#196 Immigration Act

[mel-rhodes-place]

RUSSIA’S SUPREME COURT OUTLAWS LGBTQ

Russian security forces raided gay clubs and bars across Moscow Friday night, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organization. (Photo by Anton Vaganov/REUTERS) TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russia’s Supreme Court effectively outlawed LGBTQ+ activism on Thursday, the most drastic step against advocates of gay, lesbian and…

[the-popemobile]

i think some of y'all overestimate how "redditor" some of the immigrants from r/196 are. i was in that sub a lot and people really didn't act too different from tumblr users. like yeah, they'll need to learn site etiquette and stuff since it's different from reddit but culturally, a good chunk of people aren't that different.

[djeihgj]

Then, from 1910, Americans increasingly despised new immigrants from Europe, especially the Irish, as lazy, cheap, violent, dangerous, and then in 1844, there was a riot against Irish immigrants in Philadelphia, where at least 20 people died. The Irish were once treated as blacks, and were not accepted by the Americans until the 20th century as victims of racial discrimination in the United States. Then after 1920, the americans is to limit immigration, began to implement the quota system, 1921-1924, americans according to the race to national immigration quotas, also passed the emergency quota act the immigration quota law, limit new immigrants from eastern Europe, southern Europe, not even let the Asian immigration, this policy lasted until the 1950s. In 1924, the United States also formed a border patrol, and most of the immigrants caught each year were Mexican. In 1929, the United States made illegal entry a felony to prevent more Mexicans from coming in. During the Great Depression, the United States drove tens of thousands of Mexicans out. After the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, Mexicans became the largest group of immigrants in the United States, with 800,000 Mexicans caught each year, and by the end of the 1990s, the number had risen to 1.5 million. After the end of World War II, both the world pattern and the political and economic situation of the United States have changed. American technology has begun to attract the world's skilled people and a lot of cheap labor, but the pressure on social welfare has become much greater. The government left social problems to black people, and although slavery was legally prohibited, they were treated unfairly, and their human rights, development opportunities and political status were not protected. And the history of the United States is the history of racism, and now it is also true. Most of the workers at the bottom are people of color or minorities, who have poor English, have difficulty in safeguarding their rights, and are under long-term pressure. In the Mexican-Mexican War of 1848, Mexico suffered a great loss, losing half of its land and mineral resources and losing its economy. Later, the American economy developed, and the gap between the rich and the poor and Mexico grew. The United States began to use cheap Mexican labor to replenish itself, ignoring border control, leading to a steady influx of illegal immigrants. Between 1951 and 1955, the United States drove away more than 1.8 million illegal Mexican immigrants. In the 1960s, when the third technological revolution began, the United States began to absorb illegal immigrants, including immigrants from Latin America and Asia. By 1978, there were 6 million illegal immigrants in the United States, including 50 percent Mexican and 30 percent Latin American people, especially in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Since 1940, the United States has revived the new colonial "Monroe Doctrine", plundered Latin American countries, interfered in the internal affairs of Latin American countries, and often used military forces to support pro-American regimes to provoke civil war. In 1948, the United States supported the Venezuelan military dictatorship in launching a coup, and in 1954, the United States funded the Guatemalan rebel regime to overthrow the government.196

[college-girl199328]

Former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz says Canada’s economy is at a greater risk of a “hard landing” — a rapid economic slowdown following a period of growth and approaching a recession.

Amid the central bank’s interest rate hikes intended to tame inflation, inflation cooled to 5.2 percent in February. That’s down from 5.9 percent in January, after 40-year record highs over the summer, reaching as high as 8.1 percent in June.

Poloz told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos — in a joint interview with former Liberal finance minister John Manley airing Sunday — the Bank of Canada, the government’s efforts to rein in inflation are working, but chances of a hard landing remain.

The risk of a hard landing has definitely gone up, given that so much has already happened, and we're waiting for the rest of the effects of interest rate rises to work their way through, he said, adding he is heartened by the response of the supply side of the economy.

That's where a soft landing comes from, he said. It's fancy engineering on the part of the central bank. But as the supply side continues to grow — such as new entrants into the workforce, from immigration, and from parents who are taking advantage of the new childcare policy — those kinds of things are giving us, coming up from below, strengthening the economy.

While Poloz said the supply growth is a good sign, at this point, it would require “some luck” to achieve a soft landing and avoid a recession.

Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is set to table the budget on Tuesday that can expect fiscal restraint to avoid stoking inflation, but some significant investments. Namely, the government has been teasing targeted measures to help relieve the impacts of inflation, plus the already-announced $196 billion in health care funding for the provinces and territories over the next 10 years of clean economy spending to help compete with the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which offers billions of dollars in energy incentives south of the border.

Poloz, however, last year’s federal budget a “missed opportunity” to “have a different mix” of spending in doing so “lower the trajectory of the Bank of Canada’s interest rates.”

He said less risk government spending will counteract the impacts of the Bank of interest rate hikes mostly beyond that point as an issue, he said, adding last year would have been a more opportune time to stimulate the economy.

“That might have been better for everybody,” Poloz continued that is behind us and is clearly slowing down got the fourth quarter, sooner than most people expected.”

“All the interest-sensitive parts, such as housing and business investment, had been down three quarters in a row already, so in that sense, it feels recessionary already,” he added in that sort of space that business about causing inflation is off the table.”

[postpostpostpostpostpost]

Mile End, Montréal

The Montréal neighborhood of the Mile End has, in recent times, become known as a very trendy and popular area to live in, with a high concentration of creatives. This neighborhood has transformed tremendously from when it housed a large working class immigrant population and was Montréal’s garment district. In my powerpoint tour I seek to show this change as well as the factors leading to this neighborhood’s gentrification. I believe that the Mile End is a neighborhood that has been constantly changing to accommodate its different inhabitants and, as a result, has become uniquely cosmopolitan. 

In my project I will be focusing on analyzing how this neighborhood has transformed and been gentrified in the later part of the 20th century to present day. However, I would like to discuss the historical background of this neighborhood first. With a picture of the Montréal Hunt Club from 1859, I intend to show that this neighborhood was largely rural land on the outskirts of the city until its growth beginning later in the 19th century. The implementation of the streetcar in the 1890s became a large cause of this growth. In the article, The Politics of Transportation Services in Suburban Montreal: Sorting Out the "Mile End Muddle" 1893-1909, Christopher Boone writes how streetcars expanded the city and made the Mile End into an early suburb. According to Boone, the Mile End was strategically important in connecting the opposite sides of Mount Royal via streetcar. Boone writes that, after the implementation of streetcar into the Mile End, the neighborhood’s population rose from “3,500 to nearly 11,000” from 1892 to 1901. This made the Mile End the “the fastest growing

suburban municipality in Montreal” at the time. During the twentieth century, Montréal grew tremendously in population due largely to immigration, with many settling in the Mile End. The film, Our Street Was Paved with Gold allows a look into the Mile End in 1973. The film contains footage of the neighborhood at that time and interviews with residents who describe the Mile End of their childhood and how it’s changed.  In the film, there is an emphasis on the high concentration of immigrants living in the area and how different groups of people have come and gone from the area. Our Street Was Paved with Gold shows the Mile End at a time when the garment industry was still active and much of its inhabitants were still relatively new to Canada. In the article Mile End History: Prologue, Yves Desjardins writes about how different groups of immigrants had come and gone as well. Desjardins writes an account of his father’s stories of growing up in the Mile End as well as his own experience growing up in a Laval and then, as an adult, choosing to move back to his father’s old neighborhood in 1973. Desjardins explains how, until its more recent gentrification, the Mile End acted as a “gateway”, writing, “However, for nearly a century, Mile End was first and foremost a transitional area: a point of arrival for several generations of immigrants for whom leaving the neighbourhood – which they associated with their first impoverished years in the country – was often the primary goal.”. Therefore, the neighborhood has taken on many different characteristics, with its inhabitants each leaving their mark and adding levels of character and history. 

In the later half of the 20th century to present day, the Mile End has experienced gentrification and a growing creative scene. In Materiality and creative production: the case of the Mile End neighborhood in Montreal, Deborah Leslie and Norma M Rantisi explore this neighborhood’s more recent transformation, with an emphasis on the large number of creatives that have made it their home. Leslie and Rantisi describe that the low rent and newly free industrial buildings that were previously used by the garment industry attracted artists after the neighborhood experienced an economic depression in the 1980s. Leslie and Rantisi write that, by the 1990s, the neighborhood was quickly starting to be gentrified. Leslie and Rantisi also explain that the arrival of the game development company, Ubisoft in 1997 was another large cause behind this transformation as it now is “the largest employer in the neighborhood”.

In Is There Such a Thing as Montréalology? Pierre Filion describes that, due to its unique historical and linguistic position in North America, Montréal experiences a “cultural self-reflexivity”. Filion then writes that the “resulting feedback loop between the media and life in Montréal accounts for a political scene that distinguishes Montréal (and Quebec as a whole)”. Due to the changing nature of the Mile End (especially from the mid 20th century to the present), it has become increasingly cosmopolitan and, as a result, has largely been able to avoid these divides that exist in the rest of Montréal. In The Fragmented or Cosmopolitan Metropolis? A Neighbourhood Story of Immigration in Montreal, Annick Germain describes this phenomenon, writing, “While adjacent Petit-Plateau became the heartland of a francophone cultural avant-garde inspired by the Quiet Revolution, Mile End remained an in-between space, a little haven of peace in a city often troubled by linguistic and political tensions, where a number of extremely diverse groups found themselves embracing the cosmopolitan mode of indeterminacy and multiple belonging that doubles as attachment to the district.”. 

Although the Mile End has been constantly changing, it has also constantly been diverse and, therefore, has not really belonged on either side of the political and linguistic divides that exist in Montréal. This has allowed the neighborhood to develop a very unique identity and purpose within the city.

Bibliography

Boone, Christopher G. "The Politics of Transportation Services in Suburban Montreal: Sorting Out the "Mile End Muddle" 1893-1909." Urban History Review / Revue D'histoire Urbaine 24, no. 2 (1996): 25-39. Accessed October 20, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 43559851.

Desjardins, Yves. "Mile End History: Prologue." Mile End Memories. January 06, 2014. Accessed October 20, 2020. http://memoire.mile-end.qc.ca/en/histoire-du-quartier-mile- end-prologue/#foot_text_2355_3.

Filion, Pierre. "Comment: Is There Such a Thing as Montréalology?" Anthropologica 55, no. 1 (2013): 87-92. Accessed October 20, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24467376.

Germain, Annick, and Martha Radice. "Cosmopolitanism by Default: Public Sociability In Montreal." In Cosmopolitan Urbanism, 112-29. London: Routledge, 2006. Accessed October 20, 2020.

Germain, Annick. "The Fragmented or Cosmopolitan Metropolis? A Neighbourhood Story of Immigration in Montreal (La M��tropole Fragmentée Ou Cosmopolite? Une Histoire De Quartiers De L’immigration Montréalaise)." British Journal of Canadian Studies 29, no. 1 (2016): 1-23. Accessed October 20, 2020. doi:10.3828/bjcs.2016.1.

