Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

On Friday the Biden administration announced it will continue to carry forward the brutal immigration policies of the Trump administration, continuing the tight restrictions under Title 42 which force asylum seekers at the southern border to remain in Mexico. The only update announced was that it would continue to apply to all families and persons seeking asylum but would make exceptions for unaccompanied minors, allowing them to enter the US as they seek asylum through immigration courts.

The draconian anti-migrant measureimplemented under the guise of combatting the spread of COVID-19is being kept in place even as the Biden administration has spearheaded the lifting of every other pandemic-related public health measure, and the American population has been told they must learn to live with the virus and return to normal.

Title 42 was first seized upon in March of 2020 under then President Donald Trump at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic to place the harshest restrictions to date on who can cross the border in the interest of public health. The 1944 statute grants the president broad powers to block foreigners from entering the country in order to prevent the serious threat of a dangerous disease. Trumps fascistic immigration adviser Stephen Miller had attempted to invoke the law twice before, during a mumps outbreak in immigration jails and once again during the flu season.

According to White House officials, Miller had long viewed the special protections offered to minors as a major hurdle to carrying out full immigration bans and an obstacle for speedy deportations. The spread of COVID-19 was quickly seized upon to justify a halt to the international protections of asylum and has continued to be pursued just as vociferously by the Biden administration, which has deported over 1 million migrants and detained a record 1.7 million migrants along the US-Mexico border last year.

According to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), last month the Biden administration hit a terrible milestone of deporting its 20,000th migrant sent back to Haiti aboard the 198th flight since the presidents inauguration on January 20, 2021. The large figures were the result of a massive deportation blitz carried out by the Biden administration that sent hundreds of flights full of Haitian refugees seeking asylum in the United States back to Haiti.

The announcement to maintain Title 42 continues the assault on the international right to asylum. Furthermore, it is yet another version of what the Trump administration did early on in the pandemicusing the threat of COVID-19 to coerce parents to separate from their children by telling parents they will allow only children to leave COVID-infested detention facilities, but not parents.

By refusing to process asylum applications for all, aside from unaccompanied youth, the stage is being set for tens of thousands of parents to make a devastating sacrifice and separate from their children in the hopes that at least their children will be able to reach the United States.

According to Department of Homeland Security data, the Biden administration carried out 1.8 times the number of Title 42 apprehensions and deportations of migrants at the southern border between February and August 2021 (690,209) as the Trump administration carried out during the same time frame in 2020.

Lip service to the plight of migrants has been paid by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, including Chairman Raul Ruiz (Democrat, Calif.), who stated, It is long overdue to completely end the Trump-initiated Title 42 policy and stop using the pandemic as an excuse to keep it going. The false statements of sympathy by Democratic Party officials could not ring more hollow.

The reality is that even if the COVID-19 pandemic had never happened, the prisons, child detentions and separations, the heavily armed and surveilled walls and fences, fit with drones, barbed wire and attack dogsreal and roboticwould still be there to menace and abuse those seeking to cross the border. This brutal reality was in force even prior to the pandemic and has been a key part of Washingtons bipartisan anti-immigrant policy. The overcrowded detention prisons, heavily expanded under the Obama administration, were endorsed by Vice President Kamala Harris just a few months into Bidens presidency.

The Biden administration has made only cosmetic changes to Trumps immigration policies including the ending of the Remain in Mexico program that required tens of thousands of immigrants to wait in Mexico for their US immigration hearing, only to shuttle them directly onto deportation planes, carrying forward the attacks on asylum spearheaded by Obama and Trump. The Biden administration resumed the Remain in Mexico policy late last year under court order.

The inhumane conditions facing asylum seekers and migrants on the US-Mexico border have been ensured through a collaboration between the Biden administration and the Mexican government of President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador (AMLO) in a brutal campaign to suppress migration. The AMLO government has been tasked by Washington to stop migrants and ensure they do not reach the southern border of the United States.

The number of people applying for refugee or asylum status in Mexico almost doubled between 2019 and 2021 and reached a historic high of over 130,000 in January as the economic and political fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic pushed increasing waves of migrants to try to reach the US.

While endless barbarism is meted against the people of Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa seeking asylum as refugees from US imperialist interventions throughout the globe, a very different response has met Ukrainian refugees fleeing the US/NATO-provoked war by Russia against Ukraine.

On March 2 the European Union (EU) ordered its member states to prepare to receive a mass influx of refugees. According to the order, Ukrainian refugees should be allowed to stay for at least one year and be given the option of extending their stay up to three years without a visa. In contrast to those from the Middle East and Africa who meet the walls of Fortress Europe or the unknown thousands who have perished in the heavily patrolled waters of the Mediterranean, Ukrainian refugees are to be permitted to receive social benefits, housing, education and the right to work.

In recent days Russian and Ukrainian citizens fleeing the war have begun turning up at the San Diego-Tijuana, Mexico border crossing in Southern California having boarded flights to Tijuana by way of Moscow and Romanias Bucharest airport.

US authorities allowed a Ukrainian woman and her three children to seek asylum Thursday, a reversal from a day earlier when she was denied entry under the Biden administrations sweeping restrictions for seeking humanitarian protection. The 34-year-old woman named Sofia and her children, aged 6, 12 and 14, were initially blocked from entering the US due to Title 42.

With the arrival of Ukrainian refugees, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and other Democrats are suddenly advocating the ending of Title 42. Schumer hypocritically made mention of the Ukrainian family when calling for an end to Title 42 on Friday, noting, They requested refuge in one of the ports of entry on our southern border but were turned away because of Title 42. ... This is not who we are as a country. Continuing this Trump-era policy has defied common sense and common decency.

Sofia and her family have dodged the nightmare that tens of thousands in makeshift encampments face along the US-Mexico border, where many migrants have reported kidnapping, extortion and assault from gangs while waiting for the processing of asylum applications in crime-ridden cities in Mexico.

If Title 42 should in fact be lifted, it will not be because the right to asylum under international law has been reinstated or has been strengthened. It will be for the purpose of public consumption and propaganda to justify the US/NATO-provoked war against Russia all while the tens of thousands of poor souls from Mexico, the Northern Triangle and Latin America will continue to confront the same brutality.

The working class in the United States must demand the right of all workers to live and work wherever they please, with full citizenship rights, and the abolition of the national barriers which have been erected to divide workers against each other and used to justify the exploitation of immigrants and refugees.

from Mehring Books

The New York Times 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History

A left-wing, socialist critique of the 1619 Project with essays, lectures, and interviews with leading historians of American history. *Now available as an audio book from Audible!*

The rest is here:

Citing the pandemic, Biden administration continues to deny asylum to immigrant families and adults - WSWS

With the postwar global order facing its most profound set of challenges in almost 80 years, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has highlighted the importance of using all the elements of statecraft to shape the world we want to see. Labors Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Penny Wong, appears to agree, saying we need to deploy all aspects of state power strategic, diplomatic, social, economic.

Alongside defence and diplomacy, the upcoming federal election provides an opportunity to articulate the important role of aid and development in advancing Australias foreign policy goals. Recent polling shows that public support for foreign aid has increased significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic. But if the parties are to have a fulsome public debate on priorities for aid and development in the upcoming campaign, core issues of strategy, budget and capability need to be at the fore.

Just as defence and diplomatic responses to Australia's changed strategic circumstances will require decades-long investments, so too will its development engagement.

One of the first tasks of the next government will be to establish a process for long-term development policy that articulates Australias goals and priorities, how the program will work with its various partners, and accompanying performance measures. Just as defence and diplomatic responses to Australias changed strategic circumstances will require decades-long investments, so too will its development engagement.

It has been more than 10 years since there has been an independent review of the effectiveness of Australias development cooperation program, and more than four years since the publication the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper. In December 2019, the Morrison Government committed to a new development policy and initiated an expert-led process to support this. Covid-19 put this on hold and an interim two-year strategy, Partnerships for Recovery, was announced in mid-2020 and is due to expire in mid-2022.

A future development policy should encompass all forms of finance grants, loans, as well as blended finance to ensure strategic coherence, reduce fragmentation and drive human development impact. The humanitarian funding commitment of $500 million set out in the 2017 White Paper and yet to be delivered will need to be revisited in light of contemporary assessments of Australias fair share of global efforts to tackle increased fragility and conflict, climate-related disasters, displacement and food insecurity. A new development policy should also address the role of civil society as a key pillar of effective, inclusive institutions and centre gender equality, disability inclusion and inter-generational voice.

A new development policy will also need to address questions of future geographic focus and priorities, including the implications of the bipartisan Indo-Pacific frame. For example, under any reasonable definition South and West Asia are clearly part of the Indo-Pacific. But Australias bilateral development assistance to countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka has been in free fall for a decade. It should also provide a vision for strengthened Australian engagement in Southeast Asia, along the lines recently set out by experts through the Asia Pacific Development, Diplomacy and Defence Dialogue.

The Pacific Step Up should also be refreshed in a manner that puts development aspirations and ambitions of Australias neighbours at the forefront. For example, Australias development cooperation program represents the most practical tool for addressing both the causes and consequences of climate change with its neighbours, including ensuring the integrity of regional carbon markets.

Second, the political parties should set out their respective plans for the development budget. Several of the governments temporary and targeted measures to address the humanitarian, health and economic consequences of the pandemic will lapse in 2022 and 2023. This raises the prospect of decreased aid just as regional poverty is rising and as some of the worst health and economic impacts of long Covid in the Pacific and Southeast Asia become apparent.

While its national platform commits Labor to reaching a funding target of 0.5 per cent Official Development Assistance (ODA) as a proportion of Gross National Income (GNI), Labor has neither set a date for reaching this target, nor defined a process for getting there within the next decade. With ODA/GNI currently estimated at just 0.21 per cent, more than doubling the aid budget would presumably require a staged, stepped process linked to the objectives of a new long-term development policy.

Finally, an election debate needs to address how an incoming government would restore the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trades development and aid management capability. The abolition of DFATs Office of Development Effectiveness in 2020, the fragmentation of development strategy across multiple geographic and sectoral policy areas and the ongoing reduction in specialist development positions has reduced coherence and effectiveness and undermined clear accountabilities. This is despite the development program constituting the largest single component of DFATs expenditure. Transparency has also been patchy.

