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mariacallous · 22 days ago

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Immigration and economics loom large on the campaign trail and in the minds of voters, but America’s foreign entanglements could well decide the election.

The Democratic Party is desperately trying to keep debate about the conduct of Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon contained to an intramural row over policy, with marginal electoral impact. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s supporters are engaged in a concerted effort to exploit divisions within the Republican Party to defeat former President Donald Trump.

It’s unclear if either will succeed. But as a result, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza are having outsize impact on key blocs of voters in several swing states, according to voters and analysts interviewed by Rolling Stone.

While both the left and the right are divided over various aspects of foreign policy, the most notable gap between majority public opinion and a candidate’s position is with Trump and his antipathy toward Ukraine.

Despite the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine, Trump inexplicably said in a podcast released last week that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “should never have let that war start. That war is a loser.”

Such views may cost him the election against Vice President Kamala Harris.

“This is the most defining and potentially divisive political issue in the most consequential election in modern times,” says Paul Rieckhoff, a political activist who served in Iraq as a U.S. Army infantry officer, who describes himself as an independent. “I don’t know if there is a single issue where [Trump and Harris] are more clearly different than Ukraine.”

While statistical models that attempt to predict voter behavior have, perhaps, proven as close to pure science as ornithomancy or astrology, it is clear that this election — like all others for decades — will be decided in a handful of swing states, likely by the narrowest of margins.

In some of those states, voters who in the pre-Trump era formed the moderate Republican center are now abandoning their party’s candidate — and they are doing so over Ukraine.

“Ninety percent of it is because of his ridiculous foreign policy,” says John Feltz, a 58-year-old software engineer in Michigan. Feltz says he is a Republican who refuses to vote for Trump. “He has no discernible principle that I can see, and that’s what the Republican party used to have: principles.”

The vice president’s campaign is pouring resources into attracting voters like Feltz, particularly in Pennsylvania. Last week, Harris began a tour of the battleground state aimed at disaffected Republican voters. She’s particularly hoping to attract backers of former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, whose long-shot bid to secure the GOP nomination showcased her hawkish foreign policy views.

During the only presidential debate between Harris and Trump, held in Philadelphia in September, the vice president took aim at a bellwether group particularly motivated by the war in Ukraine: Polish-Americans.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland,” Harris told Trump. “And why don’t you tell the 800,000 Polish-Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up, for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship — with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch?”

Democrats view Ukraine as an effective lever to move swing-state voters as the issue hits a nerve with many moderate Republicans. Trump’s stance on the war finds resistance even in the deep red South.

Alan Nummy, a 57-year-old EMT from Elmore County, Alabama, says he voted Republican all his life, including for Trump in 2016 and 2020 ��with reservations.” This year, Nummy says he “can’t hold his nose any longer,” and will write in “Nikki Haley” in November because of Trump’s lack of commitment on helping Ukraine and “kicking Russia’s butt.”

“I’m probably 90 percent in line with the policies of his administration, maybe even higher than that,” the Biloxi native assures Rolling Stone. “But I can’t vote for him now because he will not commit to assisting a nation in destroying one of the two largest political enemies of the U.S. — China’s number one, Russia’s number two.”

Ukraine is an obvious vector of attack, because it is an issue where Trump is at odds with the general electorate.

More than 62 percent of Americans say their sympathies lie with Ukraine — including 76 percent of Democrats, but also 58 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of independents, according to research by the University of Maryland.

According to the same study, the number of Americans comfortable supporting Ukraine for “as long as it takes” has been increasing — from 38 percent in March 2023 to 48 percent in August. A separate study by the University of Chicago and The Associated Press conducted in mid-September shows that people who think the U.S. is providing “too much” support to Ukraine has dropped from 52 percent last year, to 34 percent this year — 60 percent think the aid is “too little” or “the right amount.”

Contrast this with Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas and subsequent war in Gaza, where Americans are far more divided. According to the University of Chicago poll, when asked which party they most sympathized with, 25 percent said Israel and 15 percent said the Palestinians — 31 percent are sympathetic to “both equally,” while 26 percent to “neither.”

Further data from the Institute for Global Affairs, a research nonprofit attached to the risk consultancy firm Eurasia Group, indicates regardless of political affiliation, 22 percent of Americans believe the U.S. should end military support for Israel, while 23 percent think it should support Israel unconditionally. The rest of Americans want to see continued military support, but with conditions attached: 34 percent with a cease-fire, and 21 percent dependent on humanitarian aid access.

