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Crypterium Diversifies Its Card Offering With Their New Crypterium Card – AiThority

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

The worlds most accepted card, now powered by digital assets

Crypterium, a KPMG-awarded Fintech startup, is excited to announce the launch of a new payment card the Crypterium Card VISA Edition. This card comes as an alternative to the Crypterium Card UnionPay, which is already used by over 30,000 cryptocurrency holders in over 150 countries.

The Crypterium Card VISA Edition is the latest innovation of Crypterium, a company focused on making cryptocurrencies as easy to spend as cash. As all other products of the Crypterium family, this VISA edition is seamlessly integrated into the award-winning Crypterium Wallet.

Following year-long negotiations, Crypterium is now an official partner of VISA, the worlds leading card issuer. This partnership allows Crypterium to provide its more than 500,000 customers with a globally accepted payment solution.

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Unlike all other cryptocurrency cards on the market, the Crypterium Card VISA Edition is absolutely free. The goal is simple: lowering the barriers for cryptocurrency holders.

Nowadays, most banks offer prepaid cards at no cost. At Crypterium, our goal is to make available similar (or even better) financial services for cryptocurrency holders. People using digital assets needed a truly affordable payment card. And thats what our VISA card is all about, explained Austin Kimm, Chief Operating Officer at Crypterium.

The only cost associated with the Crypterium Card VISA Edition is delivery. The express delivery option comes at a reasonable 14.99. Yet, holders of Crypteriums CRPT tokens will also benefit from free-of-charge delivery.

Another distinctive aspect of the Crypterium Card VISA Edition is its vibrant design. Yellow and black colors on a horizontal set up make this card stand out in any wallet.

The Crypterium Card VISA Edition is loaded by exchanging cryptocurrencies on the Crypterium Wallet to fiat money. Crypteriums in-wallet exchange service instantly converts the digital currencies into euros ready to be spent. The system is integrated with the worlds top exchanges to provide competitive rates on each transaction. The top-up fee is 2%.

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Paying with Crypterium Card VISA is a smooth experience. The card offers contactless technology, allowing clients to tap it on any POS terminal. The card is also expected to support Apple Pay, so cardholders can easily pay with their mobile devices.

The Crypterium Card VISA offers high spending and withdrawal limits. On a monthly basis, a cardholder can spend up to 10,000 and withdraw 2,500 in cash.

This card is managed by the user through the Crypterium Wallet (iOS & Android). Cardholders can block and unblock the card, modify their security PIN, and keep track of spendings in a smart and clean history.

In terms of security, all Crypterium accounts are 100% insured by the leading custodian service in the cryptocurrency industry BitGo. Crypterium Card VISA holders can rest assured that their funds are protected against any threat.

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Crypterium Diversifies Its Card Offering With Their New Crypterium Card - AiThority

Here’s why your business should start accepting payment in cryptocurrency | London Business News – London Loves Business

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

It may interest you to know that it is now as easy to accept payments from customers in cryptos as it is in credit cards or eChecks.

More importantly, some customers even prefer to shop online using cryptocurrencies than to use conventional debit or credit cards because of the formers perceived superior security. So, by simply entering their wallet ID on your website payment interface, customers can now pay for any item theyre purchasing with the confidence that nobody (not even their wallet provider) can snoop or steal their wallet details.

Simply put, cryptocurrencies are a far secured means of payment, and your customers know this too. But in case you still doubt, check out the number of ways in which cryptocurrency benefits your business.

If you accept credit card or eCheck payments on your store, then you must know about the hidden fees that come with these payment systems. The reason for these hidden fees is because of the number of intermediaries that payments have to go through before reaching the merchant (card company, high-risk merchant processing company, payment processing company, etc.). Generally speaking, most credit card payments processing cost merchants an average of 3-5% of the total money paid.

Thats a lot of money!

With cryptocurrency, however, there are no intermediaries, meaning that payment is sent directly from the buyer to the merchant. As a result, most crypto payments attract between 0- 1% of the total money paid as fees.

Most credit and debit card payments often take days, if not weeks, before reaching the bank account of the merchant. This is because of all the various parties involved in the routing of the money. Theres no denying that this can be incredibly frustrating for a merchant, especially when you need money to keep your business ball rolling, and to pay your bills.

Thanks to the Blockchain technology upon which cryptocurrency works, there is no such thing as payment delay. The money moves directly from the buyers wallet into the merchants wallet in a matter of seconds.

We mentioned this earlier in the post. And now were going to emphasize more on it. Any business accepting credit card payments is always a target for fraudsters. But since most of them lack the resources needed to breach the security firewall of most big companies, they target SMEs, stealing customers details, and redirecting merchants funds.

Cryptocurrency, on the other hand, doesnt face this threat because any payment made with it is always an anonymous transaction. And as the saying goes, you cant steal what you dont know about, theres really no targeting customers using cryptocurrencies.

Shoppers that have this knowledge prefer to shop using crypto only. So, when they come to your store and find that you dont accept cryptocurrencies, they go away.

One of the biggest challenges facing most merchant business today is the issue of chargebacks and customers asking refund. With cryptocurrency purchasing, you can finally say bye-bye to chargebacks! Any payment made is final, and the customer cannot contest it.

Meaning that there is no refunding any payment made into a merchants wallet. If a customer is displeased with the service they got, theyre gonna have to resolve the matters in a more civilized way. Because theres no way, you can send back their money since you dont even know whether theyre the true sender or not. Remember that sender is anonymous for any crypto transaction.

Another big hurdle for selling online is the issue of accepting payments from buyers that come from specific countries. For starters, you may have to go through numerous banking procedures to accept payments coming from some countries into your home country. Not to mention, other foreign exchange challenges you might encounter on the way too.

Cryptocurrency, however, is globally decentralized and internationally accepted, which means that nobody is controlling it, and everybody is accepting it.

By simply offering the option to pay using cryptocurrency, youll be stealing customers (die-hard crypto advocates) away from your direct competitors, many of which still havent integrated crypto acceptance into their systems.

And in case youre wondering how many of these types of customers are truly there, know that one of the worlds most reputable statistics company Statista currently puts their number at around 50 million.

The only challenge with crypto acceptance for businesses is that you have to build a new payment acceptance module different from what you already have in place for debit, credit, and eCheck payments. But if you were lucky to be working with a high-risk merchant account facilitator or payment processor like iPayTotal, then your transition into the crypto world should be smooth and easy. iPayTotal, unlike other processors, have the infrastructure in place to help clients build their crypto acceptance systems.

But, in case you havent been using iPayTotal for your payment processing before, and your processor still doesnt offer the cryptocurrency feature, you can reach out to them at iPayTotal today to get your crypto game started.

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Here's why your business should start accepting payment in cryptocurrency | London Business News - London Loves Business

Cryptocurrency- Growing Popularity and Emerging Trends in the Market – Owned

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

2018-2023 Global and Regional Cryptocurrency Industry Production, Sales and Consumption Status and Prospects Professional Market Research Report is latest research study released by HTF MI evaluating the market, highlighting opportunities, risk side analysis, and leveraged with strategic and tactical decision-making support. The study provides information on market trends and development, drivers, capacities, technologies, and on the changinginvestment structure of the Global and Regional Cryptocurrency Market. Some of the key players profiled in the study are Nvidia, Xilinx, Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Bitfury Group, Ripple Labs, Microsoft, Alphapoint Corporation, Amazon.Com, Bitgo, BTL Group (Blockchain Tech), Coinbase & 21 Inc..

Cryptocurrency Market Overview:

If you are involved in the Cryptocurrency industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. Its vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Peer-To-Peer Payment, Remittance, E-Commerce and Retail, Media and Entertainment & Others, , Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Dashcoin & Litecoin (LTC) and major players. If you want to classify different company according to your targeted objective or geography we can provide customization according to your requirement.

You can get free access to samples from the report here:https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1428009-2018-2023-global-and-regional-cryptocurrency-industry-production-sales-and-consumption-status-and-prospects-professional-market

Cryptocurrency Market: Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2025

Cryptocurrency research study is to define market sizes of various segments & countries by past years and to forecast the values by next 5 years. The report is assembled to comprise each qualitative and quantitative elements of the industry facts including: market share, market size (value and volume 2014-19, and forecast to 2025) which admire each countries concerned in the competitive examination. Further, the study additionally caters the in-depth statistics about the crucial elements which includes drivers & restraining factors that defines future growth outlook of the market.

Important years considered in the study are:Historical year 2014-2019 ; Base year 2019; Forecast period** 2020 to 2025 [** unless otherwise stated]

The segments and sub-section of Cryptocurrency market are shown below:

The Study is segmented by following Product Type: , Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Dashcoin & Litecoin (LTC)

Major applications/end-users industry are as follows: Peer-To-Peer Payment, Remittance, E-Commerce and Retail, Media and Entertainment & Others

Some of the key players/Manufacturers involved in the Market are Nvidia, Xilinx, Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Bitfury Group, Ripple Labs, Microsoft, Alphapoint Corporation, Amazon.Com, Bitgo, BTL Group (Blockchain Tech), Coinbase & 21 Inc.

Enquire for customization in Report @https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1428009-2018-2023-global-and-regional-cryptocurrency-industry-production-sales-and-consumption-status-and-prospects-professional-market

If opting for the Global version of Cryptocurrency Market analysis is provided for major regions as follows: North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Russia , Italy and Rest of Europe) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, India and Southeast Asia) South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, rest of countries etc.) Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)

Buy this research report @https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1428009

Key Answers Captured in Study areWhich geography would have better demand for product/services?What strategies of big players help them acquire share in regional market?Countries that may see the steep rise in CAGR & year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth?How feasible is market for long term investment?What opportunity the country would offer for existing and new players in the Cryptocurrency market?Risk side analysis involved with suppliers in specific geography?What influencing factors driving the demand of Cryptocurrency near future?What is the impact analysis of various factors in the Global and Regional Cryptocurrency market growth?What are the recent trends in the regional market and how successful they are?

Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1428009-2018-2023-global-and-regional-cryptocurrency-industry-production-sales-and-consumption-status-and-prospects-professional-market

There are 15 Chapters to display the Global and Regional Cryptocurrency market.Chapter 1, About Executive Summary to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global and Regional Cryptocurrency market, Applications [Peer-To-Peer Payment, Remittance, E-Commerce and Retail, Media and Entertainment & Others], Market Segment by Types , Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Dashcoin & Litecoin (LTC);Chapter 2, objective of the study.Chapter 3, to display Research methodology and techniques.Chapter 4 and 5, to show the Cryptocurrency Market Analysis, segmentation analysis, characteristics;Chapter 6 and 7, to show Five forces (bargaining Power of buyers/suppliers), Threats to new entrants and market condition;Chapter 8 and 9, to show analysis by regional segmentation[North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific etc ], comparison, leading countries and opportunities; Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Supply Chain AnalysisChapter 10, to identify major decision framework accumulated through Industry experts and strategic decision makers;Chapter 11 and 12, Global and Regional Cryptocurrency Market Trend Analysis, Drivers, Challenges by consumer behavior, Marketing ChannelsChapter 13 and 14, about vendor landscape (classification and Market Ranking)Chapter 15, deals with Global and Regional Cryptocurrency Market sales channel, distributors, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.

Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia or Oceania [Australia and New Zealand].

About Author:HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.

Contact US :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA 08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218[emailprotected]

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Cryptocurrency- Growing Popularity and Emerging Trends in the Market - Owned

Samsung Added Support for Stellar (XLM) Cryptocurrency to its Blockchain Keystore, Allows Millions of Users to Access the Digital Asset – Crowdfund…

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit entity established in 2014 to support the development and growth of the open-source Stellar (XLM) protocol, recently announced that Samsung added support for the XLM digital currency to its Samsung Blockchain Keystore.

XLM (or lumens) is now available to blockchain or distributed ledger tech (DLT) apps on recent Galaxy smartphones.

As mentioned in the announcement:

To make storage of Stellar lumens and other Stellar-based assets safer, SatoshiPay will utilize the Samsung Blockchain Keystore in its Solar wallet and its upcoming SatoshiPay B2B mobile app.

According to the release, Samsung observed that many of its customers were using blockchain-enabled apps, so the electronics giant decided to leverage its hardware advantage to launch a first instalment of their blockchain strategy.

Last year, the electronics firm introduced the Samsung Blockchain Keystore, which is a hardware-protected storage facility for private keys associated with crypto-assets.

Samsungs keystore has been physically isolated from the shared data storage available on smartphones and other mobile devices using the Samsung Knox TrustZone hardware facility.

Samsung has certified the apps that have access to the keystore. Users are able to link the app to the keystore initially, by using a password or some form of biometric authentication like their fingerprints.