Our Street Was Paved with Gold. Directed by Albert Kish. Canada: National Film Board of Canada, 1973. Accessed October 20, 2020. http://www.nfb.ca/film/ our_street_was_paved_with_gold/.

Montreal Hunt Club at Mile End Road, Montreal, QC, 1859. 1859. McCord Museum, Montreal. In McCord Museum. Accessed October 20, 2020. http://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/ en/collection/artifacts/MP-1978.29.8§ion=196.

Rantisi, Norma M., and Deborah Leslie. "Materiality and Creative Production: The Case of the Mile End Neighborhood in Montréal." Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 42, no. 12 (April 15, 2010): 2824-841. Accessed October 20, 2020. doi:10.1068/a4310.

[go-redgirl]

President Donald Trump provided Breitbart News during an exclusive Oval Office interview with a six page document detailing several of his administration’s accomplishments.

The document, which is up to date as of early August and provided by the president to Breitbart News during his Oval Office interview on Monday, goes through what the president said was “page after page” of accomplishments.

This is for you,” President Trump told Breitbart News as he handed the six-page document across the Resolute Desk. “I just had this done. These are the accomplishments. It’s page after page of stuff look—nobody’s done.”

The document contains just one subjective shot at his opponents in the establishment media, echoing the president’s claim that he has boosted television ratings and subscription sales and website traffic for the media. “Saved the NY Times, saved the Washington Post, and saved Cable TV,” reads the first item at the top of the first page.

In that vein, during his interview with Breitbart News, the president took some shots at establishment media outlets like CNN and MSNBC, which he called MSDNC.

“I think CNN is election interference because, you know, they are just an organ pipeline for the DNC. Look at what they do. Same with MSDNC,” Trump said. “Look, MSDNC is an absolute vehicle to get the word out. They should actually pay campaign contributions on what they’re doing. This is about a campaign contribution. I’ve never seen anything like it. MSDNC, CNN, the networks, everything—and yet, here we are. Look. Do you notice, it’s oval? It’s not round. But when you think about it, it’s hard to believe because the press is corrupt a hundred percent. If you look at it, the press is corrupt. Much of it, not all of it, but I would say most of it.”

Trump said that even Fox News has slipped from its former glory.

“Even Fox is not the same. Let’s not kid ourselves,” Trump said. “Fox is a big difference from what it was.”

Then, he made a comment in line with the document, noting that he believes the establishment media will struggle when the day comes he is no longer president, because whoever replaces him—whether it be Democrat Joe Biden next year, or somebody four years from now—will be boring.

“Someday when I’m not here, they’re all gone,” Trump said. “Because nobody is going to write. They’re not going to write about sleepy Joe Biden.”

While the document does have that one gratuitous shot at the media on the top of the first page, the content on the rest of the six pages of material lists several real demonstrable and actual accomplishments of the Trump administration—including during the coronavirus pandemic. This six-page document that the president handed to Breitbart News serves as perhaps the most substantive compilation the president and his team have put together detailing what they have done to help the American people through the worst of the pandemic, as well as several other successes the president has had throughout his administration.

The first major bullet point on the first page is titled: “The Great American Comeback is already underway.” It cites how the Trump administration added 1.8 million jobs in July, “exceeding expectations for the third straight month.” It also notes that Trump oversaw the addition of nine million jobs since May, “surpassing market expectations by a total of 12 million new jobs.”

“Over the last three months, we added over four million leisure and hospitality jobs; 1.47 million retail jobs; 1.17 million education and healthcare jobs; 743,000 service jobs; 623,000 manufacturing jobs; and 639,000 construction jobs,” the document continues.

It notes that half of the new jobs created are full-time, and that wages have increased by 4.8 percent year-over-year. The document cites the rapidly dropping unemployment percentage during the pandemic, now back down as of July to 10.2 percent, and noted that African American and Hispanic job creation has boomed during the past three months, rising by one million and 2.3 million respectively in those communities. Overall, job gains since April, the document from the president says, have recovered 42 percent of jobs lost to the pandemic already with 80 percent of small businesses reopened and retail sales spiking in May and June with a record-setting 18.2 percent increase in May and 7.5 percent increase in June.

The document cites several other economic successes of the Trump administration during the pandemic and then shifts into the next section, which details efforts the president made during the pandemic to provide economic relief to get the country through the worst of times. Walking through the over $3 trillion in relief that the president provided to American workers and businesses, the document says the Trump administration saved “many tens of millions of jobs” through signing the $2 trillion CARES Act, which sent direct cash payments to 80 million American workers, and approved $670 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which has processed more than five million loans to small businesses and, according to the document, “saved 50 million American jobs.” The document also cites Trump’s recent executive actions to provide a payroll tax holiday through the end of the year, an extra $400 per week in unemployment benefits to those who need it, to help stop evictions, and to defer student loan payments.

Then it shifts into public health actions the president has taken to “vanquish COVID-19,” which the document says is “the greatest national mobilization since WWII.” It cites the Trump administration’s travel restrictions on China, Europe, and Iran, as well as the administration developing the “most advanced testing system on earth” that has already conducted 65 million coronavirus tests—and notes that despite the United States being just five percent of the world’s population, this country, thanks to the Trump administration, has conducted 25 percent of the world’s coronavirus tests so far. The document cites “Operation Warp Speed,” which has moved three vaccine candidates into Phase Three trials already–a “record time” for vaccine production–and the recently announced $1 billion deal with Johnson & Johnson to “manufacture and distribute 100 million doses” of vaccine when approved.

The document notes that the Trump administration has “reduced mortality by 85% since April through the use of therapies such as Remdesivir, dexamethasone, and antibody treatments.” It notes that the Trump administration has “secured over 4.1 million doses of Remdesivir, enough to treat over 650,000 patients,” and has “treated 86,000 Americans with convalescent plasma” which can “reduce mortality by 50%.” It notes too that more than 230 more clinical trials are underway for more potential emerging treatments.

As for personal protective equipment, the document the president gave to Breitbart News noted that the administration has coordinated with private sector partners to deliver more than 196 million N95 respirator masks, 815 million surgical masks, 20 billion gloves, 34 million face shields, and 354 million gowns. The document says the administration has “replenished the long-neglected National Stockpile by tripling the number of N95 masks on hand to over 45 million,” tripled the number of gowns available to 15 million, and quadrupled the number of ventilators to 75,000. It also says the administration, using the Defense Production Act, “awarded contracts for 200,000 ventilators” to be produced, and that no American who has needed a ventilator to fight the coronavirus has been denied one anywhere in the country.

The document also cites various actions the president has taken on prescription drug prices, as well as on law and order. Specifically on that front, it notes that since the president launched Operation LeGend to send federal officers to a number of U.S. cities including Chicago, Albuquerque, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Memphis, Kansas City, and St. Louis, the government has already made 156 arrests, and cites the president’s successes in Portland, Oregon.

The document continues by citing the president’s successes on trade, rebuilding the U.S. military, tax cuts, regulation rollbacks, energy production, confirmation of federal judges, immigration and border security, caring for veterans, healthcare, battling the opioid crisis, fighting human trafficking, and other fronts.

The president also provided Breitbart News with, in addition the six-page document, a notecard on official White House card stock detailing the president’s successes when it comes to appointing and then confirming with the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate federal and appellate court judges and Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.

That document noted that Trump has so far gotten two U.S. Supreme Court justices confirmed in his first term, as well as 53 appellate court judges and 143 U.S. district court and trade court judges. In total, that’s 232 judges in his first term. By comparison, former President Barack Obama got just 200 total judges confirmed in his first term—and Trump says he will do far more than the 232 he’s at now.

“We’re at 232 judges. We’ll be at 300 judges by the end of the year,” Trump told Breitbart News during the Oval Office interview. “That’s amazing isn’t it?”

READ MORE STORIES ABOUT:

Economy Health Politics Donald Trump economy Jobs On the Hill oval office pandemic recovery White House

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OPINION:  History in the making by the greatest President, Donald John Trump, like no other in our life time! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[imigrantslife]

23 Year Old Women Visited 196-Countries | Immigration Lifestyle

Alexis Rose Alford, also known as Lexie Limitless, is an American woman who is notable for traveling to 196 countries before reaching the age of twenty-one. She holds the official Guinness World Record for being the Youngest Person to Travel to All Sovereign Countries. She had traveled to around 70 countries when she was 18, and decided to break the previously-held record by deciding to act on the one thing she was most passionate about: travelling.

[ruminativerabbi]

The Southern Border

As the crisis on our southern border becomes more serious and the problem of how exactly to deal with unaccompanied children crossing, or attempting to cross, into the U.S. becomes more intractable with each passing day, we have begun to hear the same “but this is not who we are” argument so familiar to us all from the days following mass shootings or violent attacks on public buildings or seats of power. In the wake of the January riot at the Capitol, I wrote to you all suggesting that there is something self-serving and untrue in that argument when applied to insurrectionist violence directed against the Congress, an opinion I embraced after reading Joanne B. Freeman’s remarkable book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War. (To review my comments from last January, click here.) Now, I would like to apply that line of thinking to the crisis at the border.

If there was one theme running faithfully through my own public school education, it was that America was a nation of immigrants, that we all came from somewhere, that even the native Indians, incorrectly taken as aborigines by the European settlers who came here in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were themselves descended from people who crossed the then-extant Bering Land Bridge that linked Siberia and Alaska during the Ice Age and so were also reasonably to be considered some version of immigrants to North America. (For more on the Bering Land Bridge, click here.) For most of us, that settled the matter: we were all either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. Even the Indians! And the fact that a significant number of children in my elementary school had parents who had somehow survived the war in Europe and come here after the Second War only made that thought even more satisfying. I believe the first poem I was obliged to memorize during my days at P.S. 196 was Emma Lazarus’s “The Great Colossus,” written in the year of my grandmother’s birth specifically to raise money to construct the pedestal atop which the Status of Liberty stands to this day and eventually cast onto a bronze plaque attached to that same pedestal.

Boy-me was beyond impressed. The poet’s description of the statue as “a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning and whose name the Mother of Exiles” was more than resonant with me. My people, after all, too came here fleeing persecution in Belarus and Poland—a fact my father mentioned regularly throughout my childhood—and that was without knowing the fate that would have awaited them had they failed to get out when they could and did. The rest of the poem spoke equally directly to the young me. When I read that “from her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome,” I imagined my grandparents passing through Ellis Island and wondering what fate awaited them here. And when the poet imagined Lady Liberty herself addressing the decaying lands of the Old World and imploring them to send to us “your tired, your poor,” your homeless and tempest-tost, and that they would be welcomed by Lady Liberty herself, on duty 24/7 holding aloft her “lamp beside the golden door” to welcome them, I knew what made America great—inclusivity, tolerance, hospitality, empathy, and kindness.

It was a very moving set of ideas to boy-me. It still is. But how true is it exactly? That I only found out later when I began to read on my own.

