Daily Archives: April 24, 2020

The National Ummah Party of Sudan announced on Wednesday that it is freezing its activities within the Forces for Freedom and Change coalition, Anadolu has reported. The party, which is led by Sadiq Al-Mahdi, is calling for a conference of the revolutionary forces to reform their structures during the transitional period in the country.

The coalition was established in January 2019, and led popular protests that forced the army to remove Omar Al-Bashir from power on 11 April last year after 30 years as President.

Major flaws have been noticed in the performance of the transitional government in Sudan, the National Ummah Party explained, including the disruption of the positions of political leaders of the Forces of Freedom and Change, a disagreement concerning the powers of the transitional institutions and the non-respect of the constitutional document, on which all the arrangements for the transition period are based.

Sudan: Restoration of land, property from Al-Bashir regime figures

The Forces of Freedom and Change launched negotiations with the interim ruling military council after Al-Bashir was ousted until the two parties signed the constitutional document for the transitional period.

We call for a founding conference of the revolutionary forces from all the signatories of the Declaration of Freedom and Change inside and outside the structures of the coalition to study and adopt the new social contract toward reforming the structures of the transitional period, added the party. If our allies respond to this request, within two weeks, we will meet at the founding conference to agree on the desired radical reforms.

The National Ummah Party is one of the most prominent within the Nidaa Al-Sudan Coalition, which is affiliated with the Forces of Freedom and Change, and includes a group of professionals, National Consensus and Trade Union Federations as well as other civil society groups.

On 21 August 2019, Sudan began a 39-month transitional period that is due to end with elections. During this period, the army and the Forces of Freedom and Change are sharing power.

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Sudan: National Ummah Party freezes activities within 'Freedom for Change' - Middle East Monitor

Matt Joski, Special to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin Published 5:14 p.m. CT April 20, 2020

I have been asked to share my thoughts on the recent extension of the safer-at-home orders put out by Gov. Tony Evers and how these orders impact my role as Kewaunee Countys elected sheriff.

I begin by stating that I take my oath of office very seriously, and I fully appreciate the faith that this community has placed in my abilities and judgment over the past 13 years assheriff. There has never been a moment that I would hesitate to stand up for the freedoms and liberty of each and every person in this county regardless of their age, race, gender or religious beliefs.

The word "freedom" has been used quite a bit in recent conversations, and rightfully so.

As Americans, we cherish our freedoms, we fight for those freedoms and many have died for those freedoms. Our entire structure of government is predicated on the rights and freedoms of the individual to make their own decisions and thereby forge their own destiny. The framers of our Constitution knew full well the value of freedom and liberty and took every opportunity to minimize any possible encroachment upon its citizens' rights by this or any other government.

Unfortunately, over the years the word "freedom" has been used to justify behavior which by any reasonable persons judgment would seem reckless, and in some cases horrific. We see so many cases where this amazing gift of freedom is hijacked for the purpose of personal redemption.

Whenever I am asked to speak in regardto freedom, I make sure to include another word which is just as valuable in a freedom-loving society "accountability."

If we advocate for absolute freedom void of accountability, we will find ourselves in a world without discipline, empathy and compassion. All that would matter is whether or not I possessed the freedom to act in a given way, not taking into consideration the implications that those actions may have on another.

We find examples of this even in our own constitutional right of free speech. That freedom does not allow me to yell Bomb! on an airplane, nor does it protect me from speech that would be threatening or abusive.

So, here we are, in the midst of a global pandemic. I will be honest that I have my own personal opinion regarding what actions I should or shouldnt be taking in response to the various recommendations and orders, but those are opinions I keep to myself, as this is not about me or my personal freedom.

This is about how my actions and the actions of those around me could impact those at risk. This is not a law enforcement emergency,this is a public health emergency, and I know enough about leadership to know that there is a time to lead and a time to follow.

In this case I am following the directions of my local Public Health Director, Cindy Kinnard. She, too, has been and continues to be a faithful servant of this county, and if she tells me that there is continued community spread, I must trust in her knowledge and adhere to proper prevention to minimize the spread of this virus.

I support both my president and my governor in the many efforts they are leading to bring us through this challenge. The decisions that need to be made in regard to the opening of our state and our country need to take into account both the rights of our citizens along with fact-based prudence to protect those who may be vulnerable.

I look to those we have placed in both state and national public offices to step forward and show leadership, even if by stepping forward they find themselves standing alongside an unlikely ally.

We have an amazing opportunity to demonstrate to our youth what we are capable of when faced with adversity. We may never know if we overreacted or underreacted in our response to this pandemic, but what will matter is that we came through it together, and through it all we maintained our sense of decency and respect for each other.

Matt Joski is Kewaunee County Sheriff.