As noted in the announcement:

The keystore is available on selected recent Samsung Galaxy devices, like S10, S20 or Note10, and in selected regions. App developers can integrate the keystore by using the official Samsung Blockchain Keystore SDK.

Blockchains presently being supported by the SDK (software development kit) include: Ethereum (v1.0, 27 Jun 2019), Bitcoin (v1.1, 8 Aug 2019), Klaytn (v1.1, 8 Aug 2019), Tron (v1.2, 29 Oct 2019), and Stellar (v1.3, 17 Feb 2020).

(For more details about the keystore and related information, check here.)

As mentioned in the release, the SatoshiPay B2B cross-border money transfer service may be accessed via a standard web interface. It will also be accessible as a stand-alone application in the future. This cross-platform software will reportedly use a similar approach to Solar (Stellar wallet software) for users that want to be sole custodians of their own private keys.

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Samsung Added Support for Stellar (XLM) Cryptocurrency to its Blockchain Keystore, Allows Millions of Users to Access the Digital Asset - Crowdfund...

5 reasons why trading in cryptocurrencies is better than trading in stocks – KnowTechie

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

Over the last decade, the global economy has been observed moving towards a complete digital eco-system. People are inclining more towards paperless processes, be it an investment or a money transfer. The digital payment sector has witnessed a new and promising invention cryptocurrency as well. Many experts reckon that this will play a crucial role in building the global economy in the coming years.

While many people still trade in stocks, experts say that cryptocurrency is a better alternative. If you are confused about investing in stocks or cryptocurrency, here are 5 reasons why the latter is a better option for you:

Being so new, the cryptocurrency market has witnessed a lot of short-term speculative interest. This is cryptocurrency has experienced significant volatility.

For instance, the bitcoin price rose to $19,378 after October 2017 and then fell down to $5851 by the end of October 2018. On the other hand, other cryptocurrencies were much more stable. However, it has to be taken into consideration that any new technology receives a lot of speculative interest.

However, the fact that this market is so volatile is exactly what makes it interesting. These huge ups and downs in price give traders many opportunities to earn an immense amount of profits. However, this also means that there is a greater risk involved with this type of investment. Hence, it is extremely important to do thorough research on the cryptocurrency market so that you understand how things work and develop a contingency plan in case things go south.

As it is a decentralized currency, no centralized governance over it. Also, all transactions are done directly between people on cryptocurrency exchanges across the world. However, there are time to time infrastructural updates and the market may stay down.

With the help of IG, it is possible to fiat currencies in exchange for cryptocurrencies. For instance, the US dollar between 4 a.m. Saturday and 10 p.m. on Friday (GMT).

Liquidity is the measure of the time taken and efforts made to convert cryptocurrency into cash while making no impact on the market price. For faster transaction times, and better pricing, Liquidity is considered very necessary.

Since transactions in cryptocurrencies are done in multiple exchanges, their market is believed to be illiquid. This means that the market prices may face a huge impact even because of comparatively small trades. This is why the cryptocurrency markets are considered to be so volatile.

While buying a cryptocurrency, the asset is bought upfront and is expected to increase in value. However, while trading on the cryptocurrency price, one can take advantage of the markets both when the price is falling and rising. This is referred to as going short.

For instance, if you believe that the market of coffee is going to fall and create a short CFD position on the coffee price, and the coffee market value falls against the currency, you will make a profit from that trade. On the other hand, when coffees value rises against the currency, you will incur a loss.

An average person always looks for investing in places where there are fewer complications and high returns. Traditional investments such as bonds, stocks, etc. are often considered very complicated, tiring, and time-consuming. In many cases like the real estate industry, the amount of money that a person needs to invest is very high and almost impossible for many people. They do not have such a significant sum of money to get started.

Cryptocurrencies have thankfully helped in eliminating such issues. Both joining and investing in it is simple. Unlike its other alternatives, one does not have to visit institutions, read and sign papers, and go through unnecessary trouble. For investing in cryptocurrency, all one has to do is open an account, manage a digital wallet, and keep a track of all the assets without putting much effort into it.

There are many trading platforms where one can trade cryptocurrency. However, it is always important to ensure that the trading software used is a reputed one like thebitcoincode.io so that one can expect high returns and zero risks at all times.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to ourTwitterorFacebook.

Just another guy who likes to write about tech and gadgets.

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5 reasons why trading in cryptocurrencies is better than trading in stocks - KnowTechie

"Cofiwch Dryweryn": A Welsh History of Oppression – Cherwell Online

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

I am proud of how so many people in my town in rural West Wales have rallied around the Black Lives Matter protests. Fighting for civil rights brings out the very best in some people. Activism has taken the form of marches, protests in towns, petitions, and a plethora of informative Twitter threads, online videos, and shared educational posts. Many people across Wales have been active in their support, as everyone should be.

However, as with any civil rights movement, there are some humans who display very little humanity as they condemn BLM and everything the movement stands for, even when this is done unwittingly. Entrenched, narrow-minded views permeate the mindsets of so many people in smaller, rural, Welsh communities around where I live and beyond. The fact that people feel compelled to criticise a movement with its foundations in equality makes it very clear that perspectives need to be changed. And it is the Welsh school system that lies at the heart of the problem. A complete overhaul of the curriculum we are taught in schools has never been so necessary; if we dont know where were going wrong in what were saying and doing, we cant bring about the radical change that is needed.

Over the centuries, the British government has consistently neglected and suppressed Welsh identities. In the mid-19th century, Welsh was demoted to the language of the crass and the uneducated by the British government in Wales schools. To improve pupils knowledge of English (considered the language of the educated middle class), some schools in Wales employed the Welsh Not system. The Welsh Not was a piece of wood on a string (often etched with W.N. or Welsh Not) given to a child who spoke Welsh in school to wear around the neck to dissuade children from speaking their native tongue. At the end of the school day or week, the child wearing the Welsh Not would be punished, often with a beating. Though not in place in all schools, and not official government policy, its use was prevalent enough to be considered convention in the late Victorian era. To this day, remnants of the idea of the superiority of the English language persist.

The oppression experienced in Wales by the English is not solely confined to the Welsh language, nor is it confined to 19th century schools. Capel Celyn, a small rural community in the Tryweryn valley in North Wales, was flooded in 1965 to provide the city of Liverpool with water for industry. In displacing the residents of Capel Celyn, the flooding displaced an important, traditional, solely Welsh-speaking community. Forcing the residents to relocate undermined the value of the Welsh language and its heritage and subordinated the small community as well to the needs and whims of the larger nearby English city. This happened despite 35 of the 36 Welsh then-MPs voting against it (the 36th did not vote). The fact that Parliament directly opposed and overturned an effectively unanimous Welsh-MP decision not to flood the valley has become a national disgrace, and when it happened back in the tumultuous 1960s, it paved the way for the advancement of the fight for Welsh devolution. Today, there is a mural on a ruined old stone wall in Ceredigion, West Wales, stating Cofiwch Dryweryn (Remember Tryweryn). The murals overtly political overtones mean that it has been subject to multiple instances of vandalism. In 2008, the words were altered to Angofiwch Dryweryn (spelt incorrectly, but meaning Forget Tryweryn).[2] It was daubed over in black paint and covered by the word Elvis in February 2019.[3] In April 2019 it was partly demolished. These are only a few examples of such instances. Each time, it has been repainted and rebuilt to retain its original form and message, to remind those who see and hear of it of the injustice suffered.

However, on the 30th June 2020, the mural was vandalised with a swastika and a white power symbol painted over the motto.

Undeniably aresponse to the international BLM protests, a vandal saw fit to denounce theCofiwch Dryweryn motto, itself a reminder of historical injustice, withsymbols pertaining to racial supremacy and domination. It is an inherentlyparadoxical act which Elin Jones, Ceredigions Member of the Welsh Senedd (theWelsh Parliament), described very well as disgusting, sinister anddangerous.[4]

This is not an isolatedevent concerning race. Prior to the defacing of the mural, a black familyliving in North Wales suffered racial abuse in the form of a swastika paintedon their garage door.[5]Since moving to the area 13 years ago, Margaret Ogunbanwo and her family havebeen subject to racial hatred in the form of damage to their property awindow in their house has been smashed and their car keyed.

In a similar vein,a caf in my town of Cardigan (in Ceredigion, West Wales south of the mural)came under fire on social media for displaying Black Lives Matter and MaeBywydau Du o Bwys (the Welsh translation) posters in their window. The ownershave defended their stance against numerous locals who state that they will notvisit the caf again as a result of its public display of support for BLM. Themajority of the social media condemnation of the business is based on themisunderstanding that the Black Lives Matter movement undermines the value ofall other lives. This is the fundamentally flawed argument behind the trendinghashtag All Lives Matter.

But where humanityhas shown its very worst, there have also been positives. Protests and marcheshave been held in the very same towns and villages that have witnessed racialhatred. Margaret Ogunbanwos business was flooded with orders as people showedsupport following her familys ordeal. Similarly, in Cardigan, the caf hasbeen inundated with positive messages of support. However, instead of positivereactions to incidents of hate, we should be quelling these instances in thefirst place. Racism is so entrenched in our societies that we dont realisethat acts of racial hatred shouldnt have to happen in order for the subsequentpositives to manifest.

Wales is lessethnically diverse than any area or region in England as per the 2011 census.[6]The smaller population and lower percentage of ethnic minorities as a fractionof the whole population drove the ONS to draft the original 2021 census with nooption to tick Welsh & Black or Welsh & Minority Ethnic backgrounds;those identifying as both Welsh and BAME would have had to choose British astheir nationality because Welsh was only paired with white ethnicity. This hasnow been changed, but small acts like this, undermining the identities of BAMEindividuals, contribute to perpetuating systemic and covert racism in Wales.

The education system merely facilitates this erasure as it lacks any depth in matters of racial diversity, past or present. Parts of the Welsh curriculum within individual subjects address racial issues in America, for example, but these are always historic references. Coupled with the low racial diversity, this means that it is very easy for Welsh communities to announce that there is no racism in Wales simply because they are not directly faced with it every day. This is not, of course, confined to Wales, but applies to any country or community where there is little racial diversity. In such circumstances, it is easy to proclaim that I am not racist when, in reality, that proclamation is rarely tested. Its a misconception that racism doesnt exist in these instances, and if we look hard enough through the white veil under which we are taught in school, we must accept that we are complicit in covert and systemic ways.

Cardiffs bay area, now named Mermaid Quay was rebranded from the previous Tiger Bay as part of the areas redevelopment and gentrification at the turn of the millennium. According to a Wales Online article, Tiger Bay was a symbol of racial, ethnic, religious and ecumenical harmony[7]. Cardiff is home to nearly half of Wales BAME population, but its recent rebranding has stripped the area of its multicultural heritage and history. Its population had been so diverse because Cardiffs docklands welcomed an influx of immigrants in the 1950s to support the coal-works and the active port. When the docklands became derelict as coal trade diminished, systemic and entrenched racism did not allow for the retraining of Tiger Bays ethnic residents into other lucrative job sectors; instead, ethnic minorities were pushed out as part of its rebranding.[8] The gentrification of the entire area attracted mostly white residents and visitors at the expense of its historically diverse communities as house prices rose beyond what the previous communities were able to afford. To this day, this gentrification continues, resulting in a mass scattering of BAME groups in Cardiff from the areas in which they historically settled and made a living. After the coal trade slumped, its undeniable that the area was crying out for redevelopment; its old, empty warehouses were ugly, derelict reminders of its former booming industry. But in the redevelopment plans, there was no parallel desire to better the lives of the multicultural population already living there. Instead, a rich and white population was enticed to move in, displacing the previous residents that had kept Tiger Bay booming in its heyday.

We arent remindedof this every day because we dont learn about it in school. White people arentreminded of it because they arent living its ruthless reality. And so long aspredominantly white Welsh communities remain unaware and uninformed of therealities of the past and present, these racial injustices will continue to flyunder the radar. This is especially the case if, like in cases of Tiger Baysgentrification, the racially charged changes are creeping and covert ratherthan overt abuse and violence.

The swastika andthe white power symbol were swiftly removed from the Cofiwch Dryweryn mural,with the repainted motto restored to its original glory, serving as a reminderof the injustice served to the rural community of Capel Celyn. However, it isnot so easy to wipe away the racism prevalent in many Welsh communities.Pressure washing painted slurs off a mural is one thing; dismantling years ofprejudice and lack of awareness of systemic racism is quite another. Whenever Isee the Cofiwch Dryweryn mural, it instils in me a nationalistic anger ananger derived from years of historic injustice served to the Welsh. After itsbeing vandalised with a swastika and a symbol of white power, I will now bedoubly enraged whenever I see it. Cofiwch Dryweryn will always remind me ofinjustice done to the Welsh community of Capel Celyn by Liverpool CountyCouncil. However, the mural and its message will now also remind me of theinnumerable injustices served to black communities. The prejudices and hatredtowards black communities and individuals are ones which the systems by whichwe live can all-too-easily perpetuate and repeat.

