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Bitcoin Hitting $135K This Bull Cycle Is Common Sense Willy Woo – Cointelegraph

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Bitcoin (BTC) is heading to at least $100,000 during the bull cycle which has already begun, one of the industrys best-known analysts has confirmed.

Speaking to RT financial news show the Keiser Report on March 3, Willy Woo said that described BTC/USD hitting $135,000 as a common-sense prediction.

Woo highlighted the cumulative average Bitcoin price as a particularly effective metric for forecasting future gains.

You go could 35 times the cumulative average of the price and thats actually picked every single top in the ten-year history of Bitcoin right now thats sitting above $50,000, but it keeps climbing the longer it runs for, he told host Max Keiser.

Explaining that Bitcoin ebbed and flowed in line with the four-year cycles of its block reward halvings, Woo likened new highs in BTC/USD to water sloshing in a bathtub.

If you make a best guess, its above $100,000; I think one of the more common-sense predictions would be around $135,000 based on the timing cycleture and the 35x of average cap, he continued.

Im looking at around the $100,000 to $250,000 range depending on how long this bull market runs.

Woo was speaking as BTC/USD continued trading at around its 200-day moving average after a week of noticeable losses.

A sudden but suspicious rally in traditional markets failed to spill over into Bitcoin, leading to criticism from one skeptic in particular that its successes in 2020 would be short-lived.

At the same time, several industry figures have delivered buoyant price forecasts for the rest of the year, while technical forecasts suggest that current price performance is exactly on schedule prior to Mays block reward halving.

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Bitcoin Hitting $135K This Bull Cycle Is Common Sense Willy Woo - Cointelegraph

Bitcoin Keeps Recovery Hopes Alive With Defense of Major Average Support – CoinDesk – Coindesk

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Bitcoin (BTC) remains on the hunt for a notable recovery with prices holding above widely tracked average support.

The top cryptocurrency is currently trading above $8,760, having defended the 200-day moving average (MA) support at $8,720 early on Wednesday.

The support level is widely considered a barometer of long-term market trends and tends to attract buying or selling pressure, depending on the direction in which it is breached.

Therefore, a corrective bounce to levels above $9,000 put forward by a bullish reversal candlestick pattern confirmed Monday may remain elusive if prices find acceptance under the long-term average.

The key support has held ground so far today, keeping hopes for a recovery rally alive. The average support withstood selling pressure on Tuesday.

Bitcoin ran into offers during Tuesdays U.S. trading hours as the stock markets dropped with the Federal Reserve's announcement of a 50 basis point rate cut. Prices briefly fell below the 200-day average but the bears failed to secure a daily close under the support level.

Bitcoin jumped 4.5 percent on Monday, confirming a bullish reversal doji candle and opening the doors for a notable corrective rally.That pattern will remain valid as long as prices are holding above $8,410 (Sundays low).

That said, the prospects of a quick move to resistance at $9,075 (Feb. 4 low) would weaken if the 200-day average support at $8,720 gives in. That could yield a re-test of $8,410.

However, a sustained drop below the 200-day MA looks unlikely, as the MACD histogram is registering a higher low below zero for the fourth consecutive day a sign of weakening bearish momentum.

So bitcoin appears more likely to bounce from the 200-day MA toward resistance at $9,075 (Feb. 4 low). A violation there would expose the next resistance lined up at $9,312 (Feb. 19 low).

Bitcoin is trapped in a broadening descending channel on the hourly chart. A break above the top end of the channel, currently at $8,820, would confirm a breakout and imply an end of the pullback from Mondays high of $8,980 and a resumption of the rally from Sundays low of $8,410.

That would strengthen the case for a bounce to levels above $9,000.

Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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Bitcoin Keeps Recovery Hopes Alive With Defense of Major Average Support - CoinDesk - Coindesk

World’s Top Crypto Miners Race to Roll Out Top-of-Line Machines Ahead of Bitcoin Halving – CoinDesk – CoinDesk

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Two of the largest bitcoin mining equipment manufacturers are in a neck-and-neck race to roll out top-of-the-line machines ahead of bitcoin's (BTC) halving event in less than three months.

On Thursday, Beijing-based mining giant Bitmain launched its latest AntMiner S19 and S19 Pro models, boasting computing power as high as 110 terahashes per second (TH/s) and an energy cost of 29.5 watts per terahash (W/T).

Going by the firm's specifications, the two models would currently be the most profitable bitcoin mining devices if available, closely followed by the WhatsMiner M30S from Bitmain's Shenzhen-based rival, MicroBT, according to a miner profitability index from f2pool.

The launch comes on the back of a heated battle between Bitmain and MicroBT, which has gained a significant share of the mining equipment business after selling about 600,000 units of its M20 series in 2019, chipping away at Bitmain's long-time market dominance.

MicroBT, which launched its flagship M30 models in December, has started taking pre-orders for the latest and most powerful product line since last week, with deliveries of sample units starting as early as next month.

According to MicroBT's major distributor Pangolin Miner, the M30S priced at $2,430 apiece touts a computing power of 86 TH/s with an energy cost of 38 W/T and uses 8-nanometer chips supplied by Samsung. The firm said some devices will ship from March to May, but large pre-orders would have to wait until as late as June.

On the other hand, prices and the pre-order/delivery dates for Bitmain's S19 models have not yet been announced. Adding to the uncertainty is whether Bitmain can deliver production on a large scale, since the latest models adopt 7-nm chips that come in limited supplies from its vendor, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

It also remains to be seen how the industry will react to the releases of top-notch but more expensive mining equipment, as bitcoin's price has retracted from its recent growth momentum above $10,000.

Currently, Bitmain's older model the AntMiner S9 is still one of the most widely used miners, generating a daily gross margin of about 30 percent at bitcoin's current price, based on f2pool's index.

Further, the coronavirus outbreak in China has affected the country's manufacturing and logistics businesses, causing delays for those that were looking to expand or upgrade existing mining facilities.

In fact, data from mining pool BTC.com shows bitcoin's mining difficulty a measure of how hard it is to compete for mining rewards has stagnated for a month and is currently around the same level seen on Jan. 28.

But with bitcoin's halving event approaching in May, a programmed-in change that will reduce the network's mining rewards from 12.5 BTC per block to 6.25, older models like the S9 will become unprofitable unless bitcoin's price increases significantly. As such, miners may have to either upgrade or get out of the industry.

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World's Top Crypto Miners Race to Roll Out Top-of-Line Machines Ahead of Bitcoin Halving - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

Sunday Digest: Bitcoin Price Crash and Other News – Bitcoinist

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Its been hard to avoid the coronavirus this week, at least in the news, as the US confirmed its first death this morning. If it turns into an all-out pandemic, youll be glad that you sealed yourself away and stocked up on bitcoin you did do that, right?

What can be said? Not a great week for bitcoin price at the risk of stating the obvious. So how did it play out?

After gains last weekend, Monday trading saw these wiped out after $10k was rejected again. Analysts predicted a pullback, and price continued to fall on Tuesday, breaking $9.5k, with some expecting a drop to as low as $8,300.

Krakens Director of Business Development, Dan Held, remained bullish, however, believing that bitcoin could be on the edge of a super-cycle that would quickly take it to $100k and beyond. Meanwhile, a cash crunch in Lebanon propelled bitcoin price to an inflated $15k between local peer to peer sellers.

However, on global markets losses continued into Wednesday, breaking $9k support, and also dragging down most altcoins, and threatening to wipe out the years gains so far.

Stock to Flow proponent, PlanB, predicted that bitcoin would not fall below $8,200 during this crash, and we all hoped he was right, although prices didnt seem to stop falling during early trading on Thursday.

Thankfully bitcoin did then find some support at $8,600, bouncing up as high as $8,900, before tailing off again on Friday. This time solid support was found at $8.5k, and the price has been trading in a range between this level and $8,800 ever since.

However, at a macro level, there are concerns that bitcoin is still in a bear market. Certainly, the bulls must defend key levels to stem the recent flow.

The Bank of Englands chief cashier voiced her support for a Central Bank Digital Currency this week, saying that governments must act fast to avoid losing out to tech giants such as Facebooks Libra.

Meanwhile, Chinas proposed CBDC faced delays due to the coronavirus outbreak, although officials were still aiming to launch a pilot in 2020.

Although Canada has decided that it doesnt need a CBDC at the moment, it has put in place a blueprint for one, just in case.

YouTube continued its assault on channels related to cryptocurrency, this week suspending Ivan on Tech until after the May halving event.

Craig Wright faces more questions about the purported Tulip Trust and Bonded Courier, as the estate of Dave Kleiman wants to expose what it says are just more lies. Meanwhile, Binance CEO, CZ, called Wright a fraud in no uncertain terms earlier in the week.

Amid major losses for Ethereum this week, the community also came to blows over the approval of a controversial change to its mining algorithm. The Programmatic Proof of Work (ProgPoW) algorithm is supposed to reduce the advantage of ASIC hardware but caused a big discussion online as to its implications.

Exchanges OKEx and Bitfinex were both hit by DDoS attacks this week, with OKEx CEO Jay Hao offering a bounty for information on the attackers.

Bitfinex claims that it has repaid $100 million of the $700 million it borrowed from Tether last year. And Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Bitfinex & Tether, will be speaking at the Digital Asset Summit next month, marking the first time that a Bitfinex/Tether exec has spoken at an industry event.

The SEC denied Wilshere-Phoenixs application for a Bitcoin ETF, which was disappointing, but not entirely unexpected given its track record.

Warren Buffett appeared on CNBC this week, telling the world once again that he will never own cryptocurrency.

