Monthly Archives: February 2022

This article appears in The American Prospect magazines February 2022 special issue, How We Broke the Supply Chain. Subscribe here.

For the past dozen years, Omar Alvarez has been a key link in the nations supply chain. Hes one of some 12,000 truckers who haul the containers from the adjacent ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach (where 40 percent of all the ship-borne imports to the United States arrive) to the immense complex of warehouses 50 miles east of L.A., where the goods are unpacked, resorted, put back on other trucks, and sent to all the Walmarts, Targets, and the like within a thousand-mile radius.

In the course of his daily rounds, Alvarez promotes the general welfare to insure the domestic tranquility of manufacturers, shopkeepers, and consumers. For which the economic system of his grateful country rewards him with a pittance.

Alvarez works for one of the largest trucking companies at the ports, XPO Logistics, but XPO insists that Alvarez and his fellow truckers arent really employees. As far as XPO is concerned, theyre independent contractors and it treats them as suchthough they drive XPO trucks they lease from the company or its adjuncts and cant use those trucks for any other jobs. As independent contractors, they receive no benefits and arent covered by minimum-wage statutes. They must pay for their gas, maintenance, rig insurance, and repairs themselves; and, ever since the pandemic clogged the ports with more goods than ever before, theyve had to wait in lines for as long as four to six uncompensated hours before they can access a container and get it on the road. If they get in the wrong line at the port, they literally cant get out, surrounded by other trucks and doomed to waste more time. Many ports dont even provide bathrooms for waiting truckers, because they arent port employees.

More from Harold Meyerson

According to a 2019 study by the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley, the median annual pre-tax income of Alvarez and his fellow port truckers, once their expenses are factored in, is a munificent $28,000.

We have no health insurance, Alvarez says. Like the majority of port truckers, hes an immigrant who doesnt qualify for Medicaid. When I need to see a doctor, he says, I drive [not in his truck] to Tijuana.

Perhaps one-fifth of port truckers actually are independent contractors; nearly everyone else is, like Alvarez, misclassified as independents. Over the past decade, dozens of lawsuits from misclassified drivers have resulted in judgments affirming that theyve been misclassified and awarding them compensation from the companies that misclassified them. XPO recently paid a $30 million fine to a large number of its drivers. But neither XPO nor any of the other fined companies have stopped misclassification. Its cheaper for them to pay a fine than to pay their drivers a living wage.

Not surprisingly, given the long waits and meager rewards, a lot of drivers have simply stopped showing up. According to Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of L.A., fully 30 percent of the ports 12,000 drivers no longer show up on weekdays, a percentage that rises to 50 percent on weekends. Once the waits exceed six hours, as they now sometimes do, drivers would run the risk of exceeding the 11-hour federal limit on trucker workdays if they then were to actually get a loadwhich means the port must turn them away, and theyll have spent an entire workday for no pay at all.

And you wonder why the supply chain isnt working very well?

THE PLIGHT OF THE PORT TRUCKERS may seem extreme, but the plight of the great majority of long-haul truckers is dismal as well. It wasnt ever thus. Until 1980, long-haul truckers were generally employed by regulated companies whose routes and rates had to pass muster with the Interstate Commerce Commission. Under the terms of the 1935 Motor Carrier Act, the ICC kept potential lowball, low-wage competitors out of the market. Drivers were also highly unionized, under a Master Freight Agreement between the Teamsters and close to 1,000 trucking firms. For which reasons, truck driving was a pretty damn good blue-collar job, with decent pay, livable hours, and ample benefits.

The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 changed all that, scrapping the rules of the 1935 act so that startups, charging far less than the pre-1980 rates and paying their drivers far less as well, flooded the market. Facing that competition, established companies dropped their rates and pay scales, too. By 1998, drivers were making between 30 percent and 40 percent less than their pre-1980 predecessors had made. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, following the steep decline in wages in the decades after the 1980 deregulation, trucker income has flatlined for the past 20 years. The median income of long-haul truckers who are employees was roughly $53,000 in 2018; for contractors, it was $45,000though drivers in both groups had to put in many more than 40 hours per week to reach these totals.

The story of trucking deregulation is a story of the decentering of workers from liberalisms concerns.

After 1980, the share of long-haul drivers who are contractors increased as well. Of those contractors, the Berkeley Labor Center reports that over one-quarter are misclassified, too (including the drivers for FedEx and Amazon). Like the port truckers, long-haul independent contractors also have to wait, unpaid, in pandemic-lengthened lines to pick up their loads, so that their hourly wage often falls below the legal minimum. Nor have the legacy companies that have allowed their workers to retain employee status, with the notable exception of UPS, maintained their unionized status. With wages plummeting throughout the industry, the thousand companies that had been party to the Master Freight Agreement with the Teamsters in 1980 had dwindled to a bare five by 2008. Fully 57 percent of truckers were unionized in 1980 (nearly all with the Teamsters). A threadbare 10 percent were union members at the turn of the millennium.

Not surprisingly, the supply chain in long-haul trucking suffers from the same ailment as port trucking: no-show-ism. The American Trucking Associations estimates that the nation needs 80,000 more long-haul truckers to move its goods in a timely fashion, and that by 2030, that shortfall may double to 160,000. Confronted with jobs that take them away from their families and require long hours for low pay and scant if any benefits, Americas truck drivers dont stay truck drivers for very long. A 2019 study by University of Minnesota economist Stephen Burks and Kristen Monaco of the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the annual turnover rate of long-haul truckers is a breathtaking 94 percent. And this, I hasten to point out, was before the national quit rate reached new highs in 2021.

The combination of fewer drivers and more goods to be moved has slowed delivery times on the interstates no less than on the port-to-warehouse runs. Phil Levy, an economist who measures such things for a San Franciscobased logistics company, says that before the pandemic, moving a shipment from L.A. to Chicago took on average ten days; it now takes 22. Returning the empty container from Chicago to L.A. used to take 20 days; now it takes 33.

And you wonder why the supply chain isnt working very well?

WHAT HAPPENED IN 1980 that led to the transformation of trucking from a regulated industry with a willing workforce to a deregulated, dysfunctional mess whose workers bail after a year or less on the job? In the largest sense, the story of the progression from the 1935 act to the 1980 act is a story of the decentering of workers from liberalisms concerns.

In the first couple years of Franklin Roosevelts presidency, the chief concern was to arrest the deflationary downward spiral that had diminished production, incomes, prices, and employment. Its first stab at a solution was a kind of worker-friendly cartelization: creating production and pricing codes and standards for industries and granting workers the right to collective bargaining. Unbridled competition in a deflationary time, FDRs advisers believed, only produced a race to the bottom.

In 1935, the Supreme Court killed this strategy, declaring the National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional. A few interstate industries, however, had been regulated long before the NIRAnotably the railroads. In 1935, Congress preserved and revised rail regulations, and as interstate trucking was beginning to supplement the railroads, devised new legislation to ensure that trucks wouldnt be racing to the bottom, either.

Hovering over their considerations was an unprecedented outbreak of trucker militancy. In 1934, truckers in Minneapolis had gone on strike, waging a prolonged battle with their employers and, eventually, the police, at whose hands several strikers were killed. In the process, their job action ballooned into a general strikefollowing which, their employers collectively agreed to recognize their union (the Teamsters) and grant many of their demands for decent pay and hours.

So, the Motor Carrier Act of 1935 combined the spirit of the First New Dealthe regulation of commerce, and of interstate transportation in particularwith the Second New Deal, the pro-worker policies to which Roosevelt turned after the Court had struck down the first. In 1935, the New Deal also enacted the National Labor Relations Act, giving workers an unambiguous right to collective bargaining, and the Social Security Act as well. It embarked on the massive public-works programs of the WPA, in which millions of the unemployed were put to work building, among other things, highways and byways. A number of more progressive unions broke away from the hidebound AFL and began organizing the factory workers whom the AFL had shunned. The Teamsters remained in the AFL, but inspired by their Minneapolis brethren and enabled by the NLRA, embarked on organizing campaigns that increased membership from 75,000 in 1933 to 370,000 in 1939. In 1933, according to a study by University of Wisconsin economist James Peoples, a flat zero percent of intercity truckers were unionized; by 1948, 80 percent of them were Teamsters.

One Teamster staffer who played a supporting role in the Minneapolis general strike was a young Jimmy Hoffa. A lesson he took from that strike was that organizing on a citywide basis was more effective than a shop-by-shop approach, and given that truckers were routinely crossing city lines in their daily rounds, and increasingly crossing state lines, too, Hoffa applied that lesson to his hometown of Detroit, then all of Michigan, then all the Midwest, rising in Teamster ranks with each expansion of the Teamster membership. Harvard University labor expert John Dunlop hailed Hoffas area contracts as a strategic advance in labor relations.