Our educationsystem needs to change to reflect the fact that Wales has played its part inbeing complicit and active in perpetuating racism. When we discuss Patagonia, theWelsh colony in Argentina, it is with wonder and delight at there being anotherWelsh-speaking area in the world other than Wales itself. Because Welsh is aminority language, this is something to be celebrated. But we often dontconsider why Welsh is spoken by Patagonians. We dont learn about the Welsh ascolonisers, and we actively avoid the word colonialism; we learn of thesettlement in Patagonia as peaceful, virtuous and legitimate. We forget that peacefulcolonialism is still colonialism. What Lucy Taylor calls the myth offriendship[9]between the Welsh and the Patagonians glosses over the realities of howcolonialism limits the livelihoods of those being colonised. Just because theWelsh have been oppressed by the English does not mean that the Welsh cannotactively and indirectly promote oppression over others. In light of currentevents, in light of current atrocities, and in light of past truths that haveresurfaced, we would be wise to remember this.

Plaid Cymru has highlighted in the Senedd that education on Welsh and BAME history should be a compulsory part of the new curriculum being introduced in Wales, rather than subjects that can be taught at the discretion of individual teachers and schools. Teaching future generations about BAME history, and the systemic racism of Wales and Britain, is even more fundamental given the report commissioned by the Welsh Government examining the disproportionate effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the BAME communities. The report suggested including BAME and Commonwealth history in the new National Curriculum for Wales in 2022 for primary and secondary students to promote anti-racist behaviour and attitudes and encourage cultural understanding.[10] A comprehensive study of the history of BAME communities and the Commonwealth in schools among the younger generations will go a long way in dismantling the structural racism in which white Welsh communities are complicit. Plaid Cymrus argument is that Welsh and BAME history must be made compulsory because leaving the specifics of the teaching to the discretion of teachers and schools means that not every pupil will be able to learn about matters essential to shaping understanding citizens, essential to the makeup of a fair and equal society.

Welsh history goes beyond Wales being a part of Britain. We should think of Wales as a nation that has been oppressed, and as a nation that has oppressed. In the future, it should be neither of these things. Remembering Tryweryn and remembering Tiger Bay are not mutually exclusive. We shouldnt make a choice to remember one; rather, we should remember both. Changing the course of history is impossible if we dont acknowledge what we did wrongly in the past. A push to implement educational inclusivity and diversity in Welsh classrooms is the first step needed to dismantle narrow-minded views within our communities.

(Image rights: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61744436 by Dafydd Tomos)

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/language_education.shtml

[2] (Anger over memorial wall attack. BBC. 13 May 2008.),

[3] (Drowned Tryweryn village slogan replaced by Elvis.BBC. BBC News. 3 February 2019.)

[4] (https://nation.cymru/news/cofiwch-dryweryn-mural-vandalised-with-swastika-and-white-power-symbol/)

[5] (https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/swastika-painted-outside-black-familys-18416970)

[6] ONS,Ethnicity and National Identity in England and Wales 2011, 2012,p.8

[7] https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/why-tiger-bays-diverse-history-16088764

[8] https://exchangehotelcardiff.co.uk/blog/tiger-bay-history-cardiff-bay/

[9] Lucy Taylor(2019)The Welsh Wayof Colonisation in Patagonia: The International Politics of MoralSuperiority,The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History,47:6,1073-1099

[10] https://www.bbc.co.uk/cymrufyw/53241866

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"Cofiwch Dryweryn": A Welsh History of Oppression - Cherwell Online

In The News – NWAOnline

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

Colton Michael of Lawson, Mo., said the former owners of his house couldnt believe it when he called to tell them that their dog, Cleo, had shown up on Michaels front porch, about 50 miles away from her owners new home in Olathe, Kan.

Juan Martinez, a former Arizona prosecutor known for winning a conviction in the Jodi Arias murder case, agreed to be disbarred in an ethics case in which the State Bar of Arizona accused him of leaking the identity of an Arias juror and sexually harassing female law clerks in his office.

Jacquavious Great-house, 29, of Auburn, Ala., was sentenced to 90 years in prison in the deaths of 27-year-old Sedric Lewis and 31-year-old Derris Harris, who were inside a house that was peppered with multiple gunshots from a rifle and a pistol.

Nina Bussek, a spokeswoman for prosecutors in Vienna, said an investigation is underway, and police officials said eight officers have been suspended after a video surfaced that appeared to show police beating a Chechen man in the Austrian capital last year.

Sharon Morrow, a homeless advocate in St. Louis, is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union in a federal lawsuit accusing two St. Louis police officers of slamming Morrow to the ground and arresting her because she recorded others being arrested.

Jean Camacho-Morales, a corrections officer in Bexar County, Texas, was fired and faces counts of official oppression, tampering with government records and aggravated assault, after authorities said he stood by while six inmates beat another and allowed the assailants to clean up before he called for help.

Kerwin Pittman, a coordinator with Emancipate North Carolina, said it only made sense that the group and other organizers should pay for a sign reading Black Lives Matter on a billboard next to a Confederate flag outside the town of Pittsboro.

David Sidoo, a Vancouver businessman and former Canadian Football League player, told a U.S. judge he was deeply ashamed during a hearing in which he was sentenced to three months in prison for hiring someone to take the SAT in place of his two sons.

Chance Harrison, 32, of South Riding, Va., was arrested and charged with stabbing of two men, including a pastor, and injuring the Fairfax County police chief during a Bible study class at a church in Chantilly, according to police.

Print Headline: In the News

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In The News - NWAOnline

It’s ‘Captive Nations Week’ here’s why we should care | TheHill – The Hill

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

At the height of the Cold War in 1959, Congress established Captive Nations Week to show the American peoples solidarity with the hundreds of millions suffering under communist regimes. Scheduled for the third week of July, the occasion gave rise to annual parades and rallies in major American cities, with thousands of people taking to the streets, supported by governors, mayors and officials at every level of government, to demand the liberation of communist-controlled nations.

Sixty-one years later, Captive Nations Week which began Sunday is all but forgotten. Yet the phenomenon of communist subjugation of free people is real and growing, and 20 percent of the worlds population still lives under single-party communist dictatorships more than in 1989. If ever there were a moment to bring back Captive Nations Week, this is it.

In creating this week, Congress specifically called out the imperialistic policies of the Soviet Union. Today, this phrase is just as easily applied to the Peoples Republic of China, which dominates a growing number of lands and peoples, and aggressively seeks to add more to the list.

Hong Kong is the latest proof. Beijing has violated international treaty obligations with its passage in June of a so-called national security law that effectively ends the one country, two systems policy. The law empowers authorities to arrest anyone deemed to be subversive or secessionist, which in practice means anyone criticizing the Communist Party or advocating democracy and freedom ideals that are antithetical to Beijings socialism with Chinese characteristics. Hong Kong is now a captive city.

Yet Hong Kong is hardly the only place that Communist China has overrun. Congress noted the subjugation of Tibet when establishing Captive Nations Week, and to this day, Beijing seeks to stamp out Tibetan culture and the regional Buddhist faith. The regimes favored tools include the destruction of monasteries as well as the kidnapping and torture of Tibetan activists, which has led the Tibetan government-in-exile to warn of a Chinese-led cultural genocide. The apparent successor to the Dalai Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was kidnapped at age 6 by the Chinese Communist Party in 1995 and remains captive to this day.

Beijing also is perpetrating a demographic genocide against the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang. A June investigation by The Associated Press found that Chinese authorities are taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs, including forced abortion and sterilization. The regime has shunted as many as 3 million Uighurs nearly a third of the Uighur population into modern-day concentration camps, which Beijing calls Vocational Education and Training Centers. These tyrannical actions give new meaning to captive nation in the Chinese context.

Now China is signaling its intention to conquer Taiwan. The Chinese military recently held drills simulating the capture of Taiwanese territory, and communist officials and military officers have threatened war repeatedly with Taiwan in the past few months. Considering that Beijing spent more than two decades telegraphing its eventual takeover of Hong Kong, America and the world would be foolish to ignore Chinas clear desire to make Taiwan its captive.

Captive Nations Week was created precisely to draw American attention to situations such as these. While Communist China is far and away the most aggressive nation that embraces a Marxist ideology, there are several others. Communist Cuba essentially has taken Venezuela captive, and it has tried to do the same with Nicaragua. So, too, are Laos, North Korea and Vietnam still beholden to communist tyranny. This week should be a time for Americans of all backgrounds to express our sadness at the plight of the more than 1.5 billion people who still live in communist regimes.

Is it too much to ask to bring back Captive Nations Week? It may be too early to ask for the spontaneous street parades seen in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. But its not too soon for policymakers to rally around this annual event. It could and should become a central theme of U.S. foreign policy, especially with the growing realization on both sides of the political aisle that America is now forced to counter the global ambitions and predatory behavior of China.

What would that look like? Captive Nations Week would be an excellent time to roll out new sanctions against individuals and companies that participate in Chinese oppression. It also could provide an opening to announce new trade and economic measures that prevent Beijing from profiting from the places and people it dominates. By tying these actions to the concept of captive nations, policymakers would give their policies the kind of moral foundation that often has been missing in recent years. It would reaffirm that Americas pursuit of its national interests is inherently linked to the defense of universal ideals such as freedom and democracy.

Captive Nations Week once signified exactly that. Although it has been largely forgotten, its symbolic power remains as strong as ever both for the American people and those who are oppressed around the world. The U.S. has nothing to lose, and something to gain, by bringing it back.

Marion Smith is executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington. Follow him on Twitter @smithmarion.

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It's 'Captive Nations Week' here's why we should care | TheHill - The Hill

For victims of state oppression in Poland, Dudas election victory is an undeniable sign of darker times to come – The Independent

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

Andrzej Duda has won Polands presidential election after results released on Monday morning gave the incumbent 51.2 per cent of votes with almost all the ballots counted. His liberal challenger, Rafa Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, trailed with 48.8 per cent.

Duda's populist campaign was built on a number of favoured policies, such as vowing to defend the generous and well-received social welfare program introduced under the Law and Justice party; pledging to improve Poland's stability and prosperty through upholding "tradition"; and, notably, anti-LGBT+ bigotry.

Despite his victory in the Polish presidential elections however, which reportedly had the highest turnout since the fall of communism in 1989, the narrow results of yesterdays election show at least 50 per cent of voters dont want to live in a society based on hate. Its time to act accordingly. Without action, homophobia and transphobia will increasingly become normalised parts of life for many people, starting with the space allotted for projects Duda announced during his election campaign.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

There's the ban on same-sex couples adopting kids; the so-called "homopropaganda" ban in public spaces mentioned in many of Duda's public statements, an idea based on the president's belief in protecting children from LGBT+ ideology, which he sees as harmful for young people. Both ridiculous ideas which suggests anything other than an anti-LGBT+ stance will encourage perversion, or lead to corrupting children with unsavoury ideas. The Law and Justice party together with right-wing NGOs often connect homosexuality with paedophilia and use such ideas to undermine LGBT+ rights.

That's not all. In May, the ministry of the environment started work on a plan to declare the financing of NGOs. Under this plan, NGOs will be obliged to state that they are being financed from abroad. Laws like this in Hungry and Russia, which label NGOs "foreign agents", could now be introduced in Poland against LGBT+ NGOs and their fight towards equality. But the LGBT+ community are not foreign agents we are Poles fighting for human rights and a better place to live for everybody.

In my documentary Article 18, released in 2017, I highlighted the struggle of the Polish LGBT+ community which has been fighting for equality for years. The previous liberal government did nothing to protect us. There was no push for civil unions nor marriages or anti-hate-speech laws. Subjects concerning LGBT+ topics were usually labelled by liberal politicians as substitute subjects (red herring) in public debate; the economy, taxes and highways seened far more important to them. And so in Poland, we remain not only unprotected but doomed to be used as hate campaign tools.

During Pride month and election time in Poland, president Duda and politicians among him attacked LGBT+ minorities many times. He made a campaign pledge to defend children from LGBT+ ideology, which he has claimed could be even more destructive than communist ideology. As LGBT+ people navigating this discriminatory system, we are losing hope.

The climate of hate speech is rising and we need to be aware of the signs. Under Duda's leadership, this could very well end up in bloodshed. And it already has, with the murder of pro-LGBT+ Gdask mayor Pawe Adamowicz and the Bialystok Pride hooligans who threw stones at participants.