This lack of consensus on Israel-Palestine is why it has been easy for Harris to simply dodge tough questions about U.S. policy toward the conflict. Her opponent’s other faults — specifically his racism and anti-Muslim bigotry — help explain why it is difficult for motivated Democrats who support Palestine to categorically reject their party’s nominee: They want a shift in policy, not a Trump victory.

“We’re asking for her to commit to enforcing our laws, our international laws on friend and foe alike, which is what we do to Ukraine, which is what we do to everybody else,” Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian-American who serves on Georgia’s state legislature, told NPR on the outskirts of the DNC in Chicago in August. “And that continues to be, and has been, the ask all the time.”

Still, rifts are growing over the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Arab-Americans, who make up an influential voting bloc in the swing state of Michigan that has traditionally supported Democrats, are now evenly divided on their preferred candidate, according to data from the Arab American Institute.

“In our thirty years of polling Arab-American voters, we have not witnessed anything like the role that the war on Gaza is having on voter behavior,” James Zogby, president of the organization, wrote. “The year-long unfolding genocide in Gaza has impacted every component sub-group within the community.”

History suggests voters motivated by Gaza may find little daylight between the two candidates after the election. Trump — who in 2017 recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — is fond of claiming, “I did more for Israel than anybody,” and has shown little sympathy toward the Palestinian cause. But while the Biden administration — and by extension the Harris campaign — has at times quietly leaked criticism of Israel’s actions, it has displayed little interest in going to the mat with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over humanitarian aid access or withholding military assistance.

Unlike Gaza, where the two parties differ mostly in how they talk about supporting Israel, there is a deep divergence on Ukraine policy — and that extends to within the Republican Party between MAGA loyalists and GOP hawks.

While most Republicans supported Ukraine at the beginning of the war, as the presidential campaign accelerated so too did discontent with U.S. policy. That’s evident in research showing half of Republicans now think Washington is supplying “too much” aid to Ukraine.

That split has forced GOP politicians to voice mealy-mouthed reservations about aid, primarily focusing on the monetary cost.

“I don’t have an appetite for further Ukraine funding, and I hope it’s not necessary,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) said recently. “If President Trump wins, I believe that he actually can bring that conflict to a close … I think he’ll call Putin and tell him that this is enough.”

Trump running mate J.D. Vance, who in 2022 declared “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” has embraced a skeptical role in line with Trump when it comes to Kyiv.

“The problem here vis-à-vis Ukraine is, America doesn’t make enough weapons, Europe doesn’t make enough weapons, and that reality is far more important than American political will or how much money we print and then send to Europe,” Vance said in a visit to the Munich Security Conference in February, where he skipped a meeting with Zelensky, the Ukrainian president.

After becoming Trump’s vice presidential candidate, Vance clarified his stance, describing to an interviewer in September his vision for an end to the war: “What it probably looks like is the current line of demarcation between Russia and Ukraine, that becomes like a demilitarized zone.”

Trump, meanwhile, has promised to end the war “in 24 hours” if he is elected — although he hasn’t provided specific details. But such musings throw into sharp focus his history of undermining Ukraine’s security for personal political advantage.

In 2019, Trump tried to pressure newly inaugurated Zelensky to investigate a number of conspiracies and tie them to Joe Biden, threatening to withhold military aid if he did not. A phone call in which Trump made the demands was reported by a whistleblower on the National Security Council, and it formed the core of his first impeachment effort — an attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss resulted in the second.

While the House approved two articles of impeachment, Trump was acquitted by the Senate over the Ukraine affair in a February 2020 vote that split along party lines — with Sen. Mitt Romney being the sole Republican to break with his colleagues. Four-and-a-half years later, and the sordid episode continues to lurk in the background, adding to an uncomfortable atmosphere when Trump met Zelensky last month in New York City.

“We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin. And I think if we win, we’re going to get it resolved very quickly,” Trump said in a press conference ahead of the meeting.

“I hope we have more good relations between us,” was Zelensky’s tepid response.

The stench of the Ukraine affair permeates Trump’s legacy on foreign affairs — especially given his repeated and consistent praise of Putin, such as calling the dictator “savvy” and a “genius” on the eve of the 2022 invasion.

Such statements, and Trump’s affinity for a dictator responsible for starting a war that may have already killed more than half a million people, embarrass many Republicans. They also provide fodder for his opponents within the GOP.

“Trump is siding with a dictator who kills his political opponents,” Haley said in South Carolina while still running for the Republican nomination. “Trump sided with an evil man, over our allies who stood with us on 9/11.”

Haley has, of course, ultimately kissed the ring and closed ranks behind Trump. But not every Republican is ready to cast aside principles for their party’s candidate.