This caused Justin Sun, who Buffett said was very polite at their recent charity lunch date, to call foul play. After all, the joy of blockchain meant that he could show the bitcoin and Tron he gifted Buffett at the dinner had not been moved.

To which, Buffett responded that he had given the phone away on which Sun had loaded the wallets to his favored Glide charity.

Surely its time to stop trying to teach the old dog new tricks already.

What was your favorite bitcoin or crypto story of this week? Let us know in the comments below!

Image via Shutterstock

Sunday Digest: Bitcoin Price Crash and Other News - Bitcoinist

Almost Half of All Bitcoin Has Not Moved in 2 Years – Bitcoinist

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

42% of Bitcoin has not moved on-chain for at least two years, the highest concentration of hodling since June 2017.

HODL Waves are periods of heavy bitcoin accumulation which can be monitored by Bitcoin Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs). When block rewards are given to a miner, a UTXO is created. When BTC is spent, the UTXO becomes an input to the user receiving the Bitcoin, and any change is sent back to the spender as a different UTXO.

Every BTC transaction consists of inputs (spent BTC) and UTXOs (unspent BTC). My spent UTXO becomes an input sent to you, and that input becomes your UTXO to spend as you please.

UTXO analysis enables analysts to roughly gauge how much Bitcoin is actively being hodld by investors, by analyzing how long it has been since a UTXO has been used to make a transaction. The longer the time period, the more it indicates cold storage and long-term saving.

Coinmetrics just recently published a cryptocurrency valuation report. In this report they use UTXO age analysis as a valuation metric. They discovered that as of March 1st, 42% of Bitcoin UTXOs have not moved in 2 years or more.

This is the highest this number has been since June 2017, shortly before Bitcoins bull run to all time highs in December of that year. This could be a fundamental indication that Bitcoin is preparing for an epic tear towards new all time highs after Mays halving.

HODL Waves are identified by what are called Bitcoin Age Days(BADs). Basically, if a Bitcoin UTXO is not spent for 30 days, it has 30 Bitcoin Age Days, if it gets spent on the 30th day, 30 BADs are destroyed.

There are 3 major Bitcoin HODL Waves, the oldest of which are BTC UTXOs which have not moved in 5 years or more. These are the hodl stashes of the first people who mined Bitcoin, Bitcoin OGs, and early adopters.

This also includes a concentration of lost coins, or coins that early adopters lost access to the private keys; a common occurrence in Bitcoins early days. Chainalysis, a blockchain forensics service, estimates up to 4 million BTC have been lost permanently.

HODL Wave 2 is the UTXOs that are between 3-5 years, which was the wave of new adopters that came into the Bitcoin markets after it first began to capture headlines with its first major bull run to $1200, as well as the people who entered during the 2017 bull run to 20K.

HODL Wave 3 is made up of UTXOs that are between 18-24 months of BAD. These are the investors who sat on the sidelines during Bitcoins 2017 bull run, but who bought BTC during the crypto winter, taking advantage of bear market lows to accumulate.

As hodlers increase, the lead cryptocurrencys scarcity is magnified. This adds upside price pressure, especially with the incoming halving, which will reduce the supply new BTC produced. This could be a perfect storm to cause prices to explode.

What do you think about the concentration of hodld BTC? Let us know in the comments!

Images via Shutterstock, Twitter @natemaddrey

Almost Half of All Bitcoin Has Not Moved in 2 Years - Bitcoinist

Super Tuesday Special: Which US Election Outcome Is Best for Bitcoin? – Coindesk

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

It's 'Super Tuesday' in the U.S., and as Democrats take to the polls to pick their nominee, @nlw polled Twitter to see who the crypto community thought would be best for bitcoin (BTC) and the industry.

Today is Super Tuesday - one of the biggest days of the U.S. election primary season. Increasingly, prediction markets and pollsters suggest its coming down to a two-person race between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders (although Mike Bloomberg has insisted hes staying in).

In this episode, NLW breaks down each candidate in the context of their positions vis a vis cryptocurrency, and looks at the possible role of three other fallen contenders during the rest of the campaign.

As Bernie leads the Twitter poll, the question arises: Do people think Bernie will be good for bitcoin because he shares the same values of prioritizing the little guy over big banks, or because his programs will demand so much quantitative easing (QE) it will send bitcoin to the moon?

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Super Tuesday Special: Which US Election Outcome Is Best for Bitcoin? - Coindesk

Are Miners Prepared for the Halving of Bitcoin? – Cointelegraph

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Anyone following crypto news has undoubtedly seen numerous articles that forecast Bitcoins (BTC) valuation following the upcoming halving slated to take place in May of this year. And although the price of Bitcoin is clearly important to the industry and investors at large, planning for the halving is particularly critical to cryptocurrency miners.

Once the halving occurs, the unfortunate truth is that the profitability of all but the most efficient mining operations will be greatly challenged. To stay in the green, many will either be forced to upgrade their equipment or to shut down their mining operations altogether.

However, careful planning can mitigate these risks, and there are several steps miners should take to set themselves up for sustained profitability in the wake of the halving. To understand all the factors at play, its important to review what makes mining profitable in the first place. This includes:

The hash rate is the estimated number of tera hashes per second that the Bitcoin network is performing. It is a general measure of the networks processing power and of how many times the network can attempt to add a block to the Bitcoin blockchain every second.

The hash rate is a good indicator of the networks health, and while it cant be precisely measured, it can be estimated based on the current difficulty and time of block confirmations of Bitcoin.

Mining Bitcoin is not easy, and it has only gotten harder as more miners have joined the network. The difficulty of mining a block correlates with the overall network hash rate, and thus with the competition. The more people trying to solve a block, the more difficult it is to do so.

Miners can increase their chances by employing high-powered application-specific integrated circuits that are efficient and always running. The ultimate goal is to solve a block that is worth more than it costs to solve. Miners can also improve odds by joining a mining pool, in which profits are shared with the other members of the pool and vice versa.

Its not expected for the halving to have a big impact on mining difficulty. It may adjust slightly to make up for no-longer-profitable miners leaving the network, which will allow for the remaining miners to mine more profitably and to drive forward the hash rate, price and difficulty in general.

The electrical efficiency of mining devices has a massive impact on overall profitability. If miners are expending excess energy and paying more in electrical costs than receiving as a result of solving a block, theyre going to end up in the red.

Related: Bitcoin Mining's Electricity Bill: Is It Worth It?

A more efficient device will lead to greater profits in less time while also expending less energy, thus, reducing costs. Such efficient machines are going to be needed to correct for the reduction in block reward following the halving. Machines, such as the Antminer S9, are going to become essentially obsolete and will need to be replaced with newer, more efficient miners like the Antminer S17.

The power cost also has a big impact on profitability and is directly related to the power consumption as well as to the cost of electricity at the mining operation. As more efficient machines are needed to keep up with the reduced revenue following the halving, miners will need to run operations in a place with low energy costs.

Mining colocation centers offer high power and low costs of energy, along with several other benefits, such as 24/7 security and equipment oversight. Its strongly suggested that miners consider state-of-the-art facilities throughout the country to help them make the most of their operations at a fraction of the cost and consumption.

This is what halving is all about. The current block reward of 12.5 BTC will be halved to 6.25 in the spring, and the revenue of all miners on the network will be cut in half, as well. The only way to make up for this is to increase mining power and reduce operational costs.

The price of Bitcoin has historically responded well to previous halvings for those miners capable of remaining in the market after the fact. However, this has been the subject of considerable debate in the crypto community, and although opinions vary, the outlook is bullish.

The bottom line is that when the Bitcoin block reward halves, so will the total revenue generated by all miners. If the hash rate, power consumption and power cost all stay the same as they were before, its likely that a mining operation will be unprofitable if the hardware hasnt been upgraded to remain competitive.

When getting into this space, its essential to keep emotions out of the equation. Its best to rely on the numbers and objectively analyze trends and key indicators to set oneself up for the best chance at success. This is certainly easier said than done in todays environment, as social media, family and friends have made it easier than ever to become influenced by outside sources. Still, it is important to understand that long-term trends are more indicative of where the market is headed than are random fluctuations.

Looking back at the last two halving events in 2012 and 2016, both led to new market highs for Bitcoins price within a year to a year and a half. No doubt that the upcoming halving will impact the market, and although we cant know for certain what will happen, if the demand for Bitcoin remains the same and scarcity is greater, the expected response would be to see the price increase. By how much, it is hard to say.

For those committed to the long-term play, good planning and investing in the latest hardware seems prudent. Going a bit further, for those who dont host their own mining equipment, analyzing hosting options and locking in competitive pricing now in a multi-year contract can help manage costs in the coming months.

The best piece of advice for miners: Assess your needs today and well in advance of the halving. As Benjamin Franklin once famously noted, If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Dave Perrill is the CEO at Compute North. A 25-year veteran of the IT and information security industry, Perrill has been keenly immersed in the cryptocurrency mining industry and blockchain technology since its formative days. He founded and subsequently sold two technology companies, including an Internet Service Provider/Managed Security Provider, SecureConnect, which was acquired by Trustwave Holdings in 2012. He also has extensive experience in networking, data center engineering, scaling large IT systems and security.

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Are Miners Prepared for the Halving of Bitcoin? - Cointelegraph

Binance went offline and dragged Bitcoin down – FXStreet

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance, suddenly went offline and spooked spot traders. The platform users reported on Twitter that they could not access their accounts and perform basic actions with their orders. The company confirmed the technical issues and explained that the platform had gone for temporary maintenance.