Once Hoffa assumed the Teamster presidency in 1957, he embarked on a hitherto unheard-of innovation in American labor relations: bringing all the nations long-haul truckers under the terms of one master contract. Over the next seven years, constantly traversing the country, he schooled his members in the logic of sweeping, multi-employer contracts. In 1964, having convinced his far-flung locals that establishing nationwide standards for generous pay, health insurance, and pensions was a good idea, and having persuaded 800 long-haul trucking companies that the 1935 Motor Carrier Act ensured that they could raise their rates to cover these labor expenses without fear of being undercut by competitors, he signed the National Master Freight Agreement with representatives of those companies. Every one of the approximately 450,000 Teamster long-haul truckers (close to half of all truckers in America) was covered by the contract. The New York Times termed the agreement one of the most significant developments of the postwar period.

Then, in 1980, it all fell apart.

BY 1980, NOT ONLY had the 1930s specter of deflation all but vanished from American memory, but the very real specter of inflation stalked the land. The spike in prices came chiefly from the oil shock of Middle Eastern nations raising the cost of their universally needed commodity. The rising costs of fuel hiked prices across the transportation sector, not because airlines, railroads, and trucking companies sought to raise prices but due, rather, to the oil shock.

Still, all three industries were regulated in ways that largely forbade them from cutting other expenseslike, say, the cost of labor, particularly inasmuch as all three were heavily unionized. In short order, all three became targets for deregulationthe airlines in 1978, rails and trucking in 1980.

But the deeper causes of these deregulatory drives lay in the changes to the nations political economy. Popular revulsion at the Watergate scandal, paradoxically, pushed Democrats to the right. They gained 50 new House members in the 1974 and 1976 elections, largely from middle- and upper-middle-class districts they hadnt ever carried before. Most new Democratic members of Congress, labeled Watergate babies, faithfully represented their constituents politics: liberal on social issues, moderate to center-right on economic issues. Business interests increased their contributions to those officeholders whod determine their future: the Democratic moderates. One prominent House DemocratTony Coelho from Californias Central Valleylaunched a major initiative of raising campaign funds from Wall Street and other corporate interests, which fed the coffers of many of his colleagues.

The new breed of Democratspersonified by such figures as Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, Jerry Brown, and President Carter himselfhad no particular affinity for organized labor. Most of the Watergate babies represented districts with insubstantial union membership. As Carters economic adviser, the pro-deregulation Alfred Kahn once said, Id love the Teamsters to be worse off.

Moreover, labor at the time was personified by such cigar-puffing old white guys as AFL-CIO President George Meany, who had led the mainstream of labor in its support for the Vietnam War, and spearheaded its opposition to those Democratic candidates whod opposed the war or emerged from such newer social movements as second-wave feminism. And if there was one union that the New Dems found especially repulsive, it was the Teamsters, widely known for its occasional violent tactics, its links to the Mafia, and, at the level of presidential politics, its support for Republicans. (To fend off Justice Department interest in their own doings, the Teamsters had provided funds to keep the first tranche of Watergate convicts from fingering higher-ups, and continued to back Republican presidential candidates for years thereafter.) Worse yet, the Teamsters were seeking to undermine the organizing efforts of one of the few unions the New Dems supportedCesar Chavezs United Farm Workersin hopes of supplanting them in the fields.

Two other transformations boded ill for labor generally and the Teamsters in particular. First, the rise in inflation undercut the claims of governments ability to manage the economy, and with it, the hold that Keynesian economics, with its de facto emphasis on boosting employment and worker interests, had on the economics profession. Regulation came to be seen as a driver of inflation. Second, with mainstream labor largely abandoning any efforts to organize the unorganized (disproportionately women, people of color, and the poor) and opposing many of the initiatives of feminists and civil rights activists, much of the left had come to view labor as a part of the corporate establishment. The rising consumer movement of the 1970s, spearheaded by Ralph Nader, sometimes found itself butting up against labor, as it did when Nader gave congressional testimony in favor of airline deregulation. Those efforts were led by liberal lion Ted Kennedy, with the assistance of his chief aide on such questions, future Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. In 1980, even as he was challenging incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination, Kennedy joined forces with Carter to move trucking deregulation through Congress.

That year also saw Congress deregulate much of the rail industry, but railroads were in horrible shape and clearly needed some kind of remedy. Roughly 20 percent of the nations rail lines were owned by companies then in bankruptcy, and the 1970 bankruptcy of the Penn Central line had been the largest to date in the nations history. [See Matthew Jinoo Bucks How Americas Supply Chains Got Railroaded.] Trucking, by contrast, was thrivingbut somehow, it fell to the deregulatory chopping block, too.

As it became clear that deregulation was likely to pass, the Teamsters found themselves devoid of a strategy to stop or mitigate it. They werent a union that rallied its members to political causes (their support for candidates was almost entirely financial) and, having been expelled from the AFL-CIO for corruption, they had few allies within labor or without.

One ploy, alas, remained. On January 10, 1979, Teamster Vice President (and soon to be President) Roy Williams and mob-connected Teamster pension fund honcho Allen Dorfman met with Nevadas Democratic senator (and chair of the Senate Commerce Committee) Howard Cannon in Cannons Las Vegas office to discuss how he could kill the pending legislation. FBI wiretaps of subsequent phone conversations of Williams and Dorfman had included comments indicating that Cannon had suggested he might be able to sink the bill if the Teamster pension fund let him take ownership of a six-acre Vegas lot the pension fund ownedan offer to which Williams had given his hearty assent. Williams and Dorfman were later convicted and did time for bribery, though Cannon, denying the allegations, was never indicted, though he did lose his subsequent bid for re-election.

In the end, Cannon either couldnt or didnt stem the rush to deregulation. With the strong backing of Carter, Kennedy, and even Dan ONeal, Carters appointed chair of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the House voted by a 367-to-13 margin to pass a new Motor Carrier Act, repealing the industrys minimum rate standards; the Senate followed suit in a 70-to-20 vote.

With deregulation in place, all it cost to enter the industry was the price of a few trucks. Thousands of drivers and small businessmen took the plunge. Alongside the small-timers, some mega-companiesmost prominently, FedEx and, more recently, Amazonentered the field, declaring their drivers to be independent contractors, though no one has ever seen a FedEx or Amazon truck used by its independent drivers delivering balls and bats to their kids Little League games..

Within a decade of 1980, as new entrants jumped into the industry, the number of truckers nearly doubled, from one million to two, most of them paid far less than their pre-1980 predecessors. Today, after competing to drive down earnings, that workforce has shrunk to the point that it can no longer keep up with the demands of its nation.

Ultimately, what doomed trucking as a decent occupation was more than the self-marginalization of the Teamsters, the estrangement of Democrats and progressives from labor, the increasing clout of business and declining clout of unions, and even the supplanting of the postNew Deal social order by a crueler neoliberalism. It was that in 1980, after 35 years of the postwar broadly shared prosperity that the New Deal had created, few if any could imagine that American workers were on the verge of becoming downwardly mobile. A handful of union leadersnotably the United Auto Workers visionary president, Doug Fraserwarned it was beginning to happen. In the discourse of 1980, however, such voices went unheard and unheededand, though growing progressively louder, largely remained unheeded until the past decade.

So, how do we fix this mess?

TO THE EXTENT THAT THE PILEUP at the ports is the result, on the trucking side, of misclassification, the state of California is working hard to remedy it. Newly enacted legislation that took effect at the start of this year holds retailers (like Walmart and Amazon) liable if they use the services of companies that are repeatedly found guilty of misclassification. The city of Los Angeles is also engaged in long-term litigation against the companies with warehouses at the port (that is, on city-owned land) that use non-union workforces.

Julie Gutman Dickinsonthe attorney who, with backing from the Teamsters, has represented misclassified drivers in an unbroken string of successful lawsuits against those trucking companieshas long been frustrated, however, by those companies refusals, even after theyve been compelled to make payments to those drivers in the millions of dollars, to shift to actually employing those truckers. In 2014, working on one such case, she had what she calls an epiphany: What was it that restrains an employees right to have a voice on the job and to bargain collectively? Misclassificationits an inherent violation of the NLRA.

Drivers deserve a political economy and legal superstructure that takes the rights of workers seriously.

At the time, the National Labor Relations Boards general and deputy general counsels, Richard Griffin and Jennifer Abruzzo, both Obama appointees, wanted the regional NLRB attorneys to make that case to the administrative judge, but the case was settled before it reached that stage. In 2019, the Trump-controlled NLRB, in its Velox decision, ruled that misclassification did not violate the NLRA. (The brief arguing that it did was written by Gutman Dickinson.)

But in a dissenting opinion, Board member Lauren McFerran argued that Gutman Dickinson was right: Misclassification did violate the nations labor law. Today, McFerran chairs the now-Bidenized Board, and Jennifer Abruzzo, the Boards new general counsel, has sent a memo to the Boards regional offices that will likely turn up cases whose particulars could enable both Abruzzo and the Biden-appointed majority to rule that a walking, talking, quacking duck is actually a duck, regardless of what its employer might contend. On January 19, Omar Alvarez and his fellow XPO drivers provided just such a case, asking the NLRB to rule that they are actually employees and thus entitled to a unionization election.