Republican Voters Against Trump, a Super PAC started by a group of GOP dissidents and funded by the billionaire venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, has churned out ads and social media posts featuring Republicans talking about Ukraine.

“Why I am extremely against Trump now is his position in Ukraine,” says one ad featuring a voter in Georgia identified as Nikita, a Ukrainian American. “I’m doing everything in my power to make sure he doesn’t get elected.”

The Super PAC’s founder, Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, says it is spending as much as $45 million to persuade “center-right voters, right-leaning, independent, soft GOP voters, to vote against Trump.”

While such groups are focused on siphoning votes away from the former president, some of Ukraine’s supporters are hedging their bets. They hope to bring the Republican Party back into line with majority opinion, and to do so they are taking aim at two traditionally conservative demographics: veterans and evangelical Christians.

“Republicans by and large support Ukraine. The question you really have to ask is: ‘Who does not support Ukraine?’” says Rieckhoff, who hosts a podcast called Independent Americans and has a long history of political activism. In 2012, Rolling Stone included him in a list of “Leaders Who Get Things Done.”

“People need to understand that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump are in a very radical minority that undermines American national security,” he adds.

The nonprofit Rieckhoff founded in 2004 — Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, more commonly known as IAVA — was essential to the passage of the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, which paid for Vance’s undergraduate studies at Ohio State University. Earlier this year Rieckhoff helped start a new group: American Veterans for Ukraine, or AVU. The goal is to shape American policy toward Ukraine.

“This is the same crew who tried to get people out of Iraq, and out of Afghanistan. It’s a veteran’s Underground Railroad … We want to use our skills and our networks to support and defend democracy,” he says. Although the U.S. has provided billions of dollars in aid to Kyiv and “there is significant philanthropy helping people in Ukraine,” he says, “there is comparatively very little advocacy and lobbying.”

He thinks the lack of behind-the-scenes politicking created the crisis earlier this year, when for nearly six months Republicans in Congress blocked the provision of military aid to Ukraine, taking a cue from Trump.

The former president and his acolytes in Congress were vocal in opposing more money for Kyiv. Despite the dire warnings of the national security and foreign policy establishment, the aid was blocked — with disastrous effects for Ukraine’s defense.

It wasn’t until Johnson met a Ukrainian evangelical named Serhiy Haidarzhy in April that the newly minted speaker of the House experienced a Damascene conversion over aid. With Johnson’s backing, Republicans swept away the opposition of MAGA militants, approving a $61 billion Ukraine funding package in a bipartisan show of force.

That meeting with Johnson wasn’t accidental. Ukraine is actively courting America’s conservative Christian right in the hope of strengthening its bulwark of Republican support should Trump regain power in November.

“Speaker Johnson is a great example. He voted nine out of nine times against Ukraine as a rank-and-file member of Congress. The intelligence briefings gave him the intellectual information to support Ukraine. When he met the Ukrainian evangelicals we brought over, it gave him an emotional and spiritual connection to Ukraine,” says Steven Moore, a 55-year-old GOP operative and Tulsa native, who worked on Capitol Hill for seven years as a Congressional aide — including as chief of staff for former Rep. Pete Roskam, an Illinois Republican.

Moore has a perspective unlike that of most Beltway insiders: After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he moved to Kyiv and started a nonprofit — one of hundreds of foreigners conducting such grassroots efforts, of varying quality and accountability, that contribute aid to Ukraine’s war effort.

Although he is not a registered lobbyist, he now spends his time networking and connecting Republicans with counterparts in Kyiv. He also works to raise funds for his Ukraine Freedom Project, shooting videos featuring military equipment and sending them to Rotary Clubs across America.

Such outreach is important, Moore says, because “what we find is that for the most part, when you give conservatives accurate information about Ukraine, they come to support Ukraine’s fight for its freedom. Unfortunately, it is difficult to compete with the massive Russian propaganda effort.”

Despite Trump’s claims he can end the war by calling up Putin, any peace deal is outside the power of an American president to accomplish without the cooperation of Ukraine. Ensuring that Kyiv’s calls are picked up in Washington regardless of which candidate sits in the White House is why Ukraine has been trying to build bridges to the GOP.

“I do not see anything surprising if Ukraine is looking for support in all directions,” says Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of the Verkhovna Rada — Ukraine’s parliament — who is outspoken on foreign affairs.

“Maybe we could have done more, maybe there were mistakes, both with the Republicans and with the Democrats,” concedes Goncharenko. “Our country does not have much experience in promoting itself at such a level. But we welcome the support of the U.S., especially when it comes from both [parties].”