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Accountability goes hand-in-hand with personal freedom, especially during adversity - Green Bay Press Gazette

I became a non-believer in January 1992.

I was teaching in a school district that balanced the schedules of teachers of gifted/talented students by assigning each a section of non-college-bound seniors. It was the tried-and-true way to cover classes that nobody wanted to teach.

From day one, my seniors made clear that they didnt want to be in class. I shared that sentiment. The course had clearly been designed to ask so little of students that they could not fail to graduate. It inspired nobody.

Fortunately, I saw in those reluctant students glimpses of my dad, a brilliant drop-out. I unilaterally jettisoned the approved curriculum, substituting materials and strategies I used with my advanced classes. Doing so violated district policy and put my job in jeopardy.

It was the most successful teaching of my career, but there were failures, too. It was those kids I couldnt reachthat the education system had never reachedwho caused me to recant my unions doctrine of one-size-fits-all education. I swore a new allegianceto freedom of choice in education.

Nearly 30 years after my break with education orthodoxy, we find ourselves in a declared pandemic that challenges the modern creed for correct living.

Suddenly, were re-examining the dogmas of ever-denser housing, ever-more-mass transit, ever-larger sporting and entertainment venues, ever-more-mega malls, churches, hospitals and school districts.

Suddenly, truck drivers are recognized in the pantheon of essential workers. And those who live in fly-over country no longer qualify automatically for the censure of elites like Jackson Kernion, the graduate instructor in philosophy at UC Berkeley, who famously tweeted that rural Americans are "bad people who have made bad life decisions."

Millions of households have been catapulted into home-educating. Thousands of brick-and-mortar school districts have been fast-forwarded into the world of distance learning.

Perhaps this shaking up of the status quo will eventually lead Minnesota out of perennial contention for Worst-in-the-Nation achievement gap. That gap, according to an October 2019 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, cannot be attributed to racial and ethnic differences alone, but is a socioeconomic problem as wella long-term, persistent problem that affects both rural and urban parts of the state.

The achievement gap and stubbornly dismal proficiency scores2019 results reported by Minnesota Department of Education as 53.9% in math and 58% in readingwont improve by repeated application of Professor Harold Hills Think System or by doing in a bigger way the very things that have failed again and again. In 2016 Minnesotans spent $10.5 billion on K-12 education, but as Education Commissioner Mary Cathryn Ricker notes, If we keep doing the same things, we will get the same results.

It would be a real tragedy if during this time of national reflectionthis time of making things work differentlywe were to persist in make-believe about education. Its time to allow Minnesota families a full range of educational choices. Its time to let our education dollars follow each child to a schooling situation that will yield results.

Deb Kaczmarek is a member of the Rice County Republicans.

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A freedom of choice in education | Opinion - Southernminn.com

A group of protestors gathered at Five Corners on a cold and windy afternoon Wednesday for the freedom and liberty to work rally holding American flags and signs saying I want to buy local and Thank you hospital.

The number of protestors hovered around 10 as people came and stood peacefully in support of the rally to reopen businesses.

Kenny MacDonald, who helped organize the rally with Jamie and Robbie Douglas before they pulled out of the event and decided not to attend, ended up joining the protest, holding a sign that said, All jobs are essential. The Douglas brothers are part of the family that owns the Black Dog restaurant, cafe, and retail shops, which faced a backlash from the event.

The rally comes on the heels of similar events across the country in Michigan, Ohio, and a smaller event at the Bourne Rotary Sunday, urging the government to end stay-at-home orders and business closures.

Chris DeMello, a landscaper, said it was important for people to be safe but equally as important for them to keep working.

We have to try and find that sweet spot of keeping people safe, DeMello said. The economy cant stay down forever.

Jason Cray, an Oak Bluffs carpenter who was wearing a Trump hat, held a large American flag and a sign saying liberty, freedom, work, socialism sucks!

Cray, who is also an Iraq war veteran, said he didnt want anyone to be sick, but the economy could be hurt.

Weve got to fight for peoples right to feed their families, he said. You shut down an economy its economic suicide.

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Rallying for the 'freedom and liberty to work' - Martha's Vineyard Times

Updated 12:30 pm

A freedom and liberty to work rally at Five Corners for Wednesday, April 22, from 3 to 5 pm, was canceled by its organizers, which included members of the family that owns the popular Black Dog restaurants, cafes, and shops.

The idea for the rally started as a discussion of the biological and economic issues the Island was facing, Robbie Douglas told The Times Wednesday morning.

Our idea was to have a gathering or a rally just to ask some questions, which we thought were important to address, Douglas said.

