#Labour & Immigration Ban Removal

[hhslawyers]

Labour & Immigration Ban Removal services

[jenniferdiazisatransgirl]

So for those of you living in the UK you might be aware the Conservative Party Conference had a remarkable amount of transphobia at it this year.

For those outside of the UK, the Conservative Party has been the majority party of the UK since 2010 and as such the leader of said party is our Prime Minister. Since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in 2019 the party has become increasingly transphobic, which is a complete u-turn from the policies of Theresa May who had committed to moving the gender recognition process towards self-ID in the UK. Something the UK Government this year blocked from happening in Scotland and that the Labour Party (the opposition party), has also now dropped its commitment towards.

Since 2018, the media in the UK has been increasingly transphobic more or less exclusively reporting negative stories about trans people that rile up hatred. For example, reporting on trans rapists and murders and being sure to make it very clear the person is trans in the headlines. This along with a lot of opinion pieces aimed to vilify the trans community and especially paint trans women as predatory. The BBC a few years back actually published an article about how trans women were pressuring lesbians into having sex with them. One of their sources in this article was a cis woman who had been accused of sexually abusing women.

This vilification since spread to both our mainstream political parties. The Conservatives are just full on transphobic at this point blockading self-ID in Scotland, politically capturing the Equality and Human Rights Commission to the point it has now suggested changing the definition of “sex” in the Equality Act to mean biological sex (this would effectively act as a very extensive bathroom bill if ever implemented), removing trans people from their proposed conversion therapy ban and then u-turning on that decision but continuing to delay the ban, influencing the NHS in a way that in the future it may become even harder for trans youths to get the care they need and I could go on. It is a long list.

Meanwhile Labour is either on the fence, afraid to take a clear side or are in outright agreement with the Tories while claiming, “We do support trans rights. We really do. But parents have a right to know if their kid is trans, so we support the Tories in teachers having to out students.”

The latter isn’t an exact quote from Starmer (leader of the Labour Party), but he did say parents have the right to know in a proposed policy the Tories have for now abandoned where they wanted teachers to out trans students to their parents.

And while the minority parties have some good policies on paper, many still have transphobia problems they don’t seem to be adequately addressing. Including in the Green Party a trans person who was running to be a local councillor but was the victim of malicious reports that saw her removed from the ballot.

So yeah, so far not great.

But this week the Conservative Party Conference happened and let me give you some highlights:

- Our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak saying to an applauding crowd that people shouldn’t be bullied into believing people can change sex. A clear transphobic dog whistle and saying, “men are men, women are women. That shouldn’t be controversial. It’s just common sense.”

- Our Home Secretary, Suella Braverman taking a jab at immigrants and asylum seekers as is typical of the Tories and claiming multiculturalism has failed this country. You’d like to think a Government led under our first Prime Minister that is part of a minority ethnic group would like to do positive things for those of minority ethnic groups. But no, let’s stoke up that hatred and declare that, “Britain is for the British.” I should note, that last part isn’t what has been said but is basically what can be inferred.

- Suella Braverman once again talking about “wokery” and “gender ideology” ruining our country. But what is interesting about this, is bare in mind the Conservatives have been really passionate about being the party of free speech, when it comes to bigotry of course. Yet when a gay Conservative member expressed his disapproval at what she said, he was removed from the conference by police and security. I’ll be fair to Braverman in that she said he should be let back in. But that doesn’t change the fact he was removed by security and police. And like dude was literally in his seat and said it in a talking tone and instantly, security and police were on him.

- And our Health Secretary who’s name I can’t be bothered to remember or look up announcing he plans to change the NHS Constitution to ban trans women from women-only wards in response to exactly, zero complaints an NHS report has since found.

There’s a lot to unpack there but I want to address the last point in particular.

So I have been hospitalised 3 times since transitioning;

- Twice in NHS hospitals.

- Once in a private hospital that was being contracted by the NHS.

The private hospital was for my gender reassignment surgery. It being a private hospital and the sensitivity of the procedure, I was placed in a private room. So is moot to my point.

Two other times were an asthma attack in 2015 and me breaking my back and leg in 2021. Both times I was placed on a women-only ward.

So firstly, I just want to say. I don’t fair too well in hospitals. My mental health spirals quickly. When I broke my back and leg, I actually got discharged way earlier than I was physically ready to be discharged under the advice of the Mental Health Crisis Team. Not a bad call on their part. I needed to be discharged and if they hadn’t have done it, i was going to discharge myself against medical advice. I didn’t want to be there any longer than necessary.

But that is anecdotal.

I’ll go into facts now. So the claim is that this is so women get privacy, dignity and safety amongst other things.

So whenever I have been on a women-only ward, people get visitors. There’s no sex requirement on who is allowed on the ward to visit, from my experience. So men are already on the ward in the form of visitors, even if all the patients are women.

It is true, you have the right to ask you be seen by a doctor or nurse of the same-sex. However, other patients and the ward may not have requested this so there will still be male nurses, doctors, porters, etc doing their jobs.

And when it comes to privacy and dignity, all beds have a privacy curtain.

Additionally, in the aspect of safety there are staff on the ward 24/7.

But I just highlighted here, a women-only ward is only women-only when it comes to patients. Not other people who maybe on the ward for whatever reason.

Now tell me, who is more a threat there. The trans woman laid up in bed because she in hospital for what is likely a very good reason or is it maybe staff or visitors who will be in a far more able state. That is the safety aspect granted.

Then with the privacy and dignity aspect, you’d have to go much further than just removing trans women of the wards if you are classifying us as “men”.

It’s BS.

[theculturedmarxist]

Three British journalists I know personally – Johanna Ross, Vanessa Beeley and Kit Klarenberg – have each in the last two years been detained at immigration for hours on re-entering their own country, and questioned by police under anti-terrorist legislation.

This is plainly an abuse of the power to detain at port of entry, because in each case they could have been questioned at any time in the UK were there legitimate cause, and the questioning was not focused on their travels.

They were in fact detained and interrogated simply for holding and publishing dissident opinion on foreign policy, and in particular for supporting a more collaborative approach to Russia – with which, lest we forget, the UK is not at war.

These detentions have taken place over the period of a couple of years. All were targeted for journalism and this is plainly a continuing policy of harassment of dissident British journalists.

I have three times in that same period been questioned by police in my own home in Edinburgh for journalism, over three separate matters. I spent four months in jail for publicising essential information to show that a high level conspiracy was behind the false accusations against Scottish Independence leader Alex Salmond.

Julian Assange remains in maximum security jail for publicising the truth about war crimes. Meanwhile a new National Security Bill goes through the Westminster parliament, which will make it illegal for a journalist possess or publish classified information.

This has never been illegal. The responsibility has always lain with the whistleblower or leaker, not the journalist or publisher. It seeks to enshrine in UK law precisely what the US Government is seeking to achieve against Assange using the US 1917 Espionage Act. This is a huge threat to journalism.

It is also worth pointing out that, if Evan Gershkovich was indeed doing nothing more than he has claimed to have been doing in Russia, that action would land him a long jail sentence in either the USA or the UK under the provisions which both governments are attempting to enforce.

On top of that, you have the Online Safety Bill, which under the excuse of protecting against paedophilia, will require social media gatekeepers to remove any kind of content the government deems as illegal.

When you put all this together with the new Public Order Act, which effectively gives the police authority to ban any protest they wish to ban, there is a fundamental change happening.

This is not just a theoretical restriction on liberty. Active enforcement against non-approved speech is already underway, as shown by those detentions and, most strongly of all, by Julian’s continued and appalling incarceration.

To complete the horror, there is no longer a genuine opposition within the political class. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party opposes none of this wave of attacks on civil liberties. The SNP has been sending out identical stock replies from its MPs on Julian Assange, 100% backing the UK government line on his extradition and imprisonment.

I feel this very personally. I know all of these people affected – Julian, Alex, Kit, Vanessa, Johanna, and view them as colleagues whose rights I defend, even though I do not always agree with all of their disparate views.

Two other people I know personally and admire are under attack. The campaign of lies and innuendo against Roger Waters this last few weeks has been astonishing in both its viciousness and its mendacity, recalling the dreadful attacks on Jeremy Corbyn.

More mundane but also part of the same phenomenon, my friend Randy Credico has had his Twitter account cancelled.

To be a dissident in the UK, or indeed the “West”, today is to see, every single day, your friends persecuted and to see the walls close in upon yourself.

A unified political class, controlled by billionaires, is hurtling us towards fascism. That now seems to me undeniable.

[sadianusrat]

Immigration Policies of Top UK Political Parties for the 2024 General Election

Labour

The Labour party has pledged to reduced net migration following record highs under the Conservative government. It claims the UK has an over dependence on migrant workers to fill skills shortages, leading to a need to manage levels and encourage businesses to train people locally for these positions.

It also proposes to reform the current points-based immigration system for a fairer and properly managed one, with a crackdown on employers and recruitment agencies who abuse the visa system or otherwise disregard employment rules.

Labour also plans to establish a framework for joint working with skills bodies across the UK, the Industrial Strategy Council and the Department for Work and Pensions.

Bottom line

Reduction of migrant workers. More focus on training and strengthening of domestic workforce.

Conservatives

The Conservative party manifesto focuses its migration section heavily on illegal entrants. It pledges to establish a deterrent by running a "relentless, continual process of permanently removing illegal migrants to Rwanda".

It will seek to prevent illegal migrants from making legal challenges against their removal by way of the Illegal Migration Act and further agreements with 3rd countries for straightforward returns.

Restriction of visa access from countries which do not share the UK's national priorities, including illegal migration.

A cap on genuine refugees fleeing persecution based on the capacity of local areas.

A cap on work and family visas to protect increased demand on housing and public services including transport and the NHS.

Bottom line

Increased efforts to stop illegal migrants. Prevention of inauthentic appeals by illegal migrants. Maintaining limits placed on migrant workers and family visas to lessen impact on public services.

Liberal Democrats

The Lib Dem manifesto proposes the most changes to the current immigration system.

These changes include allowing the right to work for asylum seekers who have been waiting for a decision for over 3 months. It would also create humanitarian travel permits, establish a scheme for unaccompanied child refugees, and expand refugee family reunion.