Connecting with American evangelicals has been central to Ukraine’s outreach, as they make up an influential segment of Republicans.

To this end, Zelensky’s government has sought to highlight Russia’s persecution of evangelicals and other religious minorities in the occupied territories under its control. Putin’s regime has kidnapped, tortured, jailed, and even murdered non-Orthodox Christians, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses — regarded as “religious extremists” by Moscow — solely because of their faith, according to findings by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan agency that monitors religious freedom worldwide.

In newly conquered territories in Ukraine, Protestants have paid a terrible price, Moore says, especially evangelical Baptists, who have been singled out for persecution by the Russian military as “American spies.”

“More than half of Republicans identify as evangelical Christians, and 70 percent of evangelical Christians who vote Republican are more likely to support Ukraine when you tell them that Russia is torturing and oppressing Ukrainians like them for their faith,” Moore asserts.

The Zelensky administration has even gone so far as to hold a “National Prayer Breakfast,” similar to the one established in the U.S. in 1953.

The American original is a fixture for Beltway insiders, where global movers and shakers rub shoulders in an informal milieu with U.S. lawmakers, who themselves are keen to be seen by evangelicals as visibly straddling the line between church and state. With as many as 3,500 attendees each year, the event is a clearinghouse for influence-peddling.

When the Zelensky administration decided to begin a similar tradition in Ukraine, GOP activists like Moore hoped it would succeed in attracting the conservative Christian right — and it did.

Rolling Stone attended Ukraine’s first National Prayer Breakfast in June, joined by Zelensky and hundreds of people from multiple religious denominations.

The opening speeches were followed by a prerecorded video address from Speaker Johnson and — much to the surprise of the audience — former Vice President Mike Pence.

Pence’s face suddenly materialized on an array of screens set up around the breakfast hall, his snow-white hair and cold, resolute glare staring out from his pale features. Trump’s former VP delivered a speech praising Ukrainians for their “courage,” reminding the audience of the sacrifices made so that “the blue-and-gold flag still waves over the skies of Ukraine,” as attendees tucked in to their breakfasts and chatted amongst themselves.

“Thank you all for standing with Ukraine … May God bless the people of Ukraine, and freedom-loving people everywhere,” Pence concluded.

Trump’s supporters, of course, erected a gallows and noose while chanting “Hang Mike Pence” during a riot on Jan. 6, 2021, forcing the then-vice president to flee the Capitol.

So while it is unlikely that Pence’s presence at Ukraine’s National Prayer Breakfast persuaded any Trump die-hards to change their vote, the hope was his presence might help convert less extreme conservative skeptics to Kyiv’s cause. And the effort poured into the event shows that when it comes to a new administration’s policy toward Ukraine — whomever is in the White House — its supporters know victory counts on a lot more than November ballots, or even thoughts and prayers.

#ukraine adding trump's campaign to its kill count would be so great #ukraine saying 'До побачення' to Trump would be poetic justice

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womenaremypriority · 5 months ago

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This is very interesting. Trigger warning for rape, specifically of children.

In the city of Makeni, a three-hour drive east of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, a young mother sits outside her home with her three-year-old daughter.

Anita, which is not her real name, describes the day in June 2023 when she found her toddler with blood dripping from her nappy.

"I worked for this woman, and she gave me an errand that Saturday morning to go to the market," she says, explaining that she then left her child with her employer and her 22-year-old son.

"He took my child, he said, to buy sweets and biscuits for her. It was a lie."

When she got back, she realised her daughter was missing. After searching for her for some time, they were reunited but the 22-year-old mother could see that the toddler was bleeding. She took her to the hospital and after two rounds of stitches, it was confirmed she had been raped.

"The nurses began checking the child, and they said: 'Oh my God, what has this man done to this child?' The doctor who was treating my child even cried."

Anita went to the police but the man fled and a year on the police have not been able to find him.

"The president created a law so that whoever rapes children, should be arrested and sent to jail," she says, angry that nothing appears to have been done.

She is referring to a tougher sexual offences law created five years ago after President Maada Bio declared the emergency over rape.

It followed protests in December 2018 when hundreds of people wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Hands off our girls" marched through Freetown.

News of another child rape had shocked the nation - a five-year-old girl who was left paralysed from the waist down. It was reported at the time that cases of sexual violence had almost doubled within a year, a third involving children. Sierra Leoneans had had enough.

The four-month long state of emergency from February 2019 allowed the president to divert state resources into tackling sexual violence.

An updated Sexual Offences Act brought in stricter penalties for sexual assault.

Rape sentences were increased to a minimum of 15 years, or life if it involved a child. A Sexual Offences Model Court to fast-track trials was created in Freetown the following year.