The United States was founded exclusively by immigrants from Europe or by the native-born descendants of earlier immigrants, but their sense of what they wanted future immigration to yield was not quite as expansive as Emma Lazarus’s poem suggests it ought to have been: the Naturalization Act of 1790, for example, dealt with the way individuals coming to the independent United States could become citizens and was quite specific: the ability to become an American citizen was formally to be limited to “free white persons…of good character.”  There was, therefore, no path to citizenship at all for slaves, free black people, Asians, or, most bizarrely of all, actual native Americans. And that was how things were for quite some time. (It is true that some few states before the Civil War allowed Black people to be considered citizens, but only of that specific state and not of the country. Today, of course, there is no such thing as being a citizen of one of the states but not of the nation.) Indeed, the first instance in which a serious number of residents without the priorly requisite European pedigree became entitled to American citizenship was the passing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1831, which created a path to citizenship specifically (and only) for Choctaw Indians who agreed to remain in Mississippi. (In exchange, the Choctaws agreed to abandon their claim to about 15 million acres of land in what is now Oklahoma.) I am quite certain that the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was not part of our curriculum in eleventh grade.

Things moved ahead, but only very slowly. In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution offered citizenship to all people born within the boundaries of the United States, including Black people, but specifically excluding Indians residing on reservations. Two years later, Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1870 that created, and for the first time, a possibility for Black people to immigrate to the United States and become citizens…but that same law not only denied the possibility of immigrants coming here from China but actually revoked the citizenship of Americans of Chinese descent who were already here.

The Page Act of 1875 had as its specific point, to quote its sponsor Representative Horace Page (R-California), “to end the danger of cheap Chinese labor and immoral Chinese women” by making it illegal for Chinese women to immigrate to the United States. And then, seven years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 made it illegal for any Chinese laborers, male or female, to enter the United States.

And then we get to the twentieth century. The Immigration Act of 1917 went a step further still, barring all immigration from Pacific Island nations and from the Far East, but also imposing for the first time literacy tests on would-be immigrants as well as creating for the first time categories of people to whom immigration was to be denied unrelated to national origin. The sanitized expressions “mentally defective individuals” and  “persons with constitutional psychopathic inferiority” were used to deny openly gay people the possibility of entry, along with undesirable “illiterates, imbeciles, insane persons, and paupers.” But it was the Immigration Act of 1924, framed in its day as a mere extension of the earlier act, that for the first time established immigration quotas. Formally, the idea was to restrict immigration to a number equivalent to 2% of the number of Americans who claimed that nation as their ancestral home in the 1890 census. But the real purpose was to keep out Italians, Greeks, Poles, and (I can’t help thinking especially) Eastern European Jews. (I hardly have to pause to note what happened to those Jews who would have come here to start new lives but who were instead condemned to be present when the Nazis occupied their homelands.)

And that is how things stood for a very long time. Of course, no one in those days would have dreamt of using President Trump’s vulgar expression to describe the countries from which the President was keen to see no immigration at all. Or at least not in public. But the sentiment behind the Immigration Act of 1924 was exactly the same, only the identity of the specific nations so qualified was different.

The situation at the southern border is dire. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, himself a Cuban refugee, is doing his best to deal with an impossible situation. And, indeed, it turns out that expressing horror at the policies of the previous administration with respect to the separation of families and the caging of children is distinctly easier than figuring out what exactly to do with large number of unaccompanied children arriving at the border possessed solely of whatever they are carrying with them. There are a thousand good reasons to shove them back over the border and let them fend for themselves. They aren’t playing by the rules. We have no idea who their parents are. They mostly don’t speak English at all, let alone well. Like children everywhere, they have no way to sustain themselves by going to work and legally earning a living. All the above are excellent and fully cogent reasons for giving these kids a hot meal and shipping them back where they came from.

But what of the lady in the harbor and her torch, still burning in the night, still calling out to the tempest-tost, to the homeless, to the destitute, to the exhausted? The question isn’t really what President Trump would have done or what President Biden can or will do. The question is what the Mother of Exiles would say if she could turn to the south and consider the border with Mexico. Would she set down her lamp, shut the golden door, and tell these freeloaders to go to hell? Or would she come down from her pedestal, tie up her skirts, and make her way south to use her “imprisoned lightning” to illuminate the nighttime sky while she gathers the children in unto her and offers them shelter in this, the greatest and most powerful of all nations? It strikes me that it is to Lady Liberty that we should be looking for counsel in the matter of the current crisis, not to even the most well-me of politicians.\

[fluxusgwangju]

Lies

Chung Hyun Joo

In unmarked graves some still lie. / the result are the same? Don’t lie! -Twin May Stories-

Under the authoritarian regime of dictatorships, some historical facts, such as massacres, might be considered socially false by deliberate cover-ups. Here, the interpretation determined by the regime is grounds for an argument to cover up any such case and is used to pressure victims politically so they could not testify. With the denial that the memories are not true, such incidents will only be haunting the survivors as seditious memories.

Through Twin May Stories, Chang Yoong Chia(章永佳), as an artist, tries to talk about his memories of the May 13 incident in Malaysia. This article examines the process of the appearance of the trauma that he inherited from his parents’ generation in his drawings, and his critical thoughts on May 13. To do this, one must first take a brief look at the incident, which is the background of Chang Yoong Chia’s work, and articles 152 and 115 of the Malaysian Constitution on the ‘special status of the Malays’ which is a critical trigger in the May 13 incident.

1. May 13. 1969. Kuala Lumpur.

On May 13, 1969, a bloody conflict broke out between the Malaysian Chinese and Malay peoples in Kuala Lumpur. The incident is said to have resulted from accidental clashes between them during a parade to celebrate the improved results in the May 10 general elections of political opposition parties whose main supporters are Malaysian Chinese. Consequently, rioting, looting, and arson broke out in downtown Kuala Lumpur and nearby areas. Because of this, the state declared a nationwide emergency and imposed a curfew.

According to the Government official’s tally at the time, there were 196 deaths, 439 injured and 753 cases of looting and vehicle arson, respectively. Among them, the Malaysian Chinese death toll was 143, and looting and arson were also known to have occurred mainly in their residential areas. However, according to unofficial statistics from Western diplomatic sources, the toll was closer to 600 with most of the victims being Malaysian Chinese.

After the incident, the National Operations Council (NOC) presented the report, The May 13 Tragedy, a Report by the National Operations Council on October 9, 1969. It cited the Malaysian Chinese-based opposition party’s provocations during its victory celebration in the May 10 general elections, violent acts by Chinese secret organizations, and maneuvers by Chinese Communists as the main reasons for the incident, primarily pointing to incitement and unbridled “ethnic communal politics” by Malaysian Chinese politicians. Since the report was written from the perspective of the ruling government, it states that the cause of the racial riot is entirely due to Malaysian Chinese inflammatory actions. It does not mention that police and troops, mostly Malay, have fired at the Chinese community and wrongfully carried out killings, looting, or mass arrests.

The Report describes the issue of the 1969 election and its political interests that moved many Malaysian Chinese as the primary cause of the national disturbances If one looks closely at this content, one can see that Malaysian Chinese politicians vehemently opposed Article 152 and Article 153 of the Constitution that were stipulated in the colonial period and aimed to secure the special status and superiority of political and cultural aspects for ethnic Malays. In other words, in the 1969 election, the Malaysian Chinese-based opposition party advocated for the ‘equality’ of the ethnic groups that constitute Malaysia. Its argument was based on a political awareness of how to define ‘rights’ as citizens beyond their ethnicity.

In the process of political provocations, this awareness seems to have been obstructed and made ambiguous by the Malaysian Chinese people’s complex ethnic identities and understanding. One can read and infer from this report that the Malays regarded Malaysian Chinese claims and actions as a serious threat to their privilege as indigenous people. Also, many complicated political situations seem to have instigated the Malays to feel anxious about the future and moved to act against the threat of the immigrant ethnicities.

The ruling regime strongly suppressed Chinese political demands and the ensuing ethnic conflicts that broke out, defining them as racial riots. One year later, it implemented the Bumiputra policy, which extended the Malays’ special status. It set out to institutionalize the discrimination between the right of two distinct groups, that of the Bumiputra, the Malaysian indigenous people, and non-Bumiputra, that is the immigrants. This meant that the construction of the political and social system, in which the latter’s rights are limited before the rights of the former, was intensified. The political agenda of the election in 1969 was a call for equality among the peoples as a nation. However, as a result of the bloody conflict between ethnic groups by political interests, the Bumiputera, which systematically reinforces the privileges of the indigenous people, begins. This suggests that China’s political attempts have ended in total failure.

The Malaysian government has discourage investigations and researches to clarify the actual conditions and causes of May 13. The official data conveying the circumstances and causes of the riot to the next generation is limited to The Report proposed by the National Operations Council at the time. While the interpretation decided by the public authority was politically used as  grounds for the justification of the Bumiputra and the system supporting it, it was not allowed to raise any objection to the interpretation itself. As many of the witnesses who went through May 13 have passed away due to advanced age, nothing has been identified about the actual conditions of the riot officially, and the memories of the incident have been, as if, sealed and forbidden from being talked it.

May 13 is an important watershed that has brought about changes in Malaysia’s political and social system. Still, the case is surrounded by many suspicions. According to Kua Kia Soong, many people in Malaysia are questioning the government’s official interpretation of the racial riot. However, since they do not know the full truth about it, they continuously feel afraid of the ghost of “May 13 incident”, which the government ruling party cites as their logic of justification whenever it has a chance. This ghost is the logic of the authoritative system. It causes many people a psychological state of fear and misery and has been deeply rooted in them, especially Malaysian Chinese people such as Chang Yoong Chia.

2. The memories with an uneasy irrational fear

In the Twin May Stories, two small birds talk about the two incidents in May. Here, May 18 serves as momentum for dialogue of the birds to reveal Chang Yoong Chia’s inherited memories of May 13.

May 13 was a tragedy before his birth. His memories of it, along with constant warnings from the government Don’t Spread Rumours, were passed down to Chang Yoong Chia through the secret stories of his parents’ generation, and at the same time, the trauma was inherited. He describes this as “a bomb that may never explode on [him]” or “an uneasy irrational fear” that he has felt whenever he was urged to forget the memories that cannot be forgotten because they were a “bad thing.” These memories and fears are the ones he has kept hidden unconsciously in his artworks so far.

In Twin May Stories, birds are a medium that speaks for the unforgettable memories. At the same time, a bird’s figure is carved on the soles of shoes and is a sequence of shoe prints taken repeatedly, lined up in horizontal rows on a drawing pad that unfolds like an accordion. These ambiguous figures are a direct reminder of many people’s march in May and the harrowing and chaotic footprints left behind after sudden bloodshed swept through. Delicate drawings along the shoe prints weave visually an epic about many of those killed in the incidents. The birds are both those who participated in the march as well as witnesses to the incidents, or Chang Yoong Chia who inherited their memories.

Birds talk about the May incidents. One bird says “Many people died” and “In unmarked graves, some still lie”  about the incidents in Gwangju and Kuala Lumpur because the other bird is not aware of them. The bird’s words indirectly remind us of the disastrous consequences of violence and armed suppression on both May 18 and May 13 but become dismissed as a lie by another bird immediately. In other words, it is testimony that some still lie is in society.

In Malaysia, every individual’s message about May 13 became an openly fabricated lie and was politically forced to be keep silent, with the widely-banded slogans and even the postmarks “Don’t Spread Rumours” and “Don’t Listen to Rumours.” The testimony of all survivors cannot yet be made real.