It would work closer with Europol and French authorities to prevent human trafficking and smuggling.

The existing salary threshold recently increased by the Conservative government will be replaced by a merit-based system.

There will be exemptions for NHS workers and Care visa workers from the Immigration Skills Charge. The decision to ban care workers from bringing dependant partners and children will be reversed.

The existing income threshold recently increased by the Conservative government will be reversed.

The entire Immigration Rules will be made simpler, clearer, and fairer.

The existing Right to Rent Scheme will be repealed.

Public agencies would be prevented from sharing personal information with the Home Office for immigration enforcement.

The existing Youth Mobility Scheme will be expanded to be more inclusive, fair, and with greater financial incentives.

Bottom Line

Major reforms to the rights of asylum seekers, the income threshold for the skilled worker and family visas, and changes to the way migrants' immigration status and information is shared.

Reform

The Reform party leads with its firm stance on immigration. The manifesto, titled 'Our Contract with You', pledges to take decisive action within its first 100 days in power, including a freeze on all non-essential immigration, stopping all illegal migrants entering via boats, and ensuring asylum seekers who arrive from a safe country are prevented from claiming asylum or citizenship.

All foreign criminals will be deported immediately after the completion of their prison sentence.

Those who have naturalised (acquired British citizenship) will have their citizenship revoked if found guilty of a criminal offence.

Student dependants will be barred.

A minimum of 5 years residency and employment will be required before access to any UK benefits.

A National Insurance increase of 20% for migrant workers to incentivise businesses to employ British citizens (who would stay at 13.8%).

Bottom Line

Stricter stance on all forms of migration. Deportation of all foreign criminals. Revocation of British citizenship if guilty of criminal offence. Less incentives for businesses to hire migrant workers.

Regardless of which party triumphs in the upcoming election, the UK's every-changing Immigration Rules will be affected. What remains to be seen is just how different things will be for those seeking to enter or stay in the UK. If you are in a situation of difficulty or uncertainty, contact us today for expert legal advice.

[c-40]

A-T-4 114 Kitty Grant - Glad To Know You

Ducktales Pt.1

Writing about Americans taking an interest in Japanese music and how it has been storified in articles got me thinking about narrative. That's not entirely true I think about narrative all the time, what is a text or image saying and how might that be received and passed on. Usage of 'narrative' to mean "a particular way of explaining or understanding events" has been on the up and up over the last 40-years. "Controlling the narrative" or "who controls the narrative?" is discussed by the chattering classes. I use narrative in my day job, I've studied it since I was in my late teens, and I find it endlessly fascinating

I thought I’d start with an example of a narrative, unfortunately I picked the “small boats” story which, in the UK, the politico-media circus (PMC) are putting all their resources into at the moment. Public concern over immigration and asylum virtually disappeared when Boris Johnson became PM in 2019, this coincided with stories regarding immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees being reported less across news media. When Johnson's support from his own party began to fall apart the PM and the then Home Secretary Priti Patel announced their plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. This kind of thing is popular with the tory party's backbench headbangers but polling at the time showed only 10% of the public (tory and Labour supporters) thought this was a good idea

Tough on immigration and asylum seekers virtue signally is beginning to pay off now though, the relentless coverage of immigration and asylum has made it an issue and they're doing something about it (although they're not because it'll continue to be tied up in the courts and the tories are out at next years election). Politico reports that for tory voters 'stopping the boats' as an issue "ranks above cutting NHS surgery waiting lists and accident and emergency response times" - that's insane! Tory voters will put the health of everyone in the the country at risk as long as they see less asylum seekers. Being dead is one way to see less asylum seekers! Asylum isn't a particularly concerning issue in the UK either, we have the 18th largest intake of asylum seekers in the EU, and we're a wealthy country with a declining birthrate and room. Just look at taking refugees from Ukraine, that's not a problem (it's not perfect, nor would anyone expect it to be), in the news taking Ukrainian refugees continues to be cause for patriotic pride, supported by celebrations of Ukrainian culture (Eurovision is being held here in Liverpool as a proxy for Ukraine)

When polled the public imagine immigration and asylum seekers numbers are a lot higher than they actually are (see Bobby Duffy's book The Perils Of Perception and the current stats from the refugee council). Why do we think asylum is worse than it is? One word MISINFORMATION. The tories are exploiting their own failings, they've been in power for 13-years over which time the backlog of asylum applications waiting to be processed has gone from 19,000 when labour departed government in 2010 to 161,000 in 2023, rising almost ninefold. Rishi Sunak was caught lying about these figures the House of Commons the other day https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/05/statistics-watchdog-rebukes-rishi-sunak-inaccurate-asylum-backlog-figures - because of covid restrictions being removed asylum applications doubled last year, and there's been a rise in channel crossings by small boats, but the long trend is they have remained consistent, certainly not going up ninefold. The tory party also exploit barriers to apply for asylum in the UK forcing more people to risk crossing in 'small boats' and into the hands of criminals. 'Offshore Processing' aka the Rwanda flights effectively puts a ban on asylum in the UK, the UK has a legal obligation to accept asylum seekers but the tories are saying, If you come here we won't take you. If you've been flown to Rwanda and your asylum claim is successful you remain in Rwanda, not the UK, as a refugee

All this just so the tories have a less humiliating defeat in the next general election

I'm with Kitty Grant, Glad To Know You

The Kitty Grant version of this song came out two years after Chas Jankel's original. Jankel wrote Glad To Know You with Ian Dury, and he produced both versions. I first heard the Kitty Grant version as an edit on the Idjut Boys 2005 Press Play mix

[thedreadvampy]

Tbh, and I'm happy to be corrected on this, but from where I'm sitting they kind of do? Like you know me, dude, I'm English and I'm from the Land of the Far Right Weirdos and I really do appreciate that England has much less electoral flexibility than Scotland or Wales not having a particularly viable third party.

but based on the statements Starmer's actually said out loud with his human mouth, Labour's policy kind of is exactly the same on most of the key issues I'm worried about, and most of the areas in last year's manifesto which differed positively in the 2022 manifesto (green jobs programmes, breakfast clubs, nationalised energy infrastructure, NHS investment) were costed on the basis of tax increases on the rich which have uhhhhh since been walked back, with Labour specifically saying they're now not going to raise capital gains tax, reverse income tax cuts, or introduce targeted taxes on energy companies, so who tf knows what's on the table there?

Immigration: The publicly stated position of Labour on all immigration scandals over the last 2 years, including the Bibby Stockholm, is "the problem with Tory policy is that they're not turning away immigrants effectively enough". The shadow cabinet's statements around immigration have almost all taken this tack and the message they're leading with on immigration is "if you vote for us we'll REALLY turn back the small boats" and Copper has already said there's plans to continue use of mass internment.

Police powers and protest law: To quote, "Labour is the party of law and order!" One of their five core mission docs focuses on increasing police powers and presence and raising prosecution rates. They've expressed the intention to retain the PCSC act in its current form, respond to prison overcrowding by building more prisons, and to my knowledge have no intention to walk back anti-protest law (and most major figures in the party speak about protesters in a way that makes that look unlikely)

Privatisation and austerity: The Shadow Health Secretary has been explicit about the intention to further privatisation of the NHS. Same with transport. And the chat on economic policy from the shadow cabinet sure is using the phrasing "tough choices" a lot. On which note...

Benefits and welfare: Keeping the bedroom cap, 2 child limit and rape clause. Retaining punitive sanctions. Literally earlier this year Ashworth called disabled people in work a "burden on the economy".

Taxation and public funding: Labour have committed to not increase income tax (which is weird cause a bunch of their 2022 manifesto costing rests on that), capital gains tax (currently sitting at around half income tax) or to introduce wealth taxes, because "the way to prosperity is a strong economy". (I tried to look up their manifesto on a stronger economy but the link on their website doesn't lead to anywhere, which I'm emphatically Not Calling A Metaphor)

Trans rights: Labour have made their perspective on this one uhhhhh p clear. both by backing the section 35 on Holyrood over gender recognition and in the breadth and depth of statements expressing """"reasonable concerns"""" about transition care and gender recognition. they aim to remove the need for a second opinion from the GRA, which is good, but also to reform the Equalities Act to separate sex and gender in law, which is not. And Starmer's said some Weird Fucking Shit on Gillick competencies.

Now there's some positive movement on worker's rights, I'll give you that, despite the party's woeful record with union action lately - but after setting up a strong set of promises last year they're rapidly backtracking and have already dropped worker reclassification and day-one worker's rights guarantees. Still, I will grant you - living wage rise, zero hours bans and flexible working guarantees are legit good policy with meaningful distance from the Tories. Similarly, so's their just transition platform....which they've now said they'll delay indefinitely to display "fiscal responsibility"

like yeah, ok, there are some meaningful differences. no new oil and gas. maybe, at some point, worker's rights, although they've already U-turned on literally half of that policy platform on the last year, and committed against the borrowing required for their industrial development programme.

but ultimately it isn't like. actually a much bigger distance than between the policy of Johnson's Tories Vs Sunak's Tories, and the rhetoric and priorities approaching the election are increasingly laser-focused on:

""""""fiscal responsibility""""" (lower spending (as I say, specifically undercutting basically all the positive policy proposals), benefit cuts, continued tax cuts for the wealthy)

immigration is Bad and we have to Reduce It

bootstrap economic growth

Law And Order

counterterrorism

as a lot of the party members have been saying for years: at best it's blairism without the commitment to spending; at worst it's aesthetic tinkering around the edges on Tory policy in almost all areas

Uhhh is that good?

[oberynmartell]

List of Black Lives Matter and Racial Equality Petitions to sign:

infographic on why YOU SHOULD NOT DONATE TO CHANGE DOT ORG

one of the most comprehensive, well-rounded, and well researchd compilations of blm related resources (includes petitions, donation links, venmo accounts, names of people in need, etc) thats out there. please share this link everywhere and anywhere. 

a black lives matter carrd that includes petitions, donation links, blm movement information, links on how to donate to BLM without spending money, black owned businesses, etc. 

a black lives matter carrd that lists all the petitions that need to be signatures all in one place!