There appears to have been some progress - reported cases of sexual and gender-based violence have gone down by almost 17%, from just over 12,000 in 2018 to just over 10,000 in 2023, according to police statistics.

Creating increased awareness and new structures is one thing, but making sure that people, like Anita's daughter, get justice is another.

The Rainbo Initiative is a national charity that works with survivors of sexual violence. It says that in 2022 just 5% of the 2,705 cases it handled made it to the High Court.

One of the issues is the resources available to those who are supposed to enforce the law.

At the police station in Makeni where Anita reported her daughter's rape, Assnt Supt Abu Bakarr Kanu who leads the Family Support Unit (FSU) says they get around four cases of child sexual assault each week.

The big challenge his team faces is a lack of transport to physically go and arrest suspects.

He co-ordinates all seven police divisions in the region and between them they do not have a single vehicle.

"There are times the suspect is available but because of lack of vehicles you can't reach that suspect to arrest him or her," says Assnt Supt Kanu.

"Doing the right thing at the right time is a challenge."

Like many in Sierra Leone, he was impressed with the government action that followed the state of emergency.

"We have enough… good laws and policy, but the structure and personnel are the challenge for us to holistically address the issues of sexual and gender-based violence in Sierra Leone."

Even if an alleged perpetrator is apprehended, to get them before a judge is an even bigger struggle.

In order for the case against a rape suspect to be heard, there is only one person in the country who can sign the documents - the attorney general. It was meant to speed up the process and get the cases straight to the courts, but it has created a different bottle-neck.

"Presently it is not possible to have any other law officer or any other counsel to sign an indictment for sexual-related offences," says State Counsel Joseph AK Sesay, a lawyer employed by the government.

"The 2019 amendment stipulates that it is only the attorney general that can rightly sign an indictment. So that has been posing a challenge when it comes to getting the indictments to courts."

Information Minister Chernor Bah admits this is not a perfect process but says it is "a process that we'll continue to improve on".

Challenged on the question that many believe little has changed when it comes to getting justice for rape survivors, he acknowledged that "in some communities people feel that way".

But he rejects the idea that there has been no progress.

"I think the systemic reforms that we've put in place are there. The new laws are there. And those steps, I think, have led to the overall feeling that we're not in the deep, dark days of 2019."

For Anita, back in Makeni, it has been nearly a year since her toddler was raped.

She has had no new information from the police, so has resorted to posting the alleged suspect's photo on Facebook.

"I want people to help me search for the boy. I'm tormented and I am not happy. What has happened to my child, I don't want it to happen to any other child."

#my post #those poor girls #feminism #radblr #radfem #rape culture #grooming #sierra leone #africa #bbc news

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whencyclopedia · 2 months ago

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Embattled Nation: Canada's Wartime Election of 1917

In the midst of one of the most turbulent periods in Canada’s history, Patrice Dutil and David Mackenzie delve into what they deem as the most significant and tumultuous elections since confederation. Their work, 'Embattled Nation: Canada’s Wartime Election of 1917 ', meticulously explores the 1917 election between Conservative leader Sir Robert Borden and the Liberal opposition of Sir Wilfred Laurier.

Patrice Dutil and David MacKenzie provide a detailed and well-researched account of Canada's political and social landscape during World War I, focusing on the 1917 election and the issue of conscription. The book is commendable for its extensive use of evidence and meticulous documentation of events, offering readers a thorough understanding of the period's complexities. Their use of diary entries and personal accounts from Borden, Laurier, and those around them gives a sense of authenticity to the events being described. The book also provides a thorough context for the period with extensive maps, statistics, election information, and statistics of the war effort that effectively paint the scene of 1917. Finally, this book helpfully contextualizes the existing linguistic and cultural divides between French and English Canada which would aid readers greatly in future discussions.

However, despite its solid evidentiary foundation, the book falls short in convincingly arguing that the 1917 election was the most contentious in Canadian history and that it nearly saw the collapse of the confederation. The authors emphasize the deep divisions between English and French Canadians and describe how conscription became a central and divisive issue. Yet, they also acknowledge that there was majority support for the Union government and conscription, which complicates their argument about the election nearly breaking up the country.

Portraying the election as a moment that almost led to the dissolution of Canada seems somewhat overstated. While the authors provide ample evidence of French-Canadian opposition and the resulting social unrest, they do not fully reconcile this with the broader national support for the Union government and the conscription policy. This oversight weakens their central thesis about the election's unparalleled contentiousness. While it is true that perhaps this election did deepen the divide between French and English Canada, it did not do so to the extent to which one could say that the country was near collapse, at least not with the way this book presented its evidence.