Douglas stressed there were no demands, only a desire to have an open dialogue about a smart and safe reopening of the economy, protecting the vulnerable, and letting the healthy work to support the nation.

After the rally post went up on Facebook, Douglas said he started to get a significant number of calls about why the rally was happening and decided the best thing to do was to cancel it.

We received a significant amount of calls questioning why we were doing it and it just seemed like it got out of control. Im not so sure our original message was read, but if it was going to put more distress into the community thats never what we were about.

Douglas said they were concerned about the potential effect on business, but didnt anticipate India Roses website calling for a boycott of the company.

Douglas said their main concern is to discuss what the community could do to address the long-term effects on the economy.

The great unknown to us is the economical, which will lead back to our families and to our communities, Douglas said. We see it as an ecosystem that works when were all healthy. If were not all healthy biologically or economically, what are the consequences?

Kenny MacDonald, a friend of the Douglases and a Navy Seal veteran who helped organize the rally, said he volunteered at the food pantry and saw many families showing up for assistance. The rally was a way to bring up these issues.

Im seeing a struggling community, MacDonald said. Im seeing my neighbors that are struggling, Im seeing small businesses that might be going under and theres no jobs to go back to for those workers that dont have a job currently Losing a job is one of the most devastating things that can happen to a person.

For now, Douglas said they will pull back and reassess how to have a healthy discussion. He also advocated for his 190 employees whom he furloughed.

When you look into the eyes of these people who have mortgages, daycare payments, car payments and you say hey, thank you for your 20 years of service, well talk to you in two or three months and we hope to be able to bring you back. Thats a painful experience that I personally had to deal with. We wanted to continue to have the discussion so I can bring these individuals back. The employees succeed, the businesses succeed, and then the economy succeeds and the community succeeds.

Douglas brother Jamie Douglas said he is used to being on the frontlines with customers, and its important to maintain the summer economy.

I believe through smart measures we can do that and afford ourselves some type of an economy for the summer, which is so vital and critical to every single person that lives out here, Jamie Douglas said. This is a tourist resort Island driven by a seasonal economy 90 percent. Its essential that theres a semblance of that that remains.

While the Douglas brothers and MacDonald stepped away from the rally, they want to continue a dialogue and discuss reopening the Island economy in conjunction with healthcare professionals.

This is not political for us. This is about economic survival, Robbie Douglas said.

MacDonalds Facebook page includes posts about the tyrannical approach of the U.S. America, youve been robbed of your money, your liberty and your dignity, he wrote on April 13. Your governments have declared you unable to make responsible decisions. This should insult any freedom loving person. But instead of revolting, we applaud and defend our oppressors.

On that same post, Robbie Douglas commented with a link to one of the highly publicized and politically charged protests in Michigan.

After Douglas told The Times Wednesdays rally was off, Ben Ferry wrote on the Islanders Talk Facebook page that it is still on. This has never been about Black Dog nor will it be in the future, he wrote. This is about the crippling effect this shutdown has had on working class families in our community.

Ferrys post ignited a raging debate on the Facebook page between those who want a return to some normalcy and those who say its too soon.

When the Douglas family was still involved, the initial call for a rally was kicked off in an April 19 Facebook post by Jamie Douglas who called for people to get back to work and restore our freedom and to save M.V. economy.

The post says everyone will practice social distancing, and calls for a smart and safe reopening of the economy and that the cure cant be worse than the disease.

Douglas brother Robbie Douglas was also tagged in the post.

There was almost immediate backlash to the proposed rally, which follows highly publicized events in Michigan, Ohio, and a more modest one at the Bourne Rotary on Cape Cod.

India Rose, a business consultant from Vineyard Haven, created boycottblackdog.com, a website encouraging people to stop patronizing the company.

The CEO of The Black Dog company is planning a liberation type of protest at Five Corners in Vineyard Haven on Marthas Vineyard on Wednesday April 22, 2020. In protest of current safety and stay-at-home orders. This is an act of selfish greed and the Island of Marthas Vineyard does not want this nonsense here. We encourage everyone to boycott all of their restaurants and shops and support other Island businesses that are REAL small businesses that care about this community, the website reads.

In a phone conversation with The Times, Rose said her call for a boycott was in counter protest to the Five Corners gathering.

I think what theyre doing is dangerous and counter productive, Rose said, adding that she and her family have made sacrifices like everyone else. Its not good for anybody, its not good for our community. All of us are making sacrifices. My parents live in Vineyard Haven and we dont go to their house. Were all doing our part to keep each other safe.

She said it followed a similar trend across the country of groups holding rallies and gatherings demanding the reopening of the economy.

Hopefully they [will] just really reconsider the reasoning and what theyre doing, she said.

Updated to include an interview with the Douglas brothers and their friend on Wednesday. -ed.