Justice for George Floyd

Justice for George Floyd 2

Justice for George Floyd 3

Charge the Officers Responsible for George Floyd’s Murder 

Charge the Officers Responsible for George Floyd’s Murder 2

Justice For Ahmuad Arbery

Justice For Ahmuad Arbery 2

Justice for Breonna Taylor

Stand with Breonna

Charge Officers Responsible for Breonna Taylor’s Murder

Justice For Tamir Rice

Justice For Tamir Rice 2

Justice For Joāo Pedro

Justice for Alejandro Vargas Martinez

Justice for Belly Mujinga.

Justice for Rashad Cunningham

Justice For Tony McDade

Justice for Dion Johnson

Justice for Jennifer Jeffley

Justice for Young Uwa

Justice for Elijah Nichols

Justice for Tete Gulley

Justice for Tazne Van Wyk

Justice for Michael Dean

Justice For Amari Boone

Justice for Darrius Stewart

Justice for Shukri Abdi

Justice for Ashton Dickson

Justice For Darrius Stewart

Justice for David McAtee

Justice for Cameron Green

Justice for Crystal Mason

Justice For Zinedine

Justice for Regis Korchinski-Paquet

Justice for Christopher Josey

Justice for Amiya Braxton

Justice For Emerald Black

Justice for Andile Mchunu

Justice for Cameron Green

Justice for Tamla Horsford

Justice for Collins Khosa

Justice for Sean Monterrosa

Free Siyanda

Reopen Sandra Bland’s Case 

Free Willie Simmons who has served 38 years for a $9 robbery

Get Washington State to Hold Police Officers Accountable for Police Brutality

Arrest Officer Jared Campbell for macing a child 

Demand Jail Time for Dylan Mota and Jacob Robles

Demand Jail Time for All Police who Murder Innocent People

Fire Racist Criminal Michael J Reynolds from the NYPD

Petition for Nationwide Police De-Escalation Training

Petition for Nationwide Police Required Racial Bias Test

stop immigrants being poisoned by ICE

Ban the use of inhumane rubber bullets

Demand a retrial for Angel Bumpass wrongfully convicted 13 year old with a life sentence

End Police Brutality and Violence Against BIPOC in the USA

Ban the use of rubber bullets for crowd control

Join Campaign Zero

Drop All Charges Against Incarcerated Trafficking Survivor Chrystul Kizer!

Reopen Kendrick Johnson's Case

Abolish Prison Labour in the USA

Require Dash and Body Cameras for the King County Sheriff's Office

Demand a retrial for Angel Bumpass wrongfully convicted 13 year old with a life sentence

Sign the Police Accountability Act into Law

Justice for Elijah Nichols 

Exonerate Eric Riddick

Justice For Luz Gonzalez!

Support a new law to be made in Trayvon Martin's name to stop from claiming self defense after aggravated murder

Justice for James Scurlock

Justice for Philando Castile

Issue a State executive order to hold police accountable for unlawful action

Don't let Julius Jones be executed by the state of Oklahoma

Help pass the Hands Up Act, which prohibits police officers from shooting unarmed citizens and carries a mandatory 15-year prison sentence if there isn’t a weapon found after someone has been shot by a police officer

A twitter thread linking to many, many Brazilian Petition that still need signatures

Justice for Jamarion Robinson

Justice for Elijah McClain

Fire Jared Campbell

Dismiss the charges on Marshae Jones and charge the one who shot her and her unborn baby

Justice for Anderson Arboleda [Petition only in Español] 

Drop Charges Against Trafficking Survivor Chrystul Kizer

Justice for Julian Cole

Reopen Kenneka Jenkins Case

Justice for LeVena Johnson

Justice for Matthew Tucker

Justice for Regis Korchinski-Paquet 

Justice for Christopher

Abolish Confederate Branding at Richland High School

Justice for Justin Howell

Justice for Brad Levi Ayala

Justice for Mike Ramos

Justice for Brad Levi Ayala

Make Juneteenth a Federal Holiday

Ban the use of rubber bullets for crowd control

Make Lynching a Federal Crime

Tell Congress you support making lynching a federal hate crime

Demand Capezio provide skin color inclusive dance clothing

Justice for Kylie Lindsey and Isabella Chinchilla

Justice for Maurice Gordon Jr.

Justice for Alaa

Justice for Robert Fuller

Justice for Elijah McClain

Justice for Elijah McClain 2

Demand The KKK be declared a terrorist group

Demand The KKK be declared a terrorist group 2

Demand The KKK be declared a terrorist group 3

Reopen the case of Sandra Bland

Reopen the case of Kenneka Jenkins 

Justice for Jonas Joseph

Justice for Tazne Van Wyk

Justice for Cláudia Ferreira

Justice for James Scurlock

Justice for David Dorn

Demand Justice for Darren Rainey

Justice for LeVena Johnson!

Justice for Maurice Gordon Jr.

Justice for Alton Sterling

Justice for Dana Fletcher 

Justice for Dominique Fells

Justice for Gregory Johnson, Jr.

Justice For Darrius Stewart

Arrest Jennifer Watson for Attempted Murder

Justice for Andile Mchunu

Justice for Christopher Josey

Grant Clemency to Crosley Green

Ban The Use of Tear Gas on Civilians

Justice For Tyler Lumar

Justice for Alaa

Ban The Confederate Flag From Public Schools

Remove 20ft Confederate "Stonewall" Jackson statue from Manassas National Battlefield Park

Justice for Tshego Pule

Justice for Tyler J Evans

Donation Links

A thread of Youtuve videos you can stream to donate to BLM

Official George Floyd Memorial Fund

OFFICIAL Gianna Floyd Fund (George Floyd's child)

Black Lives Matter

We Cant Breathe

43 Bail Funds to Support

Homeless Black Trans women fund

Split a donation between 70+ community bail funds, mutual aid funds, and racial justice organizers

Minnesota Healing Justice Network

Women for Political Change

Spiral Collective

When We All Vote

National List of Bail and Mutual Aid Funds/Organizers/Black Owned Businesses

Venmo names of black trans people that need help

Latino Community on Lake Street

Black Immigrant Collective

Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha

Atlanta Black Owned Business Relief

Al Maa'uun

Remembering Shana Isuroon 

Fundraising for destroyed black owned businesses

Joyce Preschool

Black Table Arts

Northside business support

Du Nord Riot Recovery Fund

Unicorn Riot

Donate to Destiny Harrison & her daughter Dream’s Legacy

Pimento Relief Fund

Southside Harm Reduction

West Broadway Business and Area Coalition

Division of Indian Work

TC Care Collective

Justice for Breonna Taylor

Justice for Jamee

Justice for David McAtee

Donate to Brandon Saenz who was shot in the left eye by a rubber bullet, and lost the eye, several teeth, and had facial fractures that required several surgeries

HOW TO DONATE INTERNATIONALLY/SITES THAT ACCEPT INTERNATIONAL CURRENCY 

HOW DONATE WITH NO MONEY

HOW TO DONATE WITH NO MONEY BY STREAMING THIS

HOW TO DONATE TO BLM BY SHARING LINKS

A list of black owned businesses we should be supporting! + a list of black owned businesses we should be supporting that accept international currency!

DO NOT DONATE TO SHAUN KING

DO NOT DONATE TO CHANGE.ORG

Donation for Justice for Saraneka “Nemo” Martin — pregnant protester shot during protest

Donations for Mike Ramos

Donations for Elijah McClain

Donations for Elijah McClain 2

* this list is constantly updated (new links added at the bottom) so please keep checking back for new information on petitions and ways to donate!!

updated as of 11 october 2020 — please continue to send me the petitions and fundraisers that you come across so i can add them!!  

[beardedmrbean]

DUNGENESS, England/KIGALI (Reuters) -Britain could send tens of thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda to be resettled, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday, setting out a tougher approach to break people-smuggling networks and stem the flow of migrants across the Channel.

Concerns over immigration were a big factor in the 2016 Brexit vote, and Johnson has been under pressure to deliver on his promise to "take back control" of Britain's borders. But his plan drew swift criticism from opponents of his Conservative Party and from charities.

"We must ensure that the only route to asylum in the UK is a safe and legal one," Johnson said in a speech in Kent, southeast England, where thousands of migrants in small boats landed on Channel beaches last year.

"Those who try to jump the queue or abuse our systems will find no automatic path to set them up in our country, but rather be swiftly and humanely removed to a safe third country or their country of origin."

Anyone who has arrived in Britain illegally since Jan. 1 could now be relocated to Rwanda, in East Africa, which would disrupt the business model of people-smuggling gangs, the prime minister said.

"The deal we have done is uncapped and Rwanda will have the capacity to resettle tens of thousands of people in the years ahead," he said.

'UNETHICAL'

The plan drew strong criticism from opposition parties, with interior minister Priti Patel's Labour Party counterpart, Yvette Cooper, saying it was costly, "unworkable and unethical".

Concerns were also raised about Rwanda's human rights record, which the British government itself noted last year.

Johnson said Rwanda was "one of the safest countries in the world", adding however that the risk of ending up in the country would prove a "considerable deterrent" over time.

Human Rights Watch said Rwanda did not respect some of the most fundamental human rights.

"Refugees have been abused in Rwanda and the government has, at times, kidnapped Rwandan refugees outside the country to bring them home to face trial and ill-treatment," said Lewis Mudge, HRW's Central Africa director.

Patel signed the partnership agreement in Kigali on Thursday, and she presented it at a joint news conference with Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta.

Biruta said Rwanda's recent history had given it "a deep connection to the plight of those seeking safety and opportunity in a new land". Rwanda has already accepted almost 130,000 refugees from numerous countries, including Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Afghanistan and Libya, he added.

The migrants will be housed temporarily in facilities, generally hostels or hotels, in Kigali while their asylum claims are looked into, Rwandan government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo told Reuters. "Once their claims are determined they will be facilitated to integrate into the community," she said.

Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire said the country was hospitable but it should first solve its internal problems.

Johnson said the plan would face legal challenges, but said the partnership was "fully compliant" with international legal obligations. The British government would contribute an initial 120 million pounds ($158 million).