Development may not feature heavily in the 2022 election campaign. But the importance and urgency of an election debate that includes development has never been clearer. The issues of strategy, budget and capability raised will be critical to Australias ability to pursue its interests and work with its neighbours, partners and allies in a more uncertain and competitive world.

More:

An agenda for aid and development in the 2022 federal election - The Interpreter

Ed. note: You can find Part 1 of Ottos post on Resilience.org here.

As the reckless attacks and crimes against the Ukrainian people broadened and became more brutal, I found it difficult to concentrate and to continue writing this contemplation on our current moment. What we see unfolding is exactly the kind of massive amplification of absencing the social field of destruction that I wrote about in the first part of this essay. The only way out that I found was the way in (to borrow from a greatpodcastthat I will loop back to further down): by contemplating on my personal experience.

Image by Kelvy Bird

In thefirst partof this essay, I reflected on the current moment through the lens of absencing the lens of a social field shaped by the grammar of destruction. The upshot is a widely shared feeling of depression and despair. That feeling is supported by a massive amount of data. If you are not depressed, you are (probably) out of touch. In other words: if you are not in complete denial about what we are collectively doing to our planet, to each other, and to ourselves, then you can only be depressed. Or outraged. Or both.

In this part, I invite you to look at the current situation through the lens of emerging future possibility the lens of a social field shaped by the grammar of transformative co-creation (see figure 1).

Figure 1: Presencing and Absencing: Two Social Grammars, Two Social Fields (Source:Scharmer 2018)

Let me begin this part by connecting our current moment with felt senses in our own bodies. In my case, I connect with the dissonance through two different feelings: depression and possibility.

First, depression. In the first few days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, like everyone else, I watched the unfolding news in agony. Part of my mind was struggling with accepting what my eyes and my intellect clearly saw. That experience triggered a kind of dj vu. My body remembered that I had had that felt sense before. I felt it at the beginning of COVID. I felt it when Trump was elected president (and to some degree throughout his entire presidency). I felt it on 9/11. Maybe you felt it too, on one of those occasions, or a different one? By now, all of us probably know that sinking feeling: you feel as if somebody has ripped the ground out from under your feet.

When we look at this wholesetof disruptive experiences the complete lineup of events that over the past couple of decades have ripped the ground out from under us what do we see? What does that experiencedoto our state of being? In my case, I become absorbed by and fixated on these events. I get pulled out of my own body; I feel helpless, and sometimes even paralyzed. In a word: I get depressed. I feel disconnected from my own agency. I believe thats exactly how many of us are feeling today.

A collectively depressed society is a widespread phenomenon that many people recognize, particularly the young and more sensitive among us. If you are 22 today, you have lived your entire life in a world that is being shaped by the amplification of absencing-infused disruptions. Your life experience started with 9/11, and from there, the frequency of disruption for most people went up, not down.

Thats the first feeling. There are massive amounts of data to confirm it. When I think about it more deeply, though, I realize thats not the whole story. Yes, people are depressed. But a diagnosis of physical or emotional depression does not take into account the agency of the human spirit, the agency of our better (our higher or capital S) Selves, a dormant awareness of the whole that we can activate. Just as Putin was blind to the shared awareness and agency of civil society and collective human action in Ukraine, in Russia, and around the world, in our widely shared sense of depression we are blind to our highest future possibility and agency.

Where does that second feeling come from? In my own body, I probably would locate it in my heart. But really it occupies the whole middle portion of my body and radiates out and up from there. Its a distinct feeling of real possibility that I have felt many times. I felt it one of the first times as a teenager when I marched with 100,000 others against nuclear power plants in Germany (back then we were arguing, among other things, against the scenario that is playing out now in Ukraine: nuclear waste that lasts1 million yearsand that makes your energy system vulnerable to terrorism and war). I felt it again in the late 1970s, when that same anti-nuclear movement led to the founding of the Green Party in Germany, which has been instrumental in turning Germany into the first major industrial powerhouse to phase out nuclear energy by 2022 and to phase out coal by 2030.

In the 1980s I was gripped by another strong sense of real future possibility when peace and civil rights activists across Europe seemed to collaborate spontaneously across geographies. In 1989 I was a student organizer co-leading a Peace Studies Around the World program with the renowned peace researcher Johan Galtung. We took 35 students from 12 countries on a nine-month global learning journey to learn from academics, change-makers, and grassroots activists. During the Eastern European part of the trip we met with some of these activists in East Berlin, Moscow, and Tartu, Estonia, just a few months before the Berlin Wall collapsed. As a student, I was struck that even the people on the frontlines of these movements seemed to be largely unaware of the collective impact they were about to have.

So far in my short life, I have seen tectonic shifts with my own eyes several times: the collapse of the Berlin Wall, which effectively ended the cold war; the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union; the end of apartheid in South Africa; the first African American US president. I have seen the beginnings of a tectonic shift in the youth-led climate action movement. And after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others, the Black Lives Matter movement has finally brought systemic racism into the light of day.

We have participated in some of these tectonic shifts ourselves, taking to the streets to mobilize change. But even when we are merely witnesses to activism and change, we canfeelthe field of future possibility that inspires people to take action collectively. Still, I feel strongly that the most important tectonic shift of our lifetime is yet to come. It will be more fundamental than the earlier shifts, as dramatic and life-changing as they were. It will be a profound shift of paradigm and consciousness in how we relate to each other, to Mother Nature, and to ourselves and how we transform and rebuild our societal institutions in the face of our social and planetary emergencies.

My belief that massive transformational change is afoot is shared by many people around the planet. I can sense it every day as I work with senior leadership teams in business, in government, and in multilateral institutions like the UN, as well as with grassroots activists in their local communities.

According to arecent study, 74% of people in G20 countries (comprising 60% of the world population and 80% of the world GDP) support the transformation of our economic system to better address the various planetary and social emergencies of our time.Three out of four! Is that transformation already happening? Mostly not. Can it happen? Absolutely. We have the resources. We have the technologies. We have the aspirations. What dont we have yet? The movement and the collaborative leadership technologies that can actually make it happen now.

So, depression and a sense of possibility. These are the two conflicting feelings I have as I tune in to our current moment: the dj vu of repeated disruptions that amplify the noise of absencing, and simultaneously the acute sense of future possibility that many people feel, yet dont know what to do with. The first feeling is well known its amplified and retold millions of times every day. The second feeling is part of a more important and largely untold story of our time. It is usually crowded out by the noise of the first one. That second story is the golden thread that I will follow throughout the remainder of this blog.

If we zoom out from the current moment, if we focus not just on the past two decades but on the past two centuries, what do we see? We see profound progress in human development across at least five key areas:

War. Yes, wars still plague our planet and its people. But the truth is that we have made major progress toward ending the use of war as an acceptable means of conflict resolution between states. Yes, there have been setbacks and exceptions, like the painful events in Ukraine, Syria, and Afghanistan. And yes, there are new forms of armed conflict (more intrastate, less interstate, and more cyber-based). Nevertheless, the progress of peace around the planet since the end of World War II is undeniable (see figure 2).

Figure 2: Worldwide battle deaths per 100,000 people (Source)

Decolonization. The decolonization of Latin America, Asia, and Africa over the past two centuries is one of the most significant historical achievements in recorded history. Yes, a lot of work remains to be done. After political decolonization, the next problems to tackle are economic and cultural decolonization and the decolonization of the mind (Vandana Shiva), the decolonization of thought. But progress here is undeniable. Check out this animatedmapshowing a snapshot of the past 500 years.

Slavery and Civil Rights.The worldwide abolition of slavery and serfdom is another major accomplishment, though it took many more years to abolish the corresponding systems of apartheid and segregation. And yes, whenever we saw progress in some areas, a backlash was often not far behind. And even though structural violence, systemic racism, and slave-like conditions continue to exist, that progress has been made is undeniable.

Women. Womens rights, womens leadership, and freedoms for non-conforming gender identities are additional areas of stunning progress. Its common knowledge that investing in the education of women and girls is one of the most significant leverage points in addressing climate justice and most other development challenges of our time. During the COVID pandemic, some of this progress has slowed. According to the World Economic Forums2021 Global Gender Gap Report, it will take another 136 years to close the gender equality gap (up from 100 years). Yet the new movements of awareness-based systems change are disproportionately being co-shaped by women leaders and those who better embody the feminine, relational dimension of leadership.

Poverty. We have also made substantial progress on lifting people out of poverty particularly in Asia, and especially in China. Year on year, the UNsHuman Development Report captures the overall trend of remarkable progress in reducing extreme deprivations over the first two decades of the 21st century. Still, poverty remains a challenge in many places, and the world faces the new scourge of inequity which brings new challenges for both peace and stability, and human wellbeing.

The past two centuries have been witness to these five major stories of inspiring human progress. None of them happened without struggle and setbacks. We see ample evidence of that today. But we just cant accept the setbacks as evidence that the world is going down the drain. We have to put events in their historical context. We have to remember that only theories are contradiction-free. Reality isalwaysfull of contradictions. Historically, instances of absencing may have been a reaction to earlier progress. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us to take the long-term view when he pointed out that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

If thats true, is it a natural law that we can all rely on? Definitely not. The social sciences dont have laws like the ones in the natural sciences. Instead, there areinvariancesthat only apply under certain conditions. But when these conditions change and most importantly, when the consciousness of the people involved changes then human behaviors and the rules that describe them, also change. In short: in social science, the rules tend to befluid. They are determined by thesocial fieldthat people operate in e.g., is it a field of creation or a field of destruction? Leadership, in this view, is the capacity of a system to move from one type of social field (or social grammar) to another, as required by the situation or challenge at hand. (For a more differentiated distinction among four generic social fields, see Scharmer 2018.)