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'Freedom and liberty to work' rally is canceled; or is it? - Martha's Vineyard Times

PARIS (AP) Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders is sounding the alarm that the coronavirus pandemic poses a threat for press freedom around the world.

In its annual evaluation of global media freedoms, the group warned Tuesday that the health crisis could serve as an excuse for governments to take advantage of the fact that politics are on hold, the public is stunned and protests are out of the question, in order to impose measures that would be impossible in normal times.

North Korea ranked bottom of the groups press freedom index. As in 2019, Norway again topped its ranking of 180 countries and territories.

Overall, the report judged press freedom to be satisfactory in the United States, but also said public denigration, threats, and harassment of journalists continued to be a serious problem last year. The U.S. ranked 45th on the groups list, behind countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean.

The report highlighted U.S. President Donald Trumps hostility toward some journalists and media outlets and said his oft-deployed fake news phrase has now been deployed by leaders around the world as a tool to crack down on the media.

Hostility toward journalists and news outlets in the United States deepened and intensified, and few attacks were as vitriolic as those that came from the president, the group said. The abuse is only getting worse amid the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, as journalists covering the Trump administrations response to the crisis are subjected to the presidents attacks during his press briefings.

Other threats to the future of journalism are economic, with job cuts gutting newsrooms, the group said. And the weak regulation of digital technologies has created information chaos, blurring lines between fact, fiction, propaganda and advertising.

The pandemic has amplified the spread of rumors and fake news as quickly as the virus itself, the report noted.

For this decisive decade to not be a disastrous one, people of goodwill, whoever they are, must campaign for journalists to be able to fulfill their role as societys trusted third parties, it said.

___

Follow AP coverage of the pandemic at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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Watchdog: Pandemic worsening threat to global media freedom - The Associated Press

Since the Salvadoran government imposed mandatory home quarantine on March 21 due to the new coronavirus pandemic, a number of executive restrictions have affected access to information and freedom of expression.

Normally this was already a very opaque government; it is becoming more so during the response to the epidemic, Jos Luis Sanz, director of the Salvadoran investigative journalism site El Faro, told the Knight Center.

Sanz pointed out that it is mainly happening regarding the criminalization and stigmatization of journalistic work and with the blocking of information.

Since the quarantine began, El Faro has continued to receive the type of pressure or accusations from the government setting, which have been common. Above all, coming from the press secretary or other people close to President [Nayib] Bukele, who point at us and accuse us of having a hidden agenda, or of being part of a supposed axis of attack on the government, Sanz said.

There was a lot of improvisation at the beginning of the pandemic by the government, Luis Lanez, deputy chief of information for the Salvadoran newspaper La Prensa Grfica, told the Knight Center. "There was, for example, a guarantee for the movement of journalists, but it stayed that way, without taking into account media workers (in our case, printing press workers and other collaborators, including newspaper vendors), he said.

According to Lanez, a new decree now allows journalists and media workers to circulate with their press pass.

However, the president of the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES, for its acronym in Spanish), Anglica Crcamo, told the Knight Center that the most recurrent cases of repression of journalists in the context of mandatory home quarantine are in the interior of the country.

"Last weekend, security elements told a journalist from a community media outlet associated with Arpas (Participatory Broadcasting Association of El Salvador), that his journalist credential was not valid because they are from media that for them are critical of the current government, Crcamo said.

In the context of COVID-19, "as APES we consider that there are no guarantees to freedom of expression, on the contrary, there is an increase in violations of the right to freedom of expression, freedom of the press and the right of access to information, Crcamo said.

"We have also seen an increase in cases of digital harassment and threats against journalists, mostly women, by false Twitter accounts," she said.

As Crcamo said, according to data registered by APES monitoring center for attention to journalists, from March 21 to April 21, there have been 30 violations against journalists in the country, confirming a greater abuse of power by the National Civil Police (PNC) and by elements of the Armed Forces (FAES) against the press.

The Ombudsman for the Defense of Human Rights (PDDH) recently published that since the mandatory home quarantine began on March 21, until April 20, it has registered 581 cases of human rights violations at the national level, 100 of them are violations of the right of access to information.

In a statement dated April 17, the Journalist Protection Board of El Salvador denounced limited access to official information for journalists at government press conferences since a state of emergency was declared due to the new coronavirus epidemic. It also regretted the closure of the WhatsApp group for journalists that existed with the Press of the Presidency of the Republic and National Security, which "although with deficiencies, attended to needs and consultations," the statement said.

The Board is made up of the PDDH, APES, Collective of Women Journalists, Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law (Fespad), Central American University Jos Simen Caas (UCA), Arpas, and Association of Independent Journalists from El Salvador (Aspies).