RICKETY BOATS

A minister in Johnson's government said the plan was focused on single young men. "This is about male economic migrants in the main," Secretary of State for Wales Simon Hart told Sky News. "There is a different set of issues with women and children."

Opposition lawmakers said Johnson was trying to distract from the renewed calls on him to resign after being fined by police on Tuesday for attending a gathering for his birthday in June 2020 when social mixing was all but banned under COVID-19 rules his government had introduced.

Last year, more than 28,000 migrants and refugees made the crossing from mainland Europe to Britain. The arrival of migrants on rickety boats has been a source of tension between France and Britain, especially after 27 migrants drowned when their dinghy deflated in November.

"Around 600 came across the Channel yesterday. In just a few weeks this could again reach a thousand a day," Johnson said.

The new approach will see the Royal Navy take over operational command from Border Force in the Channel, he said, and Greek-style accommodation centres would open in Britain.

The head of a refugee advocacy group said the plan violated the principle of granting asylum seekers a fair hearing on British soil.

"I think it's rather extraordinary that the government is obsessing with control instead of focusing on competence and compassion," Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, told BBC radio.

[thosemintcookies]

Ok it's wild how for my entire life up until now, I felt like there's been this messaging of "Asians don't have it as bad as other poc"

And like, yeah, you know what? That's true in some ways, especially in terms of the realtive wealth of Asian Americans compared to other poc counterparts.

Its worth it to note that historically, Asians were not enslaved by Whites, and we are settlers, this is not our ancestral land. I think it goes to show that culture and thought is complex. Like, Asian American racism is especially pernicious because statistically, its not as visible as other forms of systemic racism.

(Sure, we've been saying it for decades that stereotypes of our sexual docility or inadequcy, the exoticization and cultural disgust for our food, the lack of media representation, etc etc have been hurting us, but it was always treated like there were bigger issues.)

The thing is, this racism is like this:

1. Asians, being a group thought to voluntarily migrate (and due to a long history of immigration suppression, this migration has to be relatively recent, and therefore conceptually voluntary) are seen as a people who are "more assimilable" and therefore, "better" than other poc

2. Due to the aforementioned recency and voluntary nature of Asian migration to the Americas, the people who are able to migrate tend to be from families with the socioeconomic means to do so. Richer families, higher education. Many Asian Americans are therefore, in a better spot to take on "higher paying" jobs in 2nd gen because we were brought up to value education and wealth. This is a systemic thing, not that "Asians are inherently smarter." Back on our ancestral countries, the seeming "racial" disparities in intelligence disappear.

3. Bans on misegenation and women migrants, preventing Asian men from seeking out sexual intimacy, along with Asian sexual exoticization and fetishization from war propaganda, and then later on, the simultaneous desexualization of our men and hypersexualization of our women. We are seen as sexually unaggressive to White Women and yielding to the White Man.

4. So, here we have a triangulation of things that comprise the Asian American identity in relation to Whiteness. We are seen as malleable and childish, a microcosm of White Settler Colonialism, because after the White people have Colonized, we have become their pet project. The model minority, who are special because we are not seen as incongruous with White supremacy, we are seen as wanting to pander to it through assimilation. And look! We came to the Americas because we *wanted* to! We were not forced here through violence, and we did not suffer genocide! That's practically privilege!

5. Let's not forget that our backgrounds make us Good Workers. We are taught, because of our parents who were able to migrate due to their privileges, that structure is good. Work hard and become more than yourself. And being in a capitalist system, white people are more than willing to exploit that.

6. Unfortunately, Asianness is then pitted against other experiences of racialization and racial injustice. Again, we did not suffer genocide. The removal of our generational stories, the labour we produce, its all painted as voluntary. Nevermind that the feeling of being decentralized in diaspora is only ever so voluntary. How much pain do I feel when I cannot share in the brilliance of my family due to my mother tongue being lost to me?

(But White people can wash their hands of it. We "chose" this)

And yes, it's true that there are ways we have not suffered. We are not seen as dangerous "gangsters". We were not murdered en masse for conquest.

But the deep, rotten root of it all is the same. We could never be equal to White People because they still considered us "not quite human"

That Asian-americans are statistically better off doesn't reveal the true ugliness of our dehumanization because our dehumanization is based on the very notion that we're "White-lite(TM), keep working hard, bud, you'll get there eventually"

But the reality is, it's not a dial that places us closer to social parity. It's a switch. "Dehumanized" or "human". These are the only two options. Thus far, it has been manifesting in our infantilization and exoticism. Patronizingly, we have been given some cessions so that White Supremacy can claim progress because it seems there is a race that is not outright hated by Whites.

But the expression of that racism can turn on a dime, and we can face racist violence and it is completely unsurprising because the logic, the cultural understanding of Asians has stayed consistent. We are still not seen as people.

I want no part in siding with white supremacy. I don't care if Whites have historically given us peanuts which were denied our other poc brothers and sisters. I'm not going to fight for scraps, I'm going to seize the table. There is no future but poc solidarity because the same logic of White Supremacy has been keeping us all down. Our relation to each other is not a hierarchy of race where Asians are in the middle. It is the same dehumanization all around, even if it shows in different ways.

The reality is: my parents being cussed out for their lack of English ability. Them working long, hard, low paying jobs so that we could eat and go to school. My father dying of health complications from being overworked. Never being able to share our generational stories because our tongues are not mutually intelligible. The reality is: being pulled over when we did nothing wrong because the cop thought my parents couldn't argue being ticketed (they couldn't. I've had to deal with cops at 8 years old to speak for them). The reality is: growing up ugly, with a funny name that would be changed to "gung hay, fat choy" and "Ching chong". The reality is: my academic achievements being undervalued because I'm Asian and anything above 80% didn't count. The reality is: "Oh I love Asian women." The reality is: "your English is so good!" The reality is: "Koreans are so much nicer than Chinese, and Indians are way too loud." The reality is we were never welcomed with open arms, and we were never made to feel like we belonged here

I'm going to take a nap now.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Official removal of Japanese Canadians began in March of 1942, and immediately there was organized resistance from the community. In early 1942 former Progressive MP Ian Mackenzie organized the British Columbia Security Commission (BCSC) to oversee the forced removal of all peoples of Japanese descent in Canada. Officially, the BCSC had little power and was only to serve in an advisory role to the Department of Labour and the Cabinet Committee on Japanese Questions. In practice, control over the operation was often muddy and deeply inexact. In March 1942, RCMP officer C.H. Hill sent a lengthy letter to the head of the BCSC, Major Austin Taylor, suggesting a five-point plan on how “to overcome the trouble which we are now having with the Nisei.” These five points suggested were necessitated due to “the resistance being shown” to removal operations. Japanese Canadians actively evaded removal from the one-hundred-mile exclusion zone created by PC 365 (16 January 1942) and the forced removal order PC 1486 (24 February 1942). 

To pressure the Japanese into acquiescence, the commission decided that it would “under no circumstances interview or desire to contact delegations [from] the Japanese.” Hill further suggested enacting a full ban on Japanese meetings and ensuring that “any persons convening such meetings will be subject to prosecution.” Moreover, “delinquents” who did not report to the 7 March train, one of the first removal operations sending men to work in Ontario, “should report to the RCMP,” and “failure to comply with this order will mean that all Japanese will be confined to their houses or quarters until further notice.” Hill continued, “There is no doubt whatever” that “unless drastic action is now taken, organized resistance will continue, and the situation will fast deteriorate.” He closed by arguing that it was his “considered opinion that these suggestions be given immediate and careful attention, and that they be considered in the way of urgent priority over all others.” Hill was correct; the resistance was organized.

Two days later, about 100 “British subjects” were to board a train to go from Vancouver to Schreiber, Ontario. Of the roughly 100 men ordered to board the train, eighty-five refused. BCSC officials were unable to coax the men onto the train, and ended up incarcerating them in an “Immigration Shed.” These same officials told the imprisoned men that if they did not “divulge the names of the instigators” of the action they would be hauled before the courts, but no one was willing to inform on their compatriots. RCMP Commissioner S.T. Wood then asked for a blanket Order of Internment that would allow him to formally arrest and incarcerate the men. When a push failed, a shove would apparently do. These men would go on to become some of the first of what would eventually amount to over 800 Japanese Canadians who were interned for defying the forced labour and evacuation regime. Hill later sent a list of “problem” Japanese who were to be sent to Ontario, instead of the BC interior, where he believed that they would cause trouble. His list included all those held concurrently by military authorities in Vancouver.

Clearly, not all went quietly onto the trains. Apart from individual acts of resistance, like stealing “I Am Chinese” buttons or simply going underground and moving at night, some Japanese started collective action against the state during the removal operation. On “the evening of April 7th, 1942 . . . 25 Canadian-born Japanese who were to have left Vancouver for work camps in Ontario . . . refused to go and were placed in the Immigration Building at Vancouver.” While incarcerated, “they held a meeting from 10:30 to 1:30, they objected to leaving Vancouver without their families. Their spokesman and leader was Kojiro Ebisuzaec [sic], Canadian-born Japanese, a store keeper at Vancouver,” who helped write demands. They quickly issued leaflets authored by the “Nisei Mass Evacuation Group, which “were posted on walls and distributed among the Japanese.”

Concomitantly, Assistant Commander C.H. Hill noted that “Canadian-born delinquents” were still at large. Although sizable numbers of evacuees had already been moved, many were still actively resisting their forced removal. Hill believed resistance was growing and that if “drastic action” was not taken, the “situation would deteriorate, and possibly get completely out of hand.” His specific concern was that the “Canadian-born Japanese are not [as] amenable to discipline as the Japanese Nationals, with whom [he] had experienced very little difficulty. When [they] fail to report for entraining, they naturally go into hiding . . . their attitude is changing, and they will resist the evacuation procedure as much as possible.” Perhaps even more to the point, the “Canadian-born subjects feel that their status entitled them to preferential treatment.” 

The nearly 75 percent of Japanese Canadians who were natural (or naturalized) subjects had little faith in British “fair play” or their “rights” to habeas corpus. Rightfully so, it turns out, as their position was legally murky (at best) within Canadian law, and most legally akin to psychiatric detention. Hill complained that although these Canadians were in fact receiving “preferential treatment,” they were “unwilling to realize it.” It must have been difficult indeed to see much in the way of preferential treatment, given the position in which the Canadian Japanese found themselves. Utilizing the hoary old trope of the oppressor regarding the insidiousness of those attempting to protect themselves, Hill claimed that the resistance was originally born of a “small group” of agitators, but that this “insubordination is now widespread.”