Applying this view to the five stories above, what was it that propelled these episodes of transformation? What was theforce motrice?In each of these stories, I believe, we see the same force or mechanism. These changes were driven by a constellation of civic movements peace movements, liberation movements, abolition movements, civil rights movements, womens movements, and human development movements that inspired others to join the cause. All of these movements were started by small groups of committed citizens who in one way or another created a support structure for themselves and others that allowed them to cultivate an intentional social field (examples: theHighlander Folk School, theStudent Nonviolence Coordinating Committee, and theNAACPfor the American civil rights movement; churches for the Eastern European civil rights movements during the cold war). As activists were attracted, trained, and equipped with methods and tools, they gained traction and attracted former bystanders to their movements. Eventually, these movements helped societies to reimagine and reshape themselves for the better.

In other words, these movements operated from afelt connectionto a different field of real possibility, the field of presencing a future that hasnt manifested yet(see figure 1). Its what millions of us felt on the streets during the anti-nuke, green, peace, womens, Black Lives Matter, and climate action movements. These felt connections are nothing special. Theyre what makes us human. Human beings are the only species on earth that can reimagine and reshape their own future. We can reimagine and change the rules, goals, and paradigms that dictate our civilizational and societal patterns and forms. The cultivation and evolution of that capacity is essential for the future of this planet and for the future of humanity.

But what is it that makes other peoplewantto join, to step over the threshold into action?

Many years ago, I facilitated a workshop in Zambia with anti-AIDS activists. The group of 30 or so included some famous soccer stars and public figures and also regular folks. We asked each of them to tell the story of (a) when they first became aware of the AIDS epidemic, and (b) when they became activists committed to doing something about it. Without exception, they all told the same story: The shift to activism happened when they experienced a personal connection to the cause through family or a close friend. In other words: it happened when they had an experience that touched (and opened) their heart.

One standard module in the programs at MIT that I run with executive leaders from Asia and other parts of the world invites them to participate in aclimate change simulationgame in which they play the role of climate negotiators, using science and real data. In the game, when a country or stakeholder team makes a decision its input into a model that then tells the decision-makers how that decision will affect the planet by 2050 and 2100. None of the behavior is scripted. But here is the pattern that I have observed time and again: In round 1, the executives decisions are largely self-interested and usually lead to medium-term disaster (because they largely conduct business as usual i.e., the current path). In round 2 of the game, most teams make more radical decisions and cuts but the positive impact is still far from what the planet requires. Then the participants are shown what sea-level rise will do to the cities they happen to live in. As these visual images begin to sink in, and participants realize that many of their coastal cities will be underwater, they begin to address the issues with greater dedication and urgency. They also reach out to the other players to cooperate and make deals collectively. By round 3 or round 4, the collective impact of the players has moved toward the 1.5 degrees centigrade target for average temperature increase that climate scientists know is necessary to meet.

In other words, the evolution of the unscripted team behavior tends to follow the path mapped out in the upper half of figure 3: NOT SEEING the collective impact that their actions have on the planet (denial); NOT FEELING the impact despite seeing the data clearly in front of them (de-sensing); and NOT ACTING, despite knowing the facts and already feeling the impact (collective apathy).

The feedback of the simulation illuminates the players blind spots. Yet their behavior remains largely unchanged until the results become experiential or personal. Crossing the threshold from apathy to action requires letting go of the stakeholdersego-system awareness and developing a sharedecosystem awareness of the whole. Once that is in place, it leads to swift,decisive action.

Figure 3: Two Relational Structures: Architectures of Separation, and Architectures of Connection

The structural difference between the grammar (and field) of absencing and the grammar of presencing is that the former is based on a cognitivearchitecture of separation, while the latter is based on a cognitivearchitecture of connection(see figure 3).

Architectures of separationembody a disconnect from reality on three levels: (1) knowing (a disconnect between Self and World: denial), (2) relating (a disconnect between Self and Other: othering), (3) and agency (a disconnect between self and Self: depression).

Architectures of connectiontransform these conditions bybuilding containersthat hold the possibility of deeper reconnections on the level of knowing, relating, and agency. In other words, the transformative and healing architectures of connection are based on the principles thatmind and world are not separate, thatself and other are not separate,and thatself and Self are not separate.Cultivating these areas of awareness develops and deepens our scientific, aesthetic, and ethical-practical capacities and knowing.

So how do we transform social fields of destruction and absencing? By replacing cognitive and social architectures of separation with architectures of connection across all sectors of society.

Transforming the patterns of absencing will require us to strengthen and cultivate the capacity to connect and feel the resonance in all of our foundational relationships with each other, with our planet, and with ourselves and then to generate creative action from that shared connection and resonance.

Attending to these deeper fields of connection requires us to expand our normal habitual awareness (ego-systemawareness) to include the views of all the partners and beings in our ecosystem (ecosystemawareness).Christiana Figueres, the key architect, and leader behind the historic 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change makes a distinction between two types of self-interest: self-interest with a small s and Self-interest with a capital S. The former is organized around our ego. When people go through a moment of letting go and letting come, they then begin to act from a different quality of awareness an awareness of the whole. Thats what I callecosystem awareness and what Christiana Figueres calls stakeholders acting from their Self-interest: an interest that sees the Self as part of a deeper web of connections with each other, with planet earth, and with ourselves.

What I am describing is a circumstance in which form follows consciousness. Attention matters. All approaches to awareness-based systems change are based on the principle that the most consequential leverage point in any system is the transformation of consciousness. Its not I think, therefore I am. But rather I pay attention [this way], therefore it emerges [that way].

When I was young and drove past a car accident, I remember being relieved if emergency responders were already on the scene. I knew that if they werent there it would be my responsibility to help. But that sense of responsibility made me feel uneasy and powerless. I would not have known what to do. I later decided to change that. After refusing to join the mandatory military service in Germany, I was given the choice to perform social service instead. I chose the German Red Cross. For a year and a half, my job was to assist the emergency doctors. During that time, I saw a fair share of rather awful accidents. But to my surprise (and with some medical-response training), I learned to overcome my sense of helplessness and paralysis. In the face of life and death situations, I learned to slow down and focus on the tasks at hand. I learned to tune out all the distracting voices of bystanders and pay attention to what needed to be done. That experience changed almost everything for me. It taught me that when you face a problem you have a choice. You canturnawayfrom it, or you canturn towardit. That choice, that subtle inner gesture, activates either the field of absencing or the field of presencing. Absencing is afreezingof the mind, heart, and will. Presencing is the opposite: anopeningof the mind, heart, and will (figure 1).

Thats the lesson I learned from the Red Cross. My attention matters. When I started to focus onwhat was mine to do, the whole social-emotional field shifted.

Reflecting on the success of the Paris Agreement, Christiana Figueres hassaidthat the teachings and practices of Vietnamese Zen Master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh (19262022) helped her to weave together the collaborative diplomacy that produced the agreement.She cites in particular the practice ofdeep listeningand Nhat Hanhs teachings about theinterconnectednessof all beings.

When the antiwar, decolonization, civil rights, womens rights, and antipoverty movements activated their collective agency, they wereturning towardthose issues with minds and hearts wide open. As my colleague, Antoinette Klatzky has said: If you see with your mind wide open, that seeing holds the seeds for sensing. If you sense with your mind and heart wide open, that sensing holds the seeds for acting.

How can we build these deeper learning infrastructures that support the shift in consciousness from ego- to eco-awareness at the scale the challenges of this century and this decade of transformation are calling for?

All of the stories of change Ive discussed here show us what is possible. We are living in a moment of disruption when one civilization is dying and another is beginning to be born. This new civilization is based onbridgingthe three big divides of our time: the ecological, the social, and the spiritual.

Figure 4 is a graphical rendering of our current situation: in essence, we are looking into the abyss. The ecological abyss is a product of our climate and biodiversity-related planetary emergency. The social abyss is a product of our collapsing social systems: from inequality and polarization to the atrocities in Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar, and many other places including the very real risk of an all-out nuclear war. The spiritual abyss reflects our increasing disconnect from our inner sources of creativity and agency and the resulting depression and anxiety, particularly among younger people.

Figure 4: Facing the Abyss Created by the Age of Disruption: The Path Across IsWithin(drawing by Kelvy Bird, Source:Scharmer 2018)

What do we see when we look into these three faces of the abyss? We see ourselves. We see that we, humankind, are the ones creating all of these forms of destruction. No one else. Thats the signature of our age the age of theAnthropocene. These are the results we create when we operate from the destructive field of absencing. We can recognize that the issues outside the abyss are a mirror of the issues inside.

So how can we make the unprecedented civilizational shift that this planetary emergency is calling for? Well, no one knows, of course. But here is a guess. Not through the actions of Big Money, Big Tech, or Big Government (even though we need all three of these things without the capital M, T, or G). And also not by scaring people (which the traditional environmental movement has been doing). Not by blaming and shaming people (which is what single-issue social movements tend to do). All of these groups and types of action need to be part of the mix, as elements of an overall strategy. But my point is this: doing more of the same will not take us to the next level. Whats necessary is something different. What we need to bring about profoundly new civilizational forms is apullfrom the future,not apush from the past.

Starting small. By starting small, I mean starting in small communities, both place-based and digitally linked, that are aligned around a shared awareness of the situation and a common intention for the future a future that is different from the past. Some of these initiatives and communities are grassroots-based. Some are nested in one or more institutions. But all of them share one core feature: a desire to transform the currently dominant social field of destruction by embodying and practicing different ways of operating. These future-oriented communities are enacting the social grammar and field ofcreation.

Bridging the Ecological, Social, and Spiritual Divides.If we have learned anything over the past century of confronting societal crises, it is this: no problem exists in isolation from all the others. You cannot address the planetary emergency without focusing on social justice. And vice versa. And you cannot do any of those things without grounding them in the bridging of the spiritual divide.

If we look at the big changes in society and culture throughout the past 60 years, what does the evolution of the environmental, social, and consciousness movements tell us? They tended to evolve separately. But whats historically new today and what gives me hope is that the integration of the ecological, social, and spiritual aspects of transformation is a widely shared intuition, particularly among young people.

Weaving the Movement.Why do I feel confident that we are at the early stage of a new planetary movement for bridging the divides? Because I have seen it. I have felt it. I have sensed it in countless places in recent years. One of these places isu.lab, an online action learning lab at MITx that has facilitated these kinds of journeys for more than 200,000 participants. We have also supported thousands of team initiatives with methods, tools, and spaces to help them connect and collaborate including the United Nations Country Teams, composed of the heads of all UN organizations, in 25 countries (SDG Leadership Labs). Its not just an idea, but an embodied web of co-creative relationships that keeps on growing. Its embodied in a planetary ecosystem with co-creative groups, teams, and initiatives.