We have observed as the high number of places designated as LGBT+-free zones increase, as pushed under the 101 anti-LGBT+ resolutions created and implemented by local governments. Among other things, these abhorrent declarations include protecting families from LGBT+ ideology, kids from "perverts" who want to introduce sex education in schools, and to protect people from soliders of political correctness. A number of these bills have been sent to court by Polish Ombudsman Adam Bodnar and still await a court decision on the practice of excluding LGBT+ people from local communities in Poland. With Duda's new mandate, the issue will only grow, leading to the further exclusion of LGBT+ citizens from Polish society.

Trump and Polish president Duda connect over disapproval for 'fake news'

After years of leadership under Duda, Polands rank has plummeted to the bottom of the list in terms of LGBT+-friendly countries in the European Union, according to the latest ILGA-Europe index, cooming in at 41 out of 49. Still, the European Union resolution against LGBT-free zones'' in Poland from last year has been ignored by the Polish government. Even when the EU commission issued warnings to cut funds to regions declared LGBT+-free, local governments largely remained silent. Clearly, the EU needs to go further to show Polish government that homophobia will not be tolerated as official government policy.

Who is most vulnerable to homophobic hate-speech? Young LGBT+-teenagers. The latest statistics show an increase in mental health problems among young LGBT+ people. In 2016, as many as 70 per cent of young LGBT+ people had suicidal thoughts. Currently, it is 84 per cent. The increase is also visible in suicide attempts among LGBT+ teenagers. In 2016 it was 30 per cent and just four years later, it has climbed to 45 per cent. All this while politicians and the Polish Catholic Church remain indifferent and cynically use homophobia to further their aims.

The LGBT+ struggle in Poland will continue but we won't give up. Last year we saw the largest number of Pride marches across Poland. Young people do not believe in the primitive propaganda of the Law and Justice party. The youth climate strikes, Pride parades and rainbow protests in small and big cities give us hope that young Poles will be the change we desperately need to see.

Bartosz Staszewski is an LGBT+ activist from Poland and director of documentary Article 18

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For victims of state oppression in Poland, Dudas election victory is an undeniable sign of darker times to come - The Independent

Trumpism Is the New McCarthyism – The Atlantic

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

In The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates famously described Trumps politics as white supremacy made evident because of the election of a Black president. Although the writers of the More Specific Letter dont mention Trump by name, theyre building on Coatess argument: Trumpism is the brutal manifestation of inherited power. Thus, the notion that it could be a malady that transcends lines of class, race, gender, and ideologyexpressed not only by Republican politicians but by people of color in newsrooms and on campusesis nonsense. As the writer Jeet Heer has argued, Trumpism is the culmination of the GOPs decision to make itself white Americas vehicle for opposing racial equality. So there cannot be a Trumpism of the left.

Today, the argument about the meaning of Trumpism is taking place in intellectuals letters. But if Trump loses, it will migrate to Washington. Democrats insistent on dramatic change will collide with conservatives able to block it. Progressives will then demand, as they have already begun to do, structural changes that would let them override the rights veto. Such demands could take the form of sweeping new executive actions, alterations to the structure of the Supreme Court, efforts to abolish the filibuster, and moves to grant statehood to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Some of the people who define Trumpism as intolerance will view such moves as a progressive form of Trumpismthat is, as an assault on the rules of fair play. In 2018, Obamas former White House counsel Bob Bauer warned that if liberals expanded the size of the Supreme Court, they would emulate President Trumps contempt for democratic institutions and the rule of law. If Trumps Democratic successor imposes policies of the far left via executive order, my colleague David Frum argued last year, it will be a sign that neither side abides by the rules of democracy.

David A. Graham: Donald Trumps lost cause

The progressives who define Trumpism as oppression will reject these claims as absurd. They will argue that certain aspects of Americas system of government undemocratically entrench the privilege of historically dominant groups; by this logic, structural changes that allow progressives to bypass conservative opposition constitute not an attack on democracy but the removal of barriers to it. Making Washington, D.C., a state, The Weeks Ryan Cooper has argued, would enfranchise 700,000 peoplealmost half of them Blackwho are currently treated like quasi-colonial subjects. Eliminating the filibuster, Cooper maintains, would end a practice that, historically, has been primarily used by racists to stop civil rights legislation.

Schlesingers vision of a vital centercomposed of liberals and conservatives who made common cause against both the undemocratic left and the undemocratic rightdominated American politics in the years after World War II because there was no leftist movement powerful enough to challenge it. In the late 1960sunder pressure from the anti-war movement, the feminist movement, and the movement for Black freedomit lost its intellectual hegemony. The problem for Schlesingers successors today is that they are trying to constitute a new vital center at a time when the activist left is strong enough to challenge their control over the terms of debate. One way that challenge will unfold is through an effort at ideological guilt by association, in which each side will accuse the other of being Trumpisms rightful heir.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

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Trumpism Is the New McCarthyism - The Atlantic

Setting the Records Straight in Iraq – War on the Rocks

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

The issues putting pressure on the U.S.-Iraqi relationship are daunting. The confrontation between Iran and the United States frequently plays out on Iraqi streets. COVID-19 is spreading at alarming rates and overwhelming Iraqs beleaguered healthcare system. The collapsing oil market has the countrys finances on the brink. Washington has focused its support to Baghdad on much-needed economic and political reforms, while also encouraging the governments more assertive stance against Popular Mobilization Forces militias operating beyond the states control. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has sought to help the Iraqi military maintain pressure against the remnants of ISIS while continuing to reduce the number of American troops in the country.

Given everything happening in the bilateral relationship, why was a historical archive based in California on the agenda of the recent U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue?

The State Department is currently in the process of returning to Iraq some 6.5 million pages of documents from Saddam Husseins regime. The archive in question, currently at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, contains mountains of seemingly mundane paperwork generated by the bureaucracy running a single-party state. But it also includes sensitive material pertaining to the membership files of the former ruling Bath Party, regime informants, and information gathered by the security services on prominent political figures and ordinary citizens alike.

The U.S. governments longstanding relationship with Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Iraqs new prime minister who is deeply familiar with the issue of the documents, offers a valuable opportunity for cooperation on this matter and a number of related historical and archival issues. Although improved cultural ties will not mitigate the severe fiscal, public-health, and political challenges facing Iraq, positive developments on this front may create a better environment to address other issues as well. Increased American political support for ongoing diplomatic efforts should help strengthen U.S.-Iraqi relations, foster an increasingly positive relationship between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government, and continue to safeguard an important part of Iraqs historical patrimony for all of its citizens.

History of the Bath Party Archive

Secured as a result of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bath Regional Command Collection, also known as the Bath Party Archive, will be the final Saddam-regime collection of documents returned to Iraq that were transferred outside the country during the 1991 and 2003 wars. The documents have been in the possession of the Iraq Memory Foundation, a non-governmental organization registered first in Washington, D.C. and later Baghdad, since 2003. In 2005, with the approval of Iraqs interim government, the Defense Department airlifted the documents out of Iraq for safekeeping in the United States. At the time, the security situation in Baghdad was rapidly deteriorating as the country descended into civil war. Pentagon officials under then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz supported the airlift on the grounds that the documents were useful for understanding the predominantly Sunni-based insurgency battling U.S. troops in central and western Iraq. Upon arriving in West Virginia, Defense Intelligence Agency personnel completed the digitization of the documents, a process that had begun in Baghdad.

The removal of the archive from Iraq was vocally condemned by then-Director of the Iraqi National Library and Archive Saad Eskander, along with archivists and academics abroad. American and Canadian archivists criticized the move as a possible act of pillage and called for the immediate repatriation to Iraq of all records held by U.S. institutions. After a potential deal with Harvard University fell through, the Bath Party Archive was subsequently moved and has been held at the Hoover Institution since 2008. Upon returning to Iraq, the archive will join the much larger collection of Saddam-regime documents an estimated 100 to 120 million pages along with audio and video records quietly returned to Iraq by the Pentagon under the Obama administration in May 2013. In the long story of the documents first secured by Iraq Memory Foundation activists, recent developments in Iraqi politics have been central to the final chapter covering the return of the documents to the country.

A New Day and a Final Chapter in Iraq?

Mustafa al-Kadhimi Iraqs former spy chief and one of the three co-founders of the Iraq Memory Foundation became prime minister in May. His political rise has expedited discussions between U.S. and Iraqi officials about the repatriation of the Bath Party Archive and several other cultural issues. For instance, the Joint Statement on the U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue in early June announced, On the cultural front, the two governments discussed plans to return important political archives to the Government of IraqThe two sides also discussed artifacts and plans to return the Baath Party archives to Iraq.

Kadhimi co-founded the Iraq Memory Foundation shortly before the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, and after years working in exile as a democracy and human rights advocate in opposition to Saddams regime. In this capacity, he worked alongside Kanan Makiya and Hassan Mneimneh, both of whom had worked to document the atrocities of Bathist rule dating back to the early 1990s at the U.S.-based Iraq Research and Documentation Project.

Their successor organization aimed to help Iraq come to terms with the legacies of dictatorship through the creation of a museum, a public outreach initiative working with primary and secondary school teachers and students, preservation of the former regimes records, and a research facility that would ultimately be linked to Iraqs university system. Kadhimi served as the Baghdad-based director of the foundation from 2003 to 2010, where he led its oral history initiative, which sought to put a human face on the suffering often dryly documented in Bath-era records. The resulting Iraqi Testimonials Project interviewed a wide cross-section of Iraqis about their experiences of oppression under Saddams regime. The oral histories subsequently aired on Iraqi television in four seasons between 2005 and 2008.

Kadhimi is not the only Iraqi leader with a longstanding interest in the documents of Saddams regime and Iraqi historical patrimony. In 1991, it was Barham Salih, Iraqs current president, who informed Makiya about the existence of large quantities of regime documents in the possession of the Kurdish Peshmerga, secured in the course of the uprising against the Bath Party in the wake of the Gulf War. Salih also served as Jalal Talabanis personal envoy in talks with U.S. Senate staffer Peter Galbraith about the future of the documents. Both the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdish Democratic Party turned over the documents in their possession for safekeeping in the United States in the early 1990s, where they were moved to the University of Colorado Boulder in 1998. The Justice Department quietly returned the documents to Iraq in 2005, in preparation for trials against Saddam and his inner circle. The documents have remained in the custody of the Iraqi High Tribunal and Ministry of Justice in Baghdad over the past 15 years, contrary to inaccurate reports in the Iraqi media earlier this year that they were in North Carolina.

Beyond documenting Bathist rule over northern Iraq, the archive contains evidence of the 1988 Anfal campaigns, in which Iraqi forces killed an estimated 100,000 Kurds and thousands of Assyrians, Turkomans, Yazidis, Shabak, and Kakais. Against the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and domestic insurgency waged primarily by Kurdish rebel groups, the Bath regimes counter-insurgency efforts escalated into a series of systematic campaigns using chemical weapons and village destruction to alter the physical geography and demographic composition of northern Iraq.

A Role for the Documents in Advancing Peace

U.S. officials should encourage Kadhimi to return the Bath regimes records documenting the Anfal campaigns to northern Iraq. This would be an important goodwill gesture to improve increasingly positive relations between Erbil and Baghdad. Pending the future establishment of a Kurdish national library and archive, the collection could be transferred to the Kurdistan Regional Government or in consultation with all concerned parties, to a non-governmental institution, such as the Zheen Archive Center, which already holds a digitized copy of the documents.

As a human rights advocate who personally interviewed survivors of the Anfal campaigns, Kadhimi is well-aware of how emotional the subject remains for Iraqi Kurds in particular. Erbil- and Baghdad-based officials should support initiatives to help the families of all victims, while encouraging the study of Iraqs past in a way that helps defuse ethnic and sectarian tensions in the present. Although not his responsibility, Kadhimis gesture would make good on the initial agreement between the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Kurdish parties for the safekeeping and future restitution of the records to Iraqi Kurdistan, which a Justice Department task force knowingly or unknowingly abrogated when it transferred custody of the documents to the central Iraqi authorities in Baghdad.

U.S. officials should also work closely with their Iraqi counterparts to ensure that the Bath Party Archive documents remain safe upon their return to Iraq, and that Iranian-backed and sectarian political actors do not take possession of them. In his previous role as director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service starting in 2016, Kadhimi helped oversee the interagency effort charged with safekeeping the 100 to 120 million pages of documents returned to Iraq by the Pentagon in 2013. He was widely recognized for depoliticizing and professionalizing the agency during his tenure as director. Nevertheless, U.S. officials should also encourage Kadhimi to investigate to what extent the documents repatriated to Iraq in 2013 were exploited by former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the security services loyal to him, efforts that likely exacerbated sectarian tensions as Iraq was sliding back into chaos and ISIL was ascendant. While looking into the Maliki governments actions may be challenging politically, its essential to discover the truth of what happened.