At the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economys Mike Munoz, the 50 largest trucking companies currently have more than 7,000 drivers whom they misclassify as independent contractors. Should Abruzzo and then the Board rule that this violates the NLRA, the companies would be compelled to reclassify them as unionizable employees. By the same logic, the Board could find that the drivers for Amazon and FedEx, not to mention the rest of the long-haul drivers who are misclassified, could become employees as wellas could the drivers for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash et al.

The NLRB may be the nations best hope for ending the gridlock in trucking. In early January, two of Bidens Cabinet departmentsLabor and Transportationunveiled a joint program to help unclog the current pileup, by increasing the number and accessibility of trucking apprenticeship programs, and lowering the legal (if not the safe) age for truck driving to 18. As more than 450,000 Americans obtain commercial drivers licenses annually, making them easier to get when the problem is the nature of the jobs themselves doesnt seem likely to make appreciable improvements.

But even if the NLRB is able to transform the gig economy portion of the transportation industry into a more rewarding, stable, and efficient employer-employee model, and if (a big if) the courts uphold such transformations, that still would leave the greater part of the industrythe part thats not misclassified but is merely underpaid, overworked, and in constant and total fluxunchanged. What the drivers, and the nation that needs the goods that the drivers bring them, deserve and require is a political economy and legal superstructure that takes the rights of workers seriously. It may require the kind of upheaval that the Teamsters brought to Minneapolis in 1934only on a far vaster scalefollowed by regulations that improve job quality, to create an economy where trucking, literally and metaphorically, can again deliver the goods.

See the original post here:

Why Trucking Can't Deliver the Goods - The American Prospect

Im not a sports fanIm bored by games in general, including that wordy color-blindness test or whatever it is that everyone online seems to be playing latelybut Im already rooting for the defeat of the newly rechristened Washington Commanders. The name is a clumsy reminder that Washington, DC issues orders and the rest of us are expected to obey. Its as obnoxious in its way as the propagandistic, authoritarian tone of the Olympics opening ceremony.

But sports isnt the real enemy here. For all the brutality, primitivism, sadism, tribalism, and zero-sum win/lose thinking of sportsmade worse by nationalism in the case of the pompous Olympicspolitics is worse. Politics is also involuntary, so long as governments (or other, more anarchic threats of violence) exist. Involuntary, by definition, isnt fun.

Thats why so many political figures devote their time to the pretense of being just like you, as if theres no need to fear their preferences would ever diverge from yours. No divergence, no need to wonder where theyre taking you or what they plan to do to you when you get there. Theyre all competing to see who can get you to a centrally planned economy fastest.

Take the Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance, with his oscillations between sounding like the populist whos coming to save you from the depredations of capitalism and sounding like the party stalwart wholl save Republicans from further embarrassment by Trump. Its a safe bet that as the primary approaches in May, Carpet-Bagger Vance will sound like he has whatever principles are polling well, likely determined by that months stock market fluctuations but explained via homespun tales about his working-class upbringing.

One of the most positive spins on Vances oscillations was a Simon van Zuylen-Wood piece arguing that Vance is taking care not to let his anti-woke thinking devolve into classical liberalism and is striving to combine Trumpism with the milder reformicon (ostensibly-reformist conservative) tendencies of Ross Douthat circa 2010.

In short, if you squint, you can see Vance working to avoid libertarianism (that is, 19-century-style, small-government, classical liberalism) while also grinding a cultural axe, bashing global trade, and praising the most expensive parts of the welfare statesuch as Social Security and Medicare, the debt-swelling, huge-ticket items that purported reformers such as Douthat are keen to leave intact, since a citizen is afraid to discuss tampering with them.

Whatever that makes the Vance agenda, its not really capitalism. Far from being a fresh set of ideas, its basically a watered-down version of the anti-economic, pro-big-government thinking celebrated in those Chinese ceremonies I mentioned earlier. If conservatives are just milder commies now, dont expect me to get worked up making distinctions between the two philosophies or voting for either.

Vance is far from alone on the right in his bland attack on the market and private property. Floridas Gov. Ron DeSantis, inordinately beloved by some pseudo-libertarians whose anti-regulatory thinking goes little farther than their dislike of anti-Covid rules, crowed on Twitter last Thursday about urging his state legislature to throw another $100 million of taxpayers money at fighting cancer. So much for the heirs to Trumps populist mantle looking to dispel the illusion that government is generous and lifesaving. Unless they explicitly argue for the non-violation of property rights and the drastic and immediate shrinking of government, populist politicians will obviously deliver politics as usual with a few novel freebies tossed in.

I hope paleolibertarian-ish ex-punk Sam Goldman is right to argue the fumbling of the Republicans populist team post-Trump might yet yield a return of the delayed libertarian moment in American politics. If there are any signs of hope in that regard, though, I dont think they take the form of any politicians but rather private-sector phenomena like that shining Castello Cube made of $11.7 million worth of gold that appeared in Central Park last week (likely inspired by the 1990s sci-fi novel Cryptonomicon) heralding the launch of yet another cryptocurrency.

Im not saying this is the coin that will end humanitys reliance on governments arbitrarily-inflated fiat currencies, but governments tyrannical hold over humanity is more likely to be ended by some exogenous phenomenon like that than by any internal reforms government itself endorses or generates. Lately, all the worlds political teamsleftists, liberals, conservatives, moderates, most anarchists, even some libertariansbadmouth or at least rhetorically shy away from unregulated, laissez-faire markets.

In the 20th century, they might all at least have agreed that the USSR was terrible and promised not to replicate its errors. With European Communism gone and Chinese Communism seemingly a taboo topic among obedient Westerners, our political players are free lazily to forget what a society without market mechanisms looks like. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is free to denounce capitalism as irredeemable, as the economically ineducable and inflammatory New York politician said a few days ago on a trip to Austin, TXthe sort of liberal town where she probably hears as many youthful cheers for her extremism as she does back home in New York City, though both places owe their freedom and prosperity to markets.

But its not just quirky post-libertarian right-wingers and left-wing backbenchers who are out to destroy capitalism. Boring old President Biden and his ostensibly centrist pals can do that just fine all by themselves. Among other things, Biden plans to triple the amount of protected (that is, government-controlled and largely unused) land in the U.S. and wants half again as much federal spending as when he took office, though his agenda is notoriously sputtering. And the White House still finds time to tell Spotify it needs to go farther in silencing easygoing non-partisan conversationalist Joe Rogan (Jon Stewart, by contrast, urges people to let Rogan speak).

Make enough mediocre leaps forward like Bidens and it wont much matter if you keep claiming not to be a full-blown socialist. America will be socialist nonetheless. It wont matter one bit that libertarians and conservatives used to complain more explicitly about that threat back in the 1980s, when their principles were clearer and more consistent, back when they didnt always shift around in an embarrassed fashion looking for something else to talk about, like pot, immigration, or sex. Now, every political team of any appreciable size is either silent on econ or battling for the collectivist gold.

Todd Seavey is the author of Libertarianism for Beginners and is on Twitter at @ToddSeavey

Excerpt from:

The World is Always Playing Commie Olympics - Splice Today

The Constitution reads, We, the people of South Africa, recognise the injustices of the past, honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land, respect those who have worked to build and develop our country, believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity. Of fundamental importance, the Bill of Rights provides the cornerstone of democracy in South Africa. In the advent of the quarter of a century after South Africa finally attained democracy, Thabo Masombuka sat down with South Africas seventh Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development (And Correctional Services) on behalf of BBQ Magazine to take stock of the journey and progress made since the Constitution was signed into law in 1996, as such paving the way for a new constitutional order in South Africa.

If there is one man who stood against the tide in seeking to shape a new political destiny, by raising a voice against corruption and state capture, that man is Ronald Ozzy Lamola, the former Deputy President of the ANC Youth League when Julius Malema was the President. He single-handedly protested outside the various sittings of the NEC of the ANC against what was then state interference and capture by the Gupta family in the administration of the state.

But no one listened. He now leads the most powerful cluster in the countrythe justice and crime prevention cluster, having been appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in May 2019. As President Ramaphosa begins the process of considering the appointment of the Chief Justice of the apex constitutional court, a few weeks after the local government elections, we catch up and sit down with the Minister of Justice to understand how far the Constitution of the countryarguably the most highly celebrated liberal document across the world, has fared in changing the lives of its citizens, particularly the most vulnerable and the poor.

Asked what he thought about the value and significance of the Constitution 25 years after its enactment, the Minister premised his comments by stating that, In the Constitution, we have been able to achieve what is set out in the preamble and the objectives. In addition, the Constitution has facilitated South Africas transition from the old order into the new order.