The most telling evidence of this insubordination, apart from the mass resistance and protest, was a public meeting of 1,700 persons. Government officials were nice enough to attend and take notes for posterity. Hill’s report from his spies noted that although an Issei speaker had “urged cooperation with the BCSC and the police” his comments elicited “a very lukewarm reception” from the attendees. A “Canadian-born” man spoke next. He stated that he had “lost his radio, his camera, his boat, his automobile and property, and was obliged to leave [his home] under the same conditions as almost any alien.” The speaker “urged the gathering to resist,” which unlike the conciliatory response, “was acclaimed in a most hysterical manner.”

Perceptively, Hill noted that the attempt by the RCMP and BCSC to divide and conquer the Japanese had largely failed. The collaborators who had been recruited by the state were now totally discredited in the eyes of the community. Furthermore, the attempt to recruit funktionshäftling had merely “divided the community into hostile camps,” with collaborators in the minority.

Despite the difficulties of the RCMP in concentration and removal, Hill’s greatest concern was that these “open violations of constituted authority” would cause “police prestige [to] suffer and the task of enforcing the regulations made increasingly diffcult.” Hill had good reason to worry, for fully “two-thirds” of those who were “slated to go to work camps on April 7th had failed to appear.”

On 25 April, about sixty Japanese Canadians held a protest at the Immigration Detention Building. Following the protest, a leaflet demanding better treatment was circulated. Hill believed it was printed at the office of the Continental Daily News (Tairiku Nippō), the Vancouver-based Japanese Canadian newspaper. Rather than searching for evidence that might support his suspicion, which he believed would take a significant amount of time, he merely dictated that “in the best interest” of law and order, the newspaper and “all other printing establishments operated by Japanese [be] closed immediately.” Hill was concerned with the “grave possibility” that if the Japanese were not quickly removed, and that “if there was any open demonstration against evacuation,” that the public in BC “may be again aroused.”

By the end of April, the RCMP was aware that “evidence of organized resistance to the scheme continues in hand.” Hill believed that the resistance, while widely popular, was organized by a small group of “Nisei and naturalized Canadians” who called themselves the “Nisei Mass Evacuation Group.” While Hill thought that the group “appears to be reasonable,” their “whole movement” was “definitely aimed at hindering” the mass evacuation. Treading road-worn tropes of the “waylaid proletariat,” Hill argued that the group’s “sinister operations” had no more interest than merely “creating trouble and arousing dissension.” For Hill, the group’s activities had hampered “the main issue, namely the speedy evacuation of all members of Japanese racial origin from the protected area,” a task “necessary for the safety of the state.” Hill counselled a harder approach. He thought that “the troubles” manifesting during the evacuation were due to “a lack of firmness in handling the whole question.” However, repression breeds feedback, and the escalation had repercussions.

Indicative of the resentment that was developing towards the evacuation orders, on 13 May, a sizable group of evacuees rioted. A description of what happened appeared in the Vancouver News Herald of May 14th, and deserves to be quoted at length:

Apparently incensed because friends and relatives were not allowed to approach close enough to carry on conversation, a number of Japanese men held in the Immigration Building rioted Wednesday afternoon and evening, causing extensive damage to the building and contents. Late in the afternoon the rioters were subdued when additional military guards were called out. During the evening, city police were asked to send a supply of tear gas when it appeared the rioters were still recalcitrant. The disturbance started soon after noon, and followed two days of sullen behavior on the part of the Japanese in the building. Until recently many fellow-Japanese were allowed to approach close to the building and talk with inmates at the barred windows.

Soon after this the inmates started throwing objects out of the windows—including toilet paper, which fell in long streamers down the building. Then there came the crash of glass, as the first window crashed outward and then various objects, including bed springs, chairs and plaster from the walls fell from upper stories of the building to the roadway and railway tracks below. As guards moved forward to lend a hand in subduing the rioters, a fire hose, directed by the Japanese from an upper floor window, doused them with water. Various objects seized in the detention quarters also hurtled close to the guards. Throughout the disturbance the inmates shouted “Banzai,” the cheer being echoed by Japanese sympathizers. . .

Several times during the afternoon crowds gathered at the foot of Burrard Street and on the wharves to watch the disturbance. The crowds included many Japanese, the latter number being swollen shortly before CPR trains for the east left just after 7 p.m. These 125 young Canadian-born Japanese were interned as a result of their behavior.

The riot in Vancouver coincided with early camp organizing, particularly in Ontario, where some “volunteers” and internees had already been sent.”

- Mikhail Bjorge, “Destroying the Myth of Quietism: Strikes, Riots, Protest, and Resistance in Japanese Internment.” in Mochoruk, Jim; Hinther, Rhonda L., ed. Civilian internment in Canada: histories and legacies : an edited collection. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2020. pp. 184-188.

[newstfionline]

Friday, April 9, 2021

The $50 billion race to save America’s renters from eviction (Washington Post) The Biden administration again extended a federal moratorium on evictions last week, but conflicting court rulings on whether the ban is legal, plus the difficulty of rolling out nearly $50 billion in federal aid, means the country’s reckoning with its eviction crisis may come sooner than expected. The year-old federal moratorium—which has now been extended through June 30—has probably kept hundreds of thousands or millions of people from being evicted from their apartments and homes. More than 10 million Americans are behind on rent, according to Moody’s, easily topping the 7 million who lost their homes to foreclosure in the 2008 housing bust. Despite the unprecedented federal effort to protect tenants, landlords have been chipping away at the moratorium in court. Treasury Department officials have been armed with nearly $50 billion in emergency aid for renters who have fallen behind, and are racing to distribute it through hundreds of state, local and tribal housing agencies, some of which have not created programs yet. The idea is to get the money to renters before courts nationwide begin processing evictions again.

A court filing says parents of 445 separated migrant children still have not been found. (NYT) The parents of 61 migrant children who were separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border by the Trump administration have been located since February, but lawyers still cannot find the parents of 445 children, according to a court filing on Wednesday. In the filing, the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union indicated slow progress in the ongoing effort to reunite families that were affected by a policy to prosecute all undocumented immigrants in the United States, even if it meant separating children from their parents. Of the 445 remaining children, a majority are believed to have parents who were deported, while more than 100 children are believed to have parents currently in the United States, according to the court filing. The government has yet to provide contact information that would help locate the families of more than a dozen children.

N Ireland leaders call for calm after night of rioting (AP) Rioters set a hijacked bus on fire and hurled gasoline bombs at police in Belfast in at least the fourth night of serious violence in a week in Northern Ireland, where Brexit has unsettled an uneasy political balance. Youths threw projectiles and petrol bombs at police on Wednesday night in the Protestant Shankill Road area, while rioters lobbed bricks, fireworks and petrol bombs in both directions over the concrete “peace wall” separating the Shankill Road from a neighboring Irish nationalist area. Police Service of Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Jonathan Roberts said several hundred people gathered on both sides of a gate in the wall, where “crowds ... were committing serious criminal offenses, both attacking police and attacking each other.” He said a total of 55 police officers have been injured over several nights of disorder. The recent violence, largely in pro-British loyalist areas, has flared amid rising tensions over post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland and worsening relations between the parties in the Protestant-Catholic power-sharing Belfast government.

Biden seems ready to extend US troop presence in Afghanistan (AP) Without coming right out and saying it, President Joe Biden seems ready to let lapse a May 1 deadline for completing a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Orderly withdrawals take time, and Biden is running out of it. Biden has inched so close to the deadline that his indecision amounts almost to a decision to put off, at least for a number of months, a pullout of the remaining 2,500 troops and continue supporting the Afghan military at the risk of a Taliban backlash. Removing all of the troops and their equipment in the next three weeks—along with coalition partners who can’t get out on their own—would be difficult logistically, as Biden himself suggested in late March. “It’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline,” he said. “Just in terms of tactical reasons, it’s hard to get those troops out.” Tellingly, he added, “And if we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way.”

One in six Latin American youths left work since pandemic’s start (Reuters) Across Latin America and the Caribbean, one in every six people aged 18 to 29 has left work since the coronavirus pandemic began, forcing many to abandon their studies, a report said on Thursday. The precariousness of employment for young people rose across the region, according to an investigation by Canadian charity Cuso International based on data from a U.N. commission and a poll by the International Labour Organization. “It’s extremely difficult for young people to access the labor market due to issues around specialization, lower wages, and poverty,” the advocacy group’s Colombia director Alejandro Matos told Reuters. More than half of those who stopped working since the start of the pandemic were let go by their employers, the report said, while others saw their businesses close and those employed in the informal sector could not work due to lockdowns.

Myanmar ambassador in London locked out of embassy after speaking out against military (Washington Post) Myanmar’s ambassador to Britain, who has spoken out again the military coup in his country, said he was barred from the embassy in London on Wednesday by officials loyal to the military junta. “They are refusing to let me inside,” Kyaw Zwar Minn told the Telegraph. “They said they received instruction from the capital, so they are not going to let me in.” Kyaw Zwar Minn told the British newspaper that when he left the embassy during the day, colleagues and officials linked to the military stormed the premises and kept him from reentering that evening. In early March, the ambassador, a former military colonel, spoke out against the military’s detention of the former British colony’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi, drawing criticism from the junta that had orchestrated her ouster and praise from the British government for his “courage.” The London-based ambassador was recalled, according to Myanmar state television, after he posted a statement on the embassy’s Facebook page demanding “the release of State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint,” but he did not return to Myanmar.

Merkel tells Putin to pull back troops as Kremlin accuses Ukraine of provocations (Reuters) German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday to pull back the Kremlin’s military buildup near the border with Ukraine, while he in turn accused Kyiv of “provocative actions” in the conflict region. Ukraine has raised the alarm over an increase in Russian forces near its eastern border as violence has risen along the line of contact separating its troops from Russia-backed separatists in its Donbass region. Russia has said its forces pose no threat and were defensive, but that they would stay there as long as Moscow saw fit. A senior Kremlin official said on Thursday that Moscow could under certain circumstances be forced to defend its citizens in Donbass and that major hostilities could mark the beginning of the end of Ukraine as a country.