So where will the transformative change that this century is calling for eventually come from? From a movement, that emerges, works, and collaborates fromeverywhere (as the environmentalist and entrepreneur Paul Hawken put itrecently).

It will be a movement that is inspired by the intuition that the ecological, social, and spiritual divides are not three problems; they are just three expressions of one and the same problem: the lack of a deeper social field and social grammar that all of us can access and operate from.

Shifting Consciousness. Where does the integration of the three divides ecological, social, spiritual take place? It happens in each and every one of us, in our personal as well as in our collective agency. In a recentGAIA session, Dr. Noel Nannup, an Aboriginal Noongar elder, pointed this out to us. He said:

All we need to do is to have a piece of the path to the future that is ours; and we polish that and we hone that, and we place that in the pathway that we are building; and of course, as we build that pathway it changes us as the builders of the path, and it also shapes the destination we are going to.

With thosewords, Dr. Nannup conveys a critical teaching: that each of us needs to align our attention and intention withwhat is ours, withwhat ismine to do. If we have learned anything from movement and change work of the past, it may be this: as long as we think about change as actions thatotherpeople need to take inotherplaces, we wont get anywhere. Whats needed is a framing that puts each of us at center stage as agents of our own futures, both individually and collectively.

While the second half of the 20th century was shaped by a conflict between two opposing socio-economic systems and their corresponding ideologies capitalism and socialism in the 21st century we see a different type of polarity. The fault line no longer runsbetweentwo opposing social systems. Today the fault line runs through the consciousness of each one of us. The most important fault line in 21st-century politics is the fault line betweenselfandsystem.

In the visual language of Figures 1 and 3: The most important fault line of our time runs across theverticaldimension of these figures, depicting the different qualities of relating to the world, to others, and to ourselves based on a frozen or an open mind, heart, and will. Thatvertical literacyis the most important developmental capacity today. Watch, for example, how skillfully Ukraines Volodymyr Zelensky leverages his personal experience to connect with his people, to inspire resistance, and to address the citizens of Russia, Europe, and the United States.

CASA: Activating the Real Superpower.If we have learned anything from our responses to disruptive challenges like the COVID pandemic, the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and Putins invasion of Ukraine, it may be this: the real superpower of our time is not the one that sits in Washington; its also not the one that sits in Beijing; and its certainly not the one that is sitting in the Kremlin. The real superpower of our time is Collective Action that emerges from Shared Awareness of the whole (CASA).Casain Latin languages means house or home. We need to cultivate our capacity for CASA-type collective action in order to protect and regenerate our house and home: our land, our community, and our planetary eco-social-cultural ecosystems.

As depicted in Figure 5, CASA can be seen as a fourth type of governance mechanism, in addition to the three traditional ones (government, markets, stakeholder lobbying). I consider the emergence of CASA-type collective actions as a4.0 type of governanceas one of the most significant developments in society today. Examples of CASA already exist in many forms locally. For example, it shows up in CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture). It also tends to emerge in responses to natural or other disasters. It emerges when communities rise up in the face of profound disruption, as Ukraine is doing now. It also occasionally exists on the stage of global politics, most notably when the world came together around the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. If you want to learn about the awareness- (and CASA-) related backstory of the Paris Agreement, click on the podcast link at the end of this blog.

Figure 5: Four Stages of Systems Evolution, Four Operating Systems (adapted fromScharmer 2018)

Figure 5 depicts four types of social grammars and modes of operating. While todays mainstream focus is shifting slowly from 2.0 to 3.0, the main transformation challenge is how to advance to 4.0 ways of operating. What we see time and again is that institutions and societies are responding to 4.0 challenges (our planetary and social emergencies) with 1.0, 2.0 (and occasionally 3.0) response mechanisms. But that does not work because, to paraphrase Einstein, we cant solve our challenges with the same mode of operating that created them.

Is there general public support in countries to move toward a society 4.0? I think that support is rapidly growing in many places today. A recent example is the landslide victory by Gabriel Boric on a platform based on bridging the ecological, social, and the cultural divides that neoliberalism and the Pinochet regime have inflicted on the country for almost 50 years. Below, two pictures of President Boric on the day he was sworn in as president, honoring and being blessed by the indigenous traditions in a ritual.

Pictures: President Gabriel Boric being blessed by the indigenous traditions on his day of inauguration, proposing diversity, inclusion and harmony with Nature for his government

Gabriel Boric is one example. But the 74% support in G20 countries for the transformation of our social and economic systems tell us that the potential for profound change that exists in the world today cannot be understated.

In part 1 of this essay, I started this inquiry by looking at what is happening in Ukraine and elsewhere through the lens of absencing the social grammar of destruction. In this second part, I explored it through the lens of presencing the social grammar of co-creation. How do these two views and social fields relate to each other?

They are dialectically intertwined in interesting ways. We often find ourselves stuck between them, personally, in our institutional systems, and as a society. Life, leadership, and societal change operate in this fragile in-between territory. Things can move in either direction at almost any moment. That fragility seems to be a key characteristic of our current moment.

I have not tried to paint an optimistic view here. I dont think thats whats needed today. No one needs an upbeat sugarcoating of something that is moving toward disaster. Whats needed today is a radical realism one that can embrace the realities of both presencing and absencing. Radical realism aims at connecting to reality at the current and root levels: at the level of whatis, and at the level of what wants toemerge. Radical realism says what most people already know: the journey forward is not going to be easy. Many more disruptions coming our way. But what matters most is that the future does not depend on these external disruptions. Instead, it depends on the inner place from that we operate when we respond.

Many of todays most pressing challenges boil down to how to engage and transform collective patterns of absencing. Illuminating the three blind spots not seeing, not feeling, not acting offers critical leverage points for intervention. But the main point is tonotsee the manifestation of absencing (or evil) as an enemy. Instead, we need to understand every act of absencing as creative energy gone wrong creative energy that failed and that therefore went the other way, onto the path of destruction. All destruction and acts of absencing are manifestations of energy that was unable to realize its creative potential. To engage and transform that energy, we need to first find that placewithinourselves.

From that view, its clear that in Ukraine there can be only one path forward: diplomacy. The sooner the better. The longer it takes, the more collective destruction, brutalization, and collective trauma will be inflicted on everyone. Intelligent, collaborative diplomacy needs to offer bridges to those who are stuck in the field of absencing and offer solutions that are beyond the binary logic that shapes the currently dominant thinking.

This brings me back to our agency and how each of us can be directly involved inbending the arc of historytoward social justice, planetary healing, and human flourishing. To do that we need new societal learning infrastructures for amplifying, growing, and connecting the countless seed initiatives of the future that already exist in the world today. We cant let them get crowded out by the super-amplified absencing machine that pumps noise into our minds and destruction into ecosystems. Where are you an activist in building containers that foster architectures of connection (rather than those of separation); where are you creating and co-holding these learning infrastructures for yourself, for your team, and for the initiatives you participate in?

To support such mission critical creation of societal learning infrastructures, the Presencing Institute is launching an initiative to prototype, and scale up the action learning spaces needed for transforming society and self. The goal is to create:

A free and replicable learning and innovation platformfor radical regeneration: methods, tools, and spaces

A vibrant ecosystem of living examplesand institutions that embody and build capacity for radical regeneration in food, learning, health, wellbeing, business, finance, technology, leadership, and governance

A living field of connectionsbetween millions of radical change-makers operating from the possibility of regenerative futures and inspiring others to activate their agency

Growing confidence,based on research evidence,that a regenerative future iswithin reach, andpossible now

If you want to join this effort, please add your name to the mailing listhere.

With that, we have reached the end i.e., the beginning. We began by attending to the conflicting feelings that we sense in our bodies at this moment. In this exploration of two different social grammars, we learned that the future does not just depend on whatotherpeople do. The future on this planet depends on each one of us alone and together and our capacity to realignattentionandintentionon the level of the whole. As Dr. Nannup reminded us: All we need to do is to have a piece of the path to the future that is ours; and we polish that and we hone that

Co-holding and co-creating that emerging path to the future puts each of us in a very personal relationship with our planet and with our shared future that stays in need of us. I think of that future as a set of seeds. These seeds already exist. But what does not exist is the soilthesocial soilwithout that no seed can grow. What generates that fertile soil? Its our collective capacity tobend the beam of attention back onto ourselves.Its our capacity to see and recognize our own shadows in the abyss that we face, andif we are able to hold the gaze steadytransform that shadow in order to connect to a different awareness sphere that allows us to function as a vehicle for the future wanting to emerge.

Part I of this blog

Podcast conversation withChristiana Figueres: The Way Out Is In

Examples of awareness-based systems change:Report

Check out other blogs by Otto:homepage

Thanks to my colleagues Kelvy Bird for the visual at the opening of this reflection and to Becky Buell, Antoinette Klatzky, Eva Pomeroy, Maria Daniel Bras, Priya Mahtani, and Rachel Hentsch for their helpful comments and edits on the draft.

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Putin and the Power of Collective Action from Shared Awareness Part 2: The Social Grammar of Creation - Resilience

The Law Commission of England and Wales announced in November last year that it will be conducting an 18-month review of the English Arbitration Act. Ever since, there has been much speculation as to what changes the Law Commission might recommend.

The Law Commission has announced some broad areas of potential focus. Whilst some of these areas appear intended to clarify the existing position and put it on statutory footing, there are two particular areas that arguably have the potential to bring about the greatest substantive change. These are (i) the procedure for challenging a jurisdiction award and (ii) the availability of appeals on points of law. This blog post will explore why the Law Commission is considering these two areas and suggest some potential outcomes that could result from the review.