Binance is undergoing temporary system maintenance. Binance has suspended deposits, withdrawals, spot trading, margin trading, P2P trading, lending, redemption, as well as asset transfers from sub-accounts, margin accounts, futures accounts, and fiat wallets.

Notably, the issues affected only spot trading, while Binance Futures continued operating as usual. The CEO of the exchange Canhpeng Zhao (CZ) also commented on the downtime on Twitter, saying that the issues were related to message broker, while customers'funds were not affected.

System issue, not funds related. Funds are #SAFU.

While his transparency and readiness to keep the community updated are often cheered by the platform users, this time CZ received quite a lot of negative comments. People were disappointed by frequent technical issues as this is the second unscheduled maintenance in less than a month.

Meanwhile, BTC/USD retreated from $8,823 to $8,750 following the announcement. Despite the sell-off, the cryptocurrency is still moving within the recent channel with the lower boundary at $8,700, reinforced by SMA100 1-hour. If the downside pressure gains traction, a strong move below this barrier will expose the next support of $8,600.

On the upside, the short-term recovery is limited by $8,850 with SMA200 1-hour and the intraday high located just below this level. A sustainable move above this area will open up the way to $9,000.

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Binance went offline and dragged Bitcoin down - FXStreet

Bitcoin Price Analysis: BTC/USD Bullish Break and Correction – BitcoinerX

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

The 100 SMA is still below the 200 SMA to indicate that the path of least resistance is to the downside or that support is more likely to break than to hold. In that case, bitcoin could still dip lower to the 61.8% Fib or even fall back below the descending trend line.

Then again, the gap between the moving averages is narrowing to reflect weakening selling pressure and a potential bullish crossover. If so, bitcoin could gain traction on its climb and break above the dynamic resistance at the 200 SMA around $8,900.

RSI is on the move down to indicate that sellers are in control, but the oscillator is starting to turn higher from the center line to suggest that buyers might take over from here.

Bitcoin is regaining some ground as risk aversion extended its stay in the markets on account of coronavirus concerns. The focus is still on the spread of the outbreak outside of mainland China as this could mean more trade and travel restrictions, which would then be bearish for stocks and commodities in the long run.

Meanwhile, the dollar is also under downside pressure due to the Feds surprise interest rate cut intended to limit the economic impact of coronavirus. NFP data is due soon and downbeat results could reinforce expectations for more stimulus, which could be more bearish for the US currency.

Keep in mind that bitcoin is awaiting the halving of mining rewards that could potentially double the value of the cryptocurrency over the span of months or years.

Images courtesy of TradingView

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Bitcoin Price Analysis: BTC/USD Bullish Break and Correction - BitcoinerX

Bitcoin Drove Half of Square’s Cash App Revenue in the 4th Quarter – CoinDesk – Coindesk

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Very close to half the revenue on Square's Cash App in the fourth quarter came from bitcoin.

Jack Dorsey's payments company reported on bitcoin (BTC) profits as part of its fourth-quarter 2019 revenue results, in a shareholder letter released Wednesday. It reported bitcoin revenue of $178 million between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, with gross profits of $3 million, up 50 percent over the prior two quarters.

Non-bitcoin revenue on Cash App in the fourth quarter was $183 million.

The company reported a year-end profit of $8 million on $516 million in yearly bitcoin revenue.

On Wednesday's investor call, Dorsey said a Cash App redesign made it easier for new users to discover other services.

"The peer-to-peer transfers network continues to be our best acquisition channel," Dorsey said. "Those new to the app then go on to discover bitcoin" and other in-app products, he said.

Later in the call, Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja said once a Cash user starts using the app's bitcoin or Investing features, they tend to generate two-to-three times the revenue of regular users.

"We are able to efficiently acquire customers, keep them engaged and show them additional ways we can continue to add value," Ahuja said.

Square rolled out bitcoin services on its Cash App across the U.S. in the summer of 2018. It serves as the buyer and seller of bitcoin for its customers. In June 2019, it started allowing customers to deposit bitcoin into the app.

During the third quarter of 2018, Square yielded only $43 million in bitcoin revenue through its Cash App, making today's results indicate very strong growth in interest in the original cryptocurrency among the app's users.

Ultimately, Square spent $174.4 million bitcoin services in the fourth quarter, for a total of $508 million for 2019. That's compared to $164.8 million for 2018.

The Cash App as a whole drove $361 million in revenue in Q4. Square's total revenue for Q4 2019 was $1.31 billion. Square's profits for the year were $1.9 billion.

The company is projecting up to $715 million in transaction and bitcoin costs for Q1 2020.

Much of the bitcoin community has been watching to see what other contributions Square will make to the ecosystem. In January, the Square Crypto team announced it would focus on building out a software development kit to make it easier for applications to integrate bitcoin's lightning network.

Given Dorsey's involvement with Twitter, the crypto community has long anticipated some kind of integration between the site and bitcoin. So far, neither Dorsey nor Square has done anything to substantiate such hopes.

Still, analysts view the growth in Square's bitcoin business as positive. Square stock was up 6 percent after the earnings report was released.

"If Square succeeds in growing its bitcoin business across the globe, especially in areas where fiat currency is not easily and readily accepted by merchants, and in hyperinflationary countries, the company will have a major advantage over its payment processing competitors," Gartner analyst Avivah Litan told CoinDesk. "It will be able to grow its payment business among some of the fastest-growing and most promising economies of the world, located mainly in Africa."

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Bitcoin Drove Half of Square's Cash App Revenue in the 4th Quarter - CoinDesk - Coindesk

Bitcoin-powered Alternative to Five Peso Note Issued in Argentina – Cryptonews

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Source: iStock/Vitoria Holdings LLC

Argentina has phased out its popular five peso note but a cryptocurrency company has issued something of a digital replacement in the form of a commemorative coin with a value redeemable in bitcoin (BTC).

Per TyN Magazine, the five peso bill featured a portrait of the 19th-century historical figure Jos de San Martn, known as El Libertador of Argentina.

San Martn was a Spanish-Argentine general who led many South American nations including Argentina in their fight for independence from the Spanish Empire in the early 1800s.

The publics affection for San Martn is believed to be one of the reasons why many Argentines were so sad to see the five peso note (USD 0.08) go out of circulation on the last day of February.

But a company named Ripio says it has issued a commemorative coin that features a portrait of San Martn on the front, while on its inverse side is a QR code that, when activated, will allow its owner to access bitcoin funds.

The same media outlet quotes Sebastin Serrano, the CEO of Ripio, as equating San Martns view of freedom with the financial independence that bitcoin can offer.

The CEO stated,

Bitcoin is the first step towards a new economy, and a future that is more transparent, democratic and accessible than that offered by traditional financial services. This coin [] carries the legacy of San Martn to the economy of the future.

Meanwhile, also in Argentina, the provincial deputy of Mendoza Josefina Canale has won both support and criticism after proposing the launch of a local digital coin.

Watch the latest reports by Block TV.

Canale says that if the province were to launch its own digital token, it would allow Mendoza to assert more financial independence.

The politician took to Twitter to state that she was currently looking into proposals to launch a local version of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for Mendoza, and even allow residents to pay taxes in the token.

However, although many commenters voiced their support, a large number tweeted their objections, saying the project would likely hit too many legal hurdles.

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Bitcoin-powered Alternative to Five Peso Note Issued in Argentina - Cryptonews

Bitcoin and Altcoins Might Get Boost From India News – Cryptonews

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Today, the Supreme Court of India lifted the ban on cryptocurrencies trade imposed by the Reserve Bank of India. This is a positive signal and it could boost the market sentiment for bitcoin. However, in the past few hours bitcoin is still trading sideways. Also, at the moment (08:30 UTC), most major altcoins are consolidating below key breakout levels, including ethereum, XRP, litecoin, bitcoin cash, BNB, EOS, TRX, ADA, and XLM. ETH/USD must climb above the USD 230 and USD 235 resistance levels to start a strong increase. XRP/USD is showing positive signs above USD 0.232, but it must climb above USD 0.240 to start a decent increase in the near term.

Total market capitalization

In the past two days, bitcoin price made two attempts to gain traction above the USD 8,850 and USD 8,900 resistance levels, but it failed. BTC/USD is currently consolidating near USD 8,800 and it might attempt one more time to continue higher. A successful close above the USD 8,850 and USD 9,000 resistance levels could open the doors for a solid rally.If the price fails to rise above USD 9,000, it could start a fresh decline. An initial support is near the USD 8,650 level, below which there is a risk of a sharp drop below the USD 8,550 support area.

Ethereum price seems to be struggling near the USD 230 and USD 232 levels. Still, a close above the USD 230 resistance area is needed for a fresh increase. The next key hurdles on the upside are seen near the USD 245 and USD 250 levels.On the downside, the key support is near the USD 220 level, below which the bears are likely to test the USD 210 support.

Bitcoin cash price tested the USD 340 resistance level and it is currently correcting lower. BCH/USD is trading below USD 330, but it might find support near the USD 324 and USD 320 levels. On the upside, the main resistance levels are USD 340 and USD 350.Litecoin settled above the USD 60.00 pivot level and it is currently consolidating. On the upside, an initial resistance is near the USD 62.50 level, above which the price could rise towards the USD 64.50 and USD 65.50 levels. Conversely, a bearish break below the USD 58.50 support might start a major decline in the coming sessions.XRP price is trading in a positive zone above the USD 0.230 and USD 0.232 support levels. However, the bulls need to gain momentum above the USD 0.240 and USD 0.242 levels to lead the price towards the USD 0.250 resistance. On the downside, the main support is near USD 0.230, followed by USD 0.224.