Notwithstanding this, he is of the strong view that the Constitution is not, and should not be, an answer to all social ills and deficiencies, but mustas it does, provide a framework and opportunity for citizens to express their socio-economic challenges and rights.

That being the case, Lamola makes the point that the Constitution has given rights to citizens in terms of equality and dignity.

He further acknowledges that more still needs to be done to advance socio-economic rights of individuals, particularly those from poor and disadvantaged communities, as the socio-economic inequalities are still stubbornly high.

Despite the Constitution having given birth to various pieces of legislation, such as the Equality Act, the Employment Equity Act, the BBBBEE Act, and many other economic transformation interventions that are able to promote the participation of black people in the main stream of the economy, the majority still remain trapped on the periphery of the economy.

The perpetuation of such an unequal society remains largely unsustainable. The equality clauses ensure that everyone is equal before the law and has equal protection and benefit of the law.

Whether or not, in real terms, South Africans, especially poor black communities, are in fact equal, remains arguable.

When challenged on this, Minister Lamola states that those are the real challenges that the country needs to focus on in order to change the economic conditions of all South Africans, so that we build a real society based on equal opportunities.

27 years after democracy, black South Africans remain trapped in poverty, with unemployment and inequality rising astronomically. When asked about the income gap between the poor and rich widening radicallyand how the Constitution has been able to help in this regard, Lamola said: Yes, more still needs to be done. It is in the interest of all South Africans that we strive towards economic equality where everyone feels that they are part of the mainstream of the economy. In that way, that will result in a society where there should be an equal sharing and equal distribution of resources.

He argues that there has been efforts to redress this and policy makers at the time had envisaged that these laws should advance meaningful progress and take us somewhere, including laws on land reform and redistribution.

Unfortunately, the outcome is different. Experience points us somewhere to the contrary. More efforts still need to be placed at the execution level. We still have a long way to go in achieving the objectives of these pieces of legislation.

Is the Constitution a fundamental compromise?

In this regard, we suggest to the Minister that some radical sections of the country have criticised the Constitution for being too soft and too compromising on the key fundamentals of transformation such as the property clauses, with the governing party having moved very slowly in addressing issues of redress.

Lamola is having none of that. He insists that it is a misconception that the current Constitution is a compromise. What was the compromise was the 1993 version of the interim Constitution had the compromise and contained the sun-set clause. He further states that the current version is a product of the National Assembly made up of representatives of all major political parties in the country.

The Constitution is a transformative piece of intervention. Even Section 25 speaks about issues of land reform, restitution, and redistribution, stating what must be done in order for those land reforms to be achieved. However, the failures of land reform are well documented in what is now recorded as the Mothlante Report on constitutional land reform. It is not that the failures of land reform are because of the Constitution, but issues related to nepotism and state capacity to enforce some of the laws and legislative interventions, he reminds us. Former Deputy President, Kgalema Mothlante, has led a high level panel on the assessment of key legislation and the acceleration of fundamental change, in which land reform, restitution, redistribution, and security of tenure and the failures of land redistribution are discussed. When asked whether the current version of the Constitution is unambiguous and clearly defined in terms of intent and objective, Lamola asserted that it could not be more clear. He believes that the Constitution is not to blame, as the issues relate to state capacity. With the introduction of the Expropriation Bill, the Constitution was a well-thought document that could have been tested as a case study when it comes to economic interventions.

Transformation of the judiciary

Transformation and the acceleration of black judicial officers in generaland black women in particular, has been a serious topic of discussion for a long time. When pressed as to whether the next chief justice should be a black woman, Lamola chose to refrain from answering the question, but he did point to some key stats that back up a move in the right direction for transformation. He was of the view that there has been tremendous progress in the appointment of black female judicial officers, not only in the magistrates, but for the judges as well. A clear effort in that process is being put in place. The focus now is, however, on ensuring that there is content of the jurisprudence coming out of the courts to ensure that it is inherently transformative and deals with the imbalances of the past.

Of the 311 judges that were appointed after 20 years of the Constitution, at least 86 of them were women.As of 2019, at least 47.8% of South Africas magistrates were female. This substantially represents good progress in the transformation of the judiciary. In early 2020, while 207 of the 210 recommended female magistrates were appointed, Minister Lamola emphasised the fact that a fully transformed judiciary is not only a constitutional imperative, but also goes a long way in further transforming our magistracy to reflect the demographics of our country. Notwithstanding, the Minister believes that more still needs to be done to increase this.

Access to justicea fundamental ethos of the Constitution

But what about access to justice?

There has been some progress in the setting up of more judicial offices, such as the introduction of new divisions, but is there a plan to perhaps put in place specialist courts to deal with a number of specific concerns for communities? The Minister stated that the transformation of the judicial system entails a broader concept of reform, which includes the reorganisation and rationalisation of the courts to have them aligned with the Constitution, also ensuring that the profession is transformed in such a way that state legal services and initiatives to improve areas of the justice system are put in place.

He does acknowledge that the process to accelerate access to justice is critical in dealing with justice-related matters as envisaged in the Constitution. However, the Minister was cautiously aware that there could not be a special court for every matter or issue that faces society.

However, the Department of Justice recognises that there could and should be areas that prioritise certain matters.

This is despite the fact that there are already existing courts such as the sexual offences courts, the labour court in relation to labour matters, the income tax courts, small claims courts, military courts, and competition courts. Lamola highlighted that there are plans to ensure that the land claims court, which was an interim court, is now going to be a permanent land court. The Bill to finalise this process is already before parliament and is being considered.The Minister has indicated confidence in the Special Commercial Courts, which are responsible for prosecuting high level fraud, stating that such has been accelerated as well in Limpopo and Mpumalanga. This has recorded a significant progress in broadening the provision of access to justice.Otherwise the state and the Justice Department would not be able to have sufficient resources and capacity to be able to manage and administer specialist courts for literally every issue and matter that affects society.

Do South Africans have reason to celebrate the progress of the Constitution?

The countrys Constitution has laid a foundation for the South African people to make an input in building the society that they wantin terms of building the construct between civil society and government. This, according to the Minister, is the biggest take away from the past 25 years. The country needs to selfishly guard against efforts to undermine the Constitution and contribute in ensuring that the Constitution becomes the dynamic living document that it was envisaged to be. So, in that respect, there is more reason to celebrate.

In his own words

On whether the Constitution is still legitimate and relevant to the lives and conditions of the people

The fact that the citizens, including the protesters, still participate in forums and platforms that are created by the Constitution, this is indicative of the relevance and importance of the Constitution. Naturally, there would be instances where there is conflict and contradictions created by the very same values in the Constitution, such as the right to life.

On the calls that effectively challenge the integrity of the doctrine of separation of powers by unfairly attacking the judiciary on the basis of state capture

There are established processes within the judicial service commission that people are able to follow to report instances of misconduct and misbehavior by some judicial officers, otherwise it is unfair to attack and criticise the judiciary without substance and evidence. Otherwise, these attacks do not augur well on the integrity of the judiciary. Ordinarily, the attacks on the judiciary are unsubstantiated and unwarranted based on superfluous and frivolous attacks. Where such evidence exists, consequence management would follow after a procedurally fair process.

On the calls for the amendment of the Constitution

We welcome the calls and initiatives that seek to amend the Constitution with the view to make it a dynamic and effective legal framework to advance the interests of the South African communities.

On transformation

There has been tremendous progress in the appointment of black female judicial officers, not only in the magistrates, but for the judges as well. A clear effort in that process is being put in place. The focus now is, however, on ensuring that there is content of the jurisprudence coming out of the courts to ensure that it is inherently transformative and deals with the imbalances of the past.

On the value and significance of the Constitution, 25 years after its enactment

In the Constitution, we have been able to achieve what is set out in the preamble and the objectives. In addition, the Constitution has facilitated South Africas transition from the old order into the new order.

On the income gap between the poor and rich widening radicallyand how the Constitution can help in this regardYes, more still needs to be done. It is in the interest of all South Africans that we strive towards economic equality where everyone feels that they are part of the mainstream of the economy. In that way, that will result in a society where there should be an equal sharing and equal distribution of resources.

On land reform

The Constitution is a transformative piece of intervention. Even Section 25 speaks about issues of land reform, restitution, and redistribution, stating what must be done in order for those land reforms to be achieved. However, the failures of land reform are well documented in what is now recorded as the Mothlante Report on constitutional land reform. It is not that the failures of land reform are because of the Constitution, but issues related to nepotism and state capacity to enforce some of the laws and legislative interventions.

On access to justice

The transformation of the judicial system entails a broader concept of reform, which includes the reorganisation and rationalisation of the courts to have them aligned with the Constitution, also ensuring that the profession is transformed in such a way that state legal services and initiatives to improve areas of the justice system are put in place. I acknowledge that the process to accelerate access to justice is critical in dealing with justice-related matters as envisaged in the Constitution. However, I am aware that there can not be a special court for every matter or issue that faces society.

Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Mr Ronald Lamola, MP

Ronald Lamola is a Member of Parliament and he was appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to form part of the National Executive and Cabinet as the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services of the Republic of South Africa on 29 May 2019.

Background

He was born in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga and Matriculated from Machaka Secondary School. He is the former Deputy President of the ANC Youth League. He was elected to the National Executive Committee of the ANC at the December 2017 Conference and he is also a member of the National Working Committee of the ANC.

Academic background

He obtained LLB Degree from the University of Venda in 2005. He holds three Post-Graduate Certificates in Corporate Law; Telecommunications Policy and Banking Law. He also has an LLM in Corporate Law from the University of Pretoria 2013-2014.In addition, he also obtained two Masters Degrees from the University of Pretoria. Lamolas first Masters Degree was in Corporate Law, where he explored the regulation of property syndication schemes.

His research looked at the roles of regulators in the regulation of taking deposits from the public, the conflation of the Companies Act, Banks Act and the Reserve Bank Act. Lamola got his second Masters Degree in Extractive Law in Africa from the University of Pretoria in 2018. His research focused on Corporate Social Investment by the Mining and Energy Sectors.

His research suggests that the Department of Minerals and Energys enforcement unit is inadequately resourced to ensure compliance with the social labour plans by companies in the sectors.

Career outside politics

He is an admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa. He formerly practiced as a Director of a private Law firm which specialised in Competition Law, Litigation, Communication Law and Banking Law.

He also worked in both the Mpumalanga Provincial and Local Governments as:

Who is Thabo Masombuka?

Thabo Masombuka is an economic transformation practitioner from Middelburg, Mpumalanga, based in Johannesburg.

He is an admitted attorney and the former chief executive officer for the Construction Sector Charter Council (CSCC), overseeing construction sector transformation and empowerment.

He is an activist with unimpeachable credentials in the areas of BBBEE fronting investigations, stakeholder facilitation, empowerment compliance, governance, and risk management.

The rest is here:

Exploring the constitutional order: In conversation with Minister Ronald Lamola - BBQ Online

The European Union's environment chief says 2022 must be the year for an ambitious agreement to protect the world's oceans, and tackle the global crisis of plastic pollution, especially at sea. A series of international conferences will focus on the issue this year. Virginijus Sinkevicius, the EU commissioner for environment, oceans and fisheries, told a UN news conference that precious time to save nature and the oceans has been lost over the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 27-member bloc is determined to move ahead quickly to steer "a global green transition". He said: "This year must be the year of the oceans. This year must be the year of biodiversity ... it is essential to get plastics under control and the only way to do it is globally. "This year we must find a window of opportunity to reach agreements that will change the world for better." "Without acting on this front, we won't succeed in solving the climate crisis," he warned, "because the finest technologies to solve the climate crisis are not sophisticated machines. They are trees, oceans and healthy ecosystems." The Lithuanian politician said that at a conference in Kunming, China beginning in late April, there must be "a genuinely transformative moment for biodiversity, and this requires a strong political engagement from all at the highest level". The most important outcome at that conference should be agreement to protect 30 per cent of the planet's land and oceans by 2030, and also restore degraded ecosystems, he said. This requires additional funding, and the EU Commission has doubled funding for biodiversity, which means a billion euro a year, he said, and it is looking to similar action from other countries and the private sector. A One Ocean Summit in Brest, France, has been organised by president Emmanuel Macron and the EU from February 9-11. That meeting will be followed by a conference on oceans on April 13-14 in the Pacific island nation of Palau, a biodiversity hotspot about 600 miles east of the Philippines, with 20,000 people scattered across a 250-island tropical archipelago. The EU commissioner said the meeting will focus on illegal, under-reported and unregulated fishing as well as climate issues facing island nations. The main event this year is the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon from June 27-July 1 where Mr Sinkevicius said "the European Union is determined to reach an ambitious agreement on the high seas" with strong monitoring. "These negotiations are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the ocean, and it was very encouraging to discuss with our American friends our common determination to reach a successful conclusion still this year," he said. Mr Sinkevicius said about 140 countries are calling for a negotiating committee to be established to reach a global agreement on controlling plastic pollution, and more than 70 of them said it should be legally binding. Australian Associated Press

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/99d83c69-6663-4166-a07a-2a883135727c.jpg/r0_74_800_526_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

The European Union's environment chief says 2022 must be the year for an ambitious agreement to protect the world's oceans, and tackle the global crisis of plastic pollution, especially at sea.

A series of international conferences will focus on the issue this year.

Virginijus Sinkevicius, the EU commissioner for environment, oceans and fisheries, told a UN news conference that precious time to save nature and the oceans has been lost over the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 27-member bloc is determined to move ahead quickly to steer "a global green transition".

He said: "This year must be the year of the oceans. This year must be the year of biodiversity ... it is essential to get plastics under control and the only way to do it is globally.

"This year we must find a window of opportunity to reach agreements that will change the world for better."

"Without acting on this front, we won't succeed in solving the climate crisis," he warned, "because the finest technologies to solve the climate crisis are not sophisticated machines. They are trees, oceans and healthy ecosystems."

The Lithuanian politician said that at a conference in Kunming, China beginning in late April, there must be "a genuinely transformative moment for biodiversity, and this requires a strong political engagement from all at the highest level".

The most important outcome at that conference should be agreement to protect 30 per cent of the planet's land and oceans by 2030, and also restore degraded ecosystems, he said.

This requires additional funding, and the EU Commission has doubled funding for biodiversity, which means a billion euro a year, he said, and it is looking to similar action from other countries and the private sector.

A One Ocean Summit in Brest, France, has been organised by president Emmanuel Macron and the EU from February 9-11.

That meeting will be followed by a conference on oceans on April 13-14 in the Pacific island nation of Palau, a biodiversity hotspot about 600 miles east of the Philippines, with 20,000 people scattered across a 250-island tropical archipelago.

The EU commissioner said the meeting will focus on illegal, under-reported and unregulated fishing as well as climate issues facing island nations.

The main event this year is the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon from June 27-July 1 where Mr Sinkevicius said "the European Union is determined to reach an ambitious agreement on the high seas" with strong monitoring.

"These negotiations are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the ocean, and it was very encouraging to discuss with our American friends our common determination to reach a successful conclusion still this year," he said.

Mr Sinkevicius said about 140 countries are calling for a negotiating committee to be established to reach a global agreement on controlling plastic pollution, and more than 70 of them said it should be legally binding.

Australian Associated Press

Go here to see the original:

2022 must see action to save oceans:EU - Daily Liberal

It is close to the election and I am not a vengeful or vindictive person I dont background and I dont want to be seen as someone who is out to exact revenge.

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I want to win the next election. And the one thing Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack agree on is that that has to be our priority. I know its mine.

Mr Joyce sent the text to a person last March to have it forwarded to former Liberal adviser Brittany Higgins after she went public with her allegation she was raped by a colleague in a ministers office in Parliament House.

Mr Joyce said in the message that he and Mr Morrison did not get along, adding: He is a hypocrite and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time. I have never trusted him and I dislike how he earnestly rearranges the truth to a lie.

The Prime Ministers office sought to minimise the political damage by revealing the text exchange late on Friday along with statements from Mr Morrison and Mr Joyce when The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age had obtained the text.

Mr Joyce held a brief press conference on Saturday to apologise for the text and cancelled his scheduled appearance on the ABCs Insiders program on Sunday morning to avoid further questions, leaving Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews to take his place.

It wasnt Barnabys finest hour by a long stretch but he apologised, Ms Andrews said.

Mr Morrison said all Australians knew that people got angry and bitter at times and that the best approach was to forgive them.

That is what my faith has always informed me to do the same as it has so many others, and Im thankful for that, he said.

Appearing in western Sydney to mark i4give Day with Daniel and Leila Abdallah, who lost three children and a niece when a drunk driver struck them two years ago, Mr Morrison said everyone needed to understand human frailty.

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Im sure if anyone went out there and checked what everybody has ever said about them, including all of us here, you will find people who will say not the most pleasant things about you. No one is immune to that, he said.

The question is, how do you respond to it as an individual? And today, on i4give Day, I think we get a very good lesson about that. I think this day is all about understanding human frailty. Human frailty, its real. We all share it. We all live with it and we all need to be more understanding of it.

Labor has made Mr Morrisons character a dominant theme in its attacks on the government after the Prime Minister was called a liar by French President Emmanuel Macron and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, with the attacks likely to intensify in Parliament this week.

This government is a smoking ruin of division, disunity and dysfunction and ordinary Australians are paying the price for that, Mr Chalmers said on Sunday.

Weve got frightened and vulnerable people in aged care, weve got small business owners worrying about customers coming through the door, weve got working families worried about the skyrocketing costs of living and real wages going backwards, and the government seems to spend all of its time dishing out free character assessments of each other.