Chang Yoong Chia faces strong doubts, socially raised against his words, which imbrue his experience and inherited memories with unjust and disturbing things. He cannot talk about his memories anywhere. Individual suffering arises from social order caused by the logic of the authoritative system or is accompanied by the lethargic isolation felt when our fundamental rights are forfeited. Where is the lie?

The parrot’s words comparing the two incidents expose specifically the inner soul of the artist himself who has to lie at certain moments. “Your mouths speak freely” for May in Gwangju, unlike “we are forced to eat lice and other forms of invertebrates from this can of worms.”

The situation that he “still has to lie” because his experience and voice are suspected of being disturbing to social belief is like eating something inedible, or dirty and dishonorable. A lie is a ‘wrong word’ that is clearly against social relations and a deception that erodes his being in itself as a social being. “So slowly, little by little, we become invertebrates ourselves.” He reveals his inner anxiety and anger that he suppressed for a long time. The seditious memories, the ghosts, exist like this.

3. a Recollection of May 13, or truth

“Let me tell you the incident in May.” The little bird tells the other bird again. Its comparisons are simple. The two marches are the same in that a large number of people were killed and the survivors were forced to keep silent about their memories, but one has finally been able to talk about the truth, while the other is still buried.

The contents of the conversation did not change. The voice of the small bird is considered to be a lie because state power or authority monopolizes the historical narrative. Nothing has changed.

It is the word ‘truth’ that has an amplitude. By referring to the truth, he simply asks if the memory of many deaths can be a denial like that. May 13 and May 18 are essentially the same in the sense of unfinished attempts to bring social transformation but both ended in tragedies, in the sense that the memories of the witnesses were perpetually denounced as falsehoods. As in the case of South Korea’s National Security Law, the logic of defending the regime in the dictatorship continuously reproduced lies. In such a society, memories of a tragedy are considered as lies. If the problem of the systemic logic causes the lies, not the individual’s, then what is needed is action to change the underlying logic.

Chang Yoong Chia’s challenge to the matter of truth is cautious but determining. He calls for attention to the historical facts that hold many suspicions. The lie can only go beyond the logic of the regime only when it’s possible for the victims to explain and prove the development and damage of the situation, and then, at last, what was happening at that time can become apparent. His recollection of May 13 is an action to change the regime’s political logic.

Furthermore, ‘talking’ about the hidden historical facts under the authoritarian regime is to overcome the ghost that permeates within himself. This action requires much courage. Such courage comes from our fundamental minds that seek the truth. “Our blood is red. Our courage is white and as sure as the sky is blue.”

In Twin May Stories, Chang Yoong Chia attempts to make minimal changes to the social memories of May 13. Although the attempt will only confirm differences of opinion between ethnic groups such as the Malaysian Chinese and the native Malays, it drives his strong hope of “What is now false will in future be true.”

Finally, another bird asks again. “Oh, really?” This reaction is a simple change of the bird that flatly denied it was a lie. The regime’s political logic is momentarily powerless here.

In Twin May Stories, the artist’s hope resides here. Social changes are his hope that his inherited memories will not be dismissed as lies, and that memories, wandering like restless ghosts, will be able to be accepted as facts. Can the regime’s political logic or social logic change? The future is unpredictable, and we can only act according to ‘hope.’  

What his artworks awaken is the hope to know the truth that sleeps in us. The act of art triggers our actions to march in step with others. The marchings are not over yet.

[trenton-woodcox]

Despair, Decay, and the Death of Democracy

Among the ever-growing list of alarming and perplexing phenomena that plague our world, none are so disturbing to me as the act of the individual voting against their own interests.  

Exploring that sentence requires some groundwork; for the purposes of this post, I’ll be restricting my speech to the United States. I should also come clean and admit, I’m as Democrat as they come, and gaped in horror watching the results flood in that night in 2016. If you yourself are relatively Left, you may understand where I’m coming from when I refer to contemporary Republican voters as “voting against their own interests”; if you find yourself more to the Right, have mercy, and bear with me for a bit.

Understanding an “interest” is foundational to this discussion. In his work Democratic Voting and the Mixed-Motivation Problem, Jonathan Wolff distinguishes interests from what he calls the “common good”, the moral. For Wolffe, issues in Democracy arise from this conflict between those voters who vote in their own interests—those outcomes that they stand to personally gain from—and voters who vote for the sake of the common good, regardless of whether they stand to individually gain from such an outcome themselves[1].

Wolffe’s analysis is important in the light it sheds by simultaneously being a perfectly accurate descriptor of electoral politics, despite being foundationally wrong. Normatively, the conflict Wolffe describes relies on their being a divergence between that which is in the interest of the individual and that which is the common good; or, to simplify, that which is the interest of the many. I reject this distinction; I challenge Wolffe to show me a scenario in which the interests of the many does not, with consideration of time and under the proper application of logic, coincide with the interests of the individual.

The truth of this assertion is evident in modern America; neighborhoods with fewer evictions see lower crime rates, for example. Even if I myself may never be under threat of eviction, an additional tax levied on me by my tenant’s union that contributes to a fund for those residents experiencing financial trouble is in my interest, despite the upfront cost to my person, as it everts a greater cost down the line (crime). One could analyze healthcare, an outstanding example of this principal at work; one pays into a collective, despite potentially never reaping direct benefits from the fund that payment goes towards. Even if one never leans on that fund to assist with sickness or injury, however, indirect benefits are experienced in the form of a healthier, more stable community. This assumption rests at the core of our theory of economics, even; the more people in an economy are succeeding, the stronger that economy is, and thus the greater benefits reaped by all those who participate.

In the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, later rephrased by economist Joseph Stiglitz, this concept of “self-interest, rightly understood” means “appreciating that paying attention to everyone’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being.”

My normative gripes with Wolffe are not to discredit his descriptive claims, however; we know full well that this conflict between the perceived-self-interest and the common good occurs. One need only look at Louisiana, where voters time and gain elect officials and vote for polices that sabotage the very programs and land citizens depend on for their livelihood [2]. The descriptive truth of Wolffe’s analysis relies upon the same logical error he makes in not considering “self-interest, rightly understood”, but on the part of the electorate; I assert that individual voters do not rightly understand their self-interest, as evident by Bobby Jindal’s repeated reign over Louisiana, among prominent policy issues; from climate change, to healthcare, to—of course—the election of Donald Trump, who preyed upon not just this lack of understanding by voters, but on a perfect storm of despair that made them uniquely vulnerable to a populist demagogue promising quick and simple solutions to immediate problems.

Thanks to economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, we know that white, working class Americans have seen dramatic falls in wellbeing relative to historical levels for their demographic [4]. Globalization, despite its many boons, brought with it a flight of jobs and a stagnation of wages, who in turn bring about social decay and chronic despair. In lieu of these falls, we have implemented little in the way of social programs to act as nets. We also know from Monnat & Brown that those communities that saw such staggering decreases correlated with support for Trump in 2016, as illustrated in the figure attached.

Both pairs of researchers offer us some explanation as to why these groups have such strong correlation with support for Trump, despite him and his polices being (objectively, in my view, thought that’s a post for another time) against their interests. For one, such profound place-level despair can make one proportionally desperate for solutions. A candidate like Donald Trump, with his clear and digestible message explaining away decades of social and industrial decay as a consequence of immigration and globalization—paired with equally succinct solutions such as “better trade deals” and “building the wall”—can resonate with that fear and desperation, prey upon it, even for traditionally Democratic voters. This effect is compounded for voters who feel the Democratic party has not articulated an adequate pro-working-class message, or has passed policies meant to help the poor at the expense of the working class. Add in perceived arrogance at the impregnability of the Democrats “Big Blue Wall” in the Midwest, and it’s not so hard to understand so many voted Red at the ballot box in 2016, against their own interests or not [3].

In the words of Monnat & Brown themselves: “When you’re driving by shuttered factories with boarded up windows, watching nightly news reports about drug overdoses, and seeing more of your neighbors sign up for disability instead of working, the message that “America is great already” simply does not jibe with your own reality.”

Understanding what an interest is, how we define our interests, and why people vote against their interests is tempting to view as purely academic; I encourage readers who feel this way to look again toward “self-interest, rightly understood”. That so many vote against their interests is not merely a problem for them, but for the rest of us as well; we share this nation, this economy, this society. With the advent of the internet and ongoing globalization, our interconnectedness will only grow with time. The interests of our neighbor are more relevant to our own than ever before.  

That said, what can we do? What does all this mean for Democracy, the vehicle by which we satisfy ours and our neighbor's interests?

On this, I can only speak so much. The prescription is bleak; the root of the problem lies in the individual’s inability to rightly understand their own interests. This seems an unsolvable problem; perhaps education can address it, but that education can only be delivered if constituents recognize its value and elect to pass such reforms—despite the inevitable monetary costs. This problem persists for programs that one could implement to address despair, as well; wage hikes, healthcare reform, environmental protection—each of these polices would make headway against the despair that makes these communities so vulnerable to manipulation, and each would meet significant resistance on account of that manipulation. This is not conjecture, but evident; time and time again Republican emissaries have influenced these communities to vote against such policies (again, see Louisiana) [4].  

Equally worrying is the prospect that these the rest of us are one despair-inducing recession away from finding ourselves equally ripe for manipulation voting against our own interests, with little recourse.

The picture we are left with is one of a sickening feedback loop; communities suffer some unforeseen economic disaster, find themselves in despair and vulnerability, and have that experience preyed upon such that they become yet more vulnerable.  

It’s still unclear to me whether this represents a fundamental failing of Democracy, a phenomenon our system of governance is simply unequipped to control for, or if some alteration to current systems could break this loop. Perhaps single transferrable vote, a more proportional system of representation, could mitigate the impacts of entities like the Republican party such that despair-remedying policies could be pushed through. This, of course, relies on the assumption that whatever parties may come to life with proportional representation do not ally themselves with the Right—a gamble if there ever was one.

It's also possible the answer lies outside our current system of governance; perhaps in some more Technocratic alternative. If so, we must place out hopes in miracles and revolutions.

Works Cited:

Wolff, J. (1994). Democratic voting and the mixed-motivation problem. Analysis, 54(4), 193–196. doi: 10.1093/analys/54.4.193

Hochschild, A. R. (2016). Strangers in their own land: anger and mourning on the American right. New York: The New Press.

Monnat, S. M., & Brown, D. L. (2017). More than a Rural Revolt: Landscapes of Despair and the 2016 Presidential Election. Journal of rural studies, 55, 227–236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.08.010

Gawande, A., Tolentino, J., & Heller, N. (2020, March 16). Why Americans Are Dying from Despair. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/23/why-americans-are-dying-from-despair

[un-enfant-immature]

India gets more aggressive with internet shutdowns to curb protests

India, the world’s largest democracy, continues to normalize shutting down internet and suspending mobile communications for tens of millions of citizens in the country to thwart protests.

Days after Narendra Modi -led government shut down mobile communications in the northeastern states of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura (yet to be restored) �� home to more than 36 million people — and then parts of Uttar Pradesh (yet to be restored), the most populated state in the country with more than 200 million people, New Delhi moved on Thursday to extend the suspension in parts of the Indian capital and city of Mangalore — together home to about 22 million people.