In the past three sessions, many small-capitalization altcoins jumped more than 5%, including MATIC, HBAR, LINK, ICX, KMD, ALGO, MONA, ATOM, MANA, ABBC, STX, CHZ, and VET. Conversely, KNC, SNX, MKR, and SXP are down more than 5%.

Overall, the market sentiment is improving, but bitcoin still needs to settle above the USD 8,850 and USD 9,000 resistance levels to start a strong increase. If not, it could decline below the USD 8,650 and USD 8,550 support levels._____

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Bitcoin and Altcoins Might Get Boost From India News - Cryptonews

Is Bitcoin a Safe Haven or ‘Schmuck Insurance’? – CoinDesk – Coindesk

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Canada decides a CBDC is unnecessary while the Twitterati debate BTC as a safe haven and the six-year anniversary of Mt. Gox brings reflection.

Bitcoin (BTC) is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Many are using the dump - which from a timing perspective aligns with a broader market sell-off on coronavirus fears - as a way to diminish the bitcoin as a safe haven narrative.

In this episode, @nlw revisits that narrative and argues it is uncomfortably bunched up with the uncorrelated asset narrative, or, as Chamath Palihapitiya calls it, schmuck insurance.

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The Army Should Rid Itself of Symbols of Treason – War on the Rocks

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

I, _____, appointed a _____ in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States. Officers Oath, U.S. Army, 183062

Treasonagainst the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Constitution of the United States, Article III, Section 3

Gen. David Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps, just made news for forbidding the display of Confederate symbols on Marine installations. But the debate over the Confederate battle flag, images, statues, and other symbols has been raging for years. Cloaked in terms of history and heritage, the continued use of Confederate symbols has often ignored the nature of that heritage, which is grounded in secession, oppression, and war. Today, one of the continuing holdouts on this issue is the United States Army, which currently names ten Army posts after Confederate generals. Often upheld as monuments to military history, they are indeed that, but that history does not belong to the United States. That history belongs to the Confederate States of America, to slaveowners, oppressors, and oath-breakers. To memorialize Confederate generals is to uplift symbols of treason. It should go without saying that the U.S. Army has no business doing this.

After the Charleston church shooting in 2015, the Army again resisted renaming its bases. Brig. Gen. Malcolm Frost, the Armys director of public affairs, held the line: every Army installation is named for a soldier who holds a place in our military history. Under that logic, we could have posts named after Field Marshal Irwin Rommel, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, Gen. Iwane Matsui, Gen. Ernst Kaltenbrunner the former two being honorable opponents and the latter two being convicted war criminals. You cannot separate a soldier from the causes he or she served. The individual cannot be separated from cause or conduct.

The cast of characters selected for memorialization is a mixed bag of miscreants. Several were slaveowners. Seven, including Robert E. Lee, were oath-breakers, having graduated from West Point and taken an oath to the United States. These officers should be singled out for opprobrium, and not commemorated. They violated those most sacred oaths, given freely, in the service of a rebellion against the very military they had once pledged to serve honestly and faithfully. They did neither. Indeed, Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard fired the first shots of the Civil War, on the Union garrison of Fort Sumter.

That accusation of oath-breaking cannot be levied against the remaining three, but that is hardly absolution. Maj. Gen. John Brown Gordon had no military background, was a slaveowner from a slave-owning family, and remained anti-reconstruction until his death. Brig. Gen. Henry L. Benning was a virulently pro-secession and pro-slavery politician for more than a decade before the Civil War and for a decade after. Col. Edmund Rucker enforced a rebel draft order in pro-Union East Tennessee and maintained a long association with Nathan Bedford Forrest, tainting any Army legacy beyond redemption. Indeed, Rucker was never a part of the U.S. Army, and why he should be associated with an Army fort used for the training of aviators is unclear. All of these officers served an armed rebellion that resulted in the death of over 600,000 soldiers and 50,000 civilians and the devastation of wide swaths of countryside. These men did nothing to deserve lionization by todays Army, the descendent of the Union Army that fought valiantly, if imperfectly, against those who rose in revolt.

Despite claims that the war was less about slavery and more about states rights, that position is not supported by the evidence. The war was primarily about the southern states desire to keep people from a different race as property. The Declarations of Causes made by Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia, and South Carolina are replete with mentions of slavery (83 times), while thin mention is made of rights (16 times). Records of the proceedings which led to the Ordinances of Secession are clear: The key issue was the institution of slavery and the differential between the northern and southern states as a result of this reprehensible practice. In the words of Henry Lewis Benning himself, before the Virginia Convention in 1861:

What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. If things are allowed to go on as they are, it is certain that slavery is to be abolished. By the time the north shall have attained the power, the black race will be in a large majority, and then we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that? It is not a supposable case.

Pay tribute to the soldiers who fought in the U.S. Army and not against it. Its perverse that the Army has retained bases that honor rebels without a corresponding memorial to Union soldiers. Brig. Gen. William Bowen Campbell and Gen. George G. Meade still have their forts, but Maj. Gen. George B. McClellans was closed in 1999, Gen. Winfield Scotts was renamed and closed. Where is Fort Grant (abandoned in 1905) or Fort Chamberlain, or perhaps Fort Sherman? Gen. Ulysses S. Grant became president and led Reconstruction efforts for eight years. The erudite and eloquent Brig. Gen. Joshua Chamberlain earned a medal of honor at Little Round Top and later became governor of Maine. Gen. William T. Sherman? His results were unambiguous but his methods questionable. Still, we named a widely used medium tank after him surely that is worth consideration as a new name for Fort Benning home of the U.S. Armys Armor Center.

We need not limit ourselves to the Civil War or to general officers; a base named after Gen. and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower or Pvt. Rodger Young would both commemorate the best the Army had to offer.

Today, more than ever, Americans are more widely (although by no means universally) equating confederate symbols and attitudes with pervasive racism and oppression, which was not ended by the Civil War. Indeed, by retaining those symbols we are perpetuating the philosophies that were the very foundation of the Confederate States, and the very rationale for treason. Today every single individual in the U.S. Army who enlists or accepts a commission swears an oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States. To elevate those who rebelled against those United States to a status which obscures their perfidy or conceals their service to a government founded on oppression rather than freedom should be unacceptable for a military service. Treason it was, and treason most foul, and it is not too late to reconsider the historical influences that led the Army to retain base names that commemorate officers whose cause was despicable, conduct dishonorable, and legacy disgraceful. We should not retain such obvious symbols of treason.

Col. Mike Starbaby Pietrucha was an instructor electronic warfare officer in the F-4G Wild Weasel and the F-15E Strike Eagle, amassing 156 combat missions over 10 combat deployments. As an irregular warfare operations officer, Colonel Pietrucha has two additional combat deployments in the company of U.S. Army infantry, combat engineer, and military police units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is mere weeks from retirement.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force or the U.S. Government.

Image: Bowling Green Daily News (Photo by Miranda Pederson)

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The Army Should Rid Itself of Symbols of Treason - War on the Rocks

STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH GOVERNMENT REPRESSION IN 21ST CENTURY – Black Star News

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

The following is largely excerpted from author Ted Glick's book Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Lefts Resistance to the Vietnam War, coming out this June.

Since Trump took office three years ago at least 18 states have seen the introduction of legislation by right-wing climate deniers tied to the fossil fuel industry to criminalize organized protests against new gas or oil pipelines. Other movements have also experienced repressive action by local, state and federal governments.

It is an issue that we must take seriously.

My first years of progressive activism and organizing took place during the presidency of Richard Nixon, without doubt one of, if not the, most repressive Presidential administrations we have experienced in the US in the modern era. It was under Nixon that the Republican Party with its southern strategy began its move toward becoming the kind of regressive entity that allowed pathological liar, racist and sexual predator Donald Trump to be elected President in November of 2016.

During Nixons first term, from 1969 to 1973, he oversaw the use of government agencies to attempt to destroy groups like the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords and the American Indian Movement, including armed attacks by police leading to deaths. Newly-enacted conspiracy laws were used to indict leaders of the peace movement and other movements. An entirely illegal and clandestine apparatus was created to sabotage the campaigns of his political opponents in the Democratic Party, leading to the midnight break-in at the Watergate Hotel which eventually led to the exposure of this apparatus and Nixons forced resignation from office in 1974.

I personally experienced this repressive apparatus primarily via my inclusion as a defendant in the Harrisburg 8/7 case. I learned several things during those Nixon years about how to deal with government repression.

One critical lesson is the disparity between how the government deals with people of color, Black, Latinx, First Nation and Asian/Pacific Islander, compared with people of European descent, white people. The historical realities of military aggression, broken treaties, slavery, Jim Crow segregation, assumed white dominance and institutionalized racism continue to have their negative, discriminatory impacts.

Among these impacts is a willingness by some police to carelessly shoot and brutalize young black and other men of color for no justifiable reason, which has given rise to the deeply important Movement for Black Lives.

Another impact is the unequal treatment meted out within the legal system, from police to prosecutors to prison personnel, when it comes to people of color as compared to white people. For example, people of color arrested as part of a nonviolent civil disobedience action can be subject to stronger charges or additional hardship while in police custody or behind bars as compared to whites.

Those of us of European descent must be conscious of these realities and act accordingly, ready to speak up and challenge unequal, discriminatory or explicitly white supremacist words and actions wherever they happen. This is also our responsibility when it comes to discriminatory words and actions toward immigrants, LGBTQ people, women, or any other group.

Another lesson as far as dealing with government repression is not to let it paralyze or divide organizations or movements.