China builds advanced weapons systems using American chip technology (Washington Post) In a secretive military facility in southwest China, a supercomputer whirs away, simulating the heat and drag on hypersonic vehicles speeding through the atmosphere—missiles that could one day be aimed at a U.S. aircraft carrier or Taiwan, according to former U.S. officials and Western analysts. The computer is powered by tiny chips designed by a Chinese firm called Phytium Technology using American software and built in the world’s most advanced chip factory in Taiwan, which hums with American precision machinery, say the analysts. Phytium portrays itself as a commercial company aspiring to become a global chip giant like Intel. It does not publicize its connections to the research arms of the People’s Liberation Army. The hypersonic test facility is located at the China Aerodynamics Research and Development Center (CARDC), which also obscures its military connections though it is run by a PLA major general, according to public documents, and the former officials and analysts, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. Phytium’s partnership with CARDC offers a prime example of how China is quietly harnessing civilian technologies for strategic military purposes—with the help of American technology. The trade is not illegal but is a vital link in a global high-tech supply chain that is difficult to regulate because the same computer chips that could be used for a commercial data center can power a military supercomputer.

Indonesia landslides death toll rises to 140, dozens missing (AP) The death toll from mudslides in eastern Indonesia has risen to 140 with dozens still missing, officials said Wednesday, as rain continued to pound the region and hamper the search. East Flores district on Adonara island suffered the highest losses with 67 bodies recovered so far and six missing. Mud tumbled down from surrounding hills early on Sunday, catching people at sleep. Some were swept away by flash floods after overnight rains caused rivers to burst their banks. On nearby Lembata island, the downpour triggered by Tropical Cyclone Seroja sent solidified lava from a volcanic eruption in November to crash down on more than a dozen villages, killing at least 32 and leaving 35 unaccounted for, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.

Reversing Trump, Biden Restores Aid to Palestinians (NYT) The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it would restore hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid to Palestinians, its strongest move yet to reverse President Donald J. Trump’s policy on the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The package, which gives at least $235 million in assistance to Palestinians, will go to humanitarian, economic, development and security efforts in the region, and is part of the administration’s attempt to rehabilitate U.S. relations with Palestinians, which effectively stopped when Mr. Trump was in office. The restoration of aid amounted to the most direct repudiation so far of Mr. Trump’s tilt toward Israel in its decades-old conflict with the Palestinian population in Israeli-controlled territories.

Royal rift ends (NYT) Jordan’s King Abdullah II said on Wednesday that the “discord” that has roiled the kingdom for days has “been stopped,” signaling a resolution to a rare royal rift that resulted in the house arrest of Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, the former crown prince, and the detention of several Jordanian officials who were accused of plotting a foreign-backed coup against the monarchy.

Conflict and COVID driving record hunger in DR Congo, warns UN (Al Jazeera) A record 27.3 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are facing acute hunger, one-third of the violence-wracked Central African country’s population, largely because of conflict and the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations has warned. The DRC is “home to the highest number of people in urgent need of food security assistance in the world,” the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization said on Tuesday in a joint statement, describing the scale of the crisis as “staggering”. “For the first time ever we were able to analyse the vast majority of the population, and this has helped us to come closer to the true picture of the staggering scale of food insecurity in the DRC,” Peter Musoko, WFP’s representative in the country, said. “This country should be able to feed its population and export a surplus. We cannot have children going to bed hungry and families skipping meals for an entire day,” he said.

Beware The Carpet Cleaner (The Guardian) Parkinson’s disease is the fastest-growing neurological disorder in the world, and the US is experiencing an explosion of cases. In the last decade, the number of Parkinson’s cases in America has increased 35%, and a neurologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center thinks over the next 25 years it will double again. Most cases of the disease are considered idiopathic—without a clear cause. But researchers now believe one factor is environmental exposure to trichloroethylene (TCE), a chemical compound used in industrial degreasing, dry-cleaning, and household products like some shoe polishes and carpet cleaners. TCE is a carcinogen already linked to renal cell carcinoma, cancers of the cervix, liver, biliary passages, lymphatic system and male breast tissue, fetal cardiac defects, and more. Several studies point to a link between Parkinson’s and workplace exposure to TCE. The US Labor Department issued guidance on TCE saying exposures to carbon disulfide (CS2) and TCE are presumed to “cause, contribute or aggravate Parkinsonism.”

‘Tantalizing’ results of 2 experiments defy physics rulebook (AP) Preliminary results from two experiments suggest something could be wrong with the basic way physicists think the universe works, a prospect that has the field of particle physics both baffled and thrilled. Tiny particles called muons aren’t quite doing what is expected of them in two different long-running experiments in the United States and Europe. The confounding results—if proven right—reveal major problems with the rulebook physicists use to describe and understand how the universe works at the subatomic level. “We think we might be swimming in a sea of background particles all the time that just haven’t been directly discovered,” Fermilab experiment co-chief scientist Chris Polly said in a press conference. “There might be monsters we haven’t yet imagined that are emerging from the vacuum interacting with our muons and this gives us a window into seeing them.” If confirmed, the U.S. results would be the biggest finding in the bizarre world of subatomic particles in nearly 10 years, since the discovery of the Higgs boson, often called the “God particle,” said Aida El-Khadra of the University of Illinois, who works on theoretical physics for the Fermilab experiment.

Unlikely chauffeur (Foreign Policy) Kevin Rudd is best known as a former Australian prime minister. Last Tuesday night in Queensland, he was mistaken for an Uber driver. The former Labor party leader became an unlikely chauffeur when a group of revelers—described as “tipsy” by Rudd’s daughter—piled into his car as he sought parking at a local restaurant. Rudd obliged the passengers, reportedly driving half the journey to the town’s main drag before being recognized by his would-be customers. “Four young Melburnians getting drenched in a Queensland subtropical downpour at Noosa last night with no Uber in sight … So what’s a man to do?” Rudd later wrote on Twitter.

[lilahdesignforperformance]

PRECEDENT WORKS

Precedent works related to current performance proposal 1/5

The Mending Project - Lee Mingwei

The Mending Project is an interactive conceptual installation in which they use very simple elements—thread, colour, sewing—as points of departure for gaining insights into the relationships among self, other, and immediate surroundings. It also constitutes an act of sharing between Lee Mingwei and a stranger.

Visitors initially see a long table, two chairs and a wall of colourful cone-shaped spools of thread. During gallery hours, Lee is seated at that table, to which visitors could bring various damaged textile articles, choose the colour of thread they wish, and watch as he mends the article. The mended article, with thread ends still attached, is then placed on the table along with previously mended items. Owners return to the gallery to collect their mended articles on the last day of the exhibition.

The act of mending takes on emotional value as well, depending on how personal the damaged item is, e.g., a favourite shirt vs. an old but little-used tablecloth. This emotional mending is marked by the use of thread which is not the colour of the fabric around it, and often colourfully at odds with that fabric, as though to commemorate the repair. Unlike a tailor, who will try to hide the fact that the fabric was once damaged, Lee Mingwei’s mending is done with the idea of celebrating the repair, as if to say, “something good was done here, a gift was given, this fabric is even better than before.”

Precedent works related to current performance proposal 2/5

Article 14.1 - Phuong Ngo

Amid the polarity of debate about Australia’s refugee policy, too rarely do we hear the voices of refugees themselves. In Article 14.1, artist Phuong Ngo gives voice to those who flee persecution, focussing on the experience of Vietnamese refugees seeking asylum in Australia, following the fall of Saigon. The title refers to Article 14.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: ‘Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.’

The artist’s own history is deeply rooted in the refugee experience, and he pays respect to this heritage by occupying the gallery for the ten-day duration of the exhibition, while subsisting on the same meagre supplies his family survived on in their journey. Phuong Ngo, seated at a small table at the front of the gallery, quietly folds small origami boats from ‘Hell Bank Notes’, a form of paper currency that is traditionally burnt as an offering to the dead. The audience are invited to remove their shoes and sit at one of eight red tables.

On each table a short video loops on a tablet, demonstrating the art of making the paper boats. Visitors are invited to fold their own boats while listening to recordings of refugees’ intensely personal stories of their journey to a new life in Australia. The origami boats will be burnt at a ceremony on May 11; the stories are moving and intimate. In one, we hear of a refugee, then 17 years old, who tried on twenty separate occasions to escape by boat. Only three times did he actually board, with his money usually stolen by scammers who then notified authorities of his attempt to flee, resulting in him being jailed. In another, we hear of a parent’s sleepless nights before deciding to make a dangerous journey with a five-year-old child.Sadly, we also hear the untold stories of those that didn’t make the journey.

The act of folding the small, paper boats creates a deep sense of communion with refugees’ stories as they are told. The artist has cleverly engaged the audience in this meditative act, busying the hands while the mind is focussed solely on these compelling tales of hope and loss. Much like how sharing a meal can allow difficult conversation to flow, involving the audience in this simple, shared act breaks down the barriers between the subject, the artwork and the viewer. Paradoxically, the mind is distracted so that the story may be heard. The design of the performance space also plays its role, with the red tables, stools and rugs channelling the warmth of community and family, universal themes in the refugee story.

Phuong Ngo has created a vital reminder that such rights do not apply to particular groups, countries or peoples as a whole, but to mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, who each have their own important story to tell. This performance seamlessly melds recorded narrative and performance into a compelling exploration of the refugee experience.

Precedent works related to current performance proposal 3/5

One Year Performance 1980-1981 (Time Clock Piece) - Tehching Hsieh

For one year, from 11 April 1980 through 11 April 1981, Tehching Hsieh punched a time clock every hour on the hour. Each time he punched the clock, he took a single picture of himself with a 16mm movie camera, which together yield a 6-minute film animation. He shaved his head before the piece, so his growing hair reflects the passage of time. Taiwanese-born performance artist subjected himself to an extraordinary ordeal of sleep deprivation in a relentless quest to investigate the nature of time and methodically observe time’s passing.

