnesota authors. Got a recommendation? Email us at life@postbulletin.com with the subject line "Book Nook."

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Families highlighted with books on history and cooking - Rochester Post Bulletin

Focusing on "Learning Loss" Obscures How Much Weve Truly Lost in the Pandemic – Truthout

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

The paradox of education is precisely this that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. James Baldwin

As the academic school year begins, and the COVID pandemic continues with new variants, there is much discussion about learning loss, typically referencing school-based achievement. Who is catching up? Who is behind? This preoccupation with timely learning is long-standing. Largely measured by standardized tests that have been researched and proven to be based in eugenics, a pseudoscience created to perpetuate racism, and that continually reinstate white supremacy, test scores and report cards are distractions from learning. A learning loss via those assessments is not a national crisis because schooling, since its formation in this settler nation, is one of the nations most efficient delivery systems for societal stratification.

However, there have been several learning losses during an ongoing pandemic. None of these losses are absolute, but they loom large until they are redressed.

What learning has been lost?

Timely political education has been sidelined during the pandemic. Although many have been quick to quote the closing paragraph of Arundhati Roys April 2020 essay on the pandemic, few have referenced the essays larger point and precise focus on the rise of totalitarianism. Focusing on India, Roy detailed how in the weeks prior to the pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted then-President Donald Trump, and in preparation for the visit, ramped up anti-Muslim raids in several districts. On March 24, 2020, Modi gave a nation of 1.3 billion people four hours notice of nationwide lockdown, and police brutally enforced the curfew. As in the U.S., those who had already been made most vulnerable by racial capitalism bore the brunt of sickness and death.

During this ongoing pandemic, global totalitarianism has created vulnerabilities for millions of people. For instance, the loneliness and related experiences of isolation and powerlessness proved to be the fertile ground for the rise of totalitarianism in China, India and the U.S., just as Hannah Arendt outlined in 1973. In New Orleans, Black people account for 53 percent of the citys population, where wealth and poverty are neighbors. One year into the pandemic, Black people were 75 percent of the citys total death toll. In Peru and El Salvador, more than 60 percent of the workforce is composed of informal laborers, such as street food vendors and women who made small trinkets for tourists. This already working poor population, who had to walk back to their villages, and as in India, suffered the most sickness and death from the virus.

Neither empire nor totalitarianism is new, but not critically analyzing and learning from these violent formations of power and their impact on already marginalized lives is a profound learning loss.

Our society lost a chance to disambiguate learning from schooling. Being a good student doesnt mean that learning is happening. It usually means that obedience is happening. We lost learning how freedom sounds from young children. As Carla Shalaby describes in her research, the troublemakers in school, the ones who fidget (which can and often is a form of self-soothing), who speak when they are supposed to be quiet and those who simply refuse these children are crying for freedom. Weve been conditioned to hear disobedience.

The closing of schools could have taught us that for some students, simply not being overwhelmed by considerable stimuli provided relief. Education could have learned that a dis/ability is always in dynamic with spaces, people and objects. The rise in Black homeschooling during the pandemic could have taught us that given an escape from the anti-Black racism in schooling, many Black families figured out ways to not return to that violent normal. Two years into the pandemic and counting, the number of Black homeschooling families has increased five-fold. However, the rise in Black homeschooling is a departure from the history and contemporary funding and legal support of homeschooling from Christian-based white organizations and exploitive corporations like Walmart.

During the summer of 2020, people across the world witnessed and/or participated in global uprisings against state-sanctioned murders of Black people. And they took to the streets, as part of an intergenerational struggle for freedom. Dozens upon dozens of colleges and universities started initiatives and offered public but largely toothless mission statements in response to the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. In fact, these responses were not focused on the state-sanctioned murders of Black people. They were largely a self-interested reaction to the global uprisings in summer 2020, to prevent further uprisings. Unintentionally, formal education taught (and people learned) about what moved the wealthiest of universities, as well as the limits of their actions.

When university leaders wrote emails in the summer of 2020 to their communities about the center/initiative/new chief diversity officer for equity in response to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, they likely were also working on announcements providing details about campuses reopening for the academic year. University staff didnt need these emails because they were already back at work, PPE gear or not, or they had been laid off. Campus hourly workers who provided food service, cleaned buildings or performed as administrative assistants, largely working poor people of color, lost their jobs when campuses closed in Spring of 2020. This same population were the essential workers that had to risk infection to ready campuses to reopen before salaried, majority white faculty and administrators returned.