This is one of the objectives of unjust governments trying to repress those who challenge its policies and practices. The efforts to criminalize demonstrations against new fossil infrastructure, for example, are all about discouraging people from taking part. But if we intelligently speak out against the proposed legislation and accurately portray those supporting it as un-American, anti-democratic, pro-pollution and climate deniers, their efforts can end us strengthening our base of support.

Another method of repression is to send government infiltrators into our meetings who are trained to look for differences within a group or movement and make efforts to deepen and harden them. That is one of the reasons why we need to be about the development of a movement culture that is respectful and healthy. Within such a cultural environment, it is much harder for people trying to create divisions to succeed.

Its similar in regards to agent provocateurs, people who try to get others to engage in violent speech or action toward police or others representing government.

Anger against injustice and oppression is not just legitimate; it is a necessary component of successfully building a movement for real change. But anger needs to be used in a disciplined way. Those who are quick to call cops pigs or throw bricks or in other ways prone to display anger negatively are either government agents attempting to discredit the movement or are people who need an intervention. They need to be taken aside and spoken with in a direct, to-the-point and loving way about the counter-productiveness of what they are doing. Some will keep doing so, but some will change, if not right away over time.

We need to accept that government surveillance is a given if we are serious about challenging the oppressive system and fundamentally changing it, if we are about revolutionary change. We should be on the alert for such people. When legitimate suspicions are aroused, we should do research and, if it seems necessary, directly confront the person or persons in question.

There are other affirmative steps we can take to prevent government disruption of our actions. For example, if we are organizing a nonviolent direct action that includes the element of surprise, we need to take whatever steps are necessary for the action to happen, like encrypted email, use of secure forms of communication, and consciously limiting what is said or written about it beforehand to only what is absolutely necessary.

Ultimately, what I have learned is that government repression can have a disruptive impact on our work, for sure, but we can also turn a negative into a positive. To the extent to which we can creatively, intelligently and fearlessly expose the truth of what we are about as we respond to what they are doing to us, to that extent will we strengthen and build our movement.

Ted Glick is the author of the forthcoming Burglar for Peace and an activist, organizer, and writer since 1968. Past writings and other information can be found at https://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jtglick.

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STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH GOVERNMENT REPRESSION IN 21ST CENTURY - Black Star News

When Anti-Lynching Law Was a Tool of Oppression – History News Network (HNN)

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Recent news that the U.S. House of Representativesoverwhelmingly (if not unanimously) passedthe anti-lynching bill that advanced by passed the Senate last year has been greeted with some measure of relief. Many feel that finally, we can put to rest the era of legislative shame when southern Democrats scuttled any attempt to make mob violence a federal crime.

We cannot know for certain if such a law, implemented in the early twentieth century, would have saved lives. After all, the states where lynchings occurred had laws against murder, property damage, assaulting police officers, and other crimes that were often part of the total lynching event, but the will to enforce them was often lacking. Federal anti-lynching legislation might have only accelerated the transformation of lynching from a public spectacle into the quiet assassinations that became common following World War II. But the fact that Congress was unable to overcome regional intransigence and declare lynching an evil worth suppressing has been a cause for righteous indignation since the moment Leonidas C. Dyer introduced his first anti-lynching bill 102 years ago down.

Where the federal government failed, some states succeeded in passing their own anti-lynching measures. However, this does not mean that these states were particularly enlightened, or that these measures actually functioned to save lives. In fact, such measures often reflected a trend described by historian Michael J. Pfeifer inThe Roots of Rough Justice: Origins of American Lynching.According to Pfeifer,legislators across the nation reshaped the death penalty in the early twentieth century to make capital punishment more efficient and more racial, achieving a compromise between the observations of legal forms long emphasized by due process advocates and the lethal, ritualized retribution long sought by rough justice supporters. Perhaps the best example of this was ArkansassAct 258 of 1909.

Titled An Act to Prevent Mob Violence or Lynching within the State of Arkansas, Act 258 stipulated that, whenever the crime of rape, attempt to commit rape, murder or any other crime, calculated to arouse the passions of the people to an extent that the sheriff of the county believes that mob violence will be committed, the sheriff was required to notify the district or circuit judge in order to request a special term of court in order that the person or persons charged with such crime or crimes may be brought to immediate trial. Said judge, upon finding that the apprehensions and belief of the sheriff are well founded, was to arrange for an immediate trial set for no more than ten days from receipt of notice. However, there was no punishment for a sheriff or deputy who allowed a lynch mob to kidnap and murder someone in his charge, and neither was there any special punishment laid out for the members of said mob. The only thing this bill accomplished was to expedite a trialspecifically, regarding those crimes which, at the time, could warrant the death penaltywhile the spirit of mob violence was still in the air.

For example, following the arrest of three black men for the December 28, 1923, murder (and alleged rape) of a white woman named Effie Latimer in the Arkansas River bottoms near the Oklahoma state line, violence erupted against the black colony of Catcher, resulting in what has become called theCatcher Race Riot. Mobs threatened to lynch the three men and murdered the father of one of the men. Some burned down black homes, desecrated a black cemetery, and issued warnings that all black residents of Catcher should flee the area. While this violence was ongoing, the first murder trial was held, in accordance with Act 258, on January 4. The trial lasted exactly one day, and the jury deliberated about ten minutes before rendering a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death against defendant Charles Spurgeon Ruck. The next trial, that of William Son Bettis, occurred the following day and also resulted in a quick sentence of death. The third defendant, fourteen-year-old John Henry Clay, testified against the other two (possibly under duress) and received a life sentence of hard labor, though he died in prison four years later.

And thus we see how Arkansas used its ostensible anti-lynching law to transform the bad violence of the mob into the good violence of the state, to transform lynching into officially sanctioned execution. But the law was not even effective at preventing actual mob violence. In fact, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on May 24, 1909, less than two weeks after the bill had been signed, a mob lynched Lovett Davis despite the local circuit judge pleading with them and promising to order a special grand jury at once. Following the June 19, 1913,lynching of Will Normanin the Arkansas resort town of Hot Springs, the local circuit judge put out a statement insisting: A trial could have been had in 24 hours after the negro had been incarcerated in jail. It would have been a much better lesson had he been executed after a fair trial, not by self-appointed executioners who had neither legal nor moral right to take away his life. But those self-appointed executioners were never apprehended or prosecuted despite performing their deeds downtown in the full light of day.

In fact, lynchings increased in number following the passage of Act 258. While there were four lynchings recorded in Arkansas in 1909, the next year sawmore than twice that many. One could argue that, by reflecting what Ashraf H. A. Rushdy, inThe End of American Lynching, called the lynching for rape discourse, Act 258 served to justify the very violence it was designed to prevent. After all, it lists rape first in its list of crimes calculated to arouse the passions of the people, despite accusations or murder being employed far more often to justify lynching at the time. Because Act 258 essentially legitimized the states violence against African Americans, it also legitimized the mobs.

So while it is certainly all well and good to celebrate the present effort to implement, finally, a federal anti-lynching law, it would do us well to remember the success of state-level anti-lynching legislation. Such laws can serve as a warning to us about the ability of the state to reflect the spirit of the mob, even while touting the values of progress and civilization.

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When Anti-Lynching Law Was a Tool of Oppression - History News Network (HNN)

Govts bold steps bring down prices of essential items: Parvez Elahi – The Nation

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

LAHORE - Provincial Law Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja called on Acting Punjab Governor Ch Parvez Elahi at the Governors House here on Tuesday.

Both the leaders consulted Punjab Assemblys proposed 9th March session agenda and exchanged views about legislation.

Acting Governor Ch Parvez Elahi said that as a result of government measures prices of essential articles had started decreasing. In federation and Punjab the ally governments would take all possible measures for providing relief to the people, all opposition should help the government in peoples welfare projects.

He said the Muslims genocide in India and occupied Kashmir and oppression are condemnable and shameful, reaction of Iran and other countries of the world against Indian Governments measures is important. International community should stop Modi Government from committing atrocities on Muslims living in India and occupied Kashmir.

Ch Parvez Elahi further said that after Gujarat, Narendra Modi was writing new history of oppression in Delhi, Pakistan Government is fully exposing Indian atrocities and international community should also take notice of the Indian atrocities in occupied Kashmir.

Provincial Law Minister Raja Basharat also consulted Ch Parvez Elahi over discussion in the House about Orange Line fare. He said that during the session, all parties input would be welcomed about Orange Line fare and heard all political parties suggestions with open heart.

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Govts bold steps bring down prices of essential items: Parvez Elahi - The Nation

What is behind Israel’s warming ties to Sudan? – +972 Magazine

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

A meeting last month between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the interim leader of Sudan, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, caused widespread uproar over the perceived normalization of ties between the two countries.

Both men are in a complicated position: Netanyahu is entangled in legal affairs and leading a third election campaign this year, while al-Burhan a military ruler and head of Sudans sovereign council is struggling to distance himself from the regime of Omar al-Bashir, whose 30-year tyrannical reign came to an end last April. Al-Burhan and some of his peers in the transitional institutions were key figures under al-Bashirs rule who participated in his violent oppression of Sudans marginalized groups, and of political dissidents across the country.

Netanyahu and al-Burhan were representing two countries whose historical relations are fraught with tension and hostility, as well as secret collaborations and rapprochement efforts.

Israel has for decades considered Sudan an enemy state, while at the same time seeing it as a potential target in the alliance of the periphery a policy by which Israel strove in its early decades to find partners among Middle Eastern and African countries, mainly out of narrow political and security-led interests. In the 1950s, on the eve of Sudans independence, Israel and the Sudanese Umma party made mutual attempts to create an alliance in order to curb Egypts influence in Sudan and the Middle East.