There is no salvaging this government. A change in the Liberal leader or the National leader wont do it. The only way to chart the path for a better future for this country is to change the government.

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.

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Not the time for revenge: McCormack urges Nationals to focus on election - Sydney Morning Herald

rust in government has been declining since the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. According to Pew Research, only 36 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents and 9 percent of Republicans and those leaning Republican now trust government. Who can blame them given the failure of government to perform on many levels? One might think that trust by Democrats would be lower as they are regarded by many as the party of government and run large, crime-challenged cities.

Rarely does a voice break through the wall of meaningless political rhetoric as what occurred last week at the funeral of New York police Detective Jason Rivera who, along with his partner, Officer Wilbert Mora, was brutally murdered by a man who was shot by a third police officer and later died. The alleged gunman, 47-year-old Lashawn McNeil, was on probation after a drug conviction in 2003. His mother said he was mentally ill.

Riveras widow, Dominique Luzuriaga, received thunderous applause at St. Patricks Cathedral when she said: The system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore, not even members of the service.

Among those in attendance was Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose lenient approach to criminal suspects has been denounced by police officers, police unions and Republican politicians, but insufficient numbers of Democrats.

In what many believe to have been a direct criticism of Bragg, Dominique Rivera said of her late husband: I know you were tired of these laws, especially of the ones from the new DA. I hope hes watching you speak through me right now.

Bragg later issued a statement in which he said he is grieving and praying for Detective Rivera and Officer Mora today and every day, and my thoughts are with their families and the NYPD. He promised that violence against police officers will never be tolerated and my office will vigorously prosecute cases of violence against police and work to prevent acts like this from ever happening again. How? He didnt say.

What Bragg and other district attorneys, liberal Democratic mayors in big cities and even President Biden refuse to comprehend is their contribution to the violence and anarchy sweeping the land. They seem indifferent to the laws they took an oath to uphold. Whether it is on urban streets, or at the southern border, where undocumented immigrants continue to pour into the country, laws are not being enforced.

Pictures of criminals looting high-end stores and shoplifting goods with impunity and video of cop killings should be used to awaken the public to what looks like spreading anarchy.

If the streets are not safe for police officers, they cannot be safe for average citizens.

What might help? One option should be the return of capital punishment for people out on bond (which needs to be raised) and who kill again. No amount of feel good policies will restore order. Ridding the planet of evil killers would go far to protect the rest of us. In addition to the murder of cops, people are being pushed onto subway tracks and attacked on sidewalks as they go about their business. Why are these perpetrators treated like misbehaving children who get sent to their rooms without dinner, but are back at the breakfast table the next morning?

The tendency is to forget monstrous events as other stories take their place. Recent police killings in New York, Harris County, Texas, and elsewhere must not be forgotten, lest they become more common and public safety is further compromised. Ultimately, it is up to voters to put people in office who will do more than offer thoughts and prayers.

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

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Crime and a widow's eloquence | News, Sports, Jobs - Minot Daily News

news, national

At a vast wildlife sanctuary in the heart of the Kimberley three ecologists are flooded in, waiting for the next baby boom. Well over half a metre of rain has fallen so far this wet season, creating roaring waterfalls over towering escarpments and turning the Adcock River into a swollen beast. To say the animals are loving it is an understatement, stranded field ecologist Braden Riles says. The frogs are "going nuts", the birds are frisky, the termites are swarming in dense clouds, and reptiles, including whopper mulga snakes and olive pythons, are on the move. About lunchtime on Friday a plane managed to land and dropped off fresh food and other supplies to sustain the ecologists and two other staff while the 85km long "driveway" to the Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary is cut. Mr Riles is looking forward to what's ahead as the waters recede and the ecosystem makes the most of the drenching - the second good one in as many years. "We're out bushwalking every other weekend and we're already seeing (endangered) gouldian finches feeding on all the seed that's popped up," he says. The endangered purple-crowned fairy-wren is also doing well. "Their breeding has increased at the moment with the number of insects that are out and about following the rain, and with the creeks coming up. It's all pretty exciting." Mr Riles has worked at the sanctuary for the past three years, carefully monitoring the health of its many inhabitants including wallabies and wallaroos, northern quolls, big snakes, small snakes, blind snakes, and possibly his favourite, the semiaquatic Mitchell's water monitor. He says being in the grip of a period of plenty is always a thrill. "We had two pretty dry seasons, and we did see a bit of a trough in small mammals and reptiles. But now we've had two good seasons, I'd expect we're now going into a bit of a boom generally, across the landscape." But the rain - 670mm so far this wet season - is not without its downsides. "When the big rains come in the termites get really excited so if you leave a light on accidentally, you'll be in a cloud of them. They all come out of their mounds, and fly around." And there there are the snakes that are hard, if not impossible, to keep out of the sanctuary's living quarters. "Last year someone found a python in their bed in the middle of the night. It was coming in for warmth," Mr Riles says. "They're often around, in people's showers when they get home and all sorts. They can get a bit cheeky. "In fact our chicken population is dwindling because of them and when I say dwindling, they've actually gone extinct. We had one left as of a month ago, but it's since disappeared. "So that's another dry season job, to get a few more chickens in." Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary is Australia's largest non-government protected area, covering 312,00 hectares of tropical savanna and spectacular escarpments and gorges. Home to more than 200 birds, almost 100 reptiles and amphibians and 35 mammal species, it's a hotspot for northern Australia's threatened wildlife and is owned by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. Australian Associated Press

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/2d4d2a0c-1fff-4cf5-9e5d-a95d5f32bb43.jpg/r0_74_800_526_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

At a vast wildlife sanctuary in the heart of the Kimberley three ecologists are flooded in, waiting for the next baby boom.

Well over half a metre of rain has fallen so far this wet season, creating roaring waterfalls over towering escarpments and turning the Adcock River into a swollen beast.

To say the animals are loving it is an understatement, stranded field ecologist Braden Riles says.

The frogs are "going nuts", the birds are frisky, the termites are swarming in dense clouds, and reptiles, including whopper mulga snakes and olive pythons, are on the move.

About lunchtime on Friday a plane managed to land and dropped off fresh food and other supplies to sustain the ecologists and two other staff while the 85km long "driveway" to the Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary is cut.

Mr Riles is looking forward to what's ahead as the waters recede and the ecosystem makes the most of the drenching - the second good one in as many years.

"We're out bushwalking every other weekend and we're already seeing (endangered) gouldian finches feeding on all the seed that's popped up," he says.

The endangered purple-crowned fairy-wren is also doing well.

"Their breeding has increased at the moment with the number of insects that are out and about following the rain, and with the creeks coming up. It's all pretty exciting."

Mr Riles has worked at the sanctuary for the past three years, carefully monitoring the health of its many inhabitants including wallabies and wallaroos, northern quolls, big snakes, small snakes, blind snakes, and possibly his favourite, the semiaquatic Mitchell's water monitor.

He says being in the grip of a period of plenty is always a thrill.

"We had two pretty dry seasons, and we did see a bit of a trough in small mammals and reptiles. But now we've had two good seasons, I'd expect we're now going into a bit of a boom generally, across the landscape."

But the rain - 670mm so far this wet season - is not without its downsides.

"When the big rains come in the termites get really excited so if you leave a light on accidentally, you'll be in a cloud of them. They all come out of their mounds, and fly around."

And there there are the snakes that are hard, if not impossible, to keep out of the sanctuary's living quarters.

"Last year someone found a python in their bed in the middle of the night. It was coming in for warmth," Mr Riles says.

"They're often around, in people's showers when they get home and all sorts. They can get a bit cheeky.

"In fact our chicken population is dwindling because of them and when I say dwindling, they've actually gone extinct. We had one left as of a month ago, but it's since disappeared.

"So that's another dry season job, to get a few more chickens in."

Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary is Australia's largest non-government protected area, covering 312,00 hectares of tropical savanna and spectacular escarpments and gorges.

Home to more than 200 birds, almost 100 reptiles and amphibians and 35 mammal species, it's a hotspot for northern Australia's threatened wildlife and is owned by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.

Australian Associated Press

Go here to read the rest:

Period of plenty ahead at Kimberley haven - Daily Liberal

Subramani Ra Mancombu

Sujit Sahgal, who had a successful banking career of over 25 years, had kindled interests in the agriculture sector in 2020 with his maiden book A Wall Street View of Rural India. The book was released during the Covid pandemic and he gave himself some headroom to write his next book by penning a chapter Future of Farming. Given the fact that the media has not dealt with the future of farming in detail, Sahgal was requested by his well-wishers to expand on the theme. This was the seed that was sown to write this book Agribusiness and Technology - Revolutionizing the Future of Farming.

In penning this book, Sahgal has visited many farmers across the country and talked to them to understand their views and thoughts on agritech, their curiousness to learn and their willingness to adapt to new technologies.