Perhaps most profoundly, this society has engaged in a mass displacement of grief, including learning how to grieve. This is a nation ruled by racial capitalism far more than either political party. Racial capitalism has no interest in humanizing deeply human experiences, including births, deaths and grieving. The U.S is infamous for having the cruelest policies for bereavement leave. The Fair Labor Standards Act is poignantly unfair, requiring exactly zero paid time off for bereavement. The nation officially recognized having lost 1 million lives to COVID in May 2022. An accurate accounting of life and loss of life remains elusive because of the numbers of incarcerated and undocumented people who are part of the U.S. population. Because this carceral society doesnt treat life with care here, the number of lives counted is literally smaller.

The United States has never really found grieving useful. As a nation formed from the seizure of land and stolen labor, property owners built wealth through subjugation. From the perspective of racial capitalism, in which there can never be too big of a profit, grieving is, simply, time not working, time not making money for the company. During the first year of the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised masking, social distancing and testing as the most powerful tools to combat the pandemic. In August 2022, with the BA.5 variant registering 500 COVID-related deaths daily and schools reopening mostly without hybrid options, the CDC announced that COVID is here to stay and that masking is advised for five days while a person is infected, but not mandatory.

As masking and other protective guidelines have fallen despite new variants, federal policies cue to the public that the pandemic, or taking precautions for it, is over. For a society that worships individualism, people rejoiced in dispensing with their K-95 masks, flooded airports with booked vacations and, of course, the pandemic has meant difficult, painful restrictions of social interaction, yet that loss pales in comparison to the massive death and grief that is muffled by flight attendants singing with passengers to lose their masks. As Ashon Crawley wrote, there is so much un-dealt with grief, referencing the laughter of a White House official taking the place of acknowledging the rising death toll due to AIDS in the early 1980s.

In the COVID pandemic, un-dealt with grief has surged alongside infections and deaths. While rampant homophobia and ignorance fueled ignoring grief and even mocking death in the 1980s, the refusal to acknowledge the still-growing numbers of COVID-linked deaths is related and distinct. The pandemics deaths have been un-dealt with via confusing and often contradictory policies, but most profoundly by prioritizing saving the economy rather than lives.

Compounded mass dislocation of grief also robs people of learning how to be with grief, how we might be changed by it. If provided the opportunity to grieve deeply, while reckoning with inequitable, population-level loss of life, there is an opportunity to become more humane and grow our collective political education. Millions have lost an opportunity to grieve thousands upon thousands of lives at the time when those lives were lost. While the basics of physics teach that time is not linear, there is something to be reckoned with what festers when an immediate grief is squelched. When the most advanced nation in the world created little to no structure to support grieving, including collective grief, it underscored its interest in returning to an already violent normal and quickly forgetting lost lives.

No loss is simply an absence. School days not spent at school are not simply an erased space on the chalkboard. Losses are palpably present. The loss of over 1 million souls will continue to shape this society. Roy noted in the closing of her essay that no society goes unchanged by a pandemic. Surely, this is true for the willful displacement of grief for millions of people.

Where and how can a society put down the pressure to create, punish, and keep it moving? Social geographer and abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore states it plainly: Where life is precious, life is precious. Roy and Gilmores work and writings teach that being complacent with mass death and grief is not an option if our interest is freedom. Societies have the will to imagine anew, to take this still active opportunity to drop the weight of hollow narratives of individualism and to choose interrelated well-being.

Social media posts are full of pictures of young people dressed for their first days back at school, and stores are packed with largely maskless shoppers buying back-to-school gear. At the same time, the BA.5 variant is spreading like wildfire, and as science writer Ed Yong states, the nations leaders have normalized becoming infected, with masking mandates all but a thing of the past.

However, we still have a chance to correct this loss of ethics, this loss of humanity, this loss of collective demand for a public health infrastructure that openly counters centuries-long health inequities. Learning is always on offer.

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Focusing on "Learning Loss" Obscures How Much Weve Truly Lost in the Pandemic - Truthout

Exiled Russian calls on those still in country to sabotage Putins war – The Guardian

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled Russian businessman, has called on Russians still inside the country to launch a wave of sabotage against state structures, with the aim of derailing Vladimir Putins war in Ukraine and destabilising his government.

Khodorkovsky, who spent a decade in jail between 2003 and 2013 and now lives in London, said Putins invasion had completely changed the agenda for Russias political opposition, and claimed that armed resistance may play a role at some point in the future.