From the mid-1960s, the Israeli government closed off the route to Khartoum amid Sudans shaky political situation, while simultaneously supporting South Sudanese liberation movements. These groups were rebelling against their political exclusion and the Sudanese governments violent control over the south of the country; in time, their ongoing struggle devolved into civil war.

Sudanese soldiers seen patrolling the streets of Juba, the capital of South Sudan. South Sudan became an independent state on July 09, 2011, and soon thereafter also a UN member state. August 20, 2011. (Moshe Shai/FLASH90)

During the same period, the regime in Khartoum increasingly identified itself with political Islam, developing warm ties with Iran after the 1979 revolution and with movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Against this backdrop, Israel has led several air strikes in Sudan in recent years, aimed at thwarting ammunition production and shipments to the Gaza Strip.

Over the past decade, Sudan has been viewed in Israel as the origin country of thousands of asylum seekers, most of whom are from the marginalized groups and regions in conflict with the Khartoum regime. These people, alongside other African refugee groups, have become a political tool and a burning issue among the Israeli public.

Common xenophobic arguments about jobs, crimes, and the so-called globalist left are used in conjunction with a uniquely Israeli anti-immigrant argument: that being non-Jewish, these immigrants are a risk to the Jewish demographic majority. And although Sudans image as a violent dictatorship was reinforced among Israelis, it did not always translate into greater tolerance of Sudanese asylum seekers.

Meanwhile, Israel has gained a significant place in the Sudanese mindset. In 1948, 1967, and 1973, Sudanese soldiers were sent to assist the Egyptian army in its wars against Israel. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Khartoum hosted a conference of Arab states that ruled against peace with Israel, against recognizing the country, and against negotiations. This agenda aligned with that of General Jaafar al-Nimeiri, who came to power in a military coup about two years later and who increasingly reinforced Sudans Arab identity and, eventually, its Muslim identity as well.

Nonetheless, al-Nimeiri collaborated with Israeli officials in the 1980s and allowed Ethiopian Jews to immigrate through Sudan under Operation Moses in late 1984, as part of his efforts to strengthen Sudans ties with the United States. This gesture was actually an attempt by al-Nimeiri to ensure his political survival; but while it brought him some financial benefits, it eventually contributed to the downfall of his regime.

Asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea wait in line to enter the Ministry of Interior in the city of Bnei Brak, in order to renew their temporary visas or submit their asylum requests, in the early morning hours of February 4, 2018. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

The legacy of colonial rule in Sudan, and its conditions at independence a vast, ethnically- and culturally-diverse territory sparked a war of visions over whether the country would be Arab or African, Muslim or multi-religious and multicultural. As this contest deteriorated into civil war, the southern independence cause relied primarily on regional and global Christian support, as well as on Israeli backing.

Successive Sudanese governments, meanwhile, have embraced a strong Arab-Muslim identity, gaining legitimacy as Africans in the Arab world through, among other things, propaganda against Israel regarding its oppression of Palestinians. This propaganda, especially during the al-Bashir era, was supplemented and reinforced by the influence of Arab media outside the country, and helped implant Israel into the Sudanese public consciousness.

Accordingly, for certain groups of dissident Sudanese, a change in hostile attitudes toward Israel and Jews went hand-in-hand with expressing general opposition to the regime. Urban liberals, supporters of secularism or reformist Islam, activists from the peripheries at odds with the regime, and immigrants and refugees abroad, among others, began to take an interest in Israel as a complex, multi-narrative country, beyond a singular Zionist entity. For some, this was manifested by making contact with Israelis to learn various narratives about the state and its inhabitants, and even to learn Hebrew.

At the same time, a sense of nostalgia emerged for Sudans former small Jewish community, which gradually left the country following independence. Today, a spectrum of attitudes toward cooperation with Israel can be found among Sudanese liberals in the country and in the diaspora. These include groups heavily influenced by growing pro-Israeli propaganda efforts (including in Arabic), to staunch opponents who condemn Israel for systematically violating the human rights of Palestinians.

Sudan is currently facing a challenging transitional period. The people who took to the streets en masse to overthrow the al-Bashir regime, and those who supported the revolution from the diaspora, are filled with hope and anxiety over the transitional institutions prospects of bringing political, security, and economic stability, and even democratic rule, to Sudan.

Omar al-Bashir, former president of Sudan, listens to a speech during the opening of the 20th session of The New Partnership for Africas Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Jan. 31, 2009. (US Navy photo by Jesse B. Awalt)

In these conditions, Israel is offering Sudan a possible lifeline from a much-feared economic disaster. The meeting between Netanyahu and al-Burhan was the most publicized move to date between the two countries leaders, due to its suggestion of a rapprochement.

However, it is worth noting that during the final years of his rule, and like al-Nimeiri before him, al-Bashir had similarly viewed engagement with Israel as a channel for warming up ties with the U.S., even as his anti-normalization rhetoric continued.

This has to do with Sudans entanglement in the coalition of Arab Gulf countries and Egypt vis--vis countries like Iran and Qatar. This is expressed in part by Sudans dispatching of tens of thousands of soldiers including children to Yemen in recent years to fight against Iran in a coalitional proxy warbetween the Islamic Republic and Saudi Arabia.

Israel shares the latters anti-Iran stance, and has therefore provided Sudan with some lobby support in Washington, resulting in the U.S. lifting most of its economic and trade sanctions on Sudan in October 2017. Yet Sudan remains on the United States list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Among other sanctions, this makes it difficult for Sudan to obtain aid budgets, which are considered essential by the authorities for the success of the transitional period.

While many Sudanese see the warming of relations with Israel as an opportunity for economic survival, others highlight the problem of the country succumbing to the economic and political interests of influential Arab neighbors, Israel, and the U.S., especially while it is stuck in financial distress and at a diplomatic disadvantage.

Given the sensitive regional situation stirred by Donald Trumps so-called Deal of the Century, as well as Sudans intricate domestic dynamics, resistance to normalization is based not merely on religious sentiments or a sense of Arab nationalism, but also on pragmatic considerations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a conference on Israeli-African relations, organized by Likud parliament member Avraham Negusie, at the Israeli parliament on February 29, 2016. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

For one, Netanyahu met with Sudans military ruler but not with the head of the civil cabinet, Dr. Abdalla Hamdok, an apparent exclusion that has caused a great stir. The meeting thus illuminated the numerous difficulties in post-Bashir Sudan, including uncertainty over who is in charge the military or civilians and where Sudans interim leaders are taking the country at such a fragile moment.

Despite the clear opposition in some circles to normalization with Israel, foreign powers interests may yet compel Sudan to continue down this road. In the process, however, Sudanese asylum seekers in Israel could become a human, cultural, and social bridge, which also has business and economic potential. This group has both the knowledge and the skills to disperse preconceptions about Sudan, and to provide a more informed context to the discourse on normalization.

Still, despite a degree of integration and coexistence, the fact remains that the reality of life for asylum seekers in Israel has been defined by the countrys racism toward non-Jews in general, and African communities in particular. Unsurprisingly, there has been speculation regarding the potential deportation of Sudanese asylum seekers in Israel back to Sudan under the auspices of normalization between the two countries.

This issue serves as a reminder for the Israeli government that Sudans rulers do not represent the whole country, and that it is more than just a strategic asset. It remains to be seen how Israel will treat the citizens of the country it wishes to partner with, when those citizens are within its own borders.

A version of this article was first published in the Forum for Regional Thinking (in Hebrew). Read it here.

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What is behind Israel's warming ties to Sudan? - +972 Magazine

Exploring the New Age of Neorealism on Film – /FILM

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

(Welcome toThe Soapbox, the space where we get loud, feisty, political, and opinionated about anything and everything.)

Its difficult to place into words the impact Italian Neorealism has personally had on me. The genre speaks to me on a visceral level. The old Italian films, born out of desperation, still hold up against the blockbusters of today. In an age where authoritarianism is making a comeback, we are witnessing a subconscious reemergence of the formerly communist left-supported Italian Neorealism movement. A genre reboot, so-to-speak, passionately defiant of the Donald Trumps, the Boris Johnsons, the Kim Jong-Uns, the Rodrigo Dutertes, paralleling the recent wave of democratic socialism and a greater societal readiness to accept left politics.

In order to contextualize the circumstances surrounding its reemergence, one must revisit the circumstances out of which Italian Neorealism was born. By drawing modern parallels to classics of the genre with recent films such as Roma, The Florida Project, Tangerine, Support the Girls, Cold War, American Honey, and Winters Bone, the sociopolitical and stylistic similarities between Italian Neorealisms reboot and its cinematic predecessor succinctly emerge.

In the early 1940s, the emergence of Italian cinema essentially represented the complete opposite of the glamorous dramatizations of American cinema in the form of Italian Neorealism. Italian citizens lived in fear under Benito Mussolinis oppressive, fascist regime during World War II. Italy was a stomping ground during Hitlers Third Reich. While American films became more propagated on escapism in the 1940s, Italian cinema carried the tradition of the Lumire Brothers actualits. Italian filmmakers that emerged during the war and post-war were not profit-driven, but rather, emerged from a humanist necessity to expose the harsh truths around them. The Italian Neorealism genre lasted until the early 1950s. Since its themes were specifically related to war-torn, poverty stricken Italy and the ill-effects of an authoritarian-leaning government during WWII, the genre dissolved after the war.

Italian Neorealism is regarded as the beginning of the Golden Era of Italian cinema. The film genre was inspired by the Verismo (literally translating to realism) literary movement a generation prior in the late 1800s and early 1900s, legitimatized by Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana. Capuanas manifesto, Giacinta, is widely regarded as the fundamental structural integrity of the Neorealist movement. Other prominent voices of the Verismo movement included Federico de Roberto (I Vicer, a novelistic docudrama exploring the blind pursuance of power at the expense of a just and equal society), Salvatore di Giacomo, and Grazia Deledda. Verismo would experience a literary revival during WWII, the prolific voice of which was novelist Italo Calvino (Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, The Path to the Nest of Spiders, 1947).