While it is true, by the provided evidence, that much of French Canada vehemently opposed conscription, they did not oppose the country as a whole, with a referendum to succeed, having only marginal support and never actually making it to a vote on the Quebec parliamentary floor. There were indeed protests and riots during the time. Still, they were fed by feelings of alienation and betrayal by the Borden government, not the Confederation, with Laurie receiving much support from French Canada. It is accurate to say that both the Liberal and Conservative governments were almost torn apart, yet, in the end, both parties survived relatively unscathed under the united leadership of Laurier and Borden, respectively.

Patrice Dutil is a Professor in Toronto Metropolitan University's Politics and Public Administration Department while David Mackenzie is a Professor in the university's History Department. Overall, Embattled Nation is a valuable resource for understanding the political dynamics of wartime Canada and the cultural rift between English and French Canadians. It provides an often unexplored context to the First World War in Canada, giving insight into the French-English divide, one of Canada's most prevailing conflicts. To understand the impacts of the First World War on Canada, one must first understand how the war impacted the home front. However, its assertion that the 1917 election was the most divisive in Canadian history could have been more convincingly articulated, given the authors' admissions of widespread support for the Union government and conscription from a majority part of the Country. Perhaps refining the thesis to focus more on the French-English connection rather than the election itself with an increased focus on the protests and riots would make for an overall more convincing argument. Meanwhile, it is accurate to say that the 1917 election was pushed by issues surrounding conscription; the election itself was fairly unanimous thanks to the political maneuvering by the Borden government. With more focus on those aspects and a closer examination of the reactions to said maneuverings, the argument that this period in Canadian history was the most tumultuous becomes more evident and more convincing.

#History #1917 #Canada #CanadianHistory

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pedropascalunofficial · 1 year ago

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Why aren't you speaking up about the vile fans that are harassing Pedro, his friends and family. I am devastated that no one has put these fake fans in their place. I thought you of all people would.

I must preface this by mentioning that I'm Irish. We're biased on this issue. We have had help to find relative peace after years of division and terrorism. We are all too aware of how lucky we now are.

Why arent I speaking about the "vile fans" that are harrassing Pedro?

I report the twats in this fandom who he can't see pulling bullshit that affects his and his friends' personal lives so they can better protect themselves from it. I only call them out publicly when their bullshit over flows into my life.

Fans asking Pedro to call for a ceasefire are not pulling bullshit.

They're commenting on his replies to posts because they are frustrated by his silence on an issue that WILL affect all of our lives, and their passion is showing in disruptive ways that aren't to everyones taste. Replying to his comments is futile, but please don't shame people for trying to act in a time of desperation. Do I like it? No. Will it change his opinion? Probably not.

Their timelines are full of images of dead children, injured children being pulled from rubble to be labelled WCNSF (Wounded child. No surviving family), kidnapped people or murdered families. They're willing him to call out the same issues that the United Nations and many other governments are because people have lost their humanity.

We all know he used to love sounding off about political issues in support of the underdog but Pedro has been quiet since the Gina episode. Whether he would be in the right or not on political issues, Disney and Lucasfilm will not take kindly to him creating any controversy.

However much I would love to see him asking for a ceasefire, it isn't going to happen for a multitude of reasons. He's not going to be the person we tell him to be. He has free will. We must respect that. We need to manage our expectations with regards to what we see as the role of celebrities in political issues. It isn't in their job description and they usually fuck it up and the noise caused from that drowns out the credible sources trying to break through.

And yes, I've noticed how fake some of the fans are. The phrase "you're doing great girl" comes to mind. (Bless that man's sassy interactions with fair weather fans) Some are posting about his sexuality in the same cycle of stories as calls for him to denounce war crimes. It's completely fucked up.

Oh, and holding his fucking stalkers up as if they're the beacons of hope around here?! Those delusional psychos only posted saying they wouldn't talk about the gala AFTER ppl threatened to call them out if they posted about it. Never fall for their clout chasing bullshit! Their only motivation is social engagement, not the future of humanity. You can tell coz when they aren't virtue signalling, they're dehumanising a man for likes.

Since you've read this far..... if Pedro can't/won't speak, we can. Share international news outlets! Share factual information from countries who aren't financially supporting the war! Seek it out. Share it. Some people still haven't seen the full story. Some are choosing to pretend there aren't humans involved on both sides. Some are keeping quiet for personal reasons. Some because their employer will fire them or sue them for speaking out.