Background to the Review of the Arbitration Act

While the 18 month review is still in its infancy, the Law Commission has been very clear that there is no risk of a major overhaul. Instead, the aim is to ensure that the Act is as effective as possible so that the UK remains at the forefront of international dispute resolution. The Law Commission has announced that possible areas of review include (but are not limited to):

Of these potential areas, some appear to be intended to simply put the existing position on statutory footing. For example, most practitioners are agreed that English-seated tribunals already have the power to summarily dismiss claims and defences, but would welcome codification in order to reassure and encourage tribunals to exercise this power. Similarly, an implied duty of confidentiality already applies to English-seated arbitrations, even if the exact parameters of the duty are not set out in statute.

However, there is greater potential for substantive change with regard to the review of Sections 67 and 69, as explained below.

Procedure for Challenging an Award on Jurisdiction Section 67 and Beyond

There are currently multiple potential pathways available to a party who objects to the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal whether they participate in the arbitration or not. These include the ability to seek a ruling from the court at various stages of the arbitration (whether under section 32, 72 or 67, or at the enforcement stage). This position stems from the underlying principle of the Act that the court rather than the tribunal has the last word on jurisdiction. In practice, this means that a claimant party may be faced with a multitude of unwanted applications, both within the arbitration itself and also in court.

In particular, the English courts have been clear that a party who objects to jurisdiction but participates in an arbitration and subsequently brings a section 67 jurisdictional challenge is entitled to a complete rehearing of the jurisdictional question, rather than just a review of the tribunals decision on the issue (see for example Dallah Co v Ministry of Religious Affairs of Pakistan [2009] EWCA Civ 755, per Moore-Bick L.J. at [21]). Section 67 provides that a party may challenge an arbitral award on the basis that the tribunal did not have substantive jurisdiction. It is a mandatory provision and its application cannot be excluded. However, a party will only be able to avail itself of a section 67 challenge if it has also sought to raise any jurisdictional objections before the Tribunal. This means that where a section 67 challenge is made, the same battle will be fought twice, once before the Tribunal and once before the English courts. This process leads to significant duplication of work and additional costs.

There has been much criticism of this re-hearing approach, notably as submitted by the respondent in the case of GPF GP S..R.L. v The Republic of Poland [2018] EWHC 409 (Comm). In that case, the respondent to a section 67 challenge argued that the section must not be allowed to erode the efficacy of international arbitration, referring in particular to the stated purposes of the 1996 Act to avoid unnecessary delay and expense and that safeguards should only be as necessary in the public interest. In support of these submissions, the respondent relied on a passage in Arbitration Law (5th Edition) which stated that every challenge under section 67 involves cocking a snook at the very first principle set out in the Act (in section 1(a)) and that in every case, either the court or arbitration process will prove to have been a complete waste of time and money.

Presumably in light of these criticisms, the Law Commission has said that it will be considering whether this re-hearing approach should be replaced with a review. The Law Commission is also considering streamlining the jurisdictional challenge process more generally and whether the possible remedies under section 67 should mirror the remedies available under section 68 and 69 (which include the power to remit the award back to the tribunal).

The decision to look at this issue may also be influenced by the position in other jurisdictions. For example, as explained in Merkin and Flannery on the Arbitration Act (6th Edition), the level of judicial scrutiny of a jurisdiction award in France and Switzerland appears to be much lighter touch. That book also explains that in the United States, the Supreme Court has drawn a distinction between cases where the parties have expressly referred the question of arbitrability to arbitration (in which case the court only does a review rather than a re-hearing) and cases where they have not. Although the Law Commission has not indicated exactly what it has in mind, it may be considering the proposals made in Merkin and Flannery on the Arbitration Act 1996. As well as encouraging the courts to apply a lighter touch to the decisions of tribunals, that text suggests that in some cases it might be appropriate for the tribunal to offer the applicant permission to apply to the courts for a determination on jurisdiction under section 32, with the consequence that if that party refuses to take up the offer, the section 67 application should be limited in some way (for example by denying the applicant the right to adduce evidence, or by applying cost sanctions).

However, given the rarity of section 67 challenges there were only 19 brought 2019 any significant change will only affect a very small proportion of cases. Indeed, the Commercial Court Guide already contains a number of provisions aimed at limiting the scope for section 67 challenges, including the ability for the Court to dismiss them on paper. Most recently, the Guide has also introduced further deterrents confirming that an application will only be appropriate in cases where there are serious grounds for a contention that the matters relied on do affect the substantive jurisdiction of the tribunalrather than being matter to be raised (if at all) under section 68 or 68 of the Act (see O8.4), and extending indemnity cost consequences to section 67 challenges where parties request a hearing and then their claim is dismissed.

Arguably though, the decision to streamline these provisions should not be judged by the number of affected cases. Rather, addressing such procedural efficiencies on an evolving basis will ensure that the Law Commission achieves its ultimate objective, which is to ensure that England continues to be perceived as an attractive place for arbitration.

Appeals on Points of Law under Section 69

The availability of appeals on a point of law under section 69 of the Act is fairly unique to England. As it is not a mandatory provision, it is routinely excluded by parties, particularly as many institutional rules exclude the possibility of any non-mandatory appeals (see for example Rule 26.8 of the LCIA Rules, and Article 35(6) of the ICC Rules).

This provision has always been fairly divisive amongst the UK arbitration community, especially because it differs from the approach of other jurisdictions, where such a right is either unavailable, or available only on an opt in rather than opt out basis (such as in Hong Kong see Schedule 2, sections 5 and 6 of the Hong Kong Arbitration Ordinance). Indeed, the Departmental Advisory Committee (DAC) mentioned in its 1996 Report on the Act that it received a number of responses calling for the abolition of any right to appeal altogether. It does not, therefore, come as a huge surprise that the Law Commission wants to look at the issue afresh.

The Law Commission has stated so far that the options include keeping the provision the same, deleting it, or limiting it to questions of general importance where there is a real prospect of successfully showing that the decision of the tribunal is wrong. This would therefore introduce a stricter test than the current one, which is either that the decision is obviously wrong, or for questions of public importance, that the decision is at least open to serious doubt.

As recorded in the DAC Report, those in favour of abolition argue that by agreeing to arbitrate their dispute, the parties have agreed to abide by the decision of their chosen tribunal, not by the decision of the court. Thus finality trumps all. However, the DAC ultimately concluded that a limited right of appeal would ensure that the law chosen by the parties will be properly applied where a tribunal fails to correctly apply English law, it will not be reaching the result contemplated by the arbitration agreement, and the court should therefore be able to step in unless excluded by the parties. Those in favour of the provision also argue that the ability to publish judgments in relation to points of law aids the development and public scrutiny of English law (as the provision does not apply to foreign law) which ensures the precedential value of arbitration decisions.

As with section 67 challenges, section 69 challenges are similarly rare there were only 22 applications in 2019. Nonetheless, any abolition of the right of appeal would be a significant move conceptually. It is also a particularly popular provision in certain types of disputes such as ad hoc disputes and in the shipping and commodities sectors. As it stands, parties who wish to retain the right of appeal can do so, and those who would prefer finality can continue to exclude the provision. As such, unless the Law Commission receives overwhelming feedback to abolish or vary the status quo, then it may be that the position is unlikely to change.

It is clear that the process of reviewing sections 67 and 69 of the Act will involve consideration of important principles of English arbitral procedure, and that any proposed change may be conceptually significant, even if only a minority of cases are affected. Even if the Law Commission ultimately decides not to recommend any changes however, the process of weighing up the various options and views will be an effective way of ensuring that the UK remains at the forefront of international dispute resolution.

This article was first published at Kluwer Arbitration Blog here.Authored by Elizabeth Kantorof Herbert Smith Freehills LLPfirm

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Law Commission Review of the Arbitration Act: Substantive Changes to Appeals and Challenges? - Lexology

Americas first newspaper dedicated to ending slavery is being resurrected and reimagined more than two centuries later as the nation continues to grapple with its legacy of racism.

The revived version of The Emancipator is a joint effort by Boston Universitys Center for Antiracist Research and The Boston Globes Opinion team thats expected to launch in the coming months.

Deborah Douglas and Amber Payne, co-editors-in-chief of the new online publication, say it will feature written and video opinion pieces, multimedia series, virtual talks and other content by respected scholars and seasoned journalists. The goal, they say, is to reframe the national conversation around racial injustice.

Deborah Douglas, Co-editor of The Emancipator

I like to say its anti-racism, every day, on purpose, said Douglas, who joined the project after working as a journalism professor at DePauw University in Indiana. We are targeting anyone who wants to be a part of the solution to creating an anti-racist society because we think that leads us to our true north, which is democracy.

The original Emancipator was founded in 1820 in Jonesborough, Tenn., by iron manufacturer Elihu Embree, with the stated purpose to advocate the abolition of slavery and to be a repository of tracts on that interesting and important subject, according to a digital collection of the monthly newsletter at the University of Tennessee library.

Before Embrees untimely death from a fever ended its brief run later that year, The Emancipator reached a circulation of more than 2,000, with copies distributed throughout the South and in northern cities like Boston and Philadelphia that were centers of the abolition movement.

Douglas and Payne say drawing on the papers legacy is appropriate now because it was likely difficult for Americans to envision a country without slavery back then, just as many people today likely cant imagine a nation without racism. The new Emancipator was announced last March, nearly a year after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020 sparked social justice movements worldwide.

Those abolitionists were considered radical and extreme, Douglas said. But thats part of our job as journalists providing those tools, those perspectives that can help them imagine a different world.

Other projects have also recently come online taking the mantle of abolitionist newspapers, including The North Star, a media site launched in 2019 by civil rights activist Shaun King and journalist Benjamin Dixon thats billed as a revival of Frederick Douglass influential anti-slavery newspaper.

Douglas said The Emancipator, which is free to the public and primarily funded through philanthropic donations, will stand out because of its focus on incisive commentary and rigorous academic work. The publications staff, once its ramped up, will largely eschew the typical quick turnaround, breaking news coverage, she said.

This is really deep reporting, deep research and deep analysis thats scholarly driven but written at a level that everyone can understand, Douglas said. Everybody is invited to this conversation. We want it to be accessible, digestible and, hopefully, actionable.

Amber Payne, Co-editor of The Emancipator

The publication also hopes to serve as a bulwark against racist misinformation, with truth-telling explanatory videos and articles, she added. Itll take a critical look at popular culture, film, music and television and, as the pandemic eases, look to host live events around Boston.