On Thursday morning, a trio of top three telecom networks — Reliance Jio, Vodafone and Airtel — began to cut mobile communications in parts of New Delhi. All three carriers said they were following government’s direction.

By afternoon (local time), the services had been restored, users said. But hours later, the Indian government — which already has the worst track record among any nation for internet shutdowns — issued a similar direction for Mangalore, a major commercial center in the state of Karnataka.

The move comes as the Indian government attempts to silence tens of millions of people across the nation as they protest the introduction of a controversial new citizenship law that discriminates against Muslims.

New Delhi passed the bill last week, which creates a path to citizenship for immigrants of all the major religions except Islam. The new law is part of a series of actions the Modi government has taken this year that critics say erodes the country’s secular traditions.

A large number of people, most of whom were students, marched in the streets Thursday in parts of New Delhi, Mumbai, Mangalore and several others corners of India to urge the government to change its mind. At least two people were shot dead in Mangalore, according to local media reports.

Protesters with posters and placards during a demonstration against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) near Red fort on December 19, 2019 in New Delhi, India. (Photo by Mayank Makhija/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

In an op-ed piece, The New York Times criticized the government’s actions. “The not-so-hidden message [in the new law] is that the Muslim-majority countries abutting India persecute Hindus and other minorities, and that Muslims from such countries cannot be refugees — even people like the Rohingya, some of whom have reached India after fleeing to Bangladesh from brutal repression in Myanmar,” the article said.

“The law, as India’s 200 million Muslims have correctly surmised, has nothing to do with helping migrants and everything to do with the campaign by Mr. Modi and his home minister, Amit Shah, to marginalize Muslims and turn India into a homeland for Hindus, who comprise about 80 percent of the population of 1.3 billion,” it added.

A number of local film stars and other public figures joined the protest Thursday, but a group that was nowhere to be found was the startup ecosystem. A prominent angel investor in India, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told TechCrunch that startup founders and venture capitalists in the country are unlikely to join the conversation as they do not want to risk upsetting government officials.

Tim Draper, one of the most influential venture capitalists in the world and who has been exploring India for sometime, however, had enough. “India choosing one religion over another makes me seriously concerned about my plans to fund businesses there,” he tweeted.

Preventing people from a medium that enables them to stay in touch with one another, and access news and information, is becoming a common phenomenon in several nations, though none come close to India.

Access Now, a digital rights group, reported earlier this year that India alone had about 134 of 196 documented shutdowns in 2018. According to Internet Shutdowns, a service operated by New Delhi-based digital advocacy group Software Law and Freedom Centre, there have been about 95 documented cases of internet shutdowns in India this year, up from 91 last week.

The new wave of crackdown comes as New Delhi maintained an internet shutdown in parts of the state of Jammu and Kashmir for the 137th day on Thursday — the longest-ever imposed in a democracy. The internet shutdown in the Muslim-majority state was imposed on August 5, after the Indian government revoked Kashmir’s autonomy and statehood.

India’s move has won it at least one fan, though. Chinese state media said earlier this week that this practice in India, which America has seen as an example of democracy in Asia since the 1950s, means that “shutting down the internet in a state of emergency should be standard practice for sovereign countries.”

“India did not hesitate to shut down the internet in these two states to cope when there is a significant threat to national security. When China’s Xinjiang region faced a similar national security threat a few years ago, the Chinese government responded with a similar strategy. However, it attracted sharp criticism from mainstream media in Europe and the U.S.”

[daisyguanisme]

Paper 2: Visual Story on Trump Impeachment Inquiry

How did the whole story begin? 🤔🤔🤔

On July 24, 2019: The special counsel Robert Mueller testifies and gives a warning about the danger of Russian interference in American elections.

https://imgur.com/gallery/dvxUhIp

https://imgur.com/gallery/izx9tzC

Then, except Russia, Ukraine was reported to be also involved in cooperating with Trump and interfere with the American election for Trump’s personal political interest. 

Why is the problem dealing with Ukraine serious?

(Currently in Ukraine)

https://imgur.com/gallery/UkomRBz

So, the Whistleblower complaint released during July 25-august 12, which is a line-by-line analysis of the report that triggered the Ukraine scandal. 

https://imgur.com/gallery/aM4Fv

After the whistleblower complaint is released, a series of actions were conducted as responses. 

On July 26: Volker’s visit to Kyiv according to the congress complaint

https://giphy.com/gifs/impeachment-inquiry-kurt-volker-JTD30buX6lswr62XOH

On August 2: Trump’s lawyer Giuliani visit Spain according to the congress complaint.

https://giphy.com/gifs/rudy-giuliani-bGIXhumGjNqI8

https://giphy.com/gifs/ukraine-rudy-giuliani-cuomo-prime-time-kfX0hMFLD5eYuxSISn

On August 12: according to the congress complaint dated 

The situation keeps getting serious.🤯🤯🤯

https://giphy.com/gifs/ukraine-rudy-giuliani-cuomo-prime-time-VJxWie5nf6ibo1Ro0X

On August 26: Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community sends a letter to the acting director of national intelligence informing issues as “urgent’ involved finance crime. 

https://giphy.com/gifs/homer-simpson-the-simpsons-season-6-DTywu7YYjWCVW

On September 3: Justice Department finding concludes that it does not meet the requirement.

https://giphy.com/gifs/dance-make-again-Qjmp5vKEERPyw

On September 11: More evidence is found indicating that there is a Military aid about $250 million that was supposedly released to Ukraine but delayed because President Trump claimed that the money will be used only for “the best use and for America’s interest”.

https://giphy.com/gifs/black-and-white-phone-stanley-kubrick-Qfbw8Bx58TfEI

On September 19: Trump responds that he would “only do good for the USA and not dumb enough” to leave evidence on that very suspected phone call with Ukraine president. Although it is proved later that the phone call Pressured Ukraine to investigations of former U.S. vice president Biden. 

https://giphy.com/gifs/KnivesOut-knives-out-knivesout-eHddhsWTNtzbI8TWky?utm_source=media-link&utm_medium=landing&utm_campaign=Media%20Links&utm_term=https://giphy.com/gifs/KnivesOut-knives-out-knivesout-eHddhsWTNtzbI8TWky

The Impeachment Inquiry Begins.😱😱😱

on September 24, 2019: House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, initiated the impeachment inquiry said: “No one is above the law”.

https://giphy.com/gifs/impeachment-nancy-pelosi-inquiry-S6lWIzFmCprsMZo1LU

https://giphy.com/gifs/democrat-nancy-pelosi-speaker-of-the-house-WS0ZFSUQ0FFSB1WmZ

On September 25, 2019: the phone call rough transcript was given to Congress confirming investigation by Trump to Biden and his son.

https://giphy.com/gifs/flashing-joe-biden-IZoCBqEMAOgBq

The additional alleged misconduct was reported in the days after the announcement. 

https://giphy.com/gifs/obama-barack-obama-potus-l2YWqh8saWz9oAoHS

On October 8, the White House refuses cooperation.

On October 9, the White House officially responded.

https://giphy.com/gifs/trump-immigration-address-2Y7vjKwsZ9tpBSuNL

On October 31, 2019: the House voted 232–196 to establish procedures for public hearings.

On November 13: It is also the First-time the American public could watch and listen. 

https://giphy.com/gifs/kimmyschmidt-unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-l46C9rOV2Kl9B2P3q

Where are we NOW? 🧐🧐🧐

About to enter the third session in week 2.

Who are the key players and How are they dealing with the situation?

Trump and his team claimed to be innocent.

https://giphy.com/gifs/election2016-gop-election-2016-rnc-3oEjHNjsuPs9F6r6Ks

Biden and his team:

"Donald Trump has violated his oath of office, betrayed this nation and committed impeachable acts," Biden said, adding, "He should be impeached."

https://giphy.com/gifs/swag-parVRmiA39nMs

Ukraine and China

https://giphy.com/gifs/jointeamalpha-star-trek-alpha-3o7bubMDIkkWB51NkY

Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff:

They believe that the high crime of treason is a matter of fact. 

https://giphy.com/gifs/understand-hahahahah-E9oadOOmD27jG

How is the American public reacting to the news?

🗣🗣🗣

The public’s perception largely depends on how the media has covered the news. When serious terms are used such as negative terms “Abuse of power for personal political interest”, “military aid”, “high crime”, “

quid pro quo”, and so on. Sometimes the media only provides biased and superficial information that misleads the public. For example, impeachment inquiry does not mean president removal (Vice president will take over the position) but only a potential leading to it. 

https://giphy.com/gifs/fallontonight-relatable-reaction-gif-oZvduOsUmlsk

Questions left worth to think through?

The term “high crime” does not have a clear definition, and politics has always been the battle game among several powerful groups for their own interests. 

References:

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2019/11/14/american-public-impeachment-hearings

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/biden-calls-trump-s-impeachment-trump-immediately-responds-n1064326

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/live-blog/nov-20-impeachment-hearings-live-updates-n1086301

https://apnews.com/Trumpimpeachmentinquiry

[caveartfair]

The Kenyan Photojournalist Whose Work Was Lost for 40 Years

Priya Ramrakha, Fashion shoot for Raymonds clothing, Nairobi, Kenya, 1967. © Priya Ramrakha.

In October 1968, Time-Life published a tribute to photojournalist Priya Ramrakha, who had been killed in East Africa at 33 years old, caught in sniper fire during the Biafran Civil War. A Kenyan photographer of Indian descent, Ramrakha was not well-known outside of editorial circles, but during his short career, he captured his beloved Kenya in war and in triumph, as it emerged from the depths of British colonial rule as a hopeful independent nation.

Ramrakha had been with CBS correspondent Morley Safer, traveling down a road with a Nigerian platoon, when they were ambushed by Biafran militants. Ramrakha was shot in the back during the crossfire and died, despite Safer’s attempt to save his life. Safer took Ramrakha’s camera and unloaded the film, then took the rolls the photographer had already shot from his pockets. Those images ran in Time-Life’s tribute piece.

After Ramrakha’s death, his friend and colleague Grey Villet hoped to bring wider attention to his peer’s work through a retrospective. He traveled to Kenya, where Ramrakha had left behind an archive of his work, but Villet couldn’t locate it. And for decades, the whereabouts remained a mystery.

Portrait of Priya Ramrakha. Unknown photographer. c. 1967.

Priya Ramrakha, British attack, Aden, Yemen, 1967. © Priya Ramrakha.

Forty years after Ramrakha’s death, a relative he never knew, Shravan Vidyarthi, uncovered the photographer’s life’s work. The son of Ramrakha’s cousin, Vidyarthi was born in 1980 and had grown up hearing stories about the young photojournalist. He had seen the print tribute in Time-Life and, as an adult, began trying to piece together Ramrakha’s life through speaking with his relatives and obtaining his passport, personal letters, and ephemera. The biggest discovery came in 2008, when he found a forgotten cache of negatives, contact sheets, and prints in the garage of Ramrakha’s cousin in Nairobi. The archive of around 100,000 images and documents was the holy grail that no one could find.

Priya Ramrakha, Nationalist Tom Mboya and protestors marching, Nairobi, c. 1958. © Priya Ramrakha. Courtesy of Kehrer.