We need to explain to people what they can do, persuade them that they should do it, and also help people if as a result they end up in a dangerous situation, Khodorkovsky told the Guardian.

He said potential actions should depend on each persons tolerance for risk, and could range from painting anti-war graffiti in the streets to sabotaging railway deliveries linked to the war or burning down conscription offices.

But we are very clearly against terrorist methods that harm unarmed people, he said, criticising the killing of Darya Dugina, the daughter of a Russian imperialist ideologue, last month, which was claimed without any evidence by a hitherto unknown group of Russian partisans.

Khodorkovsky was speaking in his first interview about his new book, The Russia Conundrum, which is out later this week. Part memoir and part analysis of Putins years in office, the book lays out a template for western states on how to deal with Moscow.

Khodorkovsky has one of the most remarkable personal stories of post-Soviet Russia, rising from economic beginnings in the Youth Communist League during Mikhail Gorbachevs reforms in the late 1980s to become Russias richest businessperson through his chairmanship of Yukos oil company.

In the book, Khodorkovsky describes his early meetings with Putin, which he left convinced that the new Russian president was an ideological ally. His technique is to look at you and mirror what you are saying Hes a chameleon who leaves everyone thinking hes on their side, he writes.

Looking back, he admits he completely misread Putin. I wasnt sharp enough to see it. He has that professional KGB skill of adapting to his interlocutor, but he also just has a personal talent for it Back then, he didnt feel stable in his position and he didnt want to create enemies who would unite against him. Of course he never had any liberal views.

In 2003, Khodorkovsky was arrested on charges widely seen as political, after he publicly criticised government corruption during a meeting with Putin, and promised to fund opposition parties. His arrest was seen as one of the first milestones in Putins gradual tightening of the screws over the past two decades.

Khodorkovsky said Putins decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine had shocked him anew, and completely changed his views on how best to oppose the regime.

Of course, [the invasion] was an absolutely fundamental moment. My impressions and feelings before and after 24 February are completely different, he said.

All four of Khodorkovskys grandparents were either Ukrainian or spent time living in Ukraine, and as a young child, he used to spend summers at his great-grandmothers house near Kharkiv. Nevertheless, he always identified as Russian.

It always felt normal, nothing to be ashamed of to be Russian. Now every time you say youre Russian, there is an internal discomfort, he said.

Like many Russians, Khodorkovsky has had arguments in recent months that have ended longstanding friendships. He said even among friends who supported him through his years of imprisonment, some had turned out to be fans of the Ukraine invasion.

Imagine, you know people since you were both seven years old, and now youre both nearly 60 and you just cant speak to them, he said.

Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning

However, he also said it was important for the west to focus on the many Russians who did not support Putins regime or the war in Ukraine. He is strongly against the policy being floated in some European capitals of a full ban on tourist visas for Russians.

The west has ideological allies inside Russia, who think that Russia should develop on a European path, he said.

If Putin lives another 10 or 15 years it would really lower the number of European oriented Russians, and I dont think this is good for anyone except Putin.

During his decade in London, Khodorkovsky has remained an active commentator on issues inside Russia, and funded various civil society movements through his Open Russia foundation, which was ruled an undesirable organisation by Russian courts back in 2017 and ceased operations.

He was one of many opposition figures to address the so-called Congress of Free Russia, which took place in Lithuania last week and aimed to come up with a coordinated platform for opposition to Putin. But critics say much of the opposition is now disconnected from life inside the country. Associates of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny declined to take part in the Lithuania congress, dismissing it as a meaningless talking shop. For now, it is hard to see a mass opposition movement being possible inside Russia.

Khodorkovsky said that, sooner or later, Putins regime would fall. One key element in this will be Ukraine winning the war, he hopes. Then, Russia should be reformatted as a loose parliamentary federation. There was a path to this outcome that did not involve bloodshed, he claimed, but its rather unlikely.

The most important thing, he said, was for the west not to write Russia off completely, so that when the crunch moment did come, there would be more chance of post-Putin Russia being liberal and pro-western.

This is a nightmare, but this nightmare does not mean that Russia and Europe have separated for ever. Its extremely important that in this difficult emotional background, we keep a sound mind, pragmatism and a vision of the future, of a democratic, European Russia, he said.

The Russia Conundrum: How the West Fell for Putins Power Gambit and How to Fix It by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, with Martin Sixsmith, will be published on 8 September by WH Allen, 20

Exiled Russian calls on those still in country to sabotage Putins war - The Guardian

Why Vladimir Putin still has widespread support in Russia – The Conversation

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

During the early stages of Vladimir Putins special military operation in Ukraine, there was speculation in the western media that his days as Russian leader were numbered.