Every time someone twists words, issues, situations or experiences, we want to be there like whack-a-mole, whacking it down with the facts and the context, Douglas said.

Another critical focus of the publication will be spotlighting solutions to some of the nations most intractable racial problems, added Payne, who joined the project after working as a managing editor at BET.com and an executive producer at Teen Vogue.

There are community groups, advocates and legislators who are really taking matters into their own hands so how do we amplify those solutions and get those stories told? she said. At the academic level, theres so much scholarly research that just doesnt fit into a neat, 800-word Washington Post op-ed. It requires more excavation. It requires maybe a multimedia series. Maybe it needs a video. So we think that we are really uniquely positioned.

The project has already posted a couple of representative pieces. To mark the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, The Emancipator published an interview with a Harvard social justice professor and commentary from a Boston College poetry professor.

It also posted on social media a video featuring Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of BUs anti-racism center and author of How to be an Antiracist, reflecting on white supremacy. Kendi co-founded the project with Bina Venkataraman, editor-at-large at The Boston Globe.

And while the new Emancipator is primarily focused on the Black community, Douglas and Payne stress it will also tackle issues facing other communities of color, such as the rise in anti-Asian hate during the global coronavirus pandemic.

They argue The Emancipators mission is all the more critical now as the debate over how racism is taught has made schools the latest political battleground.

Our country is so polarized that partisanship is trumping science and trumping historical records, Payne said. These ongoing crusades against affirmative action, against critical race theory are not going away. That drumbeat is continuing and so therefore our drumbeat needs to continue.

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Abolition newspaper revived for nation grappling with racism - The Miami Times

Edelweiss by Above the Treeline Launches Employee Bookclub Aimed at Helping to Dismantle Systemic Inequities Through Discovery, Awareness, Commitment

ANN ARBOR, Mich. March 2, 2022 (Newswire.com)

Above the Treeline Edelweiss+, the online platform that serves as the primary hub for publishers to market, promote and sell their titles, announced the creation of the Legacy Book Club. The Legacy Book Club is designed for employees to engage in critical and reflective dialogue. This company-wide investment is part of an organizational commitmentto address systemic inequities both internally and externally.

John Rubin, CEO & President of Above the Treeline, states, Two enthusiastic employees came to us with the idea for this book club, and the organization has really rallied around it. We sit at the hub of an industry whose core is about understanding different perspectives and pushing folks to go beyond narrow views of the world. This book club is a great opportunity to live those values internally.

In January 2022, employees read Abolition. Feminism. Now. by leading scholar-activists Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie. This newly released title is described as a celebration of freedom work, a movement genealogy, a call to action, and a challenge to those who think of abolition and feminism as separateeven incompatiblepolitical projects. During the January Legacy Book Club session, three of the authors Davis, Dent, and Richie joined to discuss perspectives and answer questions.

Nikki Siclare, Senior Help Desk and Education Specialist at Above the Treeline, is a co-founder of the Legacy Book Club. In describing why Abolition. Feminism. Now. was the obvious inaugural choice for the club, Siclare states, The conversations on abolition are growing and changing every day, and we respect the idea of unlearning in order to gain new ways to better our communities. Deidre Dumpson, Retail and Library Client Success Manager and Legacy Book Club co-founder, adds, In order to innovate and create radical change, weengage to listenrespectfully andactively with an ear to understanding others views and collectively form new ideas and ways of being.

The Legacy Book Club is an organic extension, associated with Ascend (Formerly Treeline2020), of the mindset throughout Above the Treeline. The mission of Ascend is to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in publishing and technology industries. This is done by investing in organizations that are already doing this work well, supplying access through internships and scholarships, and amplifying underrepresented voices.

Annie Rubin, President of Above the Treeline, explains, It is not optional to dismantle systemic racism, address climate change, and support LGBTQIA+ individuals. It is an integral part of our company mission and how we choose to make an impact in our world.

Edelweiss by Above the Treeline empowers the book publishing industry with marketing, sales, and business intelligence tools that make the journey from author to reader more efficient. Over 200,000 book professionals engage in the community and utilize the platform to discover titles and manage the processes that keep them competitive. The company has been privately owned since 2002 and based in Ann Arbor, MI. For more information, visitwww.abovethetreeline.com.

Media Contact:Amanda Murphy, Marketing Director918.210.8343 (cell)[emailprotected]

Press Release ServicebyNewswire.com

Original Source:Edelweiss by Above the Treeline Launches Employee Bookclub Aimed at Helping to Dismantle Systemic Inequities

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Edelweiss by Above the Treeline Launches Employee Bookclub Aimed at Helping to Dismantle Systemic Inequities - Digital Journal

A new book by UB historian Carole Emberton explores emancipation through the stories of a formerly enslaved woman born in the antebellum South.

Pricilla Joyners life before and after the Civil War provides personal details of the emotional, political, social and familial experiences of someone who traveled what historians now call the long emancipation as part of an extended search for belonging.

Emberton, associate professor of history, College of Arts and Sciences, will discuss her book, To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Pricilla Joyner, at 6 p.m. March 9 at the Buffalo History Museum, 1 Museum Court, near Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo.

Admission is pay what you wish.

There were approximately 4.5 million people enslaved in the United States in 1865, but slaverys end did not arrive swiftly with the Civil Wars conclusion or the signing two years earlier of the Emancipation Proclamation. Slaverys death spanned decades of struggle and full emancipation remains, as Emberton writes, an unfulfilled promise.

Emancipation was a profoundly personal experience and the legacies of slavery were long-lasting, says Emberton. Freedom did not simply arrive for those who were enslaved thats not what happened. Slavery came to an end through an extended and fraught process, and what Pricillas story tells us is that for many people emancipation was a journey that spanned an entire lifetime after slavery.

Joyners story sat largely dormant, a fragmented chronicle told to Thelma Dunston, one of the writers charged with collecting the life histories of everyday Americans, including former slaves, as part of the Federal Writers Project (FWP), a Depression-era initiative that grew out of the Works Progress Administration beginning in 1935.

Emberton was working with this archive to learn what the people of emancipations charter generation had to say about freedom and what they did to recreate their lives after slavery. When Emberton discovered Joyners story, she immediately saw it as the anchor of a book that could provide light to emancipation in a story told through Joyners eyes.

I was touched by the personal nature of Pricillas story, says Emberton. When people think about emancipation and the end of slavery, theyre usually thinking about things like civil rights and voting rights, which are very important, but the story Pricilla tells in the FWP archive is the story about family, finding a home, and searching for a place where she belongs.

Joyners journey began when she was 12, when she goes to live with a community of freed slaves. Its here that Emberton says Joyner finds acceptance, love, a spouse and the beginning of family. Its not her whole story, since the historical record about Joyner contains too many gaps for what might be considered a biography. To Walk About in Freedom is a book Emberton calls more of a microhistory, a small book about big things. Its a book about obstacles that the legal abolition of slavery never dismantled, but its also a story of joy realized through the creation of families and communities.

All the stories on the long road to emancipation are unique, but there are overlapping themes, where to live, and how to find family and build community, says Emberton. The answers were always different, but individuals often worked with the same set of questions, and that created a commonality.

That readers have Joyners story today results from her overcoming reluctance about being interviewed on the subject of slavery and emancipation. I dont like to talk about it to folks, she admitted to her interviewer, Thelma Dunston, but dont mind telling it for the work you are doing. If it will do any good to have my life in a book, you can use it.

Joyners story never made it to a history book until now thanks to Embertons work.

These stories will give readers a ground level view of emancipation, she says. These are powerful, heart-wrenching stories that are not widely known.

Go here to read the rest:

Book explains long process of emancipation through eyes of formerly enslaved woman - UB Now: News and views for UB faculty and staff - University at...

The gospel message of liberation and reconciliation should push us toward the abolitionof prisons and policing. Here are 10 Bible passages that help us wrestle with questions of mass incarceration, criminalization, and violence:

Jesus mission statement when he begins his public ministry in Galilee includes a promise of liberation and release for those who are incarcerated. While the New Testament context of captivity wasnt entirely the same as modern imprisonment, Jesus promise aligns liberation of prisoners with healing and good news for the poor and oppressed. Taking Jesus words in this text seriously forces us to ask: If Gods reign is characterized by freedom for prisoners, why are we supporting incarceration now?

The story of Joseph contains a promise of Gods fidelity throughout Josephs incarceration. God never leaves Joseph, and eventually vindicates him. Meanwhile, the stories of the two men imprisoned with Joseph Pharaohs baker and cupbearer highlight the arbitrary nature of incarceration, as one is freed and the other executed. As civil rights lawyerBryan Stevenson says, our current system treats you better if youre rich and guilty than poor and innocent. This is the inevitable result of a system that exists to serve the interests of the powerful.

The prophet Jeremiah is an early political prisoner. Before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, he is imprisoned because he tells King Zedekiah that God wants him to surrender to the Babylonians so Jerusalem will be spared. Jeremiahs imprisonment reminds us that incarceration is fundamentally a tool of power. In our times, too, people who oppose the powerful in ways that are declared illegal from whistleblowerChelsea Manningto water protectors at Standing Rockto Black Lives Matter protesters face prison.

Daniel and his three friends Azariah, Hananiah, and Mishael (the Jewish names for Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego) present examples of civil disobedience and another reminder that legality is not the measure of morality.In these stories, the Jewish exiles in Babylon refuse to obey laws designed to interfere with their religious practice and are punished by the state for it: Daniel is thrown into the lions den, and Azariah, Hananiah, and Mishael are cast into a fiery furnace. Their words to King Nebuchadnezzar we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter (Daniel 3:16) are a sign of their fidelity to God to deliver them, but also a challenge to the very legitimacy of punishment from an unjust state. When our systems of prisonsand policinglead to unjust and raciallydisparate outcomes for marginalized people and communities, we can also say in response: [W]e have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. Our current system of mass-incarceration-as-racial-control is not the arbiter of justice.