According to the Board document, the operations of the offices for access to public information have also been suspended.

"This country, El Salvador, taking advantage of the pandemic, has suspended the possibility of citizens to request public information through the offices of access to public information, and that is very serious," Csar Fagoaga, editor-in-chief of the Salvadoran investigative journalism site Revista Factum, told the Knight Center.

"It is very serious because the government's operation cannot deny public information, the government of El Salvador is deliberately doing so. We are very concerned about what is happening, I think outside organizations have also begun to see it," he stressed.

Human Rights Watch director for the Americas, Jos Miguel Vivanco, recently said via Twitter that the measures imposed by Bukele to confront the COVID-19 epidemic in El Salvador are "draconian rules."

Crcamo pointed out that Salvadorans are facing the fight of two pandemics, "the first is for COVID-19, and the second pandemic is that of a figure who does not believe in democracy and threatens to establish a dictatorship in the country." He [the president] already demonstrated this on February 9, when he broke into the Legislative Assembly with the military. He did it on April 15 when he said that he would not abide by the judgments of the Constitutional Chamber, which are not against the measures against COVID-19, but rather that request that human rights be respected, she stressed.

The aforementioned judgments of the Constitutional Chamber, through Hbeas Corpus 148 of 2020, approved a law to regulate arbitrary detentions, Fagoaga said.

On April 15, Bukele announced via Twitter that he will not abide by the resolution of the Constitutional Chamber ordering the President, the Armed Forces and the National Civil Police to protect human rights and not "deprive of liberty in the form of confinement or forced sanitary internment people who fail to comply with the house quarantine order, El Faro published.

"But what we saw now on April 15 is something that really, for me, completely opens the door to authoritarianism, which is to ignore a sentence of the Constitutional Chamber. The Constitutional Chamber is the highest court of justice in El Salvador, the chambers decision cannot be appealed, every official is obliged to abide by it, and the president has said that he will not comply with it, Fagoaga said.

There are also stigmatizing statements by Bukele against independent journalists and he has blocked some journalists from his personal Twitter account, according to Crcamo. "The press secretary also makes stigmatizing statements and accuses the media of responding to political interests or of hiding NGOs," she added.

In the second week of April, the President's press secretary, Ernesto Sanabria, called Arpas a "media arm of the left," in addition to pointing out that the role of the press is not to be opposition, according to the broadcasting association. These statements on Twitter were made after Arpas published an article by Reporters Without Borders in which the advocacy organization asked the Bukele government for more transparency and to allow journalists to cover information about the new coronavirus.

Regarding El Faro, Sanz said that although they have not received hacking attempts on their servers, several of their journalists have detected hacking attempts on their social media accounts in recent days. Attempts to enter their social networks from servers in Vietnam or in different countries. There is a journalist of ours who is in Mexico, who received attempts to access his accounts from El Salvador, he added.

"What we envision is that limitations will be maintained and that, in addition, cases of abuse of force, abuse of power that are being detected with ordinary citizens by the Army or the Police, or the establishment of curfews or of military encirclements in certain municipalities, it can increasingly become an obstacle to our [journalistic] work, Sanz said.

The current government is very peculiar in its way of communicating, "most of the time unilaterally," Lanez of La Prensa Grfica said, "but we have not suffered intimidations from the government." However, he said that there are social media groups that attack the newspaper and that some identify with the government, but without having an organic link.

"We are facing a government that is not transparent, that misinforms, even the president himself publishes fake news from his Twitter account, there is a centralization of information from the Presidential Palace in the capital," leaving journalists from the interior without local sources, Crcamo said.

"We are concerned that the repression of the press, the abuse of power by the public security forces increases, that the digital attacks on journalists could move to the physical plane, and that the state apparatus is used to harass the independent press, and that they even could threaten to close down some critical media or apply espionage measures to these types of independent journalists, Crcamo said.

She also pointed out that there have been attempts to dialogue with the government about its communication policy with the press, but that they have had no response. They have also insisted with the Attorney General's Office to install a specialized unit to investigate violations against journalists, and they have also been unsuccessful.

What worries Lanez about the quarantine restrictions is that these "are drowning the income of the media, from the largest to the smallest, due to the paralysis of the economy." "For the media, in any case, it is a very gloomy scenario and will not escape the global phenomenon of reduced operations or layoffs, due to the impossibility of paying wages due to the substantial decrease in income," he said.

* The Knight Center tried unsuccessfully to contact the Press Secretariat of the Presidency of El Salvador.

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Salvadoran government reinforces limits on freedom of expression and the press during COVID-19 pandemic - Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas

I never thought half birthdays meant anything until I turned 17 on April 1. It had meaning because this is when I am legally allowed to register to vote in Missouri. The only problem is, I dont know if Ill get to vote this November.

