Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

The World Coalition against the Death Penalty reported the number of recorded executions internationally in 2021 at 2397, with at least 2000 in China. The total figure is probably far higher because China keeps details of its executions a state secret.

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Iran, with a population of 83 million, has a higher execution rate per capita than China. There were 977 executions in 2015, when Hassan Rouhani, regarded as a moderate, was president, 507 in 2017, falling to 365 in 2021.

Egypt ranks third among executing states, and in the decade 2011-21 2182 people were sentenced to death, including children, mostly for political offences by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Penalty Is Death is, essentially, a collection of the best writing from world literature setting out the reasons why the death penalty should be rejected in all places and at all times. Among the writing are works by Cesare Beccaria, Charles Dickens and Clarence Darrow. George Orwells 1931 essay on a hanging he witnessed in Burma, perhaps the most compelling piece of writing on the death penalty, also appears.

The world and the times have changed since 1968. In order to place these classic writings in our contemporary world, the commentary for each work has been updated and changed. Three brilliant forewords by leading jurist Michael Kirby, barrister Julian McMahon and Richard Bourke, the Australian barrister who is director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Centre, place the works in the context of the ongoing struggle to advance the cause of abolition by Australians and those we work with around the world.

In On Crimes and Punishments, published in 1764, Beccaria, an economist from Milan, argued for the abolition of the death penalty with a classic simplicity, that there is no demonstrable correlation between the severity of punishment and the crime rate: all punishment deters, but there is no statistical evidence that execution or torture deters uniquely. The aims of punishment, he insisted, are reformation and deterrence, and certainty of apprehension and conviction are the major determinants of the crime rate. The appropriate penalty is the lowest penalty consistent with public safety.

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Although the number of abolitionist countries and those maintaining long-term moratoria on the death penalty continues to grow, much more than half of the worlds population live in places where they are at risk of the death penalty. Australia is geographically and politically well-placed to exert our influence and provide our assistance to progress the cause of abolition.

One important aspect of the new commentary is the coverage of the large-scale use of capital punishment by the Australian military against Indigenous Papua New Guineans during the latter half of World War II. In 1968, only the slightest knowledge existed of these events and the briefest of mentions appeared in the first edition.

Subsequent research in files albeit mutilated ones at the Australian National Archives (ANA) has revealed much more about this shameful episode in our military history.

In Papua New Guinea in 1943 and 1944 the AIF tried, convicted and hanged about 150 Indigenous people in remote areas, mostly for murder but often for collaboration with Japanese forces. Most of those hanged had been subject to domination by different colonial powers before the Australian military and could hardly be blamed for carrying out instructions of those who, for the moment, had them at the point of their guns.

Extraordinarily, the military authorities kept knowledge of these events from the Australian government. It was only in April 1945 that the prime minister, John Curtin, found out and the cabinet ordered the executions stopped.

Even then, the General Officer Commanding (GOC), Lieutenant-General V.A.H. (later Sir Vernon) Sturdee, hesitated and sought alternative legal advice before reluctantly complying with the instructions of the government of the day.

These military executions remain, because of the state of the records, shrouded in mystery. Neither do we know why so many of the records are absent and incomplete. We do know, however, that the AIF were responsible for about 150 executions over about two years, some 35 more executions than occurred in Australia between 1901 and 1967.

We live in deeply troubling times. It is easy to understand why people in many countries are gripped by insecurity. The ready access to lethal weapons and mood-changing drugs and the risk of attack, from internal or imported terrorism, are horrors seen every day on television and the internet. As a defensive reaction, many citizens would like to see the return of retributive punishments.

We need to think deeply about how we define our humanity. In the final analysis, do we make judgments coolly and calmly on the basis of evidence that is capable of being weighed and objectively analysed? Or is it the case that, in dealing with human nature, objective analysis is useless and we are forced into terra incognita and must decide blindly, on the basis of instinct or gut reaction?

We stand, I hope, against darkness, against obscurantism, against instinct, against pessimism about society and the capacity that individuals have for moral regeneration.

Campaigners for abolition have to be prepared to argue for the tough cases, repulsive as they are: Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, Amrozi. The moral high ground does not allow campaigners to be selective.

The former archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Francois Marty, wrote:

If a man does no longer act like a man, the community must refrain from following him Any individual who commits an act of violence against another individual is degrading mankind. If we want to safeguard the concept of human beings now being threatened, we must resist the temptation of retributive anger.

Can man, that imperfect being, be expected to render perfect justice?

Nguyen Tuong Van, aged 25, an Australian citizen of Vietnamese origin, was hanged in Singapore in December 2005 for carrying drugs for his brother from Cambodia to Australia and being caught in transit.

Under Singapores mandatory death penalty, mitigating circumstances were irrelevant. It would be impossible to characterise Van Nguyen as the criminal of the year, or the century, but his penalty would have been no greater if he had been.

Execution is the ultimate demonstration of state power; there are no chance factors and the victim becomes a passive object, even before he or she dies. In some jurisdictions, cost is a major factor: execution is far cheaper than lifelong imprisonment.

One of the sickening aspects of execution for drug offences is that only mules are caught. Those who control the drug syndicates just read about the executions on Facebook.

Scribes new edition of The Penalty Is Death, compiled and edited by Barry Jones.Credit:

If the senseless executions of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan for drug offences in 2015 taught us anything, it is this: Australia must be much more active in advocating abolition of the death penalty internationally. This is not merely to protect and preserve its own nationals, but as part of a campaign with universal application, without picking and choosing, and with the moral force that earlier generations worked with to end slavery, liberate women, eliminate torture and punishments for heresy or witchcraft.

This second edition of The Penalty Is Death brings new generations of activists, students and general readers access to the most important writings on capital punishment across history. And it brings important, albeit incomplete, knowledge of an aspect of Australian conduct in war that should not be forgotten.

The centenary of Queenslands abolition of capital punishment will be celebrated at Parliament House, Brisbane, on Monday, August 1. As the culmination of the days celebrations, journalist and broadcaster Kerry OBrien will officially launch the new edition of The Penalty Is Death (Scribe, $35).

Excerpt from:

Australia has a special role to play in fighting the death penalty - Sydney Morning Herald

By Jess Gill*

From the Equal Pay Act 1970 to the Equality Act 2010, there has been a wave of legalization in Britain to turn the state into some omniscient being that can determine the intentions of an employer. While these pieces of legislation did not enforce direct quotas onto businesses, they have increased inefficiencies through the increase in human resources roles for companies and organizations to cover their own backs.