If any fans have questions around the issue of asking for a ceasefire and denouncing the current war crimes before the whole world descends in to a sea of international incidents of domestic terrorism at the request of Hezbollah and Iran, supported by Russian government, giving China the opportunity to fucking go to town, please feel free to educate yourselves below.

THE UNITED NATIONS HAS CALLED FOR A CEASEFIRE

BASIC BREAKDOWN OF STATISTICS (Nov 7, 2023)

PODCASTS THAT EXPLAIN THE IMPLICATIONS AND HISTORY OF THIS CONFLICT

NEWS OUTLETS

An IG account that gives me hope

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#pedro pascal #pedro pascal fandom

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dailyanarchistposts · 2 months ago

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I.5.1 What are participatory communities?

A key concept in anarchist thought is that of the participatory community. Traditionally, these participatory communities are called communes in anarchist theory (“The basic social and economic cell of the anarchist society is the free, independent commune” [A. Grachev, quoted by Paul Avrich, The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, p. 64]).

The reason for the use of the term commune is due to anarchism’s roots in France where it refers to the lowest level of administrative division in the Republic. In France, a commune can be a city of 2 million inhabitants (hence the Paris Commune of 1871); a town of 10,000; or just a 10-person hamlet. It appeared in the 12th century from Medieval Latin communia, which means a gathering of people sharing a common life (from Latin communis, things held in common). Proudhon used the term to describe the social units of a non-statist society and subsequent anarchists like Bakunin and Kropotkin followed his lead. As the term “commune”, since the 1960s, often refers to “intentional communities” where people drop out of society and form their own counter-cultural groups and living spaces we have, in order to avoid confusion, decided to use “participatory community” as well (anarchists have also used other terms, including “free municipality”).

These community organisations are seen as the way people participate in the decisions that affect them and their neighbourhoods, regions and, ultimately, planet. These are the means for transforming our social environment from one disfigured by economic and political power and its needs to one fit for human beings to life and flourish in. The creation of a network of participatory communities (“communes”) based on self-government through direct, face-to-face democracy in grassroots neighbourhood assemblies is the means to that end. As we argued in section I.2.3 such assemblies will be born in social struggle and so reflect the needs of the struggle and those within it so our comments here must be considered as generalisations of the salient features of such communities and not blue-prints.

Within anarchist thought, there are two main conceptions of the free commune. One vision is based on workplace delegates, the other on neighbourhood assemblies. We will sketch each in turn.

The first type of participatory community (in which “the federative Alliance of all working men’s associations … will constitute the commune”) is most associated with Bakunin. He argued that the “future social organisation must be made solely from the bottom upwards, by the free association or federation of workers, firstly in their unions, then in communes, regions, nations and finally in a great federation, international and universal.” [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170 and p. 206] This vision was stressed by later anarchist thinkers. For example, Spanish anarchist Issac Puente thought that in towns and cities “the part of the free municipality is played by local federation … Ultimate sovereignty in the local federation of industrial unions lies with the general assembly of all local producers.” [Libertarian Communism, p. 27] The Russian anarchist G. P. Maximoff saw the “communal confederation” as being “constituted by thousands of freely acting labour organisations.” [The Program of Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 43]

This vision of the commune was created during many later revolutions (such as in Russia in 1905 and 1917 as well as Hungary in 1956). Being based on workplaces, this form of commune has the advantage of being based on groups of people who are naturally associated during most of the day (Bakunin considered workplace bodies as “the natural organisation of the masses” as they were “based on the various types of work” which “define their actual day-to-day life” [The Basic Bakunin, p. 139]). This would facilitate the organisation of assemblies, discussion on social, economic and political issues and the mandating and recalling of delegates. Moreover, it combines political and economic power in one organisation, so ensuring that the working class actually manages society.

Other anarchists counterpoise neighbourhood assemblies to workers’ councils. These assemblies will be general meetings open to all citizens in every neighbourhood, town, and village, and will be the source of public policy for all levels of confederal co-ordination. Such “town meetings” will bring people directly into the political process and give them an equal voice in the decisions that affect their lives. Such anarchists point to the experience of the French Revolution of 1789 and the “sections” of the Paris Commune as the key example of “a people governing itself directly — when possible — without intermediaries, without masters.” It is argued, based on this experience, that “the principles of anarchism … dated from 1789, and that they had their origin, not in theoretical speculations, but in the deeds of the Great French Revolution.” [Peter Kropotkin, The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 210 and p. 204] Anarchists also point to the clubs created during the 1848 Revolution in France and in the Paris Commune of 1871 not to mention the community assemblies created in Argentina during the revolt against neo-liberalism at the start of the 21st century.