Jesus public ministry begins after John [the Baptist] was put in prison (Mark 1:14). Jesus preaches the coming kingdom of God under the shadow of that arrest. And when John, from prison, asks Jesus for a sign of whether he is the Messiah, Jesus response points to practices of solidarity and liberation that he is already enacting in the world (Matthew 11:4-6).

We, like John, see signs of hope and solidarity already being enacted among those who are criminalized and incarcerated such as organizing by groups like the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committeeand grassroots prisoner support organizations led by incarcerated people and their loved ones like the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. This is a potent reminder that abolition begins with smaller acts of liberative hope.

Swiss theologian Karl Barth writesthat the criminals crucified along with Jesus formed the first certain Christian community. As U.S. theologian and abolitionist Rev. Nikia Smith Robert writes, Jesus proximity to criminals and his position of criminality make the cross and resurrection a site of retribution and resistance that points to the possibilities of transformation of our system of mass incarceration. In other words, Jesus crucifixion as a criminal, among criminals, sets God ultimately on the side of those who are criminalized.

Peter is miraculously released from prison twice in the book of Acts. In considering this story as Christians, we must be careful and take its description of the religious authorities with some reservation, remembering that it was composed in the context of Jewish-Gentile schisms in the first century. The New Testaments villainization of Jewish leaders has had violent consequences throughout Christian history. The point here is not to condemn the high priest or the Sadducees, or to draw an exact parallel between the prison Peter was in and our modern prison-industrial complex but instead to recognize God's liberating action within the story. The liberating work of God makes Peters story resonate with contemporary abolitionist efforts.

Paul and Silas are also imprisoned while preaching by the Romans, in their case, and after being accused by a slaveholder whose wealth they had threatened. Their incarceration is clearly the result of challenging an established order of power. While they are in prison, God again miraculously opens the doors and breaks the chains in the prison.

Paul and Silas dont escape but instead stay in order to protect the life of the jailer, and then convert him. This story, while it again shows Gods liberating power in the face of incarceration, can complicate our search for an abolitionist narrative in the Bible. Yet perhaps it demonstrates the varieties of forms solidarity and resistance can take within carceral settings. The power of God is present in the singing of hymns in the prison and among those who are incarcerated; prisonis where the jailer finds God. Abolition unlike criminal justice reform must be driven by the needs and priorities of incarcerated people and those who love them, because that is where the liberating power of God is present.

What do we do about harm and violence without prisons? Abolitionists turn to restorative justiceand transformative justice, methods of dealing with interpersonal harm by meeting the needs of those harmed within a community. The New Testament offers support for this work in Matthew 18, as activist theologian Ched Myers and restorative justice practitionerElaine Enns write. The admonition to protect little ones (Matthew 18:6), they explain, requires we prioritize the needs of those who have been harmed or who are at risk of harm, especially when they have less power in a situation (a key insight of transformative justice); the parable of the lost sheep (Matthew 18:1114) reminds us that God doesnt want anyone thrown away or excluded, regardless of what they have done (a foundational value of restorative justice).

A word of warning: Treating Matthew 18:1520 as a process to follow is dangerous, especially if it ignores power dynamics in situations of harm or abuse! Supporting those who have been harmed must always take priority in our practices of restorative and transformative justice. Nonetheless, this chapter as a whole supports values of safety and restoration, and teaches us that God is with us in the process of what abolitionists Mariame Kaba and Shira Hassan call fumbling towards repair.

Jesus description of the final judgment offers the last word on incarceration, and although this appears in the gospel of Matthew, its a fitting ending because its a picture of the end times. Jesus identifies himself with those who are criminalized and incarcerated, and even promises that our solidarity with them is what determines our eternal destiny.

As biblical scholar Lee Griffithwrites, when we act in solidarity with those in prison, It is not that we find God there; it is that God finds us there. We can honor Gods identification with those who are criminalized and imprisoned when we commit ourselves to abolition.

Go here to see the original:

What Does the Bible Say About Prisons? - Sojourners

Monday

History Makers

Join Linda Hirshman for a virtual discussion of her book The Color of Abolition: How a Printer, a Prophet, and a Contessa Moved a Nation. Hirshman explores the roles of Frederick Douglass, printer William Lloyd Garrison, and Boston socialite Maria Weston Chapman in the fight for abolition. 6 p.m. Free. Register at americanancestors.org.

Thursday

Swift, Reimagined

Fans of Taylor Swift, this ones for you. Student musicians and dancers will perform the singer-songwriters hits for Great American Songbook: Fearless The Music of Taylor Swift at the Berklee Performance Center. Performances will include the songs Shake It Off, You Belong With Me, and Blank Space. 8 p.m. Tickets from $20, with discounts for Berklee ID-holders. berklee.edu/events

Opens Friday

Art and Innovation

The Harvard Art Museums highlight dozens of cutting-edge artists in Prints from the Brandywine Workshop and Archives: Creative Communities. Brandywine, a Philadelphia-based organization, was established to foster innovation and diversity in the arts. $20 for adults; free on Sundays and for students, youth, and other groups. Through July 31. Reservations required at harvardartmuseums.org.

Friday and Saturday

Gods and Mortals

Head to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams for the world premiere of Yemandja, a musical starring Grammy Award-winner Anglique Kidjo. The work is reminiscent of a Greek tragedy and explores love, betrayal, honor, and the terrors of slavery. Tickets for Fridays show, at 8 p.m., start at $20. Saturday includes 4 p.m. performance and Mass MoCA benefit events, from $250. massmoca.org

Saturday

Colorful Celebrations

Immerse yourself in the sounds of Red Baraat, which fuses North Indian bhangra with hip-hop and punk, as the band rocks out for Holi, a Hindu festival celebrating spring, at the Somerville Theatre. Harini Rini Raghavan and Radha open. Tickets from $28. 8 p.m. globalartslive.org

Share your event news. Send information on Boston-area happenings at least three weeks in advance to week@globe.com.

Go here to read the rest:

Five things to do in and around Boston, Feb. 28 - March 6 - The Boston Globe

An Erdington byelection special four-page wrap-around with the Socialist issue 1169

Voting for more of the same will only get us more of the same. And, when that same means soaring energy bills for us and soaring energy profits for them we cant take any more of the same! Cuts to public services hit us hard, while billionaires get even richer.

A vote for Labour or the Tories will be seen by Boris Johnson, or Sir Keir Starmer, as support for their approach: to carry on privatising our NHS, letting the bosses get away with fire and rehire, saddling our young people with tens of thousands of pounds of student debt, and so on.

At best, there will be a discussion on how working-class people should pay for the crisis we didnt cause. No party in Westminster says make the billionaires pay instead because working-class people dont have our own political voice, our own party.

Dave Nellist, a member of the Socialist Party, is standing as the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate so we can use our vote to send a message to Westminster that we have had enough and want an alternative to their same old, same old.

Dave will be a voice for us instead. He has a record of being a workers MP who only took a workers wage and as a fighter for working-class people. The result in this by-election wont change the government, but a vote for Dave can shake up the establishment. Daves campaign is also part of the fight to build a powerful voice for the working class a new mass workers party.

Youth clubs, home care, school budgets, swimming pools, libraries many have disappeared, and more have been cut beyond recognition, privatised by profiteering corner-cutting companies, or now carry hefty charges. The decent public services needed for dignity, support and a start in life are being destroyed.

These attacks represent political choices about which part of society should foot the bill which class. The Tories made their position clear from the get-go in 2010, with the slashing of 40 billion of funding for councils in the years since. In that period, the amount paid by FTSE 100 companies in dividends to shareholders doubled to a record 110 billion in 2019. This is still the fifth-richest country on the planet.

Birmingham City Council, like all the Labour-led councils across the country, has dutifully accepted the Tory line and cut over 770 million from services since 2010. Over 13,000 jobs have been slashed. Birmingham Labour council has closed 43 youth centres, 12 nurseries, 21 childrens centres, five childrens homes, four libraries and countless community and leisure facilities. And then privatised or sold off most of whats left, as its trying to do with Short Heath playing fields too.

Labour cuts

The Labour candidate for Erdington, Paulette Hamilton, was a council cabinet member in 2018 when Birmingham care workers in Unison took strike action against the council plan to cut their hours. Some workers faced a cut from 37 hours to just 14 hours a week! Their 20-month strike defeated the plan, and the new rota was dropped. Unite and Unison refuse workers were also forced to strike against cuts in 2019.

Paulette has no defence, as she told LabourList: Ive had that portfolio for over seven years they can only name two disputes. I have managed a budget of over 354 million. I have also managed the public health budget each year of over 100 million. And they have highlighted two disputes that happened over five years ago, when we were looking at how we could upgrade a service. We had cross-party agreement when it was all decided. Thats cross-party with the Tories by the way

In Coventry, the Labour council is brutally attacking the trade unions trying to defend services and jobs. That council is refusing to pay bin drivers the rate for the job. But even worse, it is paying outside workers twice the going rate to do the work of their own workforce, spending over 2 million in an attempt to break the strike in defence of fair pay.

The socialist-led Liverpool Labour council in the 1980s provides a lesson of what a fighting council could do if it chose to represent and mobilise the working class. Its legacy is undeniable. It includes 4,800 houses and bungalows built; six new nursery classes built and opened; five new sports centres, one with a leisure pool attached; three new parks built; and rents frozen for five years.

The council defeated Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, winning 60 million for Liverpool. It was achieved on the basis of workers and young people taking a democratic part in the decision process. That was in the form of mass meetings but also mass demonstrations and strike action to fight for what had been agreed in the council chamber.

Councils today have a lot of power to fight back against Tory attacks. Councils in England, for example, are responsible for over one fifth of all public spending. If they were to use their reserves and borrowing powers to produce budgets based on whats needed, and combine this with a Liverpool-style struggle, a mass movement could be inspired and built to end Tory austerity and kick them out.

New mass workers party

Today this type of struggle against the Tories is necessary but it is impossible in Starmers New Labour. As we go to press, Labour councillors who say they might vote against this years cuts face being expelled; Jeremy Corbyn is not allowed to sit as a Labour MP; and Starmer takes the side of Coventry council against the workers. The lesson is that cuts can be fought but we require councillors and a party with a no-cuts programme. Labour is not that. A new party must be built.