In light of the fact that recently replaced Iraqi National Security Advisor Falih al-Fayyad signed the Relinquishment of Possession for the records the Pentagon repatriated to Iraq in 2013, his subsequent involvement with the documents should be closely scrutinized. Fayyad has enjoyed close ties to highly sectarian and Iran-backed figures, such as Hadi al-Amiri, Qais and Laith al-Khazali, and the late Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo named Fayyad as one of the Iranian proxies responsible for abetting the attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad last December. When I informed a former U.S. diplomat with extensive experience in Iraq that Fayyad signed on behalf of the Iraqi government in 2013, he remarked, It is a pretty good assumption that if Falih al-Fayyad had custody of the documents, they were used for sectarian purposes.

The United States should organize a final repatriation ceremony that includes American diplomats and military officials and their Iraqi counterparts. Such an event should take place after the documents are all securely back in Iraq. While an official ceremony runs the risk of drawing unwanted attention to the documents, media coverage and public awareness may make it more difficult for them to be exploited. Neither the Iraqi nor the American public was informed of the 2005 and 2013 repatriations. Based on conversations I have had with American policymakers, it appears that although U.S. officials stopped tracking the whereabouts of the records formerly in the Pentagons possession upon their return to Iraq in 2013, they continued to receive queries from some of their Iraqi counterparts who were themselves unaware of the repatriation.

Beyond potential sectarian exploitation of the documents, the broader historical and social import pertains both to studying the past and awareness of the degree to which the Bath Party eventually intruded into practically all aspects of daily life during its rule over Iraq between 1968 and 2003. As Kanan Makiya explained to me in a recent phone conversation, The true sensitivity and horror of the documents come from the ways in which ordinary people were caught up in the system. As such, the Bath Party Archive and other documents from Saddams regime will be of interest to Iraqis who were alive then, along with those too young to remember or born after the end of Bath Party rule.

None of the documents repatriated to Baghdad in 2005 and 2013 have been made available to researchers in Iraq, although these records and the Bath Party Archive should in theory be subject eventually to legislation passed by Iraqs parliament in 2008 and 2016. Digitized copies of records in the Pentagons possession were made available to researchers in Washington, D.C. at the Conflict Records Research Center from 2010 to 2015, a project that awaits being rebooted or transferred to another institution. The digitized copy of the Bath Party Archive, along with other digitized collections in the Iraq Memory Foundations possession, have been available to researchers at the Hoover Institution since 2010. Since the closing of the Conflict Records Research Center, the Hoover Institution has hosted the only archives of Saddams regime open for research anywhere in the world.

Due to Iraqs fiscal crisis and the persistent problem of institutional capacity, a partnership with the Hoover Institution or other American academic institutions could be an effective means for supporting future research by Iraqis in Iraq. Such an initiative would be in keeping with efforts to increase the capabilities of Iraqi universities mentioned in the Joint Statement on the U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue. The template may prove to be The ISIS Files, formerly in the possession of the New York Times. In addition to launching a website for research featuring documents and studies based on them, George Washington Universitys Program on Extremism has formed a research partnership with the University of Mosul.

Although very different with respect to geopolitical circumstances, the 2005 to 2020 repatriation of the Saddam-regime archives to Iraq will have transpired over a timeframe comparable to the post-World War II repatriation of captured Nazi records to the Federal Republic of Germany between 1953 and 1968. Historically, although generally not at the top of meeting agendas, the repatriation of archives has nevertheless been an important step in improving diplomatic relations between countries in the aftermath of armed conflict. In the case of U.S.-Iraqi ties, given Kadhimis personal involvement with the history of the Bath Party Archive, his plan of leading the Iraqi delegation that will meet with Vice President Mike Pence and Pompeo in the next round of talks in the U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue should offer a chance for U.S. officials to speak with him directly on the issue. Last but definitely not least, increased attention to the subject of Iraqi archives more broadly may facilitate additional positive steps on top of those already made by U.S. and Iraqi officials toward a final arrangement for the Iraqi Jewish Archive. Such a deal will address the concerns of the Iraqi Jewish diaspora, international Jewish groups, and Iraqi political leaders, academics, and citizens.

The Future of the Bathist Past Lies in Iraq

Three decades of conflict have intertwined the histories of Iraq and the United States on numerous levels. Continued efforts to help safeguard Iraqs historical patrimony are a low-cost and responsible means to strengthen U.S.-Iraq relations, expand the working relationship with Iraqs new prime minister, and encourage warming ties between Baghdad and Erbil. The return of the Bath Party Archive to Iraq may be the final chapter in the story of the repatriation of records captured from Saddams regime, although their future in the country remains to be determined. The same is true with respect to uncovering the full story of, circumstances surrounding, and consequences stemming from the quiet repatriation of records to Iraq in 2005 and 2013.

Iraq has a young population and more than 17 years have passed since the toppling of Saddams regime. Nevertheless, Iraqs older political elites experienced the Bathist period inside the country, in exile, or in some combination of both. Events during the Bathist period were formative in shaping the ideological and political worldview of most if not all of them. At the same time, the legacies of dictatorship combined with the consequences of the U.S.-led invasion have cast a long shadow over Iraqi politics since 2003. Historical memory of the Bathist period continues to hold potential for either political weaponization or reconciliation. At long last, the remaining balance of official documentary sources for either endeavor will be back in Iraq.

Michael P. Brill is a Ph.D. candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, where his research focuses on Bathist Iraq.

Image: Wikicommons (Photo by U.S. Air Force, Staff Sgt. Cherie A. Thurlby)

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Setting the Records Straight in Iraq - War on the Rocks

The continued existence of the United Kingdom is now at stake – Spectator.co.uk

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

When they come to write the history of the Unions demise, there will be three guilty men. Tony Blair was a transformative prime minister, but he nodded through devolution after allowing himself to be convinced that it was an administrative change, rather than an unravelling of the United Kingdom. Many believe Iraq to be the blot on his legacy but contracting out the rewriting of the constitution to the Scottish Labour Party would cut against anyones greatness.

David Cameron has no claim to greatness, but he deserves to be the toast of Scottish nationalists. The Conservatives had opposed devolution as a one-way ratchet towards separation, but once in government failed to advance a policy of their own; preferring to accelerate and grant permanency to New Labours experiment. Cameron conceded a referendum and transferred not one, but two tranches of powers making him arguably more culpable than Blair.

The third guilty man will be Boris Johnson, unless he recognises the gravity of the moment and the urgency of the threat. Brexit, levelling up, civil service reform all may be vital but all are subordinate to the continued existence of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, his ministers and his advisers should not delude themselves: the stakes really are that high. Its not simply that safeguarding the Union is more important than the Johnson-Cummings agenda; losing the Union would severely impair or outright impede much of that agenda.

The hint of a Conservative backbone can be glimpsed in Michael Goves appointment as chair of a Cabinet subcommittee on Union policy alongside the more robust line over the proper balance of powers between Westminster and Holyrood. However, these measures are insufficient given the electoral context (support for secession tipping into the majority and the SNP polling at 55 per cent) and the political, economic, diplomatic and national security consequences of Scexit.

Since Downing Street are yet to apprehend many of these consequences, we can only hope the recent outburst from a senior SNP minister will jerk the Prime Ministers Office out of its lethargy. Mike Russell, Nicola Sturgeons minister for constitutional relations, emerged from a meeting with Gove on Thursday and headed straight for the nearest loudhailer. Downing Street published a white paper on the internal market post-Brexit, aiming to secure frictionless trade between all parts of the UK and outlining which powers currently held in Brussels will be transferred to Holyrood and which will go to Westminster. Food standards is one area where the government want regulation to be carried out by UK ministers, and here the nationalists spy an opportunity. The English want to put a chlorinated chicken in every pot.

Russell branded the proposals a blatant attempt at a power grab, claiming they would strip responsibilities from the Scottish Parliament and undermine the very basis of the devolved arrangements, denouncing the plans as the biggest threat to devolution since the Scottish Parliament was reconvened in 1999. As such, the Scottish Government would recommend that MSPs deny legislative consent while seek[ing] alignment with EU standards instead.

He concluded: We will actively oppose the UK Governments proposals at every opportunity, including at every legislative stage, and pursue every avenue to challenge the Bill should it pass no one should be in any doubt about our determination to defend the powers of the Scottish Parliament and the founding principles of devolution.

Russell is given to eschatological hysterics about the parliament whose creation his party scorned, but his tantrum was not an off-script moment. He was sent out to behave as he did. Ten months before the next Holyrood elections, the nationalists dearly want a fight with an English Tory prime minister, but they also want to lay down a marker: give them what they want or they will use the parliament Labour built to obstruct and wreck.

Downing Street thinks it is being terribly clever with its internal market strategy. Having only lately come to the realisation that devolution in its present state undermines the Union, ministers eye the repatriation of powers from Brussels as the chance to do a patchwork job on the constitution. I cant tell whether they are using the cover of Brexit because they deem it tactically wise or because they are embarrassed by the modesty of the remedy they propose. It ought to be the latter.

The task of preserving the United Kingdom is at its most daunting stage in three centuries and it will not be saved by tinkering with regulatory frameworks. The flaws of devolution were created by successive Scotland Acts and, at minimum, they will require another Scotland Act to correct. The object is not the abolition of the Scottish Parliament, contra the fervid fantasies of the oppression-seekers, but a Scottish Parliament that respects both the 1997 referendum result and the sovereign integrity of the United Kingdom.

The SNP has been emboldened by rising public support for secession, the weakness of the Holyrood opposition, and the Supreme Courts rebuke to the government over prorogation. They see ways electoral, legislative and legal to frustrate and humble the Johnson administration. The nationalist view is that theirs is Scotlands sole legitimate government and Westminster a decrepit colonial ruler staggering through its final days in charge. Boris Johnson can surrender to that view or he can dispel it by reforming devolution to maintain the Union. He is either Prime Minister of the entire country or merely Prime Minister of England with his remit occasionally extended northwards on the indulgence of Nicola Sturgeon.

It comes down to the question it always comes down to: who governs? Only Johnson can answer that and on his answer hangs his country and his place in history. He will be known for courage or for culpability.

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The continued existence of the United Kingdom is now at stake - Spectator.co.uk

Without a revolution, we’ll have climate catastrophe – Red Flag

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

Decades of neoliberalism, declining rates of class struggle and defeats for the left have had a profound impact on our ability to imagine an alternative to the current system. Because of this, the immense scale of destruction that capitalism is inflicting on the natural world is, for many people, as much a cause for passive despair as a spur to action. The lack of any real alternative being offered within the political mainstream reinforces this it appears as though the best we can hope for is to tame capitalism, rather than overthrow it.

With each passing year, however, the case for revolution grows. A vast gulf exists between what scientists think is necessary to avoid a civilisation-threatening climate and environmental breakdown, and what the capitalist class and its political servants think is necessary to preserve their system. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) 2018 report, authored by 91 scientists from 40 countries, argued that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, starting immediately. Yet even the most minor changes fought for by environmentalists are resisted by those in power.

The urgency conveyed by the IPCC contributed to a rise in climate activism around the world. Millions participated in the School Strike for Climate movement. Tens of thousands joined in the disruptive direct actions of Extinction Rebellion. None of this has been enough, however, to force any significant change of course from a ruling class determined to push on with the destructive (and highly profitable) status quo. Even the vastly inadequate targets agreed at the 2015 Paris climate conference now seem out of reach. Emissions continue their steady rise, and new temperature records are set on an almost monthly basis.

Despite the scenes of devastation and horror during Australias bushfire crisis, and despite tens of thousands of people mobilising to demand urgent action, neither the governing Liberal-National Coalition nor the opposition Labor Party have agreed to anything more than cosmetic changes to their existing policies. Much has been made of Labors commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. But this was merely a recommitment to the policy they took to the last election, and theyve refused to say whether theyll maintain their shorter term goal of a 45 percent reduction in emissions by 2030.

Limiting global temperature increases to the 1.5 degrees that the IPCC regards as the upper limit to avoid devastating, runaway warming requires emissions cuts of 7.6 percent every year for the next decade. Clearly, neither of the prospective parties of government in Australia are preparing to do this. And their refusal to increase their emissions reduction targets for the domestic economy is only one side of the story. Both major parties support the continued expansion of Australias booming coal and gas industries, the massive exports from which, when burnt, produce significantly more emissions than the entire domestic economy.

The COVID-19 crisis doesnt appear to have changed any of this. The government has indicated that a major expansion of Australias already booming gas industry will be central to its post-pandemic recovery plan. If they get their way, this will lock-in further emissions increases for years, if not decades to come. And if Australia does it, why wouldnt other countries with significant fossil fuel reserves follow suit?