In talking to as many farmers as he could, the author has come up with some very interesting findings that will not only help policymakers and government officials but also those in the private sector. Sahgal has tried to outline the solutions to many issues that have been dogging the agriculture sector for decades now. More importantly, he is reiterating some of the important points that have been discussed and debated all these years.

For example, community farming is one of the most widely discussed issues in the field of agriculture as most of the farmers are marginal and small farm holders. Sahgal says these small farms hamper economics at the farm level and investments. He advocates land aggregation possibly through safe leasing agreements, farming collectives and farmer producer organizations.

The authors views have been reflected in the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) pre-budget memorandum this year. Assocham has called for repealing land ceiling laws to allow farmers to thrive economically.

Sahgal has come up with a SOLID - sustainable solutions, lucrative, independent and doubling income - farming model to keep farmers and their future generations interested in agriculture. This can be achieved only by making the core agricultural activity sustainably profitable on its own.

The author advocates liberalisation of farming from rules, regulations and restrictions to treat reforms in the sector with a different approach. Sahgal advocates allowing farmers to access markets through the electronic national agricultural market (e-NAM), choose crops without the minimum support price, get mini-storage infrastructure, easier financing, and enjoy liberal trade laws.

A feature of Sahgals presentation of various issues is the anecdotes he uses in each chapter to introduce the subject and the issues around it. One of the interesting aspects that the author has brought to light is that farmers accept only what they think is feasible.

The author explains how a tissue culture scientist told farmers that they could make50,000 per acre annually against the 2,000-3,000 they were making if they followed his advice. The growers ignored his suggestion, dubbing him mad. The scientist realised his folly and told them that they could make 10,000. The farmers trusted him thereafter and followed his suggestions. Soon, they began earning 20,000 per acre annually.

Sahgal is clear in his view that policymakers, government officials, extension personnel and others understanding the nuances is the key to learning what farmers know and what they want.

One of the interesting suggestions that the author proposes is offering input access services and renting of equipment (FaaS) along with financial services such as effective insurance policies. Sahgal says FaaS is in huge demand from farmers producers organisations especially for small farmers for who it would be sensible to rent farm equipment.

Unlike those who tend to come up with a pessimistic outlook on Indias rural areas, Sahgal sounds optimistic and positive on the future of Indian farming. His viewpoints are embellished by various options and solutions to make farming profitable and more promising.Agribusiness and technology could well turn out to be a guide for those wanting to make agriculture profitable.

Book: Agribusiness and Technology - Revolutionizing the Future of Farming

Author: Sujit Sahgal

Published by SAGE Response Business Books

Pages: 246

Price:550

Check out the book on Amazon

Published onFebruary 07, 2022

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Revolutionizing the Future of Farming - BusinessLine

HAVING lost his father Ajit Singh to Covid last year, Jayant Chaudhary, 43, is gearing up for his first Assembly election as head of the Rashtriya Lok Dal. The family legacy goes down even further, to western UPs foremost farm leader, former prime minister and Jayants grandfather Charan Singh. Born in Texas, US, with a degree in accounts and finance from LSE, Jayant has proved sceptics wrong by energising his party that won just 1 seat in 2017 and forging an alliance with Akhilesh Yadav that has been generating a lot of buzz. As west UP, the only region of the state where the RLD has a credible chance of making an impact, heads to polls in the first phase on February 10, Chaudhary gives a wide-ranging interview while on the road from Shamli to Muzaffarnagar during a hectic schedule.

For your birth, your grandfather held a party that came to be known as birthday diplomacy. Indira Gandhi came, a government got formed It heralded a new kind of politics, of unlikely interests coming together. Are you in a way taking that forward?

There are no set formulas, you have to respond to the environment, circumstances, and try for what is best for your constituency. Thats what politics is ultimately about. Its about creating solutions, negotiations, a common minimum sort of agenda. There are always differences but you have to resolve them democratically Of course parties are found around certain ideas Politics devoid of ideology will not take us forward I respect anyone who sticks to their ideological position (but) you can try different combinations politically that work on the ground.

What is the core idea or principle that the RLD represents?

We represent the hinterland really. Even though some parts of the region are in the vicinity of Delhi you find a level of deprivation. So taking the villages forward, reforming the agricultural system and rural development are the issues I feel strongly about. I track issues like climate change and there is a need for technology and more innovation even in our rural society.

Where would you place yourself in the conventional left, centre and right streams of thought?

We are more on the liberal side, the central side. We stand up for individual freedoms. And thats why we respect the sanctity of citizen movements, and were vocal about the farm agitation. The farmers were well within their rights to pressure their representatives, ask their government to roll back a law. Similarly on land acquisition my personal Bill was on correcting the imbalance of power between the Centre and the state and citizens You cant take land without the consent of the individual. So in that sense we are more liberal, pro-people.

Yes, the State is important. It needs to provide social security, parity in relationship between industry and agriculture, and farmers or labourers But we never asked for crude market interventions So we are not against private industries coming in but there need to be safeguards. Take the sugar industry. Chaudhary Ajit Singh provided licences to so many of the industries that are still providing service to farmers and consumers There is a way for the farmer to get legal redress.

Have you ever felt that the RLDs past, particularly your fathers constant switching of sides between parties, has affected your present?

I dont think we should question decisions taken in the past. There were a set of circumstances we can never truly understand today. That was the coalition era. It was about refashioning the non-Congress movement, the Janta Parivar splintering into many factions, the rise of the regional players, the rise of Mandal (Commission) and other factors He had to respond to those situations. Right now there is an enabling environment for farmers to cut across those narrow lines and work together. The iron is hot and we are trying to create a larger social coalition than our traditional vote bank.

You come from a region where people have a strong sense of community. Do you think RLD votes will get smoothly transferred to the SP and vice-a-versa?

Younger people today have a stronger voice in that community and they are connected with each other. They follow what we are saying on Twitter, where Akhilesh and I are moving. Sitting in Muzaffarnagar they know what we have said in Agra. And our chemistry and communication have been very, very to the point, focused on real issues. That message has gone down very well. We ran a lot of programmes to build a rainbow coalition, as you said. So its a long-term project. This election is just the beginning.

How tough do you find the rough and tumble of politics, particularly in the absence of your father?

You need the counsel of elders. But, in a sense, it (the loss of elders) happens to everyone. And Chaudhary Ajit Singh empowered me a lot. He trusted my decisions, gave me responsibility in the organisation. So its not as if the issues were not known to me or that I didnt have a relationships already with voters. I have crisscrossed entire UP, we have worked hard. This first election people will abide by my decisions There are so many candidates (for our tickets) because the environment is so positive. In every seat we got 20 applicants. I am happy to say that the 19 who didnt get tickets all of them have stuck with us.

So you think they have accepted you as their leader?

I think they want to give us a chance.

You said earlier that you would have been open to the idea of working with the BJP had it chosen the middle path instead of going so right. But a sizeable section likes its muscular brand of nationalism and identity politics.

They did, but ultimately they (the BJP) have caused so much harm to the society and economy that people have been forced to reconsider. Those hardships are creating an environment where people now want to come together. They dont want tension, divisive language, which is very crude, negative. Leadership should be about positive ideas It might work when there is emotional trauma like after the Muzaffarnagar riots it will not work in every circumstance.

Your father held the SP as responsible for the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots as the BJP.

The SP was in power (at the time). Obviously these questions were posed to the SP. But I feel, in hindsight and I have had that conversation with Akhilesh ji there were things he could have done better and he is also aware of it. When we have decided to come together, its pretty clear we are not going to let such incidents or riots happen again. There will be zero tolerance for hatred, for people who incite hatred, who are part of this culture of encouraging riots. We are going to provide good governance. Rule of law must be respected by everyone. We are both very clear on this, and if you look at our leadership, our background, we are educated, we are young, we are taking about new ideas, about development. People can have the faith and confidence that we will not do anything that will give the state a negative direction.

So you spoke to him about the riots before the poll pact?

We discussed a lot of things. He spent five years in the Opposition Its very clear that the principle of social equity, social justice, harmony, these are going to be at the core of our government.

What is the vision that you are offering in terms of development, be it education, health or infrastructure?

Ajit Singh was development oriented and there was a time when Muzaffarnagar was one of the highest per capita income districts in the country. And if a small farmer with 2-3 bighas was able to educate children in Delhi, Meerut, Ghaziabad, it was due to our strong, development-oriented focus. We favour providing support to those industries which are not as much capital-intensive but labour-intensive At the same time we are talking about new ideas, about spurring innovation. In our manifesto, we have spoken about grants, scholarships to scientists coming up with patents in ideas or areas like renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, artificial intelligence. We talk about blockchain in our manifesto. These are very new-age ideas the knowledge economy is going to take us forward. We have a target of Rs 25,000 crore investment in food processing, which is going to be the next wave, with farmers getting better prices for their produce. Right now there is huge wastage procurement is very minimal because of the lack of packaging, branding, storage. Farmers get a very small share of what the consumers in the big cities are paying. That is where we have the maximum room to grow.