These pieces of anti-discrimination legislation assumes that the state can determine the intentions of an employer. There are many reasons why an employer may not hire somebody or give an employee higher pay. However, the government cannot possibly know their reasoning. This leads to employers overcompensating in order to escape the government punishing them for employing whoever they wish.

Lew Rockwell encapsulates this perfectly:

Imagine that the government appoints a party planner who says that you can invite or not invite whoever you want, provided that one consideration is not part of the mix: you must not decline to invite someone on the grounds of hair color. Now, it may never have occurred to you to think along these lines. But now you have to. You notice that you have no redheads attending the party, much to your alarm.

What if this fact is taken as evidence that you are discriminating? Will it? You cant know for sure. You think again: even if no redheads are coming, this is surely not the reason why you are not inviting them. There are other factors, too many factors to name. In any case, how can the states party planner know what your motivations are? Isnt it astounding that a government agency would presume to read your mind, know your heart, and discern your innermost emotions and motives?

Truly this is totalitarian.

Over the past decades, those who believe that equality of outcome must be due to discrimination has come to the mainstream. Modern day feminists demand the abolition of the gender pay gap as if it is due to sexism. The Black Lives Matter movement has led to critical race theory becoming mainstream, an ideology which believes that any race inequality must be due to racism. These demands are an attack on private property and free enterprise.

Not only does this encourage companies to hire with equality of outcome in mind, but this egalitarian legislation has led to an increase in diversity and inclusion officers. This has made the UKlead in the worldof diversity and inclusion roles. Those in these roles have been implanting leftist ideology into every industry while they receive a very generous salary. The interest in diversity and inclusion officers hasgrown by 122 percentsince 2010.

The Network Rails Diversity Chief,Loraine Martins, receives a salary of 160,000 a year. Martin openly tweets criticising Boris Johnson for his white privilege which should violate Network Rails code of ethics to avoid conflict of interests including political activities.

Furthermore, there are currently twenty known diversity officers within theMinistry of Defence. One director of diversity and inclusion receives a salary of 110,000 a year. Is there any wonder that the MoD is preaching that If we want to be the best Armed Forces, then the only way to go is Feminist?

These diversity officers work as activists. TheNHS equality chiefhas led called a government watchdogs ruling transphobic after it was decided that biological men who call themselves transgender can be excluded from single-sex wards. This mutiny is threatening the safety and comfortableness of biological women. Instead of prioritising the women who need treatment, there is pressure for the NHS to prioritize wokeness.

These roles have caused inefficiencies within each industry, taking money and resources away from what needs to be done in order to pour it down the endless drain of bureaucracy. Instead of prioritising efforts to what serves the customer the best, organizations and companies are forced to prioritised what is politically correct.

As Lew Rockwell states:

Every employer must constantly prepare and organize to diminish the likelihood that a complaint will be filed. In doing so, they take steps that lead to inefficiencies or avoid steps that might improve efficiency.

The trojan horse of anti-discrimination legislation have led to leftism corrupting every institution which now has to discuss topics like white privilege and microaggressions. Through this Gramscian takeover, the notions that we should prioritise equality of outcome and value egalitarianism has further been normalized.

Not only are businesses and organizations concerned with government officials punishing them about not being progressive enough, now there is an enemy within. It is not enough for the business to be visibly diverse; their employers must now preach egalitarian ideas too.

*About the author: Jess Gill is a British libertarian political content creator. She is the Creative Director of Reasoned U.K. Jess creates political and economics videos on Tiktok and YouTube where she has gained a following of over 30,000.

Source: This article was published by the MISES Institute

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How British Efforts To Enforce Equality Have Led To A Woke Totalitarianism OpEd - Eurasia Review

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FORTY kilometres outside Madrid, figures of dancing girls adorning the front of the seedy dark brick Olimpo are designed to lure punters off the motorway for a wild night of booze and sex.

In 1999, the same establishment was used to lock up 40 girls trafficked from Romania who were being farmed out to clients in Madrids Casa de Campo. The Spanish owner was arrested along with his cronies, his activities curtailed. But, 23 years on, the Olimpo is still going strong.

One of 1,200 highway brothels in Spain, the Olimpo is registered as a nightclub. Others are registered as hotels. Prostitution is a legal grey area on the Peninsula.

Some regions boast more of these clubs than others, such as the so-called Love Route on the N301 between Cuenca and Cartagena, where a 14-kilometre stretch has eight such establishments. Then there is the Mediterranean Corridor of Prostitution, a term coined by Valencia University sociologist Antonio Ario goes from Cadiz to Girona, where every postcode has a brothel, either in the shape of a highway club or hotel, massage parlour or more clandestine apartment.

A large number of Spanish men have paid for sex, at least once in their lives. In 2008, Spains Centre for Sociological investigation (CIS) put the figure at 32.1% compared to 11% of British men and 14% of Americans. In 2011, the UN hiked Spains figure to 39%, earning the country its reputation as the brothel of Europe.

Data emerging from Arios 2017-2021 study of the Valencian region found between 4% and 6% of Spanish men had had sex in the past year compared to 1% of Americans and, in the last five years, 3.6% of Brits. Ario believes his data probably applies to Spain as a whole.

Theres no doubt that brothels do a roaring trade in Spain, said to be worth an annual 3.7 billion, but if the government has its way, the Peninsulas days as a hotbed of commercial sex could be numbered. The abolition draft law which is forecast to be approved as early as October, will slap fines on clients and finally close the likes of the Olimpo down, punishing anyone profiting from prostitution, apart from the prostitutes themselves, including landlords knowingly renting premises for prostitution.

It sounds desirable. One might even think, about time. But the proposal is not without its detractors, not least among the prostitutes themselves.

Vera, a sex worker from Eastern Europe, has worked in 12 different countries including Sweden and Norway, both of which have opted for abolition. She believes the new law will simply push more women in her profession into the hands of the mafias.

If you want to get rid of abuse in the sector, you have to decriminalize it totally so that the police become our friends and protect us, she tells The Olive Press. If they pass the law, were more likely to go to the clients homes and you never know what could be waiting for you there. There could be five men instead of one. And on the street, there wont be time to filter out undesirable clients.

Vera adds that she wont be able to report any violence in her own apartment for fear of being evicted. Thats whats happening in Sweden and Norway, she says. The crimes arent being investigated.