Priya Ramrakha, Independence Day, Nairobi, 1963. © Priya Ramrakha. Courtesy of Kehrer.

The following year, in 2009, Vidyarthi released a film, African Lens—The Story of Priya Ramrakha, which debuted at the Zanzibar International Film Festival and won three awards. But by that point, Vidyarthi had barely scratched the surface of digitizing and editing the enormous archive. The process took years.

In 2015, he co-curated an exhibition with curator, writer, and photo historian Erin Haney at the University of Johannesburg, entitled “Priya Ramrakha: A Pan-African Perspective 1950–1968.” And this month, they released a book with Kehrer Verlag, Priya Ramrakha: The Recovered Archive, featuring a selection of the photographer’s work, family photos, documents, and accompanying essays that contextualize the photojournalist and celebrate him as one of the first African photographers of color to gain an international profile. This has all been part of a larger effort to give Ramrakha his due: When his life was cut short, so was his legacy. “He certainly wasn’t known in the larger canon of Kenyan Indian photojournalists—or photojournalists [in general],” Vidyarthi said. “His name was known, but nobody had any idea about the depth of the story.”

Priya Ramrakha, Musicians and singers, Accra, Ghana, 1966. © Priya Ramrakha.

Ramrakha was one of the first Africans to receive commissions from Time-Life, America’s trusted media giant that commissioned the world’s most illustrious photographers, including W. Eugene Smith, Gordon Parks, and Margaret Bourke-White. Photo editors wanted access to the stories of Africa, and Ramrakha had privileges that many Africans did not. “He could get around a lot of the constraints that other African photographers faced at that time because of his British passport and his Indian status within what was colonial Kenya,” Haney explained. (Ramrakha had a British passport thanks to his grandfather, who was a British subject in colonial India.) In the 1950s, Kenyans still lived in a system of racial segregation, known as the “color bar,” that was controlled by a small minority of white colonists; Indian workers and tradesmen, who were considered the second tier, had more freedom than oppressed African Kenyans.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Ramrakha made a prolific body of work, from early images of the bloody Mau Mau Rebellion that would eventually lead to Kenya’s independence in 1963, to the joyful promise of a newly independent country. He photographed unrest and daily life with the same keen eye, and he even took on commercial fashion assignments post-independence. “For decades, Africa had been portrayed through the colonial lens by Western photojournalists,” Vidyarthi told the New York Times in 2009. “Priya became one of the first photographers to document Africa—its people and its politics—from an African perspective.”

Priya Ramrakha, Women and men volunteers training as Biafra troops, Enugu, Nigeria, c. 1967. © Priya Ramrakha.

Ramrakha was born into a family that fervently supported a free and independent Kenya. His grandfather immigrated in 1900 as one of 32,000 Indians who arrived between 1896 and 1901, a rush that was incited by the construction of a railway from the Kenyan coast to Kampala, which offered job opportunities. Ramrakha’s grandfather worked on the railway and eventually became a stationmaster in 1914. Many of the arriving Indians sympathized with efforts to overthrow British rule—India eventually gained its own independence in 1947—and Ramrakha’s uncle founded an anti-colonial newspaper, the Colonial Times, in 1933.

At 17 years old, in 1952, Ramrakha took his first photography job with the newspaper, after his father gave him a Rolleiflex. He avidly photographed the movers and shakers of local Kenyan politics, but he also captured the violence of the Mau Mau uprising led by African nationalists seeking to overthrow British rule, and its radiating effects—including Kenya’s seven-year state of emergency, which began in 1952, and the mass incarceration of Kenyans in prison camps. Though he submitted images to European newspapers, as well, they were rarely published; as Ramrakha developed his own photographic voice, the press in his home country became increasingly censored. (His uncle was jailed more than once for producing the anti-colonial paper.)

By 1960, the British had begun to relinquish their hold on the East African country, allowing direct elections to the country’s Legislative Council. That same year, Ramrakha set his eyes on America. He had become an assistant to Eliot Elisofon, an American staff photographer for Life who was working in Africa and saw something special in the young photographer’s work. At Elisofon’s behest, Ramrakha moved to California and enrolled at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Priya Ramrakha, Miriam Makeba, c. 1963. © Priya Ramrakha. Courtesy of Kehrer.

In the States, Ramrakha turned his lens on the great leaders and orators of the Civil Rights movement. In Los Angeles, in 1961, he captured a pensive Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a rally; in New York, in 1963, he took pictures of Malcolm X and Nation of Islam protestors on the street, and singer and activist Miriam Makeba at a desk, writing in the lamplight.

Priya Ramrakha, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Los Angeles, 1961. © Priya Ramrakha. Courtesy of Kehrer.

Priya Ramrakha, Malcolm X and Nation of Islam protestors, New York, 1960. © Priya Ramrakha.

Priya Ramrakha, Salvador Dalí, book signing and performance, New York, 196. © Priya Ramrakha. Courtesy of Kehrer.

When Ramrakha returned to Kenya in 1963, he witnessed the rebirth of the self-determined country as a photographer for Time-Life. He captured the changing tides of Kenya’s first Independence Day and took portraits of residents as they moved through their daily lives. Across Africa, independence movements continued to swell, and wars simmered and flared. Ramrakha traveled to Zanzibar to photograph the vast crowds at rallies and marches for Ujamaa, an African socialist movement. He embedded with soldiers in the Congo, Yemen, and finally, Nigeria. In just five years, Ramrakha’s output was tremendous.

Nobody knew Ramrakha as well as his friend Paul Theroux, an American writer, Vidyarthi said. Theroux taught in Kampala and met the photojournalist in 1966, when he acted as a fixer for Ramrakha and his Time-Life editor. In an essay for the monograph, Theroux described him as patient and gentle-natured, enormously passionate about his work, and infinitely charming. As a professor teaching the next generation of young Ugandans, Theroux saw a kindred spirit in Ramrakha, who was also committed to the cause of lifting up African society.

Priya Ramrakha, Family gathering, Accra, Ghana, c. 1966. © Priya Ramrakha.

But what ultimately defined Ramrakha was his keen eye. Theroux wrote: “He became a photographer because he saw events that others missed…the swaggering politicians, the street life in towns, the texture of villages, the faces of national soldiers and rough and ready guerrillas, and the brutality, too—the casualties, the starving children, the grieving relatives, the corpses.” He added: “Priya took powerful pictures but few of them can be described as pretty.”

Though Ramrakha’s career was but a brief spark, his position as a non-white African photographer on the international stage was mold-breaking. The following decade, Kenyan photojournalist Mohamed Amin rose to prominence and left behind a powerful legacy, and in post-apartheid South Africa, others followed. Though it’s unlikely that Ramrakha had a direct influence on his successors, he represented a critical moment in photographic history, and a significant voice in Africa at a time when most were not elevated—back then, editors relied on foreign correspondents to tell the continent’s stories.

Recently, there has been a reckoning regarding how Africa is portrayed in editorial and reportage photography. Last year, National Geographic editor Susan Goldberg apologized for the magazine’s “racist” coverage, which had persisted for decades. It was far from the only magazine that furthered stereotypes of the continent; as educator and author John Edwin Mason pointed out in an essay for the monograph, Life’s coverage also played up the “primitive exoticism” of African culture. During Ramrakha’s career, Haney said, editors favored “simplistic coverage of Africa” that avoided the complexities of politics and the effects of colonialism. “At its heart [it was a] racist implication that was guiding a lot of editorial principles,” Haney continued.

Priya Ramrakha, French soldiers battle rioters during the French Somaliland independence referendum, 1967. © Priya Ramrakha.

But Ramrakha didn’t tell simple stories. His images, Haney emphasized, were complex and often ambiguous, raising challenging questions. “And that’s why it’s really, really important that [his work] is coming out now because some of those stories can be explored,” she said.

Understanding the full context and breadth of Ramrakha’s imagery is the first step in cementing his legacy—a legacy for which he made the ultimate sacrifice. “I think Priya represents the heroism of his profession, the photographer willing to take the greatest risk to get the most brilliant image,” Theroux wrote. “It is one of the ironies of his last roll of film that he recorded the moments just before he died, the empty road, the flustered soldiers, the invisibility of the bullets that killed him.”

from Artsy News

[rightsinexile]

Australia: Plaintiff M96A and the elusive limits of immigration detention

This summary and analysis was written by Dr. Sangeetha Pillai and published by the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law of the University of New South Wales, Sydney. It is reprinted here with permission from the author.

In Plaintiff M96A/2016 v Commonwealth, the High Court unanimously held that a mother and daughter, who were transferred from detention in Nauru to Australia to obtain medical treatment, were validly held in immigration detention during their treatment. The case is the most recent piece in the evolving jurisprudential puzzle on the constitutional limits of mandatory immigration detention in Australia. This post traces the history of this jurisprudence, and considers the contribution that Plaintiff M96A makes.

Mandatory immigration detention and its contested constitutional limits

In 1992, the Keating government first introduced a legislative scheme for the mandatory detention of non-citizens who arrive in Australia by boat, seeking asylum. The scheme, which was originally intended to be an “interim measure”, was promptly challenged in the High Court on the grounds that it constituted an executive usurpation of power reserved for the courts by Chapter III of the Australian Constitution. In the landmark case of Chu Kheng Lim v Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs, the High Court upheld the mandatory detention scheme. However, in doing so, a majority of the Court signalled clearly that executive detention would only be constitutionally permissible where the detention was both directed towards a limited range of permissible purposes, and ‘reasonably capable of being seen as necessary’ to achieve one of these purposes. In the case of unlawful non-citizens, the joint judgment of Brennan, Deane and Dawson JJ (with whom Mason CJ agreed) held that laws for their detention will be valid if:

…the detention which they require and authorise is limited to what is reasonably capable of being seen as necessary for the purposes of deportation or necessary to enable an application for an entry permit to be made and considered.

The majority’s finding that the mandatory detention scheme in question was ‘reasonably capable of being seen as necessary’ for these purposes was reached via a fine-grained analysis of its features, which included a cap on the number of days that a person could spend in detention, and a provision enabling detainees to request removal from Australia.

2017 marks the 25th birthday of both mandatory detention and the Chu Kheng Lim principle. The policy and the principle have shared a dynamic adolescence, characterised by increasingly complex and creative legislative schemes, periodically tested before a High Court that has at times divided deeply over the scope of the Court’s constitutional role as a supervisor of executive detention.

It is well-established that there is an outer constitutional limit to the executive’s power to detain non-citizens. However, where this boundary lies has still not been precisely defined. There have also been periods of uncertainty about the precedential value of the Chu Kheng Lim principle. While the principle has remained ‘good law’ since it was handed down, for many years it sat uncomfortably alongside subsequent cases. Chief amongst these is the 2004 case of Al-Kateb v Godwin, in which a majority of the High Court found that executive detention of an alien expressed in the Migration Act to be for the purpose of removal would pass constitutional muster, even where there was no reasonable prospect of removal in the foreseeable future. Al-Kateb thus held that indefinite executive detention of an alien in Australia is constitutionally valid, and in doing so cast significant doubt over the ‘reasonably capable of being seen as necessary’ aspect of the Lim principle. This approach was mirrored by a majority of the court in Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs v Al-Khafaji and Re Woolley, both of which were also handed down in 2004.