As Ukrainians fought fiercely against Russian forces, many commentators claimed that unprecedented western sanctions would soon bring the Russian economy to its knees.

Russian oligarchs were supposedly going to shed their loyalty to Putins regime as their assets and yachts were seized in the West. The wider Russian population would soon feel the economic pain of sanctions and be unwilling to accept the growing death toll for Russian forces in Ukraine.

This scenario has yet to take place, and there arent any meaningful signs that it will in the near future.

In fact, Russian public opinion polls have suggested an increase in Putins popularity after the invasion. Support for the war itself is not as high as Putins overall approval rating but he can still count on majority support for the invasion.

Additionally, the Russian economy has remained surprisingly robust to a considerable extent helped by the sanctions meant to damage it. By denying themselves Russian oil and to a lesser extent gas, European countries contributed to an increase in oil and gas prices that has buoyed the Russian coffers.

Western commentators have also suggested that, simmering beneath the opinion poll numbers, there is latent opposition to Putin that isnt being expressed because of fear. At the same time, there have been arguments that the Russian population is subject to a barrage of pro-Kremlin propaganda and therefore unable to really question the status quo.

This alternative to Putins world view is almost nowhere to be found in Russian media.

Theres no question the Russian population is subject to a Russian media largely loyal to the Kremlin and speaking out publicly against the war will certainly get you into trouble in Russia. But that doesnt mean Putin lacks genuine supporters.

Most of Russias population is, at worst, willing to quietly acquiesce in Putins regime.

There are good reasons for this beyond fear. First of all, many Russian oligarchs and political leaders are closely bound to Putin through a system of patronage that is deeply entrenched. Without Putin, they are likely to lose much of their wealth and status.

At the same time, some of those in the upper echelons of Russian society support Putins nationalist agenda. Many Russian nationalists believe Russia has been reborn under Putin.

In some ways, thats true after the widespread misery of the 1990s.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a major blow to Russian prestige. The economic and political turmoil of the 1990s that followed under President Boris Yeltsin is not looked back upon with nostalgia by many Russians.

During the Yeltsin era, Russia seemed to be joining the western liberal fold, but for many, that brought only economic pain and disorder. Not only was Russia a second-class power on the world stage, but the benefits of economic and political liberalization seemed to lack substance.

During the 1990s, older Russians saw their savings wiped out not once but twice within a decade.

I spent some time in the city of Podol'sk near Moscow during the second financial crash of 1998 as hyperinflation destroyed savings and made many imported goods unaffordable. A sort of fatalistic anger was a common response to yet another economic blow.

Currency devaluation soon followed, and yet the Russian economy recovered far more quickly than many observers expected.

Shortly after the 1998 financial crash, Yeltsin helped bring Putin to power as acting president at the end of 1999. An unlikely successor for Yeltsin in terms of his political profile, I didnt expect much to change under Putin.

At first, Putins policies were similar to Yeltsins.

Nonetheless, by the time I visited Russia for the first time in several years in 2015, I could feel a palpable change in mood since my last visit. Not only was there greater order and cleanliness on the streets, but also a growing feeling of self-confidence in the Russian capital.

This was a year after Russia had annexed Crimea. Most Russians supported that move.

Putin had not rid Russia of the hated oligarchs, but they had been brought into line. Attempts were also made to reduce or give the appearance of reducing corruption.

Putin the strongman had brought a degree of order after the chaos, and many Russians welcomed it even though a number of democratic elements of the Yeltsin regime disappeared. Western-style liberalism had not offered most Russians the sort of life promised to them by proponents of reform as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Even today, evidence suggests many Russians including those born after the Soviet Unions collapse value many things before democracy and western political liberalism. The relative economic stability and order provided under the Putin regime has had widespread appeal.

Western sanctions have undoubtedly hit many Russians. However, the blanket and unprecedented nature of western sanctions and western hypocrisy in its treatment of Russia feed into Putins narrative that the West wants to keep Russia down.

Read more: Why Vladimir Putin won't back down in Ukraine

The West has made it easy for Putin to claim to be a defender of Russian interests.

In the absence of obvious alternatives to Putin, only his health is likely a significant potential threat to his rule at the moment, and recent speculation about his ill health seems to be based on little or no meaningful evidence.