Vera has worked in both clubs and apartments. Some, she admits, force the sex workers to perform oral sex without a condom and demand 12-hour shifts. But, now shes independent and content with her situation.

The working conditions are fine in Spain and the police dont bother us. Nowhere could be worse than my own country, she says, refusing to reveal its name, but explaining that as prostitution is illegal there, the police tend to ask for free sex or a bribe in exchange for turning a blind eye.

Fuensanta Gual from CATS, an association in Murcia that lobbies for sex worker rights, argues that, given that the sector operates more or less above the radar in Spain, the authorities are at least able to offer a modicum of protection.

The police carry out inspections in Spains clubs from time to time, looking for victims who have been forced into prostitution and also checking on abuse or abusive conditions, she tells the Olive Press. If the clubs are closed down, the women will be even more at the mercy of abusive elements as they wont have any other option. Ironically, they wont have the protection of the law. Theyll not only be out of reach of the police but also out of reach of the associations who support them.

Gual is not convinced that Spain is the brothel of Europe. She cites a survey in which 400 Germans were asked if they had ever paid for sex. The findings were zero. Thats statistically impossible, she says. Here, in Spain, men are more likely to admit it.

Gual agrees that there could be a link between this openness and the explosion of eroticism, known as the destap, that followed the sexual repression of the Franco dictatorship when bus tours shipped Spaniards across the border into France to watch Bertoluccis 1972 Last Tango in Paris.

Destap translates as both nudity and opening up, and sex was high on the agenda during the 1980s Movida to the extent that even the former king, Juan Carlos I, is alleged to have enjoyed the company of high-class hookers, indicative perhaps of the kind of society he lived in, observes Gual.

But Rocio Mora is incensed that prostitution should in any way be equated with liberal attitudes. A spokeswoman from the pro-abolitionist association APRAMP that attends to sex workers suffering abuse, she says, Its not liberal or progressive to pay for sex. Some of the women I tend to are so psychologically damaged, they cant even talk about what the industry has done to their bodies and lives.

Moreover, Mora does not believe that Veras case is representative of women selling sex in Spain. But Vera points out, There are no current statistics on trafficking in Spain. The government says it has based the law on a recent study but there is no recent study. It doesnt exist.

The proportion of sex workers trafficked or exploited is far from clear. Valencian sociologist Ario believes that when the national polices organised crime unit claimed there were 45,000 prostitutes in Spain, the figure most likely referred to those trafficked or exploited in some way. He reckons there are between 100,000 and 120,000 sex workers in total, as does Gual.

Medicos del Mundo puts the total figure of sex workers much higher at 350,000, and spokeswoman Celia Lpez says around 93% of these are foreign. Thirty years ago, it was Spanish women with a drug or alcohol problem. Now its immigrants. But what they all have in common is a precarious social/ economic situation, she tells the Olive Press.

In Lpezs view, the proliferation of pornography in Spain is driving the demand for commercial sex and normalizing it. Abolition can only work, she believes, if accompanied by massive awareness campaign, flagging up the fact that those paying for sex are boosting demand and inevitably buying into the exploitation and trafficking.

If we dont address the situation, Esther Torrado, sociologist at Tenerifes La Laguna University and an expert in sexual violence, tells the Olive Press, well end up a nation of waiters and whores.

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LONG READ: Will Spains sex industry simply go underground as new anti-prostitution laws come into force? - The Olive Press

Democrats continue to say that democracy is in danger if voters dont give liberals the majority in November, but violence by the left has defined the summer politically so far, conservative observers have told the Epoch Times.

As Democrats continue to use the Jan. 6 Committee hearings over the summer to make a special case that somehow conservatives pose a danger to the country, the violence from the left has been ongoing, one victim told the Epoch Times.

The issues affronting progressives are numerous, including the reversal of Roe v. Wade, non-action on a climate change scheme, and the lack of momentum of progressive policies under President Joe Biden, which stand out as sources of anger and mounting frustration for leftist activists.

In June, a pro-life pregnancy center in Buffalo, New York, was burned out, allegedly by the radical leftwing, pro-abortion, militant group Janes Revenge, said the health pregnancy center called CompassCare, which helps women keep their babies rather than abort them.

We actually saw the type of [violent] Janes Revenge activity happening around our Buffalo location that they were fomenting with their followers prior to the firebombing of the clinic Rev. James Harden, CEO of CompassCare, told the Epoch Times.

So we reported it to local law enforcement as well as the FBI two weeks in advance of the firebombing, added Harden, who said Molotov cocktails were used to set the blaze to the CompassCare clinic.

Harden blames local and national progressive politicians for the violence, calling measures that the state of New York have taken under Democratic Gov. Kathleen Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James to investigate crisis pregnancy centers like CompassCare as essentially joining Janes Revenge in attacking pro-life pregnancy centers.

The Janes group said that they were also responsible for attacks on pro-family clinics in Dearborn, Michigan, Asheville, North Carolina, and more than a dozen other sites around the country in response to the Supreme Courts repeal of Roe v. Wade.

You have seen us in Madison WI, Ft. Collins CO, Reisertown MA, Olympia WA, Des Moines IA, Lynwood WA, Washington DC, Ashville NC, Buffalo NY, Hollywood FL, Vancouver WA, Frederick MA, Denton TX, Gresham OR, Eugene OR, Portland OR, among others, and we work in countless locations invisibly, said the group in a manifesto published on Abolition Media, an anarchist website.

So far, no arrests have been made in connection with any of the acts claimed by Janes Revenge manifesto, although the Catholic News Agency has reported that some youths have been arrested in acts of vandalism not associated with Janes Revenge.

Jason Rantz, a conservative talk show host in Seattle, told The Epoch Times that several churches and pro-life crisis pregnancy centers have been attacked in Washington state as well, with no arrests other than one that doesnt seem to be connected to the abortion issue.

Like CompassCares Harden, Rantz makes no bones about pointing the finger for the violence at some progressive politicians, but not all.

We had a story that I broke several weeks ago where a Democrat state Senator up for reelection she produced a video that was celebrating the vandalism against a pro-life billboard in Gorst, Washington.

The video was subsequently posted on Instagram.

They dont really hide their intent to promote this kind of violent response when they dont get their way politically, said Rantz.

Seattle was the scene of some of the worst violence during the Black Lives Matter protest and riots of the summer of 2020, with sections of the downtown area made unhabitable and unpoliceable for over a month.

While stopping short of calling the 2020 riots a dress rehearsal for todays more targeted and politically-motivated violence, Rantz does think the violence in 2020 and today are connected in that Democrats think they are best served by allowing the violence to continue.