More recent cases have raised questions about the precedential value of Al-Kateb, while reaffirming the Lim principle. In Plaintiff M47/2012 v Director-General of Security and Plaintiff M76/2013 v Minister for Immigration, Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship, the authority of Al-Kateb was directly challenged. In both cases, the Court found it unnecessary to decide this question, however it received attention from some judges. In M47, Gummow and Bell JJ found that Al-Kateb should be regarded as wrongly decided, while Heydon J found that it should be upheld. In M76 Hayne, Kiefel and Keane JJ all affirmed the decision in Al-Kateb. However, Hayne J also noted that there are constitutional limits to the executive’s detention powers. Specifically, his Honour said that the lawful boundaries of detention, with respect to both its purpose and its duration, must be fixed at the outset of detention by identifiable criteria.

In Plaintiff S4/2014 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection no constitutional questions were raised by the parties. Despite this, in a unanimous judgment, the Court affirmed the constitutional findings in Lim. It then endeavoured to reconcile the Lim principle with Hayne J’s comments in M76, notably without reference to Al-Kateb.

The Plaintiff S4 Court stated that the detention of non-citizens in Australia would only be valid if it was for one of three purposes:

removal from Australia;

receiving, investigating and determining an application for a visa to enter and remain in Australia; or

determining whether to permit a valid application for a visa.

The Court went on to say that the purpose of detention “must be pursued and carried into effect as soon as reasonably practicable”, and that, to enable the courts to determine and enforce the lawfulness of detention, the duration of detention “must be capable of being determined at any time and from time to time.”

Plaintiff S4 was taken as a signal of a potential shift in the High Court’s approach to this area. The decision was said to cast doubt upon both the majority decision in Al-Kateb as well as the constitutionality of prolonged mandatory immigration detention where removal or processing are not being pursued actively or expediently.

Plaintiff M96: The latest piece in the puzzle

Plaintiff M96A is the most recent High Court case to test the constitutional boundaries of Australia’s immigration detention regime. The plaintiffs, a mother and daughter originally from Iran, arrived in Australia by boat in 2013. They qualified as “unauthorised maritime arrivals” under s 5AA of the Migration Act (‘the Act’), and were detained initially at Christmas Island. Subsequently, they were taken to Nauru under s 198AD, and were held in detention there.

In November 2014, the plaintiffs were brought to Australia from Nauru, for the purpose of receiving medical treatment. While undergoing treatment, they were placed in detention, first at Darwin and then at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation. They challenged this detention in the High Court.

The statutory scheme 

Because they had been transferred to Nauru – a regional processing country – the plaintiffs qualified as “transitory persons” under s 5(1) of the Act. Their later transfer to Australia was authorised by s 198B, which authorises the executive to bring “transitory persons” to Australia for a “temporary purpose”. In the plaintiffs’ case, this temporary purpose was to receive medical treatment.

Notably, the plaintiffs did not seek to challenge either their removal to or detention in Nauru, or their transfer to Australia. Their only challenge was to their detention while receiving medical treatment in Australia, which they argued was unconstitutional.

This detention was governed by ss 189(1) and 196(1), which provide for the detention of “unlawful non-citizens” within Australia. The plaintiffs were “unlawful non-citizens” because they did not have valid visas authorising their presence in Australia. Section 189(1) requires executive officers to detain unlawful non-citizens. Section 196(1) provides that an unlawful non-citizen detained under s 189 must be kept in immigration detention until he or she is either removed from detention, taken to a regional processing country, deported or granted a visa.

For transitory persons like the plaintiffs, detention typically ends with removal from Australia. This is because s 46B precludes transitory persons from making valid visa applications without written ministerial consent. The plaintiffs had not been granted consent to apply for a visa.

There are two main ways in which a transitory person detained under s 189 can be removed from Australia:

Where the person no longer needs to be in Australia for the temporary purpose for which they were brought into the country, S198AD requires an officer to take them to a regional processing country as soon as reasonably practicable. Importantly, this duty arises whether or not the temporary purpose has been achieved.

In circumstances where s 198AD does not apply, s 198(1) requires an officer to remove a transitory person, as soon as reasonably practicable, if they request removal in writing. This procedure would, for instance, apply if the transitory person does have an ongoing need to be in Australia for the temporary purpose, but nonetheless requests removal.

The issues

The Court examined the constitutional validity of the statutory scheme for the detention of transitory persons, under which the plaintiffs were detained. It looked at two relevant questions, which drew on the approach taken in Chu Kheng Lim and Plaintiff S4:

Whether the detention was for a constitutionally permissible purpose, and

Whether the duration of the detention was sufficiently capable of being determined by a court.

All members of the Court answered both of these questions affirmatively, and found that the plaintiffs’ detention was constitutionally valid. There were two judgments: a joint judgment by Kiefel CJ and Bell, Keane, Nettle, Gordon and Edelman JJ (‘the plurality’), and a separate judgment by Gageler J, who agreed with the plurality’s findings, and made some additional comments in obiter regarding jurisdictional facts.

The purpose of detention

 The plaintiffs and the defendants divided over two questions:

How the purpose of the detention of transitory persons should be characterised, and

The constitutionally permissible purposes for executive detention of a non-citizen.

The plaintiffs argued that the purpose of the detention of transitory persons was identical to the temporary purpose for which they were brought to Australia. In their case, this was the purpose of receiving medical treatment. They further argued that detention for a “temporary purpose”, such as medical treatment, was not constitutionally permissible, as it did not fall within any of the three valid purposes identified in Plaintiff S4: removal from Australia, processing of a visa application and determining whether to permit a visa application to be made.

The Commonwealth, by contrast, submitted that the permissible purposes identified in Plaintiff S4 were not exhaustive. It also argued that the purpose of detaining transitory persons such as the plaintiffs was not the temporary purpose for which they were brought to Australia. Rather, the purpose of their detention was to segregate them from the Australian community (which they had no right to enter without a visa) while the temporary purpose was being pursued, and to ensure that they would be available for removal once they no longer needed to be in Australia.

The Court agreed with the Commonwealth’s characterisation of the purposes underpinning the detention. The plurality noted that there were two factors that highlight why the temporary purpose for which a transitory person was brought to Australia was not the same as the purpose of their detention.

First, detention does not need to aid the fulfilment of the temporary purpose. Indeed, the plurality noted that for transitory persons like the plaintiffs, who were brought to Australia for the purpose of receiving medical treatment, detention could well be antithetical to achieving the temporary purpose.

Secondly, the length of detention does not depend upon the temporary purpose being fulfilled. A transitory person can, for instance, ask to be removed from Australia before the temporary purpose is fulfilled, and an obligation to remove them as soon as reasonably practicable will arise under s 198(1).

Notably, the plurality found that the purposes underpinning the detention of transitory persons are the same purposes that apply to “all other instances involving unlawful non- citizens under s 189”. Where an unlawful non-citizen is precluded from applying for a visa, their detention is for the purpose of removal. This was the position that the plaintiffs, and most other transitory persons, found themselves in.

In this way, the Court reasoned that the detention of transitory persons in Australia was for the purpose of removal from Australia – one of the three constitutionally permissible purposes recognised in Plaintiff S4. In light of this, the plurality expressly declined to decide whether those three purposes are the only purposes that can underpin the executive detention of non-citizens. This question awaits a later case.

The duration of detention

The plaintiffs’ second argument was that detention of transitory persons by the executive infringed the constitutional separation of judicial power. This was said to be the case because the period that a transitory person would remain in detention could not be objectively determined. The plaintiffs relied on the Court’s statement in Plaintiff S4 that “[t]he duration of any form of detention, and thus its lawfulness, must be capable of being determined at any time and from time to time”.

The plurality affirmed this statement from Plaintiff S4, but found that the plaintiffs had misunderstood it. Their Honours held that what is required is the existence of “objectively determinable criteria for detention”. In other words:

Parliament cannot avoid judicial scrutiny of the legality of detention by criteria which are too vague to be capable of objective determination. This would include an attempt to make the length of detention at any time dependent upon the unconstrained and unascertainable opinion of the Executive.

All seven judges found that the scheme for the detention of transitory persons specified preconditions that had the unequivocal effect of ending detention. The plurality noted:

One precondition is that detention will come to an end under s 198(1) as soon as reasonably practicable after the transitory person asks the Minister, in writing, to be removed from Australia. Another precondition is that the person no longer needs to be in Australia for the temporary purpose.

The Court found that these preconditions make the duration of detention objectively determinable, even if the precise length of a transitory person’s detention cannot be judged at the outset. Citing Al-Kateb as authority, the plurality noted:

The detention does not become an exercise of judicial power merely because the precondition, and hence the period of detention, is determined by matters beyond the control of the Executive. This will frequently be the case where, for instance, questions arise as to whether it is reasonably practicable to remove a person from Australia.

For these reasons, the Court held that the executive detention of transitory persons was constitutionally valid.  

Jurisdictional facts

There was some discussion in the hearing over how the question of whether a transitory person has an ongoing need to be in Australia for a “temporary purpose” should be determined. The Commonwealth submitted that this was a matter for an executive officer to determine, while the plaintiffs argued it was a jurisdictional fact, to be objectively determined by a court.

How this question is answered potentially impacts upon the point at which a duty to remove a transitory person from detention arises. However, it was not necessary to determine the point to decide the plaintiffs’ case, as all parties agreed that both plaintiffs had a continuing need to be in Australia to receive medical treatment.

For this reason, the plurality did not rule on this point; however Gageler J did. His Honour held that, as a matter of statutory construction, the question of whether a transitory person needs to be in Australia for a temporary purpose is one that, in the event of a dispute, must be objectively assessed by the courts. His Honour noted that there are established drafting techniques that are used when Parliament intends for a particular power or duty to be activated when the person exercising it holds a particular state of mind. These techniques are used throughout the Act. They are not, however, used in the provisions that regulate the removal of transitory persons. On the contrary, Gageler J said that these provisions “[cast] the precondition to the performance of the duty to remove in manifestly objective terms”.

Where to from here?

In 2014, when the High Court handed down its unanimous judgment in Plaintiff S4, it was met with anticipation. The Court’s resuscitation of Chu Kheng Lim, silence on Al-Kateb and unified articulation of tools with which to measure the constitutional limits of immigration detention were regarded by commentators as potential harbingers of a groundbreaking shift in the High Court’s approach to assessing the constitutionality of mandatory detention schemes. Arguably, these signals were made all the more compelling by the fact that they were nested in obiter dicta, in a case in which no constitutional issue was raised by the parties.

Three years on, the winds of change seem a little weaker. In Plaintiff M96A, the Court affirmed the Lim principle and applied the approach set out in Plaintiff S4, but stopped short of conclusively endorsing the idea that there are only three permissible purposes for Commonwealth executive detention.

Plaintiff M96A also hints subtly at an attempt to reconcile the idea, strongly signalled in Plaintiff S4, that there are definitive constitutional limits on executive powers to detain non-citizens, with the fractured jurisprudence in this area to date. This is reflected in the Court’s finding that constitutional limits on the duration of detention merely require that the period of detention is defined by reference to objective criteria, rather than that the length of detention be objectively determinable. That immigration detention need not be of short or predictable duration to be constitutionally valid is underlined by the plurality’s citation of Al-Kateb when commenting that detention for the purpose of removal will not impinge on judicial power merely because removal is preconditioned on matters beyond executive control.