One Year Performance 1980-1981, which opened at Sydney’s Carriageworks on Tuesday, displays the documentary evidence of that work: 365 punch cards, 365 film strips, showing an increasingly long-haired and bleary-eyed Hsieh, the plain grey uniform he wore, a 16mm movie he made, compressing the year into six minutes, witness statements attesting to his strict routine and the time clock.

For Hsieh, Time Clock Piece — as the work documented in the Carriageworks installation is informally known — recalls the labours of Sisyphus, who, in Greek mythology, was forced to roll a rock repeatedly up a mountain, only to watch it fall down again. And while it may seem to convey a message about the tedium and conformity of industrial labour, he tells Guardian Australia he is “not a political artist, although people are at liberty to interpret my work from a political standpoint … I’m interested in the universal circumstances of human life”.

Time is the common thread running through the five one-year performances, all of which involved extreme physical and psychological challenges. For Cage Piece, Hsieh spent 12 months in near-solitary confinement in a cage he built in his studio, furnished only with a bed, a blanket, a sink and a pail, banned (by himself) from talking, reading, writing, listening to the radio or watching TV.

All have been intensely personal projects, probing questions of existence and the human condition. For Time Clock, Hsieh — who was an illegal immigrant during his first 14 years in the US, jumping ship in 1974 from an oil tanker in Philadelphia — set himself the task of never sleeping or leaving his studio for more than 59 minutes. “It was like being in limbo, just waiting for the next punch,” he recalls.

Shaving his head at the outset, and photographing himself each time he punched the clock, he missed just 133 clock-ins, mostly because of sleeping through, despite arming himself with an especially loud alarm clock. The single frames he shot with a movie camera later became the film, in which each day is compressed into one second.

Precedent works related to current performance proposal 4/5

While Nothing Happens - Ernesto Neto

Tubes of Lycra netting filled with spices hang from a glass ceiling in a soft sculpture called ‘While nothing Happens’ by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto. The aromatic socks are suspended from the glass ceiling at the Macro Hall gallery in Rome, Italy. The interactive installation was designed to stir up memories of such things as travel and of one’s past. As visitors brush up against the spicy drops, some of which are only a few feet from the floor, the exotic fragrances mingle and fill the air.

Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto (Rio de Janiero, Brazil, 1964) He has adopted a new approach to the work, drawing on its visual appeal and alluring aromas, and making it a plastic place which, in its interaction with the gallery, offers visitors an intimate, meditative place to collect themselves. While Nothing Happens, is a fragrant, fluctuating installation suspended in the air and containing five ground, coloured spices: black pepper, cumin, cloves, ginger, and turmeric. Juxtaposing materials and spaces, colours and smells, Neto has created a work that calls on a viewer’s every sense, breaking down the distances between art and life, and creating “an art that unites and that helps us interact with others, showing us the limits, not as a wall but as a place of sensations, exchanges, and continuity.”

The piece was specially created for the macro hall in rome and forms a floating architecture as its hangs from the gallery’s glass roof. the piece hangs at its lowest one meter from the ground. ‘while nothing happens’ is made from a lycra netting which is filled with a variety of ground spices that form stalagmite like forms. the spices emit an aroma that is further enhanced by visitors interacting with the piece. the smell is designed to evoke memories as we interact with the sculpture.

Precedent works related to current performance proposal 5/5

Shrink - Lawrence Malstaf

The work of Lawrence Malstaf is situated on the borderline between the visual and the theatrical. He develops installation and performance art with a strong focus on movement, coincidence, order and chaos, and immersive sensorial rooms for individual visitors. He also creates larger mobile environments dealing with space and orientation, often using the visitor as a co-actor. His projects involve physics and technology as a point of departure or inspiration and as a means for activating installations. His work SHRINK consists of two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them, leaving the body vacuum-packed and suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Labour manifesto: transformation of the welfare system, fair conditions for workers, universal housing, home care for elderly, fully funded NHS, fair taxes for the rich

The Labour Party's 2020 Election Manifesto is out, and it promises a comprehensive reworking of the British state to benefit the vast majority of Britons, not the tiny minority who have waxed ever-richer through decades of neoliberalism and ten years of cruel Tory austerity.

The manifesto's pledges include:

* Scapping the Department of Work and Pensions and replacing it with a Department for Social Security, charged with a mission to "support people, not punish and police them." The new Department would scrap the "Work Capability and PIP Assessments, which repeatedly and falsely find ill or disabled people fit to work" as well as the practice of witholding benefits to sanction poor people who fail to comply with bureaucratic requirements. Labour will end the bedroom tax, lift the benefit cap and end the two-child limit.

* Support for parents of children with disabilities will be improved: disability benefits will be made level with the child tax credit, and the Carer's Allowance will be the same as the Jobseeker's Allowance

* Labour will ban zero-hours contracts and institute a minimum wage of £10/h. Firms will not be able to class their workers as independent contractors to evade these requirements, though the genuinely self-employed will still be able to enter into contractor relationships with their customers.

* Workers whose shifts are canceled at the last minute will be entitled to compensation; they will also be guaranteed breaks during their shifts.

* Labour will ban union-busting, scrap anti-union laws, and ensure that all workers have the right to join a union and participate in collective bargaining.

* Labour will build 100,000 public housing units, with many rented at a simple formula based on income that will be available to all people, not just poor people in need of subsidised housing; thus a large fraction of British housing provision will be removed from the market, shifting power from speculators to residents.

* Developers who do not build on land they own will face "use it or lose it" rules.

* Labour will end right-to-buy, ensuring public housing stocks are not drawn down through privatisation.

* Rent rises in the commercial rental sector will be capped at the rate of inflation, and the British state will subsidise renters' unions that defend tenants who are unfairly evicted.

* Landlords will be barred from excluding tenants based on immigration status or whether they are receiving benefits.

* 8,000 new homes will be built specifically for people with a history of rough sleeping.

* Councils will receive an additional £1b/year to help alleviate homelessness.

* Home care will be free for anyone over 65.

* The WASPI women will be fairly compensated.

* Labour will end the privatisation of the NHS and increase NHS funding by 4.3% annually. Prescriptions and dental care will be free, and the NHS will hire an additional 4,500 health visitors and school nurses, and receive and extra £1.6b for mental health care.

* Mexico will pay for it.

* Not really. Though the UK is a sovereign currency issuer that can never default on its debts, Labour promises to close tax loopholes exploited by the super-rich and multinational corporations to increase the amount of tax the state brings in by £100b.

Also in the manifesto: new standards for animal welfare and nature restoration, green transport, and a just transition to carbon-free energy.

There's a second Brexit referendum, community policing and cybersecurity, restorative justice and renewed Legal Aid funding, free nationwide broadband, additional funding for arts in schools, full funding for the BBC and other public service media, and a seat at the table for football supporters' trusts in the management of leagues and teams.

I am a member of the Labour Party and a donor to this electoral campaign. I am also a member of, and donor to, Momentum.

https://boingboing.net/2019/11/22/time-for-real-change.html

[johnjankovic1]

MASON-DIXON 2.0

The open revolt at the behest of Middle America against Wall Street’s day-traders and Silicon Valley’s coders was symptomatic of the brinkmanship across the political spectrum by Democrats and Republicans over many decades. The bipartisanship shown for indexes like the Dow Jones or the S&P 500 and its casual disregard for the tinderbox of America’s Rust-Belt between its unemployment and low wages as open immigration flood the labour market would together inaugurate Donald John Trump who himself became a kind of canary in the coal mine for the Brexit referendum and the West. To confound the measure of GDP with good governance was then shown to be a form of illiteracy for the income inequality, deindustrialization, and poverty rates of a country, nor was it right for demagogues of globalization to confuse less immigration with racist or nativist policy if it adds to wage growth by tightening labour markets. Because Washington DC is among the wealthiest zip-codes according to the US Census Bureau its insularity left it oblivious to the economic insecurities of ordinary Americans. Because the ruling-class is the paragon of dumb they thrashed about the epithet of white-nationalism to explain away populist ideas. Lost on the Establishment was how its own theology of neoliberal-economics was what stoked the ire of people.

Unless capitalism is under the ward of a competent watchman then it appears society will break as economics and culture are so often indivisible. This old wisdom recalls the 1861 Civil War which, like today’s redux feud, followed from manufacturers in the North and farmers to the South. Progressivism north of the Mason-Dixon Line in antebellum America was just and good in its cause to emancipate the Black race whose free labour enriched southern plantations. Ironically these roles of right and wrong between industries have flipped in today’s secularism of the coastal elite and the heartland: (1) Bank of America cut credit to gunsmiths in breach of their 2nd Amendment rights; (2) Delta Airline ceased discounts to law-abiding gun owners; (3) Procter & Gamble in its lunacy removed the Venus symbol from the livery of its tampons as transexuals now menstruate; (4) International airports banned the Christian eatery Chick-fil-A; (5) Nike monetized hatred for America’s flag; (6) Big-Tech deplatformed conservatives; (7) Gillette assailed men for their ‘toxic-masculinity’; (8) Goldman-Sachs divested from oil and gas; (9) Walmart added pronoun buttons of ‘he-she-they’ to store uniforms in conformity with new gender theories, etc. This cultural clash issues from a species of economic globalization that erases Christianity while it serves to belittle those who farm the nation’s breadbasket or who send their sons to die in wars like Afghanistan and Iraq.

While these same ideologues of the Washington Consensus from corporate America sneered at the country’s interior, unbeknownst to them was how their own cosmopolitan truths were being cannibalized. If Trumponomics is indeed the prejudice of white voters what explains socialism’s sudden popularity? Why are liberals sponsoring a doctrine whose tenets are similarly antithetical to free-markets and free-trade? To racialize the phenomenon does not square with a young and multiethnic demography which supports the notion of bigger government nor does the constant refrain of racism explain away the hostile takeover of the Democrat Party by the communist senator Bernie Sanders. The scapegoating of whites by the punditocracy is no longer tenable. What is happening suggests a rejection by the body-politic of an aristocracy which has made Washington the handmaiden to its business through an activism masquerading as philanthropy from a wealthy donor class. When equality of opportunity is defenestrated by means of offshored jobs, wage stagnation, or delayed family-formation from college debt then populism akin to the Right’s Tea Party or the Left’s Occupy Wall Street emerges to undo such market fundamentalism that has precipitated the loss of social mobility.