That can start now. Elections are taking place on 5 May with over 6,000 council seats up. In its existence since 2010, thousands of working-class fighters have stood as no-cuts candidates for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) trade unionists, socialists, community campaigners, student activists people with a record of standing up to the bosses and campaigning for their community and pledged to vote against cuts.

Standing no-cuts candidates has meant theres a real choice on the ballot paper in those areas. This can also help spread the idea of building a new mass workers party. It can also be an effective way of putting pressure on councillors they dont like a challenge to what they see as their right to rule. So why not be part of that?

See http://www.tusc.org.uk for info.

Birminghams unemployment rate of 12.6% is the highest of any major British city. Now Erdingtons GKN plant is set to close with the loss of 500-plus skilled jobs. Johnsons Tory government could have intervened, nationalised and saved GKN, but instead it let it go to the wall. The Socialist Party fights for the nationalisation of GKN under democratic workers control and management.

Boris Johnson claimed the Tories wanted Brexit to level up working-class communities, but their Brexit is about freedom for the bosses to exploit us. Dave, in contrast, led one of the three national campaigns to leave the EU, explaining it is Thatcherism on a continental scale which limits a governments ability to defend working-class interests for example to nationalise plants threatened with closure.

Johnsons plan for Brexit is the same as the EUs: giving big employers more liberty to attack workers pay, rights and conditions and to sell off our NHS to US private health companies. We need an MP to cut through both Tory and Labour Brexit jargon and put workers first.

Ben Robinson, an organiser of Youth March for Jobs

Dave Nellist has been a longstanding campaigner for young peoples rights. As an MP in the 1980s, Daves maiden speech was against Thatchers Youth Training Scheme forcing young people into low-paid work, and helping to build the movement against it.

Just over a decade ago, I was one of the Youth Fight for Jobs marchers who walked through Coventry on the way from Jarrow to London, following in the footsteps of the 1936 Jarrow march for jobs. In the aftermath of the 2007-8 financial crash, politicians and big business were asking working-class people to pay the price. Youth unemployment shot up to around a million 16 to 24-year-olds.

Again, Dave was one of our biggest supporters, joining us early in the march and helping to organise a rally and protest in Coventry, where he was a Socialist Party councillor. As we marched through the streets, local young people joined us and cheered as we spoke about fighting the Labour councils attacks, including to the local college, and the need for a socialist fightback.

These are just a few examples of Daves record. With fresh attacks on education, and low pay and job insecurity still rife for young people, we need a fightback. Dave has proven time and again that he is a fighter for young people and the working class, and will use any position to build that fightback. Vote for a fighter, vote Nellist!

Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students

Every year, hundreds of thousands of students leave university into a world of low pay and temporary contracts, owing the government close to 30,000. The moment we graduate, this figure starts growing. And thats just to cover tuition, leaving aside loans to cover the cost of rent and food.

However, there is no question that the wealth exists in society for education to be run as a free public service, available to all. After all, billionaires wealth has increased by $5 trillion to $13.8 trillion since March 2021. The question is: who owns and controls this wealth, and how is it used?

Free education is entirely possible. After all, university tuition fees were not introduced in Britain until 1998, under newly elected New Labour prime minister Tony Blair. In contrast, as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn showed the huge support for free higher education when students, young people and workers joined mass rallies in the run up to the 2017 general election. The 2019 election manifesto grey book estimated the cost of abolishing tuition fees and restoring maintenance grants for full-time and part-time students at 13.6 billion. The obstacle is the profit system and the defenders of capitalism.

Corbyns anti-austerity programme was met with disdain by Tory and right-wing Labour MPs, who claimed there is no magic money tree. Yet the same Tory government has shown that the money can be found when the capitalist system they defend is under threat spending over 400 billion since Covid struck, including the 37 billion set aside for the botched test-and-trace system.

The current tuition fee system leaves university graduates saddled with debt for much of our working lives. In fact, the government predicts that only 25% of current undergraduates will have paid off their debt by the time they retire. The situation is only set to worsen following the Tories announcement that the student loan debt repayment window will be extended from 30 to 40 years and the repayment threshold lowered.

Alongside free education, we need institutions that are fully funded by government, and controlled by students, workers and the wider working class. This would bring to an end the university managements vicious attacks on the conditions of staff in the name of balancing the books.

But who will launch the fight for free education? Under Keir Starmer, the Labour Party has taken a clear rightward turn to the side of big business. As of yet, the current Labour leader has not officially renounced his 2020 campaign pledge to support the abolition of tuition fees. But he has retreated from nationalising utilities, suspended Jeremy and introduced rule changes designed to lock out the left from taking the leadership again.

And where was Starmer when students were organising rent strikes last year? When Young Labour urged him to back the rent strikes, he did not respond. A Labour spokesperson refused to confirm the partys position. Starmers right-wing machine has even gone as far as prohibiting access to Young Labour social media accounts, in an attempt to censor Labours official youth wing. Starmer is hell-bent on completing Labours reconfiguration into a safe pair of hands for British capitalism. It is difficult to imagine him ever demanding the super-rich pay for education.

This is why it is time for students to build a new mass movement, starting with campus-wide rallies of students and university workers already on strike, to discuss the next steps to fight cuts and marketisation.

But without a political alternative outside the Labour Party, students would be fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. A mass movement of students fighting for free education would be strengthened by representatives in Westminster like Dave Nellist, fighting on our side against the bosses.

Even just a modest tax or levy on the vast wealth of the super-rich would be enough to provide free education and reinstate maintenance grants. But why should the capitalists maintain their control over our education, and over the economy and the rest of society?

Socialists fight for the wealth and resources to be owned and controlled by the majority, the working class. By nationalising the banks and big business to be run under democratic workers control and management, a socialist government could plan production to meet everyones needs. Only such socialist measures, coordinated with socialist movements internationally, could guarantee a flourishing, free education system on a permanent basis.

Ian Hodson, President Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union: As a founder and funder, and after 119 years of support for the Labour Party, our members decided that they could no longer be supportive of a political organisation riven by factionalism, and more interested in securing positions in its own ranks than dealing with the huge inequalities and hardship so many in our society face.

We have witnessed in recent weeks the actions of Labour in power with its treatment of its bin workers. They are no different to those of the Tory party. We need a fresh start, and Erdington offers an opportunity to send a real shot across the bows of the Westminster elite. By electing Dave Nellist, the people of Erdington will be sending one of their own someone who will be a powerful voice for ending the hardship we see daily in our society. Be it food, energy or housing poverty, it is a political choice by voting Dave Nellist you will be saying its time for change, and time for a better society for all.

Pete Randall, Unite rep for Coventry bin strikers: Dave stands on the side of workers, the community and is honest. So honest, he pledges to take a workers wage! This isnt about greed, its about delivering for the people. Hes done it before, hell do it again.

Chris Williamson, ex-Labour MP and Resist: I have known Dave Nellist for over 30 years. He is a real community champion. No other candidate can match his track record. By contrast, the Labour Party ignores the interests of local people and Labours response to the cost of living crisis is almost identical to the Conservatives.

Joe Simpson, Deputy General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association: I support Dave Nellist simply because of who he is. Dave is a sincere, genuine working-class man who will speak up for his constituents in Erdington and will protect them from the devastating cuts which will come in the next few years. No other candidate is speaking up for the people of Erdington and giving them a voice in parliament they will just take the money, sit on their hands and vote in favour of the party they belong to.

That is the exact opposite of what Dave will deliver, he will deliver a working-class voice on a working-class wage with a working-class agenda.

Naomi Byron, Unison NEC (personal capacity) and NHS worker: If Dave is elected to Parliament again he will be a real workers representative there. I know Dave will always fight to defend the NHS and for its renationalisation. He stands with health workers and outsourced workers. He fought against the Private Finance Initiative when New Labour introduced it, he is fighting against the Health and Care Bill, for proper NHS funding, and a proper pay rise for all.

Hugo Pierre, Unison NEC (personal capacity) and school worker: I am confident, that if elected, Dave would make a great MP for Erdington. Dave knows the West Midlands and has fought against the drop in workers living standards as formerly skilled, well-paid jobs have been replaced with low-paid precarious work.

He supported and gave solidarity to the Birmingham bin and home care workers who were attacked by the Labour council.

As a trade unionist, support for your struggle is the key. Im backing Dave in Erdington because he will have your backs. But workers across the country will also have a principled and determined socialist fighting for our cause.

Tosh McDonald, retired President of ASLEF the train drivers union and former councillor for Doncaster Town ward: By voting for Dave Nellist, the voters of Erdington have the chance to make a real change to Britains political landscape. With no real difference between Westminsters main parties and their careerist politicians, Dave is a refreshing breath of fresh air. Taking a workers wage instead of lining his own pocket, standing up for people instead of big business, Dave is a real peoples politician. A vote for Dave is a vote to change politics in Birmingham and beyond.

The Socialist Party is part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, working with trade unions and others to stand no-cuts, fighting candidates, and take those first necessary steps towards building the new mass workers party we so urgently need.

Within the campaign for working-class political representation, the Socialist Party fights for a bold socialist programme that shows how we can really transform things. The first step is nationalisation of the biggest 150 banks and corporations that dominate the economy, under democratic working-class control and management. This would put the levers for the first steps towards a socialist planned economy, democratically run to meet the needs of all, into workers hands not those of the bosses.

The pandemic revealed the potential power of workers many times, forcing bosses to take safety measures they didnt want to take. What could the six-and-a-half million members of the trade unions do if we acted together? Combine that with those not yet in a union, linked up with young people, and communities!

Key to bringing that potential power to bear is the mass organisation of workers, including building a workers political voice. It also means strengthening the trade unions, the main workers organisations in the workplaces, where workers confront the bosses in the struggles over safety, pay, and conditions.

But it also means joining the Socialist Party. We stand firm for socialism come what may standing up against the bosses, the Tories, and the Labour Blairites, charting a way forward to build the maximum unity of the working class in the struggle for socialist change.

Fighting for a socialist alternative to war, poverty and inequality is an international struggle against an international capitalist system. The Socialist Party is affiliated to the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) to build a worldwide struggle for socialism.

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Erdington byelection - Working-class people need a voice - Socialist Party