Believe it or not, the coronavirus pandemic might not be the greatest barrier to me casting my first vote, but rather a majority of the elected officials in Missouri who may not extend voting access during this pandemic.

I thought I recognized the power of voting in a democracy, but then I joined the High School Leadership Program at Cultural Leadership. The program is a yearlong dialogue and leadership development program that brings together high school students from across the St. Louis region to study social justice through the lens of the African American and Jewish experiences. We ended our learning together by going on a three-week Transformational Journey to New York City, Washington, D.C., and many ssouthern states to study the history of civil rights and discrimination in America.

It was on my Transformational Journey that I learned from social justice warriors the vital importance of the right to vote.This importance is also clearly reflected in the Torah. The Book of Numbers tells a story of early democracy. Adonai tells Moses to bring 70 elders into a tent to serve as advisers to Moses and provide input on how to run the camp. Later, two townsfolk, Eldad and Medad, begin to discuss their own thoughts on how the village should be run. Immediately, someone tells Moses that ordinary villagers are talking about council matters. Moses imparts that he believes all of the villagers can share their wisdom.

Democracy is a fundamentally Jewish value. We believe that voting is an indelible right for not just some, but for everyone. Today, more than ever, that right is in danger.

When the Spanish flu hit the United States in 1918, voter turnout dropped by 10%. The difference between the outcomes of influenza and the novel coronavirus will depend on the actions of federal and state legislators. Sixteen states, including Missouri, still require voters to provide a valid excuse to submit absentee, mail-in ballots. Under Missouri law, COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, would not qualify as a valid excuse for mail-in voting.

During Wisconsins Democratic primary election earlier this month, Milwaukee was forced to reduce its number of polling stations from 180 to five to serve a city of more than 500,000 people, according to The New York Times.This disproportionately disenfranchised black and brown communities, as census data shows Milwaukees residents are 37.6% African American, 34.5% white and 20.2% Hispanic or Latino.

Because big cities with diverse racial populations are perhaps the most in need of safe voting options, withholding alternatives like mail-in balloting inherently undercuts the sovereignty of our democracy.

I still hold out hope as we approach our next national election. I hold out hope for some COVID-19 treatment and for a coronavirus vaccine. Most importantly, I hold out hope that we can convince our state and federal legislatures thatno-excuse absentee balloting is a right for everyone and a necessity for true democracy. It is our duty as citizens of this democracy to contact our elected officials through calls, emails and letters to ensure our representatives stand up for the rights of all Americans, and not just a precious few.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., tweeted on July 3, 2018: Your vote matters. If it didnt, why would some people keep trying to take it away? #goodtrouble.

Adam Jaffe is a junior at Clayton High School and a member of Central Reform Congregation. He is an alum of Cultural Leaderships High School Leadership Program, Class 14.

APPLY FOR CULTURAL LEADERSHIP: Applications are open for Cultural Leaderships2020- 2021 High School Leadership cohort at culturalleadership.org.High school freshmen and sophomores may apply.

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Freedom to vote is one thing; access is quite another - St. Louis Jewish Light

Image credit: Flickr.com

It wasnt until my firstborn child came into the world that I realized being a parent requires a level of self-sacrifice. When I first found out my wife was pregnant, it took me a long time to realize that I could no longer live as though I was single. My chances at spending money frivolously and going out on a whim became drastically limited in order to be fully present as a husband and a father. For this reason, as much as I cherish the amount of freedom I have here in North America, I realized my life is not entirely my own and that certain freedoms dont come without a cost.

One of the most heated political issues of this day is the issue of bodily autonomy, especially when it comes to womens rights regarding abortion. In 2019, Miley Cyrus released a song titled Mothers Daughter in which the chorus kicks off with the phrase, Dont f**k with my freedom! It was considered an anthem among certain advocates for womens rights, and some critics would consider it to be a response to pro-life activists whom they believe are out to suppress their right to control their bodies in regards to sex and reproduction. Though in light of the lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some have taken to social media and to the streets to protest against social and economic restrictions. Since many of these protesters appeared to be on the opposite side of the political spectrum, some have been seen holding signs saying, My body, my choice, as a way of sticking it back to leftist advocates of abortion rights.

So here, we have the left shouting for the government to stay out of their bedrooms and their hoo-hahs. On the right, we have people vocalizing their opposition to mandatory facial masks in public and that their rights are being taken away to go out and continue on with their normal routines without considering the dangers of how they could unknowingly be carrying the virus.