Passions like these from the electorate will not abate in the foreseeable future since Washington’s abstinence from interfering in markets has left the social fabric in a state of disrepair for two reasons: (1) If the goal of a market economy is to always increase productivity by rationalizing production then it has reached its logical endpoint; (2) A paradox has changed socialism into a luxury of affluence. Number one is the ouroboros nature of markets which discriminates against the sum of humanity through automation, self-driving autonomy, robotics, and 3D printing in blue-collar jobs, followed by Artificial Intelligence, machine-learning, and generative-design in white-collar ones, thus in time no worker is spared from the breadline regardless of IQ or education. Number two is the irony of how the democratization of wealth has led a younger demography to usher in a postmaterialist society through its sharing-gig economy which has become a precursor to socialism. Because Generations Y, Z, and A are the most privileged in the genealogy of civilization they have disavowed Christianity and capitalism in support of socialist policies to appease their own moral vanity after being reared in abundance for so long. The first’s Industry 4.0 and the second’s pampered existentialism ensure that today’s class warfare will not be ephemeral.

Voters of both liberal and conservative stripes have sought a buccaneer to agitate against Washington’s aristocracy whose blinders have ignored the socio-economic implications wrought by free-trade, deregulation, and open labour markets. As America’s GDP skyrocketed since the boom of the business cycle in the 1990s its Gini-Index steadily rose above the averages of other OECD countries. By itself such inequality would arouse some tepid indignation but next to America’s opulence, bailouts for the moral-hazard of banks, the globalization of production with fewer protections because of less unionization, and the two-fold increase of housing costs, a wick for a revolution was primed. Few parents of a household can feasibly raise their offspring in this new economy as mothers and fathers both enter the labour market to make ends meet. The dynamics of family-formation changed overnight as neoliberal-economics pushed birthrates downward and delayed it well past the peak fertility window for the majority of women. Whereas the decline in birthrates during the stagflation of the 1970s was monetary in its causality, today’s identical phenomenon results from a structural change in the global economy where two parents work full-time in half of US households compared with 31 percent in 1970 according to Pew Research.

The integration of economies by big-business with the forfeiture of sovereignty has marginalized the middle-class to the point of becoming a minority group for the first time in 2015. To compound a sense of being alienated this globalization substitutes a mosaic of culture bereft of any single identity for the melting-pot of assimilation which otherwise spurs unity as the true sinews of a nation rather than the many enclaves that sprout from a more heterogeneous society like in the former. Arguing in this case for a monoculture is not at all equivalent to arguing against race. The Christian West is indeed the most hospitable to expatriates despite how such humanity goes unrequited in places like China, Japan, or Iran since the US has been a sanctuary for migrants everywhere. But the sight of labour markets suddenly brimming with an influx of workers from recorded entries and illegal ones exacerbates the anxiety of those who are already beset with stagnant wages. Racist! Racist! Racist! No, you lying demagogue, it is economics. Slower growth provokes mistrust for variables which may suppress earnings further. Of these many grievances two were the bona fide genesis for today’s populism: (1) NAFTA and (2) China’s entry into the WTO. Big-business in the 1990s then began to exploit cheaper labour in Mexico’s maquiladoras and China’s export-economy at the expense of shuttering factories back home.

What has been shown is how free-trade at a certain threshold becomes inimical when imports which are either duty-free or minimally tariffed actually begin to redistribute wealth more so than create it. The most optimistic of studies authored on NAFTA found its welfare gains to be less than 0.08% in tandem with how wage growth fell by 17 percent in certain industries. Economist Dani Rodrik wrote a beautiful synopsis of this effect in ‘The Globalization Paradox’:

To drive the point home, I once quantified the ratio of redistribution-to-efficiency gains following the standard assumptions economists make when we present the case for free trade. The numbers I got were huge—so large in fact that I was compelled to redo the calculations several times to make sure I wasn’t making a mistake. For example, in an economy like the United States, where average tariffs are below 5 percent, a move to complete free trade would reshuffle more than $50 of income among different groups for each dollar of efficiency or “net” gain created! Read the last sentence again in case you went through it quickly: we are talking about $50 of redistribution for every $1 of aggregate gain. It’s as if we give $51 to Adam, only to leave David $50 poorer.

The asymmetry is nothing less than a paradox of tragicomic proportions. If opening markets beyond a certain limit shifts inordinate sums of money to the richest while inflicting penury on the poorest then a welfare state with a bevy of social safety nets ought to be established to keep an economy functional lest it devolve into a matter of Bolsheviks seizing power. The more capitalism is practiced, the more interference is needed unless the intended effect is for populism to be borne of a class conflict. The lesson here really is that free-markets need not be exercised to the point of self-destruction. From this quagmire can the philosophy of capitalism be distilled into two basic questions: (1) What are the hidden costs for creating a finance and digital economy which does not produce anything other than trading securities and codes all day while manufacturers are offshored? (2) Is the raison-d’être of capitalism to produce material things and comforts like imports from Mexico and China or is it to better an individual society by exploiting all human capital within it regardless of IQ or education? This existentialism is scarcely debated although it is paramount to ensure the proper workings of a country.

[christowill]

Senate Parties Described in 10 Words or Less

Sometimes party names are not a true reflection of what the party represents. To assist, I have put together a simple bias free guide to all registered parties (thanks to the ABC for the party list and Guardian for the state participation info). 

Affordable Housing Party: Ban Airbnb, phase out negative gearing, no overseas property investment (NSW)         

Animal Justice Party: Ban live exports. Voice for animals. Humans shouldn’t kill animals. (National)

Australian Better Families: Men’s rights party. Create a ‘minister for men’ (NSW, QLD, TAS)

Australian Christians: Christian values. “Civil government to be under the authority of God” (WA)

Australian Conservatives: Strong on family values and super strong borders (National)

Australian Democrats: Positioned as centre ground. Balance between sustainable environment and economy (NSW, SA, VIC)

Australian Labor Party: Attempting to balance social and economic progressiveness and electability (National)

Australian People's Party: Populist calling for common sense solutions. Tougher immigration laws (NSW)

Australian Workers Party: Fairness and social and economic justice. Protectionist economic policy (NSW, QLD, VIC) 

Centre Alliance: Formerly the ‘Nick Xenophon Team’. Centrist common sense party (SA)

Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group): Christian Values. If your values are Christian, they serve you. (NSW, ACT, VIC)

Citizens Electoral Council: Nationalise bank system and reversing 1980’s deregulation (NSW, QLD, VIC, WA, SA, NT)

Climate Action! Immigration Action! Accountable Politicians!: Formerly ‘Online Direct Democracy’. No policies. Online voting (NSW, QLD, VIC)

Democratic Labour Party: Socially conservative, economically progressive. Historically anti communist (NSW, QLD, VIC)

Derryn Hinch's Justice Party: Victim’s rights. Tougher prison sentences (VIC)

FRASER ANNING'S CONSERVATIVE NATIONAL PARTY: Wants English speaking, predominantly European Christian Country (National)

Health Australia Party: Opposes ‘no jab no play’ laws. Natural therapy advocates (NSW, VIC, WA)

Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party: Wants to help end marijuana prohibition on food, medicine, etc. (NSW, NT, QLD, SA, TAS, VIC, WA)

Independents For Climate Action Now: Make climate action national policy that is non partisan (NSW, QLD, VIC)

Involuntary Medication Objectors (Vaccination/Fluoride) Party: Right to refuse vaccinations (and other medication). No water fluoridation (NSW, QLD, WA)

Jacqui Lambie Network: Rights for troops and good old common sense (TAS)

Katter's Australian Party (KAP): Australian jobs by keeping things local. Privatisation = bad (QLD)

Liberal Party of Australia: Minimal government with emphasis on supporting strong private sector (National)

Liberal Democrats: Free Speech, low tax, libertarian folk. Less government (All except NT)

Love Australia or Leave: Stop the ‘Islamisation of Australia’. Strong defence, freedom of speech (NSW, QLD, TAS)

Pauline Hanson's One Nation: Freedoms as long as they align with ‘Australian values’ (All except NT and ACT)

Pirate Party: Government transparency, civil and digital liberties, participatory democracy (NSW, QLD, VIC, WA)

Republican Party of Australia: Wants an Australian to run the show, not a Queen or King (VIC)

Rise Up Australia Party: Everything Aussie is amazing! Love it or leave it vibe (NSW, QLD, VIC, NT)

Science Party: Data driven, rights based policy. Reason and scientific discovery (NSW)

Secular Party of Australia: An end to religious interference in politics (VIC)

Seniors United Party of Australia: Seniors rights esp. in Health, Care, Income and Housing (NSW)

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers: Guns for (law abiding) all. Likes outdoors stuff (All except NT, ACT)

Socialist Alliance: Championing all minority causes from Afghanistan to Youth -almost A-Z! (NSW, WA)

Socialist Equality Party: Trotskyist socialist party. End militarism and war. Workers rights (NSW, VIC)

Sustainable Australia: Australia doesn’t need more growth. Lower immigration (All except ACT) 

The Australian Mental Health Party: More inclusive society and more dignity in health issues (WA)

The Great Australian Party: No income tax, wants bank nationalisation, remove family court (NSW, QLD, VIC, WA, SA)

The Greens: Ecologically sustainable. Social justice. Everyone deserves a house (National)

The Nationals: Coalition partners of the Liberals. Regional Australia interests (National)

The Small Business Party: Small business owner rights. Reduce: Taxes, red tape, immigration (NSW, VIC)

The Together Party: Governing in the public interest. Socially progressive (NSW)

The Women's Party: Equal representation, ‘Women’s rights are human rights’. Change social structures (NSW)

United Australia Party: Populist, tax minimisation, regional wealth ownership (National)

VOTEFLUX.ORG | Upgrade Democracy!: Direct democracy using an app. Swap votes for different issues NSW, VIC, WA)

WESTERN AUSTRALIA PARTY: WA Rights. Wants their GST revenue back (WA)

Yellow Vest Australia: Wants to stop the Islamisation of Australia (WA)