Our political leaders would prefer we all forgot about the country burning around us the people huddling in boats and on beaches to escape the wall of flames consuming their homes and communities, the more than a billion animals that died, the millions of hectares of forest and precious ecosystems destroyed so that Australias fossil fuel-dependent economy can profit unhindered. If we care at all about the future, however, we cant allow ourselves to succumb to the illusion that everything is under control, that relatively minor tweaks to the existing system and gradual emissions reductions will be enough and that our society can continue on its current path without any significant change.

The 2018 IPCC report was on the conservative end of the spectrum of scientific opinion on the projected impact of global warming. Increasingly, scientists are talking about the potential for devastation so significant and widespread as to trigger the collapse of entire societies and the unravelling of the global social order in the space of a few decades.

In a widely cited paper from 2018, for instance, Jem Bendell, a professor of sustainability at the University of Cumbria in the UK, argued that we are set for disruptive and uncontrollable levels of climate change, bringing starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war. Anticipating that people in developed countries such as Australia might not take this projection seriously, he added: When I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you wouldnt have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbours for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You wont know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death.

This might seem far-fetched. After Australias summer of fire, it shouldnt. For people in the most severely affected areas, such as the South Coast of New South Wales and the Gippsland region of Victoria, there were weeks when Bendells vision of the future climate apocalypse could easily have been taken as a description of contemporary reality. Think of the thousands of people, for example, who at the height of the bushfire crisis, with their communities ringed by flames, were ordered to evacuate. Think of how they must have felt sitting for hours in cars on highways clogged in both directions, not knowing whether theyd make it through before the inferno once again blocked their escape.

For people in many parts of the world, this kind of scenario so shocking and exceptional to Australians is already a reality. Already, millions have been forced to flee their homes, in many cases permanently, due to droughts, floods and other extreme weather events. Already, low-lying coastal areas home to hundreds of millions of people around the world are threatened with inundation by rising seas. Already, climate change is contributing to an intensification of social conflicts and an increase in the frequency of wars. And already, were seeing the poorest and most vulnerable people abandoned to the elements while governments focus on providing security for themselves and their wealthy sponsors.

The ruling class may well be able to adapt to a future of runaway warming and environmental breakdown. They can, in a worst case scenario, retreat to well-guarded enclaves and pay desperate people to maintain them in the conditions to which they are accustomed. For most of the worlds population, this isnt an option. In the future our rulers envisage, we will be left to burn.

In the German Ideology, Karl Marx wrote that revolution is necessary ... not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew. To these two reasons for revolution we need to add a third: its only via revolution that we can hope to achieve the scale and pace of change needed to avoid the kind of catastrophic social collapse that Bendell foresees.

The idea that capitalism will self-correct and put us on a path to sustainability is a pipe dream that fits very nicely with our rulers desire to continue with business as usual whatever the cost. Periodically, were informed by pro-capitalist environmentalists that the reduced cost of renewable energy, combined with changing attitudes among investors and other decision makers, means were already in a sustainability revolution that will rapidly fix the problem. But while its true that investment in renewable energy has grown significantly in recent years, it hasnt been nearly enough to put a dent in the overall upward trajectory of global emissions.

Even if investment in renewables keeps growing rapidly and if the 60 percent fall in investment in large scale renewable energy in Australia in 2019 is anything to go by, thats a very big if when you factor in the growth in overall demand for energy, its going to make up only a fraction of the supply for decades to come. Reflecting this, and contrary to what so-called green capitalists might have you think investors are hardly running for the exits when it comes to fossil fuels. Global investment in renewables may be running at over US$300 billion annually, but total annual investment in energy is around US$1.8 trillion, with over US$700 billion being spent on the oil and gas supply alone. Investment in fossil fuels may be declining as a proportion of total investment in global energy capacity, but in absolute terms the industry is still growing and is projected to continue growing for decades to come.

What hope is there that we can win the change we need through the proper channels of our existing political system? The experience of the past few decades has shown how thoroughly corporate power has corrupted the institutions of capitalist democracy. The fossil fuel industry is bound to the capitalist state by a thousand threads. Its influence comes not only through political donations and an army of lobbyists, but through the shared outlook of corporate executives and the politicians and bureaucrats who run the state. When the latter talk about serving the national interest, what they mean are the interests of big business and the rich.

When challenged by even the mildest of reformist parties or movements, the capitalist class and its servants in the political establishment do everything in their power to protect the status quo. We saw that with Bernie Sanders in the US. The mainstream media and the Democratic Party establishment pulled out all the stops to prevent him winning the partys nomination for president. They succeeded. But even if Sanders had, against the odds, actually won the nomination and then the presidency, he would have been stymied at every turn not only by the Republicans, but by the majority of his own party, as well as the vast entrenched power of the unelected bureaucracy, the military and so on.

In The Civil War in France, Marx concluded, based on the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871, that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes. In The State and Revolution, Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin built on this insight, highlighting the need for the working class to smash the existing, hierarchical and oppressive capitalist state entirely. In light of the active connivance of governments everywhere whether democratic, authoritarian or anywhere in between in the ongoing destruction of the planet, we can only conclude that similarly extreme measures will be necessary to make the kind of rapid, radical changes we need to tackle the climate crisis.

A crucial part of the neoliberal project has been the inculcation of a sense that any attempt to radically alter the structure of society can end only in disaster. If we dont hold fast to the existing order, were told, the result will be chaos and violence. What we must realise, however, is that its the existing order of capitalism that is itself the main driver of chaos and violence. Beneath the facade of order and respectability is the reality of a system already bringing death, destruction and suffering to people everywhere a system careening out of control towards its, and our, demise.

What, then, might a revolution look like? Theres no shortage of examples from history for us to learn from. Again and again since the dawn of capitalism in the 18th and 19th centuries, workers and the poor have revolted against the established order and the regime of exploitation and oppression on which it is based. The Paris Commune was among the most prominent early examples. Since then weve had the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the German revolution of 1918, the Spanish revolution of 1936, the Hungarian revolution of 1956, the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Egyptian revolution of 2011, and many, many more.

For Marxists, the working class is key to the success of any revolution. Workers are, as Marx famously described them, the gravediggers of capitalism for the simple reason that theyre the ones who carry out all the labour that keeps the system running and the profits flowing. The exploitation of workers under capitalism encourages organisation, and when workers organise collectively to withdraw their labour, they can bring the system to its knees. Think of how quickly society would grind to a halt if workers in just a few crucial industries, such as transport, energy and construction, all stopped work at once.

The potential power of workers to disrupt the operations of capitalism is one side of the story. The other is the potential for them to develop institutions of direct democracy that can provide an alternative form of order to that maintained by the capitalist state. In the examples of revolutionary situations mentioned above, institutions such as soviets (Russia), workers councils (Germany) and shuras (Iran) have sprung up as the need for coordinated action across industries became clear. The furthest development of these institutions occurred in Russia in 1917, where, following the October revolution against the undemocratic provisional government, the soviets assumed state power.

Workers power in Russia was ultimately crushed through years of civil war, foreign intervention and, ultimately, internal reaction from a new class of state bureaucrats under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. But the example provided by the brief period of genuine soviet democracy in the years immediately following October continues to provide inspiration for those fighting for a better world today. The great achievement of the Russian workers was to show that it was possible to have a society in which decisions are made collectively and democratically, in the interests of human need, rather than everything being geared towards the profits of the wealthiest few.

Revolutions arent something to be afraid of. What might seem like chaos from the perspective of the capitalists and their political servants will feel like liberation to those of us on the other side of the class divide. Not for nothing did Lenin call revolutions festivals of the oppressed and the exploited. You get a small taste of it every time youre part of a big, lively protest on the streets: the feeling of collective power the sense that if you all just unite, you can achieve anything; the joy at momentarily being liberated from the routine drudgery of daily life under capitalism; the feeling of participating alongside others in something meaningful and worthwhile, where your contribution matters. Revolutions make us fit to found society anew in part simply because they instil in us the confidence in our ability to run society for ourselves.

Walter Benjamin put it like this: Marx says that revolutions are the locomotive of world history. But perhaps it is quite otherwise. Perhaps revolutions are an attempt by the passengers on this train namely, the human race to activate the emergency brake. The time for attempting to tinker with capitalism is long gone. Were in an emergency, and for the sake of our own lives and the lives of future generations, we need to pull the brake.

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Without a revolution, we'll have climate catastrophe - Red Flag

Trump defends handling of coronavirus with falsehoods and dubious claims – Seattle Times

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said in an interview aired Sunday that the rising number of U.S. deaths from the coronavirus is what it is, defended his management of the pandemic with a barrage of dubious and false claims, and revealed his lack of understanding about the fundamental science of how the virus spreads and infects people.

Making one of his biggest media appearances in months an hour-long, sit-down interview with Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace Trump was visibly rattled and at times hostile as he struggled to answer for his administrations failure to contain the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 137,000 lives in the United States.

On a range of other topics, including the racial justice movement and the Confederate flag, the president positioned himself firmly outside the political mainstream. And Trump suggested he might not accept the results of Novembers general election should he lose he predicted without evidence that mail-in voting is going to rig the election.

In a season of remarkable public appearances by a politically wounded president, the Wallace interview was still extraordinary, in part because of the volley of false claims by Trump and aggressive, real-time fact-checking by his questioner.

Trump whom aides say no longer attends coronavirus task force meetings because he does not have time showed himself to be particularly misinformed about the basics of the virus that has been ravaging the nation for more than four months.

Confronted by Wallace with a chart showing that the number of coronavirus cases last week more than doubled from the spring peak in April, Trump replied: If we didnt test, you wouldnt be able to show that chart. If we tested half as much, those numbers would be down.

By the presidents logic, that assumes people contract the virus only if they test positive, ignoring the fact that many people are asymptomatic carriers and unknowingly spread the contagion without taking a test or being reported.

Wallace later explained to Trump that the number of tests has increased by 37% but that the number of cases has shot up by 194%. Trump replied, Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day. They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test. Many of them dont forget, I guess its like 99.7%, people are going to get better and [in] many cases, theyre going to get better very quickly.

Although people in their 20s and 30s, who make up a growing portion of cases, have been hospitalized at a lower rate than older people, many still have suffered severe illness and some have died.

Former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, reacted to Trumps interview in a statement Sunday: The past six months have proven again and again that its Donald Trump who doesnt know what hes talking about when it comes to COVID-19. . . . When it comes to the coronavirus, you cant believe a word he says.

A growing number of Americans disapprove of Trumps handling of the pandemic. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 38% approve of his performance and 60% disapprove. The same survey found Biden leading Trump by double digits nationally, 55% to 40%.

In an attempt to regain their political footing, Trump and his aides recently have sought to divert attention from the soaring number of coronavirus cases by focusing on the rate of deaths. In the Fox interview, Trump falsely asserted, I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.

Its not true, sir, Wallace replied. We had 900 deaths on a single day just this week.

Trump shouted to aides hovering nearby: Can you please get the mortality rates? White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany quickly presented Trump with data she said was from Deborah Birx, a physician and the White House coronavirus response coordinator, backing up his claim.

Number one low mortality fatality rates, Trump claimed.

At that point, Fox interrupted the taped interview for Wallace to explain to his viewers that according to data from Johns Hopkins University, the United States ranked seventh among 20 countries in mortality rate, higher than Brazil and Russia. The White House relied on European data showing Italy and Spain doing worse than the United States but Brazil and South Korea doing better. The White House chart did not include Russia and other countries doing better, according to Wallace.

When Wallace pointed out that coronavirus deaths in the United States were still about 1,000 a day, Trump said: It came from China. They shouldve never let it escape, they shouldve never let it out, but it is what it is.

Trump then hypothesized that the case count in Europe was so much lower than in the United States because they dont test, as opposed to a sign that the virus was not as rampant there because their countries had largely contained it.

By conducting mass testing, Trump said, We are creating trouble for the fake news to come along and say, Oh, we have more cases.

Trump reiterated his long-held theory that the virus would somehow disappear, a claim not grounded in scientific fact.

I will be right eventually, Trump told Wallace. You know I said, Its going to disappear. Ill say it again. Its going to disappear, and Ill be right. . . . You know why? Because Ive been right probably more than anybody else.

Trump used his Fox interview to continue the White Houses remarkable assault on some of the scientists and public health professionals leading the governments response. The president called Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious-disease expert, a little bit of an alarmist. He noted that Fauci had argued internally against restricting travel from China, which Trump ordered in late January, and had initially said all Americans did not need to wear masks, before there was scientific evidence that doing so would help slow the spread.

Trump also challenged the assessment of Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who again warned last week that the pandemic could worsen this fall when flu season begins, reflecting widespread scientific consensus. I dont think he knows, Trump said of Redfield.