Considering both scenarios, it makes me wonder, what exactly is freedom and at what point does it become excessive? One could argue that freedom in and of itself is an illusion. Regardless of where anyone stands on the political spectrum, there always seems to be a demand for a right and an assertion of control of some form. Most people in modern society want the right to sexual pleasure with whoever they want without the inconvenience of pregnancy or STIs. Many others want the right to worship whatever deity they want to without the inconvenience of someone telling them they cant practice their chosen faith or their religion may be evil or false.I think it comes without saying that everybody wants control over their own lives and their own bodies, but many would go a step further as to imply that others forego their own privileges or rights in order to preserve their own.

One could argue that freedom has become a form of idolatry. After all, there is really a powerful sentiment behind the phrase, My body, my choice!

No matter what it may be, I think we are all slaves to something. For some it may be addictions to things like alcohol, drugs or sex. Others may be driven by money, materialism, personal security or debilitating fear due to uncertainty or social pressure. Sometimes the root of these tendencies is to be a slave to ones own primal urges. The opposite would involve being enslaved by a sense of duty based out of selfless love. In the case of Christianity, if such a God of perfect mercy and love exists, it is better to be mastered by something or someone that is far greater than ourselves.

Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? Romans 6:16 RSV

Even when it comes to Christians who believe salvation is a free gift to those who believe that Jesus died for our sins, the cost requires a complete overhaul of our own habits and full cooperation with the grace of a higher authority outside of ourselves. It literally involves making ourselves out to be living sacrifices.

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.Do not be conformed to this worldbut be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1-2 RSV

Like someone who rejects abortion and chooses to rise above their circumstances to raise their child, sacrifices ought to be made on an individual basis in order that the physical and mental well-being of the general population is valued and protected from the current pandemic, though that would involve an act of the will in cooperation with divine grace. A fair conclusion to be drawn is that it all comes down to one thing human beings are selfish, and personal sacrifice is a quality that people from both the left and the right fall utterly short on.

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The Idolatry of Freedom and the Inconvenience of Sacrifice - Patheos

On 15 March 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a state of disaster, announcing a series of measures to prevent the catastrophe of the Covid-19 pandemic, at the core of which was locking and shutting down the country to effectively implement social distancing, flatten the curve, care for the sick and conduct mass testing.

This, just as another finance buffoon stripped South Africa of its investment rating, downgrading government bonds to junk status in the midst of a global crisis where big economies such as France and the US are sliding into recession. But this is a circus that we have become accustomed to playing, even priding ourselves as top performers, and therefore should not be complaining. This rating game is part of how we celebrate freedom and have used it to distinguish our exceptionalism from everyone else. We compete for the numbers. It might look like nonsense, but it is not inconsequential.

We might be ranked the most unequal country in the world, but South Africa is currently Africas second wealthiest country with a GDP of over USD358-billion, boasts three of the top 10 billionaires in Africa, has the highest concentration of ultra-high net worth individuals (net worth greater than USD30-million) on the continent and is home to 109,368 of Africas 302,360 high net worth individuals (net worth greater than USD1-million).

In regular times, downgrading to junk status would profoundly impact us negatively. Through higher taxes and scaled-down government services, the rand would grow weaker, increasing the cost of basic necessities such as petrol, bread, and probably your alcohol, cigarettes and weed. It would mean bad news for banks and their customers, especially as they would have to offer higher interest rates. But these are not normal times, and a good actor should know when to come on stage.

The year 2019 was a tough year for South Africans. Statistics from StatsSA show that the economy contracted by 3.2% in the first quarter of 2019, grew by 3.1% in the second quarter, and then shrunk by 0.6% in the third quarter. At 29.1%, we recorded the highest unemployment rate since the measuring of joblessness in 2008.

With an estimated 25 million active credit consumers in South Africa, 10 million were behind on payments. And household debt reached USD154.5-billion, a shocking 44.7% of the nations nominal GDP.

Yet South African Airways and other state-owned enterprises continued asking for massive bailouts from the government. Ironically, SAA, branded as the gateway to Africa, closed many of its routes across the continent and globally, recently even domestic routes, as it was subjected to business rescue.

At year-end, we all had to create space to add a new useful app to our phones to more efficiently help the electricity corporation Eskom to effectively plan its disruptions. Load shedding entered our vocabularies, redefined our routines and changed our relationship with energy and its related technologies. Things happen when you can be load shed for up to 8 stages.

Coupled with the economic woes, more worrying were the 2018/2019 annual crime statistics that revealed that we were growing increasingly more violent against each other. Murders increased by 3.4% to just over 21,000, with over 60% of all murders committed over the weekend between 9pm and 3am. So much for the weekend. Goodbye, sweet dreams.