I also think that as with the case in 2020, that a lot of the Democrats thought that they would benefit politically from the violence so they dont want to get too involved in calling for more rational means of political opposition.

The Buffalo center of CompassCare was burned out just days after a California man was arrested near the house of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in an alleged aborted effort to kill the conservative jurist.

Nicholas John Roske was arrested with a black tactical chest rig, and a tactical knife, along with a Glock 17, clips, ammunitions, and zip ties, according to the probable cause statement filed with the court.

The FBI said that Roske traveled cross-country in what they are now saying was an attempt to kill as many as three Supreme Court Justices.

Roske, 26, said that he was upset over the Supreme Court decision that reversed Roe v. Wade which returned the question of abortion back to individual states.

Roske also expressed concern that upcoming decisions by the nations highest court would tend to favor conservative views on the Constitution, said an FBI warrant obtained by Fox News.

According to talk show host Rantz, Democrats have become obsessed with the idea that merely having differing views on political issues of the day than the Democrats do somehow threatens the fabric of democracy.

That message was conveyed by Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.), whose re-election campaign sent a handwritten postcard to at least one constituent warning that Democracy is at stake this election day. Republicans are the problem.

The postcard, obtained by the Epoch Times, appeared to have no identification, such as a signature, but just referred to the need to re-elect Wexton or democracy will be in danger. The flip side of the postcard was marked as having been sent by Jennifer Wexton for Congress.

Wexton is being opposed by GOP nominee and Vietnamese refugee, Hung Cao.

Cao, a retired special forces operator who left the Navy as a captainone rank below the flag rank of admiraltook umbrage at the apparent suggestion by Wextons campaign that he would endanger democracy.

Jennifer Wexton should immediately apologize for her campaigns claims, said a Cao campaign spokesman in a statement to The Epoch Times.

Hung Cao has fought for our country honorably for 25 years. Hes put his life on the line for his fellow Americans to protect our constitution. Wexton ought to be ashamed of her campaign slandering an immigrant to this country who wore our uniform in combat, added the campaign.

The Capitol Police stepped up security for this years Congressional Charity baseball game, citing threats by leftist climate activists who have threatened to disrupt the game if climate bills arent passed by Congress, or at least are on the verge of passing.

The real violence being committed at this baseball game is by Congress, by Manchin, by his Republican allies and by everybody in Congress whos failing to take action on climate change, therefore consigning millions of people to die and millions more livelihoods to be destroyed, said Dan Sherrell, an organizer for the protest at the baseball game.

The threats came years after the game was targeted by a left-wing gunman in 2017, who opened fire on a practice field for the Congressional baseball game, critically wounding then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and three others before being killed by Capitol Police.

The 66-year-old former construction worker and Bernie Sanders supporter, James T. Hodgkinson, attempted to kill Scalise and others because he hated Republicans, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times.

A pre-print of a study published in July, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, found that [s]ubstantial minorities of the [US] population endorse violence, including lethal violence, to obtain political objectives, with nearly 8 million people in the United States at least somewhat willing to kill others to advance their political goals.

Published at MedRxiv, the paper concentrated on concepts like QAnon, Donald Trump, stolen elections and Western European traditions as justifications by conservatives who find political violence acceptable.

Yet the paper also found that the largest minority of people who feel political violence is justified are those who find race-based violence justifiable.

More than a third of respondents (36.2%) reported that violence was at least sometimes justified to prevent discrimination based on race or ethnicity, with nearly 10 million Americans saying that violence was always justified to prevent racial discrimination.

With the contemporary expansion of the meaning of words like discrimination, to encompass concepts such as microaggressions, its much easier to see how violence is becoming more commonplace in a future that appears bleak, observers say, even as progressive seek to further expand definitions to widen their dispute on conservatives.

When you have Joe Biden, two weeks ago, asking Merrick Garland to investigate crisis pregnancy centers for fraud, its an all-out war on these pregnancy centers, said Harden, who points out that they provide their services for free so fraud would be impossibleunless you redefine the meaning of the word fraud.

Harden was referring to a provision in a July 8 executive order to protect people seeking reproductive health services from fraudulent schemes or deceptive practices. Biden has appointed Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta to head up the Department of Justices task force on abortion. Gupta has been accused in the past of calling crisis pregnancy centers like the one Harden runs fake clinics, raising worries that the DOJ will try to shut down pro-life clinics under an expanded definition of fraud.

Its like a dystopian novel, said Harden.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House and Hochul, James, and Wextons offices for comment.

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John Ransom is a freelance reporter covering U.S. news for The Epoch Times with offices in Washington, D.C., and Asia.

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Far-Left Violence Dominates Another Summer in Ongoing Attack on Conservatives, Victim Says - The Epoch Times

Exactly 100 years ago, with his government embroiled in scandal after scandal that included the sale of peerages, the then prime minister, David Lloyd George, was brought down by Conservative backbench MPs. Now, with the current prime minister also having been unceremoniously dispatched by Conservative backbenchers, his attempt in his final weeks to create multiple new peerages is once again placing the House of Lords at the centre of scandal.

A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime ministers aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.

This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government.

The plan also legitimises straightforward bribery. In a throwback to the Old Corruption that was a feature of 19th-century Tory Britain, compliant lords will be rewarded with lucrative special envoy positions, and, while those who fail to attend votes will be placed on a name and shame list, CBEs and additional titles will be handed out, responding to what is an apparently insatiable demand for the already ennobled to be showered with additional honours on top of their peerages.

But the cynicism of the Crosby firms paper plumbs new depths when outlining what it calls useful cover from any media backlash. The perpetrators of this coup will claim, wholly falsely, that their real aim is to redress the balance between the south-east, which has the largest number of peers, and the north of England, Scotland and Wales, which are underrepresented, as though the award of peerages is a genuine form of levelling up.

The paper also suggests that the perfect excuse to flood the House of Lords with Johnsons cronies will be the Lords doubts about a hard Brexit, on the grounds that the Peoples Brexit can only be delivered by such a wedge of new Tories. This will, it says, provide an excellent cover for railroading the nominations. The report is also useful cover for Crosby, whose firm has had close links with the tobacco industry, when it states that the creation of Tory peers is also justified by the refusal so far of the Lords to vote for a laissez-faire attitude to tobacco manufacturers and importers.