Trump sought to draw a hard line on the coronavirus relief bill, saying it must include a payroll tax cut and liability protections for businesses, as lawmakers prepare to plunge into negotiations over unemployment benefits and other key provisions in coming days. Republican leaders are largely dismissive of the idea of cutting payroll taxes, which fund Social Security, while siding with Trump on the liability issue.

Wallace engaged Trump on a wide range of other topics, including the race and justice issues that convulsed the country. Trump declined to say whether he found the Confederate flag offensive and defended what many Americans view as a symbol of slavery, racial oppression and treason.

When people proudly have their Confederate flags, theyre not talking about racism, Trump said. They love their flag. It represents the South. They like the South. People right now like the South.

Wallace followed up: So youre not offended by it?

Well, Im not offended either by Black Lives Matter, Trump replied. Thats freedom of speech. You know, the whole thing with cancel culture, we cant cancel our whole history. We cant forget that the North and the South fought. We have to remember that, otherwise well end up fighting again.

Trump also teased the possibility that he might not accept the election results if he were to lose, jeopardizing Americas tradition of a peaceful transfer of power between presidents.

When Wallace asked Trump whether he considers himself a good or gracious loser, the president replied that he does not like to lose. Then he added, You dont know until you see. It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.

For weeks, Trump has claimed without evidence that the rise in voting by mail in many states makes voting susceptible to widespread fraud.

Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election? Wallace asked.

No, Trump responded. I have to see.

Later in the interview, pressed on whether he will accept the results, Trump again declined to say. I have to see, he said.

Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates responded to Trumps remarks in a statement: The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.

Trump sought to portray Biden as mentally vacant, telling Wallace that he did not want to characterize his opponent as senile but positing that Joe doesnt know hes alive and is mentally shot.

Trump then challenged Biden to a cognitive test, which the president characterized as exceedingly difficult. During a physical exam in 2018, Trump took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment which includes animal pictures and other simple queries aimed at detecting mild cognitive impairment such as dementia and has regularly boasted about it since.

Wallace told Trump that he tried the test himself after hearing the president brag about passing it. Wallace said its not the hardest test, adding that one of the questions on the version he took was to properly identify a picture of an elephant.

Ill bet you couldnt even answer the last five questions, Trump said. Ill bet you couldnt. They get very hard, the last five questions.

Well, one of them was count back from 100 by seven, Wallace said, adding: Ninety-three.

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Trump defends handling of coronavirus with falsehoods and dubious claims - Seattle Times

Sign of the Times: Editor resigns over liberal bias at New Yorks leading newspaper | Mulshine – NJ.com

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

A note to the editors of the New York Times:

When Bari Weiss says youre too liberal, youre too liberal.

Weiss is the Times opinion editor who went out last week with a bang by firing off a resignation letter in which she stated that a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isnt a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.

That letter caused a big splash in the media, with many outlets labeling Weiss as a conservative.

A conservative?

Heres how Weiss described herself on a widely viewed interview with podcaster Joe Rogan:

Im a centrist. Im a Jewish, center-left on most things, person who lives on the upper west side of Manhattan and is super socially liberal on almost any issue you can choose.

Among those issues, she told Rogan, is the right to keep and bear arms. I would repeal the Second Amendment, she told Rogan.

Theres plenty more where that came from, all of which would exempt Weiss from membership in my personal circle of right-wing reactionaries.

Yet even her tame objections to Times orthodoxy got her harassed by her fellow journalists, Weiss wrote. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action, she wrote. They never are.

In the letter, Weiss also mentioned the recent flap at the Times over the decision to run an op-ed piece by Senator Tom Cotton headlined Send in the Troops in which he advocated using the military to keep the peace in American cities.

This is where the Times truly went over the edge. The op-ed section and the news section are separate entities there, as they are at most newspapers. The writers in the former are supposed to be subjective, the writers in the latter objective.

At least thats the ideal. But many reporters uttered howls of indignation at the thought that the Times ran the piece in question.

This is reminiscent of the flap a few months ago in which the editors at the Hachette book publishing company walked out in opposition to plans to publish Woody Allens recent book.

In a column on that, I wrote that the publisher should have informed the staff that Book editors are a dime a dozen and weve got a lot of dimes.

The same goes for the members of the Times news staff. The publisher should have told the reporters that if they wanted to express their opinions they should resign and apply for work in the opinion section.

But in both cases, the publishers succumbed to the cancel culture. Hachette dropped Allens book and the Times accepted the resignation of the opinion editor.

In the case of the Times, the news staffers employed a particularly devious and dishonest new meme to camouflage their assault on freedom of expression.

Instead of stating frankly their desire to suppress speech with which they disagreed, a number of reporters tweeted out the columns headline followed by the sentiment Running this puts black @NY Times staff in danger.

Just how these staffers were put in danger was not stated. In Cottons op-ed, he argued that the troops would be used to prevent violence, not engage in it. He cites the 1962 decision by President Kennedy to introduce troops to keep the peace when white protesters tried to prevent the integration of the University of Mississippi.

Whether his approach is preferable is subject to debate. But the Times staffers dont want to hear it debated.

I confess I lack whatever gene causes writers to want to suppress the writings of others. I for one enjoy reading the opinions of people with whom I disagree. Most the time I have a horse laugh at their naivete. But sometimes I learn something I didnt know.

Either way, I wouldnt want to suppress such speech. But thats the way the so-called cancel culture works. Its gotten so bad that earlier this month Harpers Magazine ran a letter signed by several hundred writers attacking the culture of stifling speech.

We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters, they wrote. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.

The letter of course soon brought a response from other writers attacking the signers.

The signatories of the letter seem to be suggesting that all viewpoints should be published in opinion pages, with no limits on what those viewpoints might be, they wrote.

I dont know if thats what those signatories were suggesting.

But it sounds good to me.

ADD - ANDREW SULLIVAN GOT THE SAME TREATMENT:

Later in the week, writer Andrew Sullivan, who is considerably more conservative than Weiss, was squeezed out at New York Magazine. Note the same meme of a phony physical threat to justify suppression of speech. Heres what Sullivan said of his critics at the magazine:

They seem to believe, and this is increasingly the orthodoxy in mainstream media, that any writer not actively committed to critical theoryin questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity is actively, physically harming co-workers merely by existing in the same virtual space. Actually attacking,and even mocking, critical theorys ideas and methods, as I have done continually in this space, is therefore out of sync with the values of Vox Media. That, to the best of my understanding, is why Im out of here.

Continued here:

Sign of the Times: Editor resigns over liberal bias at New Yorks leading newspaper | Mulshine - NJ.com

Liberals resist third committee study of WE Charity controversy, Tories ask Lobby czar to investigate – The Globe and Mail

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

Margaret Trudeau speaks on stage during the 2018 WE Day Toronto Show at Scotiabank Arena in September.

Dominik Magdziak/Getty Images

Liberal MPs pushed back against an attempt by the opposition to launch another probe into the WE Charity controversy, as the Conservatives called for a broader investigation into the issue and asked the Lobbying Commissioner to investigate WE.

The MPs countered a Conservative proposal Friday at the House of Commons ethics committee for a third parliamentary review into the controversy, with Liberal MP Greg Fergus calling it a politically motivated fishing trip.

Liberal MP Brenda Shanahan said the committee should wait for Ethics Commissioner Mario Dions investigations of the Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

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We are not an investigative body, she said.

The committee voted to adjourn the Friday meeting without deciding on the motion.

During the meeting, the Conservatives announced in a press release that they are asking the Lobbying Commissioner to study whether anyone in the WE Charity should have registered to lobby public office holders, but failed to do so.

The Commissioners office confirmed that it received the request for an investigation. It also said organizations like WE Charity must register their communications with federal public office holders when that communication makes up 20 per cent or more of one individuals work. The Commissioners office said the charity would also have to register if communications from various officials cumulatively equated to the same threshold.

In response to the Conservative request, the WE Charity said on Friday that while WE is confident of its compliance, we welcome the role of the Commissioner of Lobbying in clarifying what is a grey area for many organizations, and will assist her in that regard.

The Lobbying Commissioners office said there are no lobbying registrations logged from WE Charity, its for-profit entity ME to WE, or co-founders Craig and Marc Kielburger.

The Conservative request followed testimony from civil servants at Thursdays House finance committee meeting who said the charity had provided an unsolicited proposal to government to administer the new Canada Student Service Grant and had previously sent another pitch to the federal government for a program of WEs own design.

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The testimony suggests that the WE organization communicated extensively with senior members of the government, including both public servants and public office holders, said the letter to Lobbying Commissioner Nancy Blanger from Conservative MPs Michael Barrett and Pierre Poilievre.

WE pitched detailed youth plan on day Trudeau announced $912-million student grant program

Wernick testimony fails to answer lingering questions over WE Charity agreement

WE Charity plans restructuring, launches another governance review amid political controversy

On Thursday, WE said it regularly submits proposals for consideration by the government.

The $900-million contribution agreement it ultimately reached with the government landed WE at the centre of a political controversy for the Trudeau Liberals. It was asked to administer the program, which was set up to pay students for volunteer work during the pandemic, but the agreement has since been cancelled.

Opposition parties say many questions remain, including how the agreement came to be in the first place. WE Charity was to be paid up to $43.5 million to administer the program.

Mr. Poilievre said Friday that Liberal ministers should simply explain what happened.

The truth is going to come out, Mr. Poilievre told The Globe and Mail on Friday.

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It appears the government is trying to cover up how this WE program came to exist. I simply dont believe that nobody has any recollection of who came up with the idea and who set it in motion. The evidence so far suggests that WE Charity and top Liberals were cooking up this scheme well before the bureaucracy recommended it.

At Thursdays committee meeting, Diversity, Inclusion and Youth Minister Bardish Chagger said she was not directed by the Prime Ministers Office, in response to a question about whether she was given a directive to award the contract to WE. She declined to answer whether anyone in her office discussed the matter with the Prime Ministers Office before it was brought to cabinet.

Last week, WE Charity confirmed that the Prime Ministers wife, mother and brother were each paid to participate in events.

Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Morneau have both apologized for not recusing themselves from the cabinet decision to award WE the contract. Mr. Morneaus daughter works at the charity.

I made a mistake, Mr. Morneau said at a press conference in Toronto on Friday. I regret and I apologize sincerely for having made that mistake. I think its made our ability to deliver on this program more challenging.

NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus said Friday that deep ties between the Trudeau family and the WE Charity demand greater scrutiny, including why this did not raise red flags inside the PMO.

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It raises the question whether there was an attempt to buy political influence. That, to me, is the issue before us the financial interests of the Trudeau family and WE have become very convoluted and very connected. That is what we need to clarify.

Mr. Barrett said that past government ministers have recused themselves to avoid any conflict of interest, including then-prime minister Stephen Harper. Mr. Harper withdrew from a decision that involved a company where his brother worked.

We dont need to go back to Plato and we dont need to practice our Latin to look at very, very recent and relevant examples of why what were doing here is essential to preserve public confidence in our institutions, Mr. Barrett said.

Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said Friday that she did not speak to anyone at WE, adding that it was not her file to carry.

She also said it was a mistake to have Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Morneau at the cabinet table for the decision but she stood by the decision to award the contract to WE.

I can assure everyone, and all Canadians, that at cabinet we were very confident that this was the best way forward for students.

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With reports from Bill Curry

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Liberals resist third committee study of WE Charity controversy, Tories ask Lobby czar to investigate - The Globe and Mail

Newsroom or PAC? Liberal group muddies online information wars – POLITICO

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

Mark Meadows came to the West Wing with big plans, hoping his friendship with President Trump would help him avoid turbulence. Then reality and the coronavirus pandemic hit.

The $1.4 million in Facebook ads is likely just a fraction of the money behind the Courier project, which includes a newsroom of at least 25 people and eight separate websites with content often focused on local issues in presidential swing states. But this activity creating an unregulated advertising stream promoting Democratic officeholders, more akin to a PAC than a newsroom diverges from other partisan news outlets that are proliferating online as local newspapers struggle.

And in setting up the enterprise, Acronym a sprawling digital organization whose programs include millions of dollars in traditional political advertising and voter engagement efforts, with financing from some of the deepest pockets in progressive politics, such as liberal billionaires Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, and Laurene Powell Jobs, the majority owner of The Atlantic has stirred outrage and provoked debate about the ethics of such political tactics and the future of the press.

Backers believe they are simply ahead of the curve. Courier, they say, is where news is heading in the Wild West of social media, where partisan stories often thrive and the old business model is failing. With public-facing editorial standards similar to other media organizations, Courier is an answer to the deluge of false partisan content consumers face, they argue. They also point to the long history of explicitly partisan news outlets in the U.S. and elsewhere.

More quality reporting with integrity even if it has a partisan bent and as long as that bent is disclosed anything to combat the spread of misinformation is important, said Nicco Mele, the former director Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, who is supportive of Courier.