Taking after its literary predecessors, Italian Neorealism was a grassroots, guerrilla cinematic movement that sought to place its censored audiences as flies on the walls of uncompromisingly unfiltered situations that accurately reflected the unpalatable truths that its various artistic contributors observed around them. It was founded by a close band of comrades that consisted primarily of film critics, the leader of which was Luchino Visconti, a gay communist who was said to have smoked upwards of 120 cigarettes on a given day. Visconti and his posse of writers and filmmakers began expressing their malcontent with society in the publication Cinema, whose editor-in-chief was none other than Vittorio Mussolini, son of Benito Mussolini.

In anyauthoritarian regime, it is common for the government to oppress the media (Trumps repeated attacks on the media and accusations of fake news are eerily reflective of WWII fascism). After these artists were censored (reminiscent of the DoDs Philip Strubs extensive censorship in film regarding any critique about the U.S. government and its institutions in modern U.S. history), they looked to film to give their honest observations a deeper impact. In order to accomplish this unadulterated window into the jarring realities around them, Neorealist filmmakers would often hire untrained, nonprofessional actors (off the street, working in the same vocations as the characters in their script) in secondary, sometimes leading roles, make it a point to never use sets (owning the concept after their film production studio was accidentally bombed by the Allies), instead using real settings with real people to further the actualits effect, and receive funding by the Communist Party (the political left), making them a potential threat to American values, particularly when these these films didnt portray communism in a negative light.

Viscontis most essential Neorealist film was 1948s La terra trema (The Earth Trembles). The films sociopolitical commentary about the negative impact of aggressive consumerism on the working class fishermen in Sicilia earned it the International Award at the La Biennale di Venezia (Venice International Film Festival). La terra tremas nonprofessional cast of genuine Pescatori Siciliani (Sicilian fishermen), struggling to support their families as the wholesale fishing industry emerges, is a snapshot of unlivable wages and living conditions with an underlying theme of the importance of collective action in addressing socioeconomic ills. Visconti, like many prominent artistic figures in Neorealism, was willing to suffer in order to spread his truth to the masses, even pawning both his mothers jewelry and his home in Rome to complete funding for the remainder of the film, barely finishing the final cut in time. The fascists wouldnt let Visconti write a film about impoverished people at odds against a fascists state to begin with, but he did it anyways, they banned it, then tried to destroy the film. However, Visconti, kept a duplicate negative. Its because of his brave efforts to stand up against the violent suppression of media and press that we have this seminal piece of film history safely archived.

Both Andrea Arnolds American Honey and La terra trema address what can occur when an abandoned part of society is ignored, largely due to the fact that they either refuse to subscribe to or cant viably keep up with the competition that a rapidly changing economy surrounding them demands in each respective time period. The impoverished children find a home as traveling magazine salespeople, not working for anyone but themselves. One gets the notion that they dont have the economic means to obtain a job that would require a more traditional life. Similarly, the Sicilian fishing community, as much of a family as the group of abandoned young salespeople, are pit against each other by a new form of competition as capitalism infiltrates their lives; both films are reflective of a societal shift in each, respective time period. Much like La terra trema, American Honey features a non-actor, in this case, Sasha Lane (now a prolific film presence with an abundance of natural acting talent), in a leading role.

Many historians, film critics, and filmmakers alike consider Viscontis 1943 film, Ossessione (Obsession), the first film adaption of James M. Cains novel The Postman Always RingsTwiceto be the first Neorealism film. However, I consider Roberto Rossellinis Roma citt aperta (Rome Open City) to be the first fully-realized vision of the genre. Rossellini is endearingly regarded as the father of Italian cinema. His film won the Cannes Grand Prize, and his mentee, Federico Fellini, was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 19th Academy Awards; Roma citt aperta introduced Italian Neorealism to world. It wasnt what audiences were used to seeing in Hollywood: visceral scenes of torture, perverse abuse of authority, shocking violence, and an uncompromising execution scene to underscore the brutality of Nazi-occupied Rome. In Roma citt aperta, Nazi-occupied Rome is countered by the communist-led partigiani (partisans, the hardcore anti-fascist resistance), but the SS uses a Catholic priest and partigianos faith to attempt to turn the resistance against each other. Martin Scorsese refers to it as the most precious moment in film history.

Both films actively reject the artistic Socialist realism that dominated the Soviet Union for half a century. Socialist realism is a form of propagandistic art passed as realism that lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall, prevalent in the Soviet Union and beyond after World War II. Socialist realism is characterized by the idealized portrayal of communist values in artistic expression, particularly the working class commons as willful heroes for the cause. Instead, these depict them as political prisoners, punished for fighting for the cause. Its a reminder that doing the right thing in the midst of oppression doesnt always mean following the direction of the complicit populace. As in Roma citt aperta, Pawe? Pawlikowskis Cold War doesnt shy away from depicting a time periods positive and negative aspects through honest observation, similarly ending on a somber note.

Taking advantage of his newfound acclaim, Rossellini followed Roma citt aperta with Pais (Paisan) in 1946, for which he and Fellini were nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Oscar at the 22nd Academy Awards. Rossellini and Fellinis Maestro e Studente relationship flourished during these two collaborations. Pais features a series of six vignettes covering the Allied invasion of Italy, spanning July 1943 in Sicilia to winter 1944 in Venezia, geographically covering most of Italy. In the fourth vignette, theres a leader of the partigiani named Lupo, partly whom I named my dog after. Pais shows the unflattering side of the American military mindset. Rossellini wasnt trying to be ungrateful for Americans trying to fight the Nazis, but rather, he was merely exposing what he saw, the behavior, and the amoral recklessness war can devolve into.

El Halconazo, or The Corpus Christi Massacre, is featured in true Verismo fashion in Alfonso Cuarns Roma. Similarly, Pais features a scene in Episode 6 where two partigiani are executed instead of being taken in as POWs, as they are not protected under the Geneva Convention due to their rogue status, despite working with the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. Both films analyze the absurdity of not being accepted in ones own country for standing against oppression. Roma stars non-actor Yalitza Aparicio, who went from preschool teacher to Oscar nominee in less than a year.

In Stromboli, terra Dio, released in 1950, a Lithuanian immigrant (Ingrid Bergman) is freed from an Italian internment camp by marrying an Italian ex-POW and fisherman (another display of working class characters), only to enter an abusive relationship within a community that ostracizes her. Although featuring a decidedly more famous actor to play his lead (rumors of extramarital affairs aside), Rossellini uses both documentary clips and actual footage of the town evacuating during the island of Strombolis volcanic eruption, accentuating the films climax. It marked his final purely Neorealist directorial effort.

In Stromboli, Bergmans Karin escapes an abusive marriage, with the volcanic eruption symbolizing both the courage and release of emotion that her decision begets. Tangerines plot is not dissimilar in that the main character Sin-Dee Rella (untrained actor Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), endures an abusive pimp/boyfriend relationship. Written, edited, and directed by Sean Baker on three iPhone 5s phones, featuring non actors, it is one of the most stylistically married films to the Italian Neorealism movement. The film was lauded for its accurate depiction of the unsettling epidemic of transphobia throughout the U.S.

Sciusci (Shoeshine), released in 1946, is a simple film about the messy, anarchic, merciless nature of reality and circumstance. Receiving an Honorary Academy Award, an early iteration of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the Academy Awards, it depicts a group of impoverished young, male shoeshiners that is forced into crime to make ends meet. It offered the world a preview of Vittorio De Sicas singular eye for portraying working class realism.

Two slices of life. One about children struggling to navigate the social stratosphere of an economically wounded Italy. The other about the everyday trials and tribulations of working class woman struggling to stay afloat, dealing with abuse and ignorance amidst an economy that has systematically reduced itself to transactional interactions within the service industry. One about young boys. The other about grown women. Both about societies detached from the citizens who appear to need their support the most. Directed by Andrew Bujalski, Support the Girls is an expos that provides an uncompromising glance into an oppressive workplace in which its abused employees dont have basic union rights. De Sica and Bujalski are interested in displaying the lengths people will go to in order to break free of the confines of corrupt capitalism.

Perhaps the most famous Italian Neorealist film is De Sicas Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves), also released in 1948. The film received the Honorary Academy Award at the 22nd Academy Awards. Cesare Zavattini narrowly missed winning the Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay, and won Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs. Ranked 95 on IMDbs list of the 250 best films of all time, Ladri di biciclette tells the story of a bicycle delivery man and his son on a quest to find his stolen bicycle. The simplistic story explored complex issues of classism and the uneven distribution of wealth between the upper and working class in the post-WWII era. Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola as the father and relinquish, arguably, the most memorable performances of the Neorealist movement.

Jennifer Lawrence, an untrained actor at the time of her casting in Debra Graniks Winters Bone, portrays Ree, a 17-year-old girl and the matriarch of her family, rounded out by her mentally ill mother, and significantly younger siblings whom she raises, all while attempting to financially make ends meet against the shady, remote backdrop of the meth-stricken, poverty-ridden, crime-riddled Ozarks. In order to survive, Ree will endure anything to prove her fathers death so as to avoid forfeiting her house to pay for his bail bond. No matter how grizzly circumstances get, she tries her hardest to maintain her siblings dwindling innocence. Similarly, the father in Ladri di biciclette needs his bike, his only means of obtaining a steady income, to provide for his family, all while attempting to preserve a faade of normalcy for his child.