The media, according to the Crosby firms paper, can be easily blindsided by the appointment of a few controversial figures or well-known celebrities, which will distract journalists away from the real issue, which is the sheer scale of the gerrymandering.

One of the claims the House of Lords makes for its existence is that it is a revising chamber, willing to take an independent view and bringing in expertise on a non-party basis; but the Crosby firms plot would negate the nomination of such independent peers.

Opinion polls show this plan would be opposed by the public: 71% of Britons back overhauling the House of Lords and opposition to the current Lords is as strongly felt among Conservative as Labour voters, among remainers as well as leavers and in the south as well as the north. Support for the second chamber has declined to as low as 12% of the public; and with more than half of the British public thinking the House of Lords does not work, the solution is to reform the Lords, not reinforce its unrepresentativeness.

The Crosby firms paper inadvertently makes the case for this radical overhaul. It is not clear why most of the members of the Lords were appointed, it says. The Tory ministers in the Lords are inadequate with little to offer. The leader of the Lords is a poor political manager. All of which raises profound questions about what the current appointments system has thrown up and calls into question the unfettered patronage of the prime minister who alone can recommend appointments to the Queen.

Past prime ministers have realised that there have to be limits to the use of this power, and Tony Blair and I declined to submit the traditional resignation honours list, the abuse of which has undermined the reputation of a number of past prime ministers.

There are, of course, many honourable, dedicated and diligent members of the House of Lords, who should be praised for doing their best for the country and whose contributions to public life make the case for a reformed second chamber.

But Johnsons latest attempt to manipulate the Lords system is the culmination of years of constitutional vandalism, during which he and his predecessors have been shameless in their appointment of Conservative party donors, rewarding them for what they did to advance a narrow party interest, not the wider public interest.

Since 2010, successive prime ministers have elevated nine of the partys former treasurers, each of whom has donated at least 3m to the party prior to their nomination. This has included the Johnson cheerleader Peter Cruddas, whose nomination Johnson pushed through even after he was deemed unsuitable by the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission. Once you pay your 3m, you get your peerage, one former Conservative party chair said.

Money talks, and nowhere more so than in the Lords. Twenty-two of the partys biggest donors who together have donated 54m to the Conservatives have been made lords since 2010. Not only do these 22 have peerages but, as one leading Tory donor, Mohamed Amersi, confirmed this week when talking of access capitalism, large cash donations give a privileged few unrivalled access to decision-makers, adding up to as I fear an implied or expressed quid pro quo that is undermining our democracy. He proposes a new source of funding that would undermine the current system of the privileged few gaining access. Indeed the partys chief fundraiser and co-chair, Ben Elliot, he says, has taken access capitalism to a new level within the party without any proper transparency, which is why he is fittingly known as Mr Access All Areas. And we now know of investigations involving members of the House of Lords into the fast-tracking of lucrative Covid contracts.

I tried in 2008 to press ahead with a major reform of the Lords but we were defeated as previous attempts have been by the combined weight of peers who favour no reform at all, those who found a reason to disagree with the specifics of our proposed reform and those who claim the only acceptable reform is total abolition. Now it is time to flush out who really wants change and who does not. The preamble to the 1911 Parliament Act stated that the power of the House of Lords was no more than an interim solution until a second chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis could be brought into operation. More than a century on, the modern constitution envisaged then still eludes us.

The abolition of the current House of Lords was one of the 10 commitments Keir Starmer made when assuming the Labour party leadership. Now Boris Johnson and Lynton Crosby have handed him the strongest possible case for long overdue reform.

Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

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Boris Johnson is planning to fill the Lords with his cronies and legitimise bribery - The Guardian

The stakes may never be higher for a review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The nearly month-long gathering that kicks off Aug. 1 at the U.N. headquarters in New York is being held in the shadow of threats by Russian President Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons in the war with Ukraine.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Putin alluded to the use nuclear weapons if Western nations became directly involved in the conflict by trying to thwart Moscows goals.

The United States labeled Russia an irresponsible nuclear power and will seek to further isolate Moscow at the NPT review conference.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said it was critical that the world come together to strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

The official added that Washington would work with other nations to advance our common interest in reducing nuclear risk.

Attention will be paid on the role Japan plays at the review conference because Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will be the first Japanese leader to attend. Past review conferences have usually involved Cabinet ministers. Kishidaattended the last conference in 2015 when he was foreign minister.

This years conference was delayed two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kishida is a strong supporter of a world without nuclear powers due to his roots in Hiroshima, the Japanese city that was leveled in the first-ever use of an atomic bomb in 1945.

However, itremains to be seen what specific steps he will outline at the NPT review conference.

Speaking at the Asia Security Summit, also known as the Shangri-la Dialogue, held in Singapore in June, Kishida called for early enactment of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the United States has yet to ratify. He also proposed working to encourage the United States and China to engage in bilateral dialogue in nuclear disarmament and arms control.

Survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as experts in the field of nuclear disarmament have pushed the government to play a stronger role in serving as a bridge between the nuclear powers and nations that have ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

For example, the Japan NGO Network for Nuclear Weapons Abolition submitted a request to the government on July 20 asking that it lobby the review conference for inclusion of wording in the final accord regarding the significance of the TPNW.

Akira Kawasaki, a member of the NGO network as well as a key official of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, said the government should work to open a window of dialogue with nations that have ratified the TPNW.

The TPNW was enacted in 2017 due to concerns held by nonnuclear nations that the NPT was no longer an effective tool for nuclear disarmament and the nations that have ratified the TPNW will likely cast a very critical eye at the nuclear powers at the NPT review conference.

The 2015 review conference failed to reach a final accord on what steps should be taken to ensure nuclear nonproliferation. If a similar result occurs this year, the viability of the NPT itself could be called into question.

(This article was written by Gakushi Fujiwara in New York, Ryo Kiyomiya in Washington, Tabito Fukutomi and Tomoyoshi Otsu.)

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Japan faces a mammoth task at NPT review conference | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis -

The Church is not a parliament

Fernndez emphasized that the synodal process cannot be equated to the way in which secular governments draft, debate, and pass their laws. "The synods and assemblies are not to contradict what the Spirit says to his Church as if the Church were a civil parliament, which changes the laws at the demand of the voters, he said.

For this reason, he said, warnings about the danger of schism in the case of the Church in Germany also must be applied to the Synod on Synodality.

"What is happening at the Synod of the Church in Germany, and that the Holy See has warned that it doesnt have the power to oblige the bishops and the faithful to adopt new forms of government and new approaches to doctrine and morals ought to be applied to the whole Church, Fernndez said.