According to the statistics 2,771 women, and 1,014 children were murdered during this period. With a homicide rate averaging 58 per day, it is clear that while freedom has come, we are officially in a civil war. Police Minister Bheki Cele noted in his report: There are a very high number of people who are murdered by people they know. Freedom came, but we turned some of our most intimate encounters into traumatic relationships.

We continued to use sex to violate, batter and destroy bodies, lives and spirits in what has now become our epidemic. In fact, some organisations rank us amongst the worlds rape epicentres. Some report that we may be its capital. Approximately 52,420 incidences of sexual crimes were reported in the preceding period: 36,597 against women and shockingly 24,387 were against children.

Last year 19-year-old University of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana was brutally raped and murdered by a post office worker a brother, an uncle, an elder, someone entrusted with the responsibility of care in a seemingly safe public space. And this is just one of the many brutalities in which our intimate relationships are confined. The toxicity of our masculinities has reached immeasurable proportions. We are special. Actually, we are a pathology.

Over this past year, we continued our notoriety for xenophobia. No, Afrophobia, our contribution to the English vocabulary. At various times during the year, there were sporadic attacks on, and looting of, foreign-owned shops, leading to retaliatory attacks against South African businesses in different parts of the continent. The tensions forced Nigeria to organise and repatriate some of its citizens. We were forced to send an envoy to some African countries to apologise for these criminal acts; and emphasise that South Africa is home to all and not xenophobic.

But there is hope. Freedom has come, again.

In 2019 we elected South Africas sixth President, Cyril Ramaphosa. Siya Kolosi captained South Africa to an astounding victory at the Rugby World Cup in Japan, bringing home the trophy with the Springboks and reuniting the Rainbow Nation with the nostalgic memories of 1995. The Student Village Student Spend survey also showed that South Africas new Gen Z is characterised by a tremendous entrepreneurial spirit, founded on hope and a sense of self-created liberation. Many of whom have started businesses at a young age, they no longer save to spend, they save to re-invest. To top it off Zozibini Tunzi won Miss Universe. We are the world. Right? Freedom has come. The time is now.

On April 9, the president announced the decision by the National Coronavirus Command Council, after careful assessment, to extend the nation-wide lockdown by a further two weeks beyond the initial 21 days thereby keeping most of the lockdown measures in force until the end of April. This means that on Freedom Day 2020, we shall be locked down in our various corners without the traditional alcohol that we love to celebrate with, and the privilege of physical conviviality and debauchery. But freedom is a faraway thought for those who fell victim to the 87,000 cases of gender-based violence reported after week one of the lockdown.

On the flipside, the social support deployed during this lockdown shows that it is possible to create a more caring state, if we are willing and if as a society and political community we are grounded in solidarity. The government has for the first time provided a basic survival buffer, even if insufficient, for the unemployed across the board. The idea that such support and solidarity would create dependency and avoidance of work is radically shifting.

Despite the challenges and obvious consequences of militarisation, and the devastating economic consequences of interdicting alcohol and cigarettes, the country has seen a dramatic drop in reported serious and violent crimes such as murder, rape and assault cases, and trio crimes (i.e. robberies and vehicle hijackings).

The governments Covid-19 Solidarity Fund raised more than R500-million in donations after the first week following its announcement. Other related funds such as the eMedia Covid-19 relief fund had raised close to R4-million in the first 48 hours of its launch. Just the other day, the President announced an additional R500-billion planned injection into the economy and social support, a record 10% of GDP. These are extraordinary times, with an extraordinary budget. Who would have thought we would live to see such extraordinary attention to the needs of the vulnerable.

Freedom Day is here, but freedom, as we know it, is gone. We are left with one last thing: the freedom to reflect. But how should we use this freedom?

In response to a question by a BBC reporter in the late Nineties seeking to understand what he meant by coming out of prison a different man, and also what was specific about life in Robben Island that changed him, Nelson Mandela said: Well you know, the fact that you could sit alone and think, gave us a wonderful opportunity to change ourselves your behaviour. I felt quite ashamed because I became busy with politics and with law, and I forgot the people who were very kind to me when I arrived in Johannesburg, and I said if I ever get a chance of coming out, as I was sure I would eventually no matter how long, I would make up for the omissions I made.

It has been 26 years since we inaugurated Freedom Day on 27 April 1994. It is time to reflect and make up for our omissions. Those who insist that we must absolutely return to normal and continue with business as usual must ask themselves if our past omissions are what they want to return to, or should we free ourselves by imagining a new social contract. DM

Dr Divine Fuh is a social anthropologist at the University of Cape Town and Director of HUMA Institute for the Humanities in Africa, publishers of Corona Times (www.coronatimes.net), a Covid-19 public engagement project. Email: [emailprotected]

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Freedom Day is here, it is time to reflect and make up... - Daily Maverick