As far as we can reasonably tell, Putin is here to stay.

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Why Vladimir Putin still has widespread support in Russia - The Conversation

West reluctant to put Putin on trial, say Ukrainian officials – The Guardian

Posted on September 8, 2022 by Danzig

Ukraines major western allies have yet to sign up to establish a tribunal to try Vladimir Putin and his inner circle for the crime of aggression, wanting to leave space for future relations with Russia, according to Ukraines top officials.

Its big politics. On the one hand, countries publicly condemn the aggression but on the other, they are putting their foot in the closing door on relations with Russia so that it doesnt close completely, said Andriy Smyrnov, deputy head of Ukraines presidential administration, who is leading the countrys effort to establish the international tribunal.

They are attempting to keep some space for diplomatic manoeuvres, said Smyrnov. We know that agreements with Russia are not worth the paper they are written on.

His claims come as the US president, Joe Biden, said on Monday that Russia should not be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, something Ukrainian officials and some US politicians had pushed for. Russia had previously said such a designation would mean Washington had crossed the point of no return.

Ukrainian officials say that since April, they have been trying to convince their western allies to establish an ad hoc tribunal which would hold Russias senior leadership responsible for the crime of aggression for invading Ukraine. Aggression is viewed as the supreme crime under international law because without the transgression of borders during an invasion, subsequent war crimes would not have been committed.

So far only the Baltic states and Poland have pledged support for the tribunal, said Ukraines officials. We are expecting broader support, said Ukraines prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin. For us, the support of the UK and the US is very important as well as the rest of the civilised world, said Smyrnov.

The UKs newly elected prime minister, Liz Truss, told Times Radio in May, when she was foreign secretary, that she would consider supporting the tribunal. The Council of Europe is due to discuss support for such a measure on 13 September.

At an event in Brussels on Monday, Andriy Yermak chief adviser to Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked why there was a delay in creating the tribunal and said some European officials seemed convinced the international criminal court (ICC) was enough.

At the same event, the European commissioner for justice, Didier Reynders, said he was open to the idea, but talked mainly about help the EU is giving to compile war crimes which can be referred to the ICC.

Ukraine favours a one-off international tribunal to try the Russian leadership for aggression, which is not within the ICCs jurisdiction. The court is set to bring cases of war crimes which require prosecutors to identify the direct perpetrators of a crime and then trace the command structure upwards, making it difficult to reach the top echelons of the Russian regime.

Western allies have, however, been reluctant to move to try Putin and other senior figures, an act that would probably end all relations. Ukraine believes this is an indication that, despite the scale of atrocities and public declarations against Russia, some of its allies envisage possible negotiations with Russias current leadership.

It will be like trying the concentration camp directors and letting Hitler and his team walk free, said Oleh Gavrysh, part of Smyrnovs team in the presidential office. During the Nuremberg trials after the second world war, Nazi leaders were tried for the crime of aggression, which was then known as the crime against peace.

Ukraines officials say the case would not need much investigation and would act as a straightforward mechanism to ensure the Kremlins decision makers face responsibility since the fact that the act of aggression took place was overwhelmingly accepted by a vote at the UN general assembly and has been supported by a resolution of the European parliament. It has also been repeatedly admitted by Putin and his circle.

The legal arm of the Open Society Foundations has drawn up a preliminary indictment of Putin and seven of his closest allies for the crime of aggression. It said it hoped the document can demonstrate the feasibility of such a tribunal.

When you help the ICC, you donate to the independent judicial authority and you are not linked somehow to the result, said Kostin, Ukraines chief prosecutor. When you support [a] tribunal, you act as a state, its a political act and not all of them, at the moment, are ready to politically support this.

He added: Russia is like terra incognita (unexplored territory) for many of them and some of them want to keep some room to, if not be friends again, but to have some relations, which I dont understand and no Ukrainians will understand.

Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning

Some states have viewed the idea of the tribunal with scepticism because Putin and his men would probably be tried in absentia, said Smyrnov.

The main thing I want to say to the sceptic countries is that the creation of this tribunal is not a question of symbolism, said Smyrnov.

It makes no difference if Putin is personally present at this tribunal. [If] the majority of civilised countries in the world sign this international agreement to establish the tribunal we will narrow down and limit the international allies of Putin.

If Putins circle is narrowed down to North Korea and Syria that will be very good and if [Putin] dies in his own country labelled as an international criminal, that will be concrete punishment.

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West reluctant to put Putin on trial, say Ukrainian officials - The Guardian

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