Synods and assemblies. May God help us in these moments of turbulence in society and also in the Church, the prelate added.

One of the controversies that have been part of the process of the Synod on Synodality took place in Spain, where the archdioceses of Barcelona and Zaragoza included among their proposals the abolition of priestly celibacy and that women have access to the priesthood.

In the final synthesis of the diocesan phase of the Synod on Synodality, which was closed June 11 by the Spanish Bishops Conference, it states that "although these are issues raised only in some dioceses and, in them, by a small number of groups or individuals, we see fit to incorporate into this synthesis, due to their relevance in the essential ecclesial dialogue and with our fellow citizens, the request they make regarding the need to discern in greater depth the issue concerning optional celibacy in the case of priests and the ordination of married men; to a lesser extent, the issue of women's ordination has also come up.

The synthesis published by the Spanish Bishops Conference will go to Rome to be included in the previous work of the Synod on Synodality.

The Synod of Bishops, which will have as its theme "For a Synodal Church: communion, participation, and mission," will be held in October 2023 at the Vatican.

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When inaugurating the work of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 10, 2021, Pope Francis said that "the synod is a path of spiritual discernment, of ecclesial discernment, which takes place in adoration, in prayer, in contact with the Word of God.

The preparation for the Synod has three stages: at the diocesan level, the continental level, and at the level of the Universal Church.

This last stage will take place when the General Secretariat of the Synod sends to the participants of the Synodal Assembly the text of the second Instrumentum Laboris, or working document of the Synod.

This second working instrument will be the one that the Synod Fathers will discuss in the Synodal Assembly in October 2023.

At the conclusion of their debates, the Synod Fathers will present a final document to Pope Francis.

Finally, the Holy Father could publish a Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, which does not necessarily have to agree with the final document of the Synod Fathers.

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Spanish bishop warns that the Synod on Synodality cant re-invent the mission of the Church - Catholic News Agency

Liz Truss is tantalisingly close to acquiring the keys to No 10. But her constituency party members recall a meeting when the question of her entering parliament at all hung in the balance, after she was accused of failing to disclose an extramarital affair to activists.

It was 2009 12 years before she would be elevated to her current role as foreign secretary and she was on the verge of finally becoming an MP after being selected to stand in the safe seat of South West Norfolk.

Dozens of hardline, rural Tory activists, dubbed the Turnip Taliban, had called an urgent meeting, angry that an 18-month affair with the Conservative MP Mark Field had not been disclosed when she was endorsed as a candidate. Some wanted her to stand down because they believed she was being parachuted in by unwanted moderates under David Camerons leadership.

Roy Brame, a self-declared member of the Turnip Taliban, had gone to the packed meeting convinced she should not stand in the safe seat at the next general election. But instead, he recalls Truss winning over a sceptical audience with a characteristic mix of charm and a thick skin.

He voted against her that evening, but Brame said he was impressed by her responses, telling reporters after the meeting: We have just seen the new Thatcher.

People say that shes not very good at presenting herself. But at that particular meeting, when well over 200 [people] were asking her some personal questions, and a lot about where she thought she wanted to go, she came over extremely well, he said.

Truss survived the meeting local websites claimed that the Turnips had been mashed and won a vote supporting her as the candidate by 132 votes to 37.

Thirteen years later, Truss has now held six ministerial jobs under three different prime ministers and in 2016 became the first female lord chancellor. Crucially, she appears to have currently won over a majority of the 160,000 Tory party members who will choose the next prime minister in September.

The comparison with Thatcher is one that has been pushed hard by her team. From wearing a pussybow blouse, to driving tanks and being photographed wearing a fur hat in Moscows Red Square, they claim Truss is ready to shake up the Tory establishment just as her hero did.

She was raised by Labour-supporting parents, was a Liberal Democrat, and went to what she describes as a woke comprehensive school in the north of England. All qualities she has been keen to promote against the Wykehamist, internationalist credentials of Sunak.

Her critics and she has many within her own party say she lacks many of Thatchers skills. She fails to display intellectual gravitas, they say, relying instead upon cheap slogans, and struggles to make convincing speeches, another facet of her character that could be quickly exposed under the intense scrutiny of Downing Street.

Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnsons former chief adviser, told the online magazine UnHerd in May that Truss was as close to properly crackers as anybody I have met in parliament and would be an even worse prime minister than Johnson.

Others doubt if Truss really believes anything she says, and relies upon a gut instinct to fulfil her own ambitions. Anna Soubry, the former MP who served as a minister alongside Truss, said many had questioned whether she had the skills necessary to lead the UK.

She was the most ambitious person many people had encountered. I honestly believe she was given jobs ministerial promotions just to shut her up. Her ambition is, undoubtedly, considerably greater than her ability, said Soubry.

Mary Elizabeth Truss was born in Oxford on 26 July 1975, the eldest of four siblings and the only girl. Her left-leaning father, John Kenneth Truss, was a professor of pure mathematics at the University of Leeds. Her mother, Priscilla Mary, was a nurse, teacher and prominent member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

They lived in Paisley for some of Trusss childhood, before moving to Leeds. Truss has sought to portray her former senior school, Roundhay which sent her and many others to Oxford University as repeatedly letting children down with low expectations, poor educational standards and lack of opportunity. Too much talent, she declared, went to waste. She even claimed it was within a red wall seat.

Her claim seems to have surprised former fellow pupils. The school is part of Leeds North East, a constituency that had voted Conservative for almost half a century until 1997. It was a rugby union-playing ex-grammar set in 22 acres of grounds in a well-to-do part of the city. Alumni include a university vice-chancellor, judges, neuroscientists, an award-winning playwright, four current or former parliamentarians and a former editor of the Sunday Telegraph.

Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, the Tory MP for Leeds North East when Truss was a pupil at Roundhay, said he knew the school well at that time and claimed Trusss comments appear to be patently untrue.

He said: I think she was suggesting she was the only person who went to any sort of university and all the others were poor, inner-city kids, which was certainly not the case for Roundhay ... Politicians in this sort of situation should be very cautious about what they say because they have a knock-on effect to the staff and former pupils.

Truss read PPE at Merton College, Oxford, and became a leading member of the Liberal Democrats. At the party conference at the age of 19, she called for the abolition of the monarchy. We do not believe people are born to rule, she said.