Why is senior BJP leader Amit Shah repeatedly reaching out to you?

He is trying to isolate the Jats, like they did in Haryana. Thats it Its not a gesture made out of goodwill. If it was, they would have done so before the elections, before we had struck our alliance, with efforts to reconcile the issues we have been very vocal about. (Ajay ) Teni is still a Union minister, the farmer agitation has been called off but none of the issues have really been addressed. They invoke (my) Jat identity because they feel it will help them break away some of the other communities today working with us.

How are you attempting to broaden your social base?

Through initiatives like Bahujan Uday Abhiyan, Nyay Yatra. We spoke about the Hathras victim, the April 2 (2018) cases against Dalits (over all-India protests), and have had a bhaichara programme with Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in rural areas. When people sit together, eat together, work together, vote together, you create lasting relationships that can withstand pressures That is the Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb. There may be a small incident that disrupts it, but now this region has again gone back to its historic default.

Do you think the wounds of the 2013 riots have healed completely?

No, it takes time. For those families directly affected, it will take time. But that does not mean politics is going to be governed by those issues anymore. People want to forget and forgive, and they have as well.

The poll verdict on March 10 will have a far-reaching impact on national politics. What is your take?

We are at an inflection point for national politics. This mandate is going to provide a lot of support to farmers across the country and they will take confidence from this. If we somehow fail to muster the support required, I dont think we will see the sort of agitations (farmer, etc) that we have witnessed for the last 30 months.

Why did you visit the residence of the Tikaits on Sunday, four days ahead of the polls?

The visit was about sending out a message of solidarity. Sisauli has a special significance in the history of the farmers movement. We have known the Tikait family for long. On Sunday, I met Naresh Tikait, who blessed me.

Was there a larger message in the visit?

Yes, it essentially conveys that we stand united in the cause of farmers. There is no room for any ambiguity.

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Akhilesh ji is also aware there are things he could have done better in 2013Its clear were not going to let such incidents happen again: Jayant...

Caste is an elephant in the living room of Indian social development professionals. While caste has always been pivotal to the countrys electoral politics, it remains marginal to mainstream development thinking.

Globally, too, it is absent from the social characteristics of concern, such as gender, race or age in the Sustainable Development Goals, their emphasis on equality of opportunity and reducing inequality of outcomes notwithstanding.

The increasing inability of the Indian agrarian sector to sustain the tillers and landless labourers has intensified the exodus of the poor from the rural parts of India to urban centres. According to a survey conducted by the Peoples Research on Indias Consumer Economy published in 2021, there has been a rise in the share of poor in cities.

In 2016, 90% of the poorest 20% lived in rural India but that number had dropped to 70% in 2021. On the other hand, the share of the poorest 20% in urban areas has gone up from around 10% to 30% now.

Unplanned, and therefore unprepared, cities receive people with education and skill sets that are inadequate for their survival in the new setting. The informal sector balloons at the bottom of the skill pyramid and so does the insecurity associated with it. Unemployment, malnutrition and food insecurity, lack of education and health facilities and crime and substance abuse begin to colour the urban.

Thats when most civil society organisations enter the stage, earnestly seeking to engage with, what appears in the final analysis as, urgent, and symptomatic.

Today, climate change is being recognised as one of the main reasons why the agrarian sector has been in an unstoppable decay of late. Globally, until 2000, climate change was largely seen as an environmental issue. But soon poorer countries and development non-governmental organisations grew concerned about the varying impacts of climate change on poor and vulnerable communities.

The Up in Smoke coalition, which came together in 2003, sought to bridge the divide between environment and development non-governmental organisations. Unfortunately, this shift did not resonate visibly in Indian development discourse.

The data on how differently climate change is affecting tillers, who are mostly caste Hindus, and the landless labourers, who are mostly Dalits, remains scanty. Owing to the precarity of Dalits residing in low-lying areas, suffering from poor health conditions, underemployment, abysmal social security it is not difficult to imagine that they are affected the first and the most.

The distress dimensions of migration are invariably emphasised by highlighting the worsening situation of dryland agriculture created by drought or flood and crop failure, poor prices of agrarian products and low wages.

The Agricultural Census of 2015-16 reported that Dalits own only about 9% of the total agricultural land and 71% Dalits are landless labourers. Having little land to fall back on, in any event of distress, the only option for them is to move to a big city and be willing to squat in squalor and occupy the lowest-paying jobs.

As per the 2011 Census the most recent data on Dalits in urban and slum areas are over a decade old 28% of Indias urban Dalit population lives in slums. Wards with high populations of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes often lack access to amenities such as piped water and toilets across cities.

The lack of access to basic amenities cannot be due to poverty because there is enough evidence around the globe to suggest that residential segregation itself is a cause of poverty, impairing chances of education and employment for marginalised groups.

As per the 2011-12 National Sample Survey Office statistics, the share of wage labourers among scheduled castes was 63%. Among wage labourers, too, scheduled castes have a much greater share of casual wage workers at 47%, which signifies higher job insecurity and poor earnings. In contrast, migrants from the general category, because of their historical advantages, are able to find better safety nets and higher-paying jobs in urban areas.

A study conducted by the Centre for Womens Development Studies in 2012 pointed that about 66% of upper caste female migrant workers were engaged in white-collar services, as compared to other caste groups with other backward castes at 36%, scheduled castes at 19% and scheduled tribes at 18%.

While this is the situation on the demand side, on the supply side we could have a far more nuanced understanding of this phenomenon if the civil society organisations collected data on drop-outs from skilling, employability, and job placements programmes along caste lines as well. There is a need to understand the cultural make-up of the participants in these programmes, and of the drop-outs, to make a sense of their alienation from the solutions that we offer.

The National Commission on Population predicts that by 2036, about 38.6% of Indians, or 600 million, will live in urban areas. The United Nations, too, highlights that Indias urban population size will nearly double, from 461 to 877 million, between 2018 and 2050. Yet, there seems to be little preparation even by the civil society organisations as to how the millions who will arrive in the city will have a life with dignity.

One reason could be that development ideas and leadership have been increasingly feeling the pressure to move away from systemic and structural issues. Civil society organisations have clearly moved away from creating and supporting social movements since the onset of the neo-liberal world order three decades ago. Directly or indirectly, both, sarkar and bazaar seem to have nudged, or limited, Indian civil society organisations to service provision or addressing social issues merely at its symptom level. This has further worsened since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The recent years have seen unprecedented erosion of the public sphere, where the space for questioning the government and its policies has critically shrunk. The fear of inviting negative attention from the government has forced civil society actors to stay away from issues that are rendered political. The social, like caste, is extremely political in a society where social inequality functions as the source of power.

Civil society players need to open their eyes to the elephant in the room. Caste continues to impact a number of development outcomes. For instance, in education, the focus is usually on enrolment and learning outcomes, overlooking the fact that gains may vary significantly along caste lines.

A United Nations Childrens Fund study from 2019 suggests that for those from scheduled castes or scheduled tribes, the transition from primary to secondary, and from lower to upper secondary levels are the hardest as they are not only under-prepared to tackle the challenges at the next level of their education but low aspiration and self-esteem and the pressure to earn early also put great stress on them to drop out. Drop-out rates between upper primary and secondary school are the highest for those from the scheduled tribes, followed by those from Scheduled Castes. The data on de-notified tribes remains scanty.

Caste often creates an existential dilemma for the mainstream civil society which then prefers to overlook its exclusionary structure and practices. To overcome that, one of the steps could be to look at the social profile of the civil society organisations board members and their senior leadership team and ensure representation of the marginalised in the decision making bodies.

There is no caste-based analysis of the civil society leadership available in India. The general observation is that the social development leadership is overwhelmingly non-scheduled caste and non-scheduled tribe. The same can be extended to funding organisations and corporate social responsibilities of Indian comopanies.

There have been instances of funding organisations insist that a civil society organisation, with a stated mission to work for the welfare of the marginalised, must have representation from these sections on their boards. At the same time, these funding organisations themselves have refused to carry out similar measures while constituting their own boards and leadership.

Caste cannot be treated as an archaic Indian cultural phenomenon erased by migration to cities. Civil society groups have turned away from the role of mobilising people to challenge established power relationships, such as caste, that reproduces inequality.

One way to correct the script would be to improve national data. Bringing the overall caste data into the public domain could be a good start. There is an urgent need to look at the strategies, programmes and outcomes of civil society organisations with the lens of caste to reach the furthest behind first, and to do that, we must consider the continuation of caste system as a violation of human rights.

Arun Kumar is a researcher and social change professional based out of London. His Twitter handle is @ArunKumarMumbai. Diksha Shriyan is a researcher and social change professional in Mumbai. Her Twitter handle is @diksha_21.

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Civil society organisations need to stop ignoring caste and diversify their leadership - Scroll.in