But while some Democratic operatives concede the premise that their party needs to be more competitive online, they believe Courier and Acronyms tactics are unethical but also ineffective given the high cost.

Courier is not the first to experiment with versions of this model, but it is likely the most robust attempt so far. In 2014, the Republican Partys congressional campaign arm set up news sites that criticized Democrats and bought ads on Google to promote the pieces. At the time, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blasted the Republicans for deception. Asked if they approved of Couriers 2020 tactics boosting their members, the DCCC did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

We look forward to Democrats denouncing these dark money fake news groups meddling in our elections, said Bob Salera, a spokesperson for the National Republican Campaign Committee, who said the party no longer operates such sites. Since they represent everything Democrats claim to oppose in politics, this should be an easy call.

Couriers operations differ from the NRCC in that it is a for-profit newsroom, and election law doesnt regulate the press due to its First Amendment protections. As a result, Courier raises new digital-age questions about what is and is not a news organization questions that political ad regulators are unlikely to answer, according to election experts, leaving this murky space open for abuse, said Brendan Fischer, the federal reform director at the Campaign Legal Center.

I dont know how the FEC would treat Courier because the media exemption is the third rail of campaign finance, Fischer said. Neither the Democrats or Republicans want to be in the business of determining what is a media entity."

So far, Couriers web traffic has been light. Its signature site is ranked 76,004 in the United States, according to the Amazon-owned Alexa, and has under 6,000 likes on Facebook. The organization did not release any other traffic information. Its most-watched video on YouTube, with over 570,000 views, was a well-reported story showcasing Amazons ability to place laudatory stories about itself in local news broadcasts. But the next most-viewed video only had about 2,500 views, and the companys laudatory clips of their favorite congressional candidates have far less than that. Its YouTube channel has just 735 subscribers.

While campaign finance watchdogs worry about the trend of dark money influencing American politics and media experts say that Courier and similar endeavors only further undermine trust in news and shared facts, Courier and their supporters dismiss these concerns as liberal hand-wringing more concerned with being pure than with winning.

Coupling original, fact-based reporting with paid content distribution, Courier is reaching Americans in their newsfeeds and is providing a powerful counter to conservative misinformation which dominates platforms like Facebook, Courier Newsroom COO Rithesh Menon said in a statement through an Acronym spokesperson. Were so proud of what Courier has built in its first year, and hope others in the progressive space invest in this type of digital media ecosystem - because the Right has for years.

Courier and Acronym did not make anyone available for an on-the-record interview. After publication, Acronym's founder and CEO Tara McGowan wrote on Twitter that "Courier's reporters would also never publish drag pieces with anonymous critics that further weaken the standards of journalism just for cheap clicks to make their stakeholders richer [shrug emoji] but you know, here's to journalistic integrity!"

Newsroom or PAC? Liberal group muddies online information wars - POLITICO

In Supreme Court Term, Liberals Stuck Together While Conservatives Appeared Fractured – NPR

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court gather for a group portrait. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court gather for a group portrait.

The recently concluded Supreme Court term was remarkable for many reasons. But for SCOTUS geeks who love numbers, it's worth looking at how the conservatives often split among themselves, while the liberal justices, understanding that they are playing defense, stuck together far more often, refusing to dilute the outcome of their victories by disagreeing with one another.

In all, the four hard-line conservatives wrote way more separate opinions.

They wrote nearly two-thirds of the concurring opinions. These are the opinions in which individual justices do not agree with some or all of the reasoning in the majority opinion.

The conservative justices were also more likely to speak for themselves alone. Of the 45 solo opinions, the four most conservative justices wrote 31.

In addition, they wrote more pages than the liberal justices, writing 734 pages of concurring and dissenting opinions, out of 1,214 such pages total.

The most restrained conservative author was Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote just one concurring opinion and one dissent. But he was the deciding vote in a lot of cases and often wrote the majority opinion in the most important decisions.

The other four conservatives put pen to paper for themselves in especially ideologically charged cases, whereas the liberal justices stayed their hands in most of these.

On the liberal side of the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the most concurring opinions eight of them solo and one joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But in six of those cases, the decisions were either unanimous or 8-1.

While members of each bloc of justices banded together in most cases, the liberal justices more often stuck together overall. Of the 60 votes cast this term, the liberals voted as a unified group 80% of the time. The four most conservative justices voted together in 70% of cases.

In Supreme Court Term, Liberals Stuck Together While Conservatives Appeared Fractured - NPR

Twitter has corrupted liberal media cartoonist Steve Bell’s cancellation is a knife to free speech – Telegraph.co.uk

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

Lefties loved it; the rest of us were disgusted, but took it as the price we pay for living in a free society. He recently depicted Michael Gove as a goat; Boris Johnson is depicted with a backside for his face (and, in the same cartoon featuring Ms Patel, with a ring through his nose and horns on his head). In Mr Bells view, being Jewish, or Hindu, may not exempt someone from being worthy of attack in the most offensive way. It is what he has done to scores of white politicians over four decades. He is an equal opportunity cartoonist.

His critics argue that there is a world of difference between depicting Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, meeting Theresa May while a Palestinian roasts in the fireplace behind them (a cartoon of 2018 that Mr Bells editor refused to publish) and repeatedly deriding John Major, as he famously did in the 1990s, by depicting him wearing his underpants over his trousers. I find Mr Bells repeated attacks on Netanyahu deeply unpleasant, but in a free society one should not deny him the chance to make his points. It is also far from certain that most of his newspapers readers would disagree with him, the cause of Palestinians have been dear to their hearts for many years, and Mr Netanyahu one of their favourite hate-figures.

Mr Bell is accused of is not drawing a distinction between the activities of the state of Israel (against which a perfectly rational case can be made, even if one does not agree with it and I generally dont) and broadcasting a blanket dislike of Jews (for which arational case cannot be made). There is a sensitivity to anti-semitic tropes, which he himself has satirised, making the point that he dislikes Israeli policy because of what it is, not because of who actually executes it.

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Twitter has corrupted liberal media cartoonist Steve Bell's cancellation is a knife to free speech - Telegraph.co.uk

Foreign Farm Workers Already Face Abusive Conditions. Now Trump Wants to Cut Their Wages. – In These Times

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Danzig

Wednesday, Jul 15, 2020, 10:25 amBY Maurizio Guerrero

GREENFIELD, CA - APRIL 28: Farm laborers with Fresh Harvest wash their hands before work on April 28, 2020 in Greenfield, California. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

Pedro, a laborer from Chiapas, Mexico, worked 13 hours a day picking blueberries on a farm in Clinton, North Carolina. He had no time off, except when it rained.

"We had no Sundays," Pedro (a pseudonym to protect his identity after he breached his visa agreement) says in Spanish. Working from May to June under the H-2A visa program for guest farmworkers, he saved only $1,500.

According to Pedro, his work conditions and payment violated the contract he signed when he was recruited by a middleman in Mexico. Still, he could not quit his job. The H-2A program requires guest farmworkers to work only for the employer or association that hires them.

Pedro was entitled to a $12.67 per hour wage with no overtime, according to the H-2A provisions for North Carolina. However, Pedro says he never received more than $425 a week, or about $4.60 per hour.

"They took away our passport as soon as we arrived," Pedro explains. His employer tried to dissuade Pedro and his workmates from quitting the job. Still, he ran away, leaving his passport behind.

"Never in my life [have I] worked this hard, not in Mexico City or back in the fields in Chiapas," Pedro says. Undocumented and with no official identification, Pedro now works at a construction site in Georgia. "All the other guys stayed in the farm," he says. "They are afraid of being deported. They don't want to get in trouble."

Pedro's story is all too common. The wage provisions in the H-2A program are "routinely" violated, according to the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Farmworker Justice, and, as a recent Center for American Progress report put it, the lack of labor protections for foreign farmworkers like Pedro are already "particularly dangerous." The H-2A program has led to so much abuse of workers that many liken it to modern-day slavery.

Now, things could get even grimmer, as the Trump administration is proposing to reduce the statutory pay rate for H-2A workers, just months ahead of the presidential elections.

Workers' wages are already extremely low by any measure, even when compared with similarly situated nonfarm workers and workers with the lowest levels of education, an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report found in April.

Wage cuts

North Carolina is among the top recruiters of H-2A guest workers in the United States.The state, like the rest of the country, has grown increasingly dependent on this labor force. Nationwide, there has been a fivefold increase in the number of H-2A visas approved since 2005, climbing to 258,000 in 2019. Most of these workers are Mexicans or Mexican-Americans.

The growing reliance on H-2A visa farmworkers is often linked to a shortage of local labor, even among the undocumented population that comprises at least half of the U.S. agricultural workforce. The reality could be more problematic.

H-2A visa holders "are seen by employers as very productive. Employers often say they are better workers than the locals, but it has nothing to do with their performance," according to Bruce Goldstein, president of the farmworkers' rights group Farmworker Justice. "It has to do with the fact that the H-2A visa workers are not free."

Even undocumented workers, who are not necessarily tied contractually to their employers in the same way as H-2A workers, have more legal recourses to obtain compensation if they claim workplace abuse, according to Goldstein. H-2A workers are excluded from the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA), the main labor law that protects farmworkers. That's why, he says, H-2A guest workers are "very desirable by employers."

To satisfy the agriculture industry's desire for guest workers, the Trump administration, contradicting its anti-immigration stance, relaxed the rules around H-2A hiring and exempted farmworkers from a broad ban on foreign labor during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now, the U.S. Department of Labor is considering publishing changes that would recalculate guest workers' wages. According to Goldstein and to publicly posted information, the changes could come as early as August.

Instead of using a labor market survey, the proposal would allow farms to hire workers at an arbitrarily lower wage rate, according to Farmworker Justice. In Florida, for example, the $11.71 per hour wage would be cut by $3.15.

Though Congress could stop these changes, the Republican-led Senate makes this a remote possibility. Another option is taking the administration to court, although the outcome would be far from certain, Goldstein explains.

"The only rational explanation for lowering the wages of H-2A farmworkers right now is corporate greed and unquestioning subservience to agribusiness on the part of the Trump administration," according to the EPI report.

If implemented, the wage cut would come even as farm owners received as much as $23.5 billion in federal aid due to the pandemic.

The new guidelines would mean that workers deemed "essential" and expected to keep working amid the pandemic, would risk their lives for even less money and no mandate for employers to provide them with Covid-19 protections.

Unfree labor

Violations of the H-2A visa holders' rights are "rampant and systemic," according to a 2015 Farmworker Justice report. The Department of Labor "frequently approves illegal job terms in the H-2A workers' contracts," its findings show.

Five years after the report, the guest workers' conditions remain unchanged, according to Goldstein. They are similar to the ones under the Bracero Programthrough which millions of Mexican farmworkers labored in the US from 1942 to 1964which was ultimately terminated because of its notorious abuses, including wage theft, according to the report.

Even when employers comply with the contract obligations, H-2A farm laborers are among the nation's lowest-paid workers. The Covid-19 pandemic has made their jobs even more dangerous.

Farm owners are not mandated by the federal government to provide protective equipment or enforce social distancing in often overcrowded and unsanitary housing facilities, despite the risks to foreign workers' health, according to Anna Jensen, executive director of the nonprofit North Carolina Farmworkers Project. (State guidelines vary across the country.)

It's not unusual that laborers are only given one option to buy food, regularly overpriced, or that workers cannot receive visitors, says Jensen. Its also common that the employers do not reimburse H-2A workers for traveling to the U.S., she adds, a practice that is very often illegal.

The violations often start in the hiring process. Two of the former deputy directors of the North Carolina Growers Association, the largest recruiter of H-2A farmworkers in the state, pleaded guilty in 2015 of fraud related to the program. Another infamous North Carolinian farmworker recruiter, Craig Stanford Eury Jr., also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S.

Many H-2A workers, who aspire to return to the U.S. farms in the following seasons, do not mention their mistreatment for fear of being blacklisted by employers. But even if they wanted to, filing complaints "is really difficult," Jensen says.

The North Carolina Department of Labor operates a complaint hotline, open only from 8:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Friday, making it "not very accessible" for many migrant workers, according to Jensen. Twelve to 14-hour workdays, six or seven days a week, make filing a claim virtually impossible for guest farmworkers.

"The H-2A is an inherently abusive program," Goldstein says. It practically assures employers that even workers who do not stand the poor treatment will not complain, even when their passports are taken away, which could be considered an act of slavery or peonage, according to Goldstein.

If the Trump administration follows through with its plans, workers like Pedro could be forced to labor under these conditions while taking home even less money than they already make.

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Foreign Farm Workers Already Face Abusive Conditions. Now Trump Wants to Cut Their Wages. - In These Times

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