Fellow former Lib Dem members said the intervention angered the late leader Paddy Ashdown, who had been assured she would remit the motion and avoid a vote. But the vote took place, drawing unwanted publicity for the party leader. Paddy was not forgiving of those responsible for hijacking the conference, said Lord Rennard, then a senior party figure.

At one freshers week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: Free the Weed, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall, Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly.

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Truss was an enthusiastic participant in Oxfords Hayek society, which celebrated the work of the Austrian political philosopher best known for his defence of classical liberalism. The same group included other Lib Dems who went on to become Tories.

She was incredibly difficult to work with, recalled Neil Fawcett, now a Lib Dem councillor, who campaigned alongside her in the 90s. On a personal level, I could never really work out what she actually believed because she always seemed to be playing to the gallery, rather than putting forward a genuine belief.

Truss joined the Conservatives in 1996 when the party was being torn apart by factionalism under John Majors leadership. The following year she met her future husband, Hugh OLeary, an accountant, at Conservative party conference, and they married in 2000.

At 25, she made her first steps towards parliamentary politics, taking on the dispiriting task of carrying the Tory message into a northern seat in the Labour heartlands. In 2001, she contested Hemsworth, in West Yorkshire, and secured a 4% swing from Labour to Conservative, which brought the Labour majority down from nearly 24,000 to less than 16,000.

To improve her chances of securing a more winnable seat next time, she was assigned Field, the MP for Cities of London and Westminster, as a mentor and soon after their relationship began. His marriage of 12 years ended in divorce, while hers survived.

After David Cameron became the Conservative leader, Truss was placed on the A-list of parliamentary candidates, and was tipped to be the next MP for the Tory seat of Bromley and Chislehurst, through a byelection after the death of the local MP. But after the Daily Mail broke the story of her relationship with Field, Truss was informed she would not be the candidate.

After finally winning over the executive of the South West Norfolk Conservative party in 2009, Truss was elected to parliament the following year with a 13,140 majority. Once in parliament, she founded the Free Enterprise Group of MPs, championing deregulation and lower taxes. She co-authored Britannia Unchained, a pamphlet that described the British as among the worst idlers in the world.

After a junior education role, Truss was appointed as environment secretary in 2014 for two years, during which she became a meme after a cringeworthy speech at Conservative party conference. Britain imports two-thirds of its cheese, she said cheerily, before quickly changing her expression to one of dark foreboding. That. Is. A. Disgrace.

Her supporters insist Truss really is one of the people she does not enjoy public speaking and prefers a closed meeting or a party. Knowing that her staccato delivery is regularly mocked, she has attempted to take the sting out of the criticism by saying she knows she is not the most polished of performers.

During the EU referendum, she argued for remain, signing a cross-party declaration with Ed Miliband, Ed Davey and Caroline Lucas which described leave campaigners as extreme and outdated. After the referendum, she performed a 180-degree turn and is now one of the most vociferous supporters of leave.

Under Theresa May, Truss was appointed justice secretary, a job that quickly ran into trouble. She initially failed to defend the judiciary after they were branded enemies of the people by the Daily Mail because they ruled parliament had to be given a vote on triggering Brexit. Truss later issued a statement supporting the judges but this was seen as too little, too late.

Her actions drew unprecedented criticism from Lord Thomas, the lord chief justice, who told MPs she had been completely and absolutely wrong.

She was demoted to become chief secretary to the Treasury, but she embraced the change. In fact she became increasingly mischievous, reprimanding the then environment secretary Michael Gove publicly in one speech. Too often were hearing about not drinking too much eating too many doughnuts or enjoying the warm glow of our wood-burning Goves I mean stoves, she said. I can see their point: theres enough hot air and smoke at the environment department already.

Her office has gained an unwanted reputation among cabinet colleagues for leaking stories. It was often assumed that the leaks came direct from Truss, but her friends have denied this.

After Mays resignation, Truss became one of the first cabinet ministers to support Johnsons bid to lead the party. She was appointed international trade secretary and for two years signed trade deals across the world.

As foreign secretary Truss has become increasingly active on social media, exhaustively documenting her jet-setting diplomatic trips around the world.

Her condemnation of Vladimir Putins actions in Ukraine which saw Russian officials explicitly cite comments she made in a BBC interview as the reason for its decision to place the countrys military on high alert has led to a rise in popularity within the Tories.

Her solution to the impasse over the Northern Ireland protocol was to scrap large parts of that agreement. Critics said she risked a trade war with the EU and had damaged the UKs reputation for adhering to international law.

Her supporters say that her creative thinking also meant that she secured the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a task that had eluded three previous foreign secretaries. She enlisted Oman as an intermediary and paid a historical debt to Tehran.

For many of the MPs who are backing Sunak, she is also the Johnson continuity candidate. They are fuming that she appears to have won over the party.

If she wins, you will see pretty much the same groups of people the same Crosby Textor [global consultants] types and the same donors. Liz is certainly very determined to get there, but the people wont change that much and no one really knows what she might do if she gets there, an MP said.

Truss has been approached for comment.

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Ambition greater than ability: Liz Trusss rise from teen Lib Dem to would-be PM - The Guardian

The New Zealand prison system is not an open and shut case for Mori. Photo / Supplied

OPINION:

Most people believe that prisons are the only way we can keep society safe.

But the data keeps telling us that prisons don't actually work.

As the Ministry of Justice reports, around 70 per cent of people with previous convictions are re-convicted within 2 years following release from prison and around 49 per cent are actually re-imprisoned after 2 years following release.

To be clear, these people are not re-convicted and re-imprisoned because they should have never been released and are just permanently "bad" and "dangerous" criminals.

Rather, as an independent group of justice experts found, these figures can be explained by the fact that prisons fail to address the underlying drivers of crime, including unresolved trauma from abuse, mental health, drug and alcohol abuse and of course, poverty.

To make this fact clear, the expert group also noted that 77 per cent of people in prison have been victims of violence and 91 per cent of people in prison have been diagnosed with a mental health or substance use disorder at some stage in their lifetime.

It is also important to know that prisons have actually never worked and have never been fair and just.

When the Crown introduced prisons to Aotearoa, they were used to imprison Mori who resisted the unjust theft of their lands. Ever since then, the unjust foundations of these institutions have remained.

Mori make up 52 per cent of people in prison, despite making up only 15 per cent of the total New Zealand population, and this has been the case for decades.

Let's be honest. These are not the statistics of an institution that works. They are the statistics of an institution that is fundamentally flawed and beyond repair.

So why don't we abolish prisons and focus our time and money on building better alternatives?