Giuseppe de Santis, one of Viscontis former Cinema comrades who had graduated to directing since lending a helping hand in adapting Cains novel for his mentors Ossessione, crafted one of the final Italian Neorealist films with Roma, ore 11 (Rome 11:00) in 1952, shedding light on the lack of public programs, jobs for women, and the social unrest of the working class in post-war Italy.

Both films are about the decay of a society at a specific time during its reincarnating life cycle. Unemployment, the elusiveness of the American Dream, the lack of social programs for the underprivileged, societys willingness to turn a blind eye on its own; they are capitalism beginning and ending stories. One is a warning. The other is a reflection of the damage already inflicted after said warning. Also directed by Sean Baker, The Florida Project stars non-actor Bria Vinaite in a leading role.

The parallels through some of the aforementioned socially conscious modern examples, which observe the chaotic, contentious, divisive state in which our society has been suffocating over the past two decades since 9/11, may seem obvious. The commonality throughout the Neorealism films and their reboots is that they both center on the struggling proletariat. Many films in the industry are still funded by what Trump and the GOP like to call the Hollywood Left, (this traces back to a clash between extremist evangelicals and the successful Jewish entrepreneurs who ran most of the major films studios in the 1920s; it was a battle of which religion could transmit their ideals to the masses through a new medium, a mode of thinking that mostly the evangelical leaders partook in the evangelicals won by obtaining the monopoly on film censorship via the MPAA and beyond) which might as well be code for the DNC (which doesnt indeed provide any funding for the arts) in their minds. In reality, he thinks every major studio, by default, is liberal.

If the Hollywood of today were truly apples to apples, if you will, in comparison to Italian Neorealism during WWII and post-war Italy, then the films in theaters that the American people frequent would be funded predominantly by a Democratic Socialist Party or another left political entity/entities. In reality, Trump simply detests any film that aims to critique him or his base (his backlash on The Hunt being a prime example).

In the 1990s, the French New Wave cinematic movement echoed that of Italian Neorealisms, stylistically and thematically, as well as that of the American independent filmmaking movement, revived in the 1990s by Richard Linklater and Kevin Smith, and continued by Jim Jarmusch (who flirted with Neorealism in Down by Law in 1986). Through their narrative structure and marked pacing, Linklaters Slacker and the Before Trilogy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight), Smiths Clerks and Mallrats, and Jarmuschs Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai are important additions to the first American revival of, for lack of a better term, in the context of the reboot today, faux-Italian Neorealism.

However, it is important to note that the sociopolitical landscape out of which this Americanized version of Neorealism was built was considerably different than that of Italian Neorealisms.. Italian Neorealism was far more politically motivated, whereas Linklater and Smiths work, especially, highlighted the vapid, existential dread that characterized 1990s America suburbia.

Italian Neorealism was based upon a mindset of political and class awareness. Contrarily, the American Neorealist iterations over the past 30 years carry a collective mindset of introspection and a more selfish focus on personal fulfillment; that is until the past decade following heightened global socioeconomic turmoil. Italian filmmakers had to battle poverty, censorship, and an authoritarian regime, fueling the liberal communist support shared by Italian filmmakers over the next several decades. American filmmakers in the 1990s had the luxury of living among the suburban middle-class in a society obsessed with consumerism, where they had the privilege to choose their own subject. It is also important that these movements did not use non-professional actors in majors rolls, if any, because of the need for ROI in the age of consumerism (something that didnt exist under Italian Neorealisms conditions), and did use formal film sets.

It has to take a specific set of circumstances for a genre like this to have to be born again. And although it could never identically be replicated throughout its recurring historical reiterations, it has never so distinctly returned so thematically and stylistically close to its genre roots than in the past decade. And despite its short-lived presence in film history, because of the fact that real-life history is doomed to repeat itself, it remains the single most influential film genre in the history of cinema.

After 9/11, the brief, American faux-Neorealist revitalization in the 1990s eroded. That inward expression appeared obsolete in the context of such a drastic change across our country and its values. However, during the past decade, the Italian Neorealism movement has resurfaced again on an international stage, this time more authentically and true to form. The examples set forth in the beginning of this piece not only embrace the thematic elements of the Italian Neorealism movement, but they begin to use some of the technical characteristics of the genre as well such as non-professional actors, minimal to non-existent sets, and the very fact that they were born out of a desperation to observe and express themselves in order to incite change. A necessary, positive change in the face of direness. For many filmmakers like Cuarn, this direness seems more severe than others. If providing nothing else but new unadulterated windows into the illaffects of a new oppressive government taking after those of old, these latest films express a plea for compassion in a time where commodity takes precedence over compassion.

Indeed, we are presently seeing the genre rebooted with shades of the genre traits of old, but also with new characteristics to reflect the particular circumstances in which our society currently finds itself. The new wave of leftism in the form of democratic socialism undoubtedly parallels the subject matter explored throughout this impassioned reboot. Sure, these filmmakers align with the liberal left, and although they may not be leftists, per se, the themes and issues they choose to cover range from democratic socialist to Marxist-Leninist. Other, less politically-immediate but wholly stylistically connected films tied to the reboot include The Lighthouse, Paterson, The Rider, Eighth Grade, Sword of Trust, Moonlight, and If Beale Street Could Talk (although it could be argued that the latter two deserve to be more fully embraced as Neorealism reboot role models).

Even for people on the right side of the political spectrum who dont buy that Trump aspires to be a dictator, any logical human being can connect the glaring dots of similarities between the conditions we are seeing today in the supposed land of the free in 2019 and those of Nazi- occupied fascist Italy during WWII: Mexican human beings in concentration camps, inhumane border patrol, the increasing presence of a militant police state willfully ignorant toward minorities and regard for law, foreign government collusion, overt racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other forms of human prejudice, election fraud, deep state censorship and political and artistic suppression, systematic oppression of the freedom of press, the rising threat of war, the imminent eventuality of climate change. It appears that the sociopolitical context of today has fundamentally changed, leaving little room for Linklater, Smith, and Jarmuschs classic, acclaimed, but now-untimely obsolete meditations of existential middle-class banality and the miasma of mumblecore films that they inspired. Boredom has turned into a palpable social unrest. A call to action. And we can expect more from this immortal cinematic style until structural societal changes are put into place.

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Exploring the New Age of Neorealism on Film - /FILM

Day of Absence gets a rare revival with Congo Square – Chicago Reader

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Danzig

Day of Absence is a show with one joke and two audiences. The joke is revealed in the title: one day, all the people of color disappear from a Southern town. This provides an occasion for some rather gentle satire of white people's helplessness and cluelessness once they lose their entire heretofore invisible support structure. For a Black audience, at least the audience at the Congo Square Theatre Company's press opening of the show, the predictable jokeswhite people don't know how to comfort their own babies; white people can't drive themselves or throw out their own garbage; white people are confounded by an African American woman's having short hair today and long hair tomorroware riotous. It must be pleasant to see people who've ridiculed you be ridiculed in turn; but "pleasant" is not the same as "funny."

The second audience is white people, for whom the show is intended as a mirror into our own ugliness. White audience members are supposed to be made uncomfortable. Perhaps at its debut in 1965, the show performed its function; but for a reasonably liberal audience in Chicago 55 years later, it's too easy to dismiss the portraits of white people as well-deserved comeuppance for those other white peoplethe ones named Clem, with southern accents and MAGA hatsand remain comfortably sure that we are the exception. The play just isn't harsh enough to evoke anything else.

There's another layer of joke beyond the central conceit: every white character (that's all but one in the play) is played by a person of color in whiteface; author Douglas Turner Ward called Day of Absence "a reverse minstrel-show." But whiteface fails as commentary on the disgrace of blackface: the latter is insulting, and intended to be, a joke played on people who couldn't defend themselves. This was a point still struggling to be heard in 1965, even after Ralph Ellison's pivotal 1958 essay "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke" condemned blackface; so the use of whiteface at that time was clever, and even slightly subtle. Today, though, we recognize blackface as a punch in the nose, while whiteface is just makeup. To the extent that it comments on white people at all, it's a joke played on people who have no need for defense.

The idea of a day of absence remains vibrant. Women in Mexico are currently organizing one to highlight the government's indifference to violence against women, and it was an annual event for many years at Evergreen State College in Washington, where students of color stayed off campus to discuss issues of equity and inclusion. The tradition came to an end in 2017 when it finally succeeded in its purpose of making white people uncomfortable: the nonwhite organizers announced that to observe the day that year, whites would be excluded from campus. In protesting this decision, one faculty member wrote, "There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles . . . and a group encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness, which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself." The professor did not address what should happen when the "forceful call to consciousness" loses its force.

All the actors, under the direction of Anthony Irons, do a fine job with the agitprop script, which includes significant updatingreferences to "POCs," pronounced "pox," and allusions to Latinos, including jokes about ICE. I would have preferred if Ann Joseph, as the Mayor, had varied her delivery more: when you start out yelling, there's really no place to go but louder. But her speech to the absenteesincluding an embarrassing anecdote about her "Mam-nanny"is a tour de force. And when the white people have a complete meltdown and start picketing, there are two sides to every sign: "Come back and we'll stop" [reverse] "AND FRISK." Kudos to Sydney Lynne Thomas for her scenic and property design.

But Day of Absence, at least in this iteration, is less a condemnation of racism than a historical artifact. I'm glad to have seen it, but it hasn't changed the way I look at the worldand I know it was supposed to.v

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Day of Absence gets a rare revival with Congo Square - Chicago Reader

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