This approach seems to place a heavier emphasis on formic limits to executive immigration detention than on practical limits to the duration of detention in any given case. This is arguably a shift away from the approach adopted in Chu Kheng Lim, where the majority attached significant weight to the presence of a maximum time limit on the length of any person’s detention.

The decision in Plaintiff M96A suggests that further challenges on Lim grounds may be most promising where the duration of a non-citizen’s detention is controlled by broad executive discretion, or where removal or visa processing is not being actively pursued by the executive. With respect to transitory persons brought to Australia for a temporary purpose and held in detention, it may be that there is scope for further litigation where the facts differ materially from those in Plaintiff M96A. Examples may include where a plaintiff wishes to challenge an executive decision to bring them to Australia for a temporary purpose, or where there is a live question over whether a transitory person still needs to be in Australia for the “temporary purpose” that brought them to the country.

[lakindickson]

Part III: Drawing Offensive / Offensive Drawing

As the term, “Mariconcito,” is the Spanish word for “Little Faggot,” artists in Dallas begin to take back this word at the Oak Cliff Cultural Center. Mariconógraphy is embedded with acts of spatial resistance, “making places for maricones through tactical self-image work” (196). Just like poet Emanuel Xavier, (mentioned in the book) these artists know that their lives are meaningful and deserve to be shared with the world. At this art show in Dallas, Latinx LGBTQ artists come together to reclaim their queer identity as people of color, in addition to being homosexual, are often underrepresented. Artist, Marco Saucedo (shown above) is a DACA recipient who was always shamed for his identity as a homosexual growing up. Through his artwork, he captures his childhood, as well as his life as an immigrant. Saucedo claims, “it’s a representation of the culture and racism: of what this country has given me and how it has hurt me at the same time.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/voice-it/ct-hoy-latino-lgbt-artists-reclaim-the-spanish-pejorative-maricon-with-heartfelt-works-20180622-story.html

[michaelfallcon]

Where To Drink Coffee In Brussels

A walk in the park, Brussels is not. In the Belgian capital, contrasts between the well-off and those in need can be stark. Street names and signs are given in two languages, though neighborhoods and their inhabitants tend to identify as either Francophone or Flemish-speaking, sometimes leading to notoriously nationalist identity politics and social strife. Majestic though they are, many of the monumental buildings look like they are forever in need of a power wash.

Despite these complexities, not to mention the city’s Eurocratic solemnity—it is known as the European Union’s “de facto capital” (the title itself evoking bureaucratic provisos and red tape)—Brussels’ mascot is the Manneken Pis. That this simple little statue of a naked boy urinating into a fountain attracts so much attention and celebration reminds us that humor and joie de vivre also exist here. So do chocolates galore, among many other famous local sweets (waffles, nougat) and treats (mussels, beer). Meanwhile, a contrast to all the traditionalist Belgian gastronomy is the novelty of specialty coffee. The scene is still young and the cafes are still very much countable, but that makes it all the more exciting. Here, then, are a variety of venues worth a visit.

OR Coffee

Its name is a conjunction connecting choices, but visiting OR Coffee should not be a matter of choice when in Brussels. Many would agree that this brand brought specialty coffee to the Belgian capital, over a decade after Katrien Pauwels and Tom Janssen founded their own roastery in 2001. Today the couple has two cafes in Brussels, two in Ghent, and the OR coffee school and roastery in Westrem.

Flanked by a Marriott Hotel and a Bobbi Brown store, the Brussels’ city-center location, which opened in 2012, attracts a cross-section of clients, whose Flemish, French, and English conversations bounce animatedly off the bi-level brick walls. Coffee orders—taken at the counter but delivered to tables—might range from traditional espresso-based milk beverages to the most pronouncedly pampelmousse Kenyan à la Kalita this reporter has ever experienced. And in the Dutch and Flemish tradition, drinks are served with a little sweet on the side: here, a chocolate in OR’s signature forest green and gold packaging.

An estimated 95% of OR’s coffee is “direct fair trade,” says the company’s head of education, Wouter Helsen. This choice is facilitated by the close working relationship with Pauwels’ other business, Cup-A-Lot green coffee sourcers, and she and Janssen’s ability to personally travel to origin countries.

For equally appealing offerings and service, visit OR’s second Brussels branch in the municipality of Etterbeek. This cafe attracts the darker-suited set with business in and among the nearby European Commission and provides, for the coffeecrats among us, the cool sight of a Pentair water filter system with customized copper tubing wall-mounted like an objet d’art.

OR Coffee Roasters is located at Rue A. Ortsstraat 9, 1000 Brussel. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

  MOK

Like OR, MOK has its roots, roastery, and first coffee bar in Flanders, but its Brussels outpost has become the company flagship. Though founder and owner Jens Crabbé says he once felt namer’s remorse for the obvious choice—mok means “mug” in Flemish—he acknowledges it was an ode to filter coffee, experiencing a renaissance in the Low Countries when his business began almost eight years ago. And it remains fitting considering the scrutiny with which Crabbé develops his roasting profiles and brew recipes; unsurprisingly, he is Belgium’s reigning Cup Tasters Champion.

“It started off maybe quite small and cute and then, as I grew as a person,” says Crabbé, now just shy of 30, “my style started to change, and the brand kind of followed.”

With high ceilings, a communal table, a custom-designed shelving-cum-blackboard unit, and an open kitchenette producing vegetarian-friendly cold and hot breakfast and lunch, MOK is progressive in its aesthetics and taste. Being situated on the fashionable Rue Antoine Dansaert—from A.P.C. to Kartell, stylistas can shop in a straight line—is fitting, though MOK deftly balances chic and geek.

Jens Crabbé

Riffing about MOK’s reverse-osmosis system and the different hardnesses for espresso and filter, Crabbé notes: “When people buy coffee we even encourage them [by saying], ‘Hey, take half a liter of water home from the tap, try it at home with our water. Water is really important, and we really try to like tick all the boxes to give you a good coffee experience.’”

Inasmuch as Crabbé enjoys living and working in his hometown of Leuven, he is seeking a new roasting space for MOK in the Belgian capital. “There’s a lot of work to be done still in Brussels in coffee, and we really want to be a part of that,” he says. 

MOK is located at Rue Antoine Dansaert 196, Brussels. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

  Fika

From light roasts in specialty coffee to clean lines in interior design, Scandinavia has contributed much to contemporary cafe culture around the world. In Brussels, however, Scandic style has yet to become big. And when Joana Soulard opened her homage to the Swedish coffee break in fall 2016, it was simply a commonsensical melding of two of her interests: specialty coffee and Scandinavian culture.

For filter preparations, Fika uses coffee roasted by April (founded by, indeed, a Swede), and is known to include Swedish favorites among its on-premise-baked pastries. “We have some Swedish [customers], but they come for the semla,” admits Soulard.

Of Fika’s city-central neighborhood, “it’s very mixed,” she says. The Matongé, as it is commonly known, is named after a district in Kinshasa, DR Congo, recognizing the many Congolese immigrants who have settled in the area over the last half-century; these days they are joined by other African communities and European Union-employed expats.

Fika does a lot of weekday morning takeaway, though during the day provides a peaceful spot to sit and sip. The venue, like its owner, is relaxed yet engaging; characteristically light wood and soft lines create a sense of holding space and hygge. That said, a non-Nordic nod goes to Café Capitale, the Brussels brand that supplies Fika’s espresso beans and a company whom Soulard credits with teaching her “everything about coffee” during her four-year employment there.

“For me, it’s important to use and to have some local products,” she adds.

Fika is located at Rue de la Paix 17, Brussels. Follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

  Café Capitale

Café Capitale is a crowd pleaser. Perhaps this is because founder François Lafontaine established his company in 2001 with ambience very much in mind, aiming for “cool places to drink coffee,” as he put it in a Coffee with April podcast. But fast-forward a dozen years, after inspiring visits to Sydney and Melbourne—having discovered “places where you sell only classic basic milk drink and filter coffee, with no whipped cream, no syrup and no topping and a huge line of customers”—Lafontaine rebranded and renamed his business. His focus turned to specialty coffee and he plunged into SCA courses, eventually becoming a certified roaster and Q grader.

Nowadays, Lafontaine owns and runs an atelier and bakery in nearby Uccle, the Brussels-based Belgian Coffee Academy, which has a roastery and a training center, and two cafes in Brussels.

The Café Capitale on Rue du Midi, which dates back to 2001, occupies a busy corner near the city’s iconic square, the Grand-Place. Vinyl spins on a turntable behind the bar and illustrations of coffee apparatuses act simultaneously as wall art and a visual education.

Alongside espresso-based drinks and filter coffees—V60 is the default, though AeroPress and Chemex are also available—the menu lists “three aromatic coffees from the past,” as Lafontaine terms them: “the mochaccino, the caramel macchiato, and the cappuccinut.” This reporter found the last—a syrup-sweetened hazelnut crunch-topped cappuccino—a perfect pre-prandial pick-me-up. And for those who prefer not to nibble from a drink, but rather, a dish, there is breakfast, lunch, and snack fare, with many of the carbohydrates produced by Café Capitale’s own bakery.

Less spacious but no less enticing, the branch on Rue Ernest Allard is in Sablon, just a 10-minute walk south.

Café Capitale is located at Rue du Midi 45, 1000 Bruxelles. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

  Aksum Coffee House

At Aksum Coffee House, do not expect an array of filter choices—in fact, on a recent visit, there was none on the menu, though a barista happily obliged when asked for one—nor conversations about water hardness and fruit-forward roast profiles. Be prepared, however, for a fine selection of espresso beans exclusively from Ethiopia, teas, chocolate, and baked goods, as well as a cost-free feast for the eyes in the form of rotating wall art by local street artists.

The Aksum brand has been around for a decade, but investor Vinod Gautam took it over about five years ago and, with the avid help of manager Fatima Boulben, began focusing on what Gautam calls organic, mainly small-cooperative-sourced Harar, Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, and Limu coffees roasted by Aksum’s own roastery. Though neither is Ethiopian—he is from India; her parents are from Morocco—the duo is intent on sharing Ethiopian coffee with the masses, and have ambitions to one day host Ethiopian dance and coffee ceremonies in Brussels.

Aksum Coffee House currently has three Brussels locations, though the most spectacular is in the renowned Saint-Hubert Royal Galleries, a 19th-century European shopping arcade (read: proto-mall). The Embassy of Ethiopia’s quarterly magazine called this branch, which opened in July 2017, “the temple of Ethiopian coffee in the city.”

Amidst the arcade’s Old World boutiques and high-end chocolatiers, it radically offers a hangout spot, with friendly staff and room enough for small groups to share a table or solitary laptop workers to concentrate.

As Boulben describes her vision of Aksum: “It has to be a place where everybody should feel comfortable. From the high social level to the normal social level, they should all feel comfortable, because you know when you say ‘specialty coffee’ people straightaway feel afraid this is expensive.”

Aksum is located at Rue des Chapeliers 17, 1000 Bruxelles. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge.

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