Unfortunately, some people mistakenly think that abolishing prisons is dangerous and will only result in lawlessness and anarchy.

But prison abolition is not actually about closing down prisons and letting people who have committed offences out free in the streets without consequences.

Abolition is about safe and gradual change by investing money in creating better alternatives to prisons, as well as addressing the very preventable drivers of crime noted above.

This is instead of what the government does now, which is investing around $1 billion each year into the failing prison system.

As abolition requires such a big change in how resources are distributed in this country, it's impossible to achieve abolition with the current political and legal system we have today.

This is because our current system is incapable of strong transformative change, because we've seen time and time again that any positive progress for justice will always be rolled back by changes in governments who seek to gain power with baseless claims that we need to be tough on crime.

More importantly, our current system is fundamentally unjust as it was violently imposed in Aotearoa through the killing and imprisonment of Mori and unjust taking of Mori land.

Therefore, if we are ever to see effective alternatives to prisons in Aotearoa, we need to achieve Tiriti-based constitutional transformation.

This might seem like a complicated legal term, but it simply means transforming the country's legal and political system so that Mori are able to exercise tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty and self-determination) as promised in te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840.

As the He Puapua report envisions, this can take place by reimagining a whole new governance system with three "spheres": (1) A 'rangatiratanga sphere' where Mori make decisions for Mori; (2) The "kwanatanga sphere" where the Crown will make decisions for non-Mori; and (3) The "relational sphere" where Mori and the Crown will share governance over issues of mutual concern. This reimagined system is completely different to the unjust system we have now, where the Crown's "kwanatanga sphere" is so big that the other two other spheres can barely be seen.

Of course, pursuing abolition through Tiriti-based constitutional transformation, might seem like an impossible and ridiculous idea to many, especially to those of us who are not Mori.

Admittedly, these big plans raise many important questions that we don't have answers to just yet.

However, the point is that successful systems take a lot of time and effort to imagine, design and implement. This means that we as non-Mori need to be brave and commit to finding these answers with Mori at the helm.

The question for everyone in Aotearoa is then: are we willing to be brave, right terrible wrongs and try a different way of doing things? Or are we just going to keep going with the same failing systems that are fundamentally unjust?

Dylan Asafo is a Law Lecturer at the University of Auckland and his areas of interest include: race and the law, climate justice in the Pacific, constitutional and human rights law in the Pacific, and criminal justice and abolition.

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Why we need to abolish prisons and honour te Tiriti o Waitangi - NZ Herald Khu

Over the last several decades, scholars and curators have written about the historical richness and heterogeneity of Asian American art, yet art made by and about Asian Americans has remained for the most part unnoticed, an afterthought, or an oversight, especially in major thematic museum exhibitions and sweeping art histories.

Historically to the present, Asian American bodies have been pummeled, dehumanized, or fetishized into racial objects. How strange and ironic it was then to realize the timing of the New York Timess interest in Asian American art; featured as a recent supplement to its reportage of anti-Asian hate and violence, notably the murders of six Asian American women in Atlanta and brutal beatings of Asian Americans captured on CCTV cameras.

While we could use this space to present artists who have been underrecognized and underrepresented, lost in between the categories of American or Asian art, contemporary or political art, such an endeavor unwittingly embeds Asian American art in an art apparatus that paradoxically segregates and contains Asian American art while maintaining the status quo.

Constantly positioned as middlemen or what Victor Turner describes as betwixt-and-between preserving law and order and as model minorities in order to be recognized, how might we consider recognition and Asian American arts liminality differently, how might we approach thinking about Asian American art as a verb or even as an entropic force? Entropy is conventionally understood to be a process of measuring disorder and energy in a system unavailable to do work and/or its a concept used in information theory in relation to the coding and feedback of messages. Organizing Asian American artists into the canon increases the entropy of the art world and the diminishing means of BIPOC artists to make and show work with impact. Responding to the pressures of needing to be seen and recognized but only in a certain way maintains a harmful system undergirded by extractive capital and white supremacy. Instead of exerting energy and waiting for the art world to reach its maximum entropy or heat-death, how might we figure Asian American art as bringing on a new system that reveals and revels in decolonial arrangements and projects already underway, and/or makes room for new alliances, unexpected juxtapositions, connections, tensions, and dynamic collaborations. How might we shift our gaze of Asian American art as not about suffering but as pure joy, erotic pleasures, quiet intimacies? Asian American art has been about creating safe spaces, expressing identities, and narrating the Asian American experience and history, how might we see it as revealing other histories, amplifying submerged voices, and/or serving as a reparative space for others?

Informed by a number of fieldsincluding Asian American studies, art history, postcolonial studies, Black feminist theory, Chicana feminism, queer and trans theoryand indispensable concepts that include Jose Muozs sense of brownness, Lisa Lowes scholarship on intimacies, and Fred Motens aesthetics of blurring, we realized that in order to refigure Asian American art differentlyas a relational encounter, poetics of relation, and alternative space of knowledge productionwe had to do so collectively.

In our call, we asked artists, curators, poets, playwrights, scholars and activists a set of questions and invited them to collaborate and contribute a flash work of art and/or share with us an excerpt of a conversation or email exchange in relation to Asian American art and its attendant topics. Being mindful of the delimitations of space and time of this issue as well as the contributors space and time, and the realization that not all concepts and frameworks can be transferable, grafted onto or folded into Asian American art in light of differential colonial processes, forms of violence, and priorities of sovereignty, we kept it loose and open. Some artists are in conversation with other artists or scholars of a different ethnicity or race, other submissions are part of long-term ongoing exchange, while other presentations are hopefully the first of many collaborative creative endeavors.

What follows are flash meditations and propositions on Asian American art in which abolition doesnt mean just dismantling and getting rid of something. The contributions do not necessarily reject or even substitute the category Asian American art for something else, what they do is highlight the multi-dimensions and interpretive possibilities of what Asian American is and does, what it can become. Another way to approach this open-ended project is in and through a constellation of contributors who care about each other and Asian American art and its becoming.

Inspired by Kandice Chuhs and Al-An deSouzas An Unsettling Aesthetic Lexicon, we open the issue with their contribution and then offer our own version of a working lexicon of Asian American art as a way to introduce the rest of the contributors and some key terms drawn from the contributions. Please note that some of the contributions are shown here in its entirety, and for others, it is merely a preview and the rest of their exchange can be found online.

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Abolition of a Category The Brooklyn Rail - Brooklyn Rail