Critics of workers’ councils point out that not all people work in traditional workplaces (many are parents who look after children, for example). By basing the commune around the workplace, such people are automatically excluded. Moreover, in most modern cities many people do not live near where they work. It would mean that local affairs could not be effectively discussed in a system of workers’ councils as many who take part in the debate are unaffected by the decisions reached. In addition, some anarchists argue that workplace based systems automatically generate “special interests” and so exclude community issues. Only community assemblies can “transcend the traditional special interests of work, workplace, status, and property relations, and create a general interest based on shared community problems.” [Murray Bookchin, From Urbanisation to Cities, p. 254]

However, such communities assemblies can only be valid if they can be organised rapidly in order to make decisions and to mandate and recall delegates. In the capitalist city, many people work far from where they live and so such meetings have to be called for after work or at weekends (thus the key need is to reduce the working day/week and to communalise industry). For this reason, many anarchists continue to support the workers’ council vision of the commune, complemented by community assemblies for those who live in an area but do not work in a traditional workplace (e.g. parents bringing up small children, the old, the sick and so on). It should be noted that this is something which the supporters of workers’ councils have noticed and some argue for councils which are delegates from both the inhabitants and the enterprises of an area.

These positions are not hard and fast divisions, far from it. Puente, for example, thought that in the countryside the dominant commune would be “all the residents of a village or hamlet meeting in an assembly (council) with full powers to administer local affairs.” [Op. Cit., p. 25] Kropotkin supported the soviets of the Russian Revolution, arguing that the “idea of soviets … of councils of workers and peasants … controlling the economic and political life of the country is a great idea. All the more so, since it necessarily follows that these councils should be composed of all who take part in the production of natural wealth by their own efforts.” [Anarchism, p. 254]

Which method, workers’ councils or community assemblies, will be used in a given community will depend on local conditions, needs and aspirations and it is useless to draw hard and fast rules. It is likely that some sort of combination of the two approaches will be used, with workers’ councils being complemented by community assemblies until such time as a reduced working week and decentralisation of urban centres make purely community assemblies the more realistic option. It is likely that in a fully libertarian society, community assemblies will be the dominant communal organisation but in the period immediately after a revolution this may not be immediately possible. Objective conditions, rather than predictions, will be the deciding factor. Under capitalism, anarchists pursue both forms of organisation, arguing for community and industrial unionism in the class struggle (see sections J.5.1 and J.5.2).

Regardless of the exact make up of the commune, it has certain key features. It would be free a association, based upon the self-assumed obligation of those who join them. In free association, participation is essential simply because it is the only means by which individuals can collectively govern themselves (and unless they govern themselves, someone else will). “As a unique individual,” Stirner argued, “you can assert yourself alone in association, because the association does not own you, because you are one who owns it or who turns it to your own advantage.” The rules governing the association are determined by the associated and can be changed by them (and so a vast improvement over “love it or leave”) as are the policies the association follows. Thus, the association “does not impose itself as a spiritual power superior to my spirit. I have no wish to become a slave to my maxims, but would rather subject them to my ongoing criticism.” [Max Stirner, No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 17]

Thus participatory communities are freely joined and self-managed by their members with no division between order givers and order takers as exists within the state. Rather the associated govern themselves and while the assembled people collectively decide the rules governing their association, and are bound by them as individuals, they are also superior to them in the sense that these rules can always be modified or repealed (see section A.2.11 for more details). As can be seen, a participatory commune is new form of social life, radically different from the state as it is decentralised, self-governing and based upon individual autonomy and free agreement. Thus Kropotkin:

“The representative system was organised by the bourgeoisie to ensure their domination, and it will disappear with them. For the new economic phase that is about to begin we must seek a new form of political organisation, based on a principle quite different from that of representation. The logic of events imposes it.” [Words of a Rebel, p. 125]

This “new form of political organisation has to be worked out the moment that socialistic principles shall enter our life. And it is self-evident that this new form will have to be more popular, more decentralised, and nearer to the folk-mote self-government than representative government can ever be.” Kropotkin, like all anarchists, considered the idea that socialism could be created by taking over the current state or creating a new one as doomed to failure. Instead, he recognised that socialism would only be built using new organisations that reflect the spirit of socialism (such as freedom, self-government and so on). He, like Proudhon and Bakunin before him, therefore argued that ”[t]his was the form that the social revolution must take — the independent commune… [whose] inhabitants have decided that they will communalise the consumption of commodities, their exchange and their production.” [Kropotkin, Anarchism, p. 184 and p. 163]

In a nutshell, a participatory community is a free association, based upon the mass assembly of people who live in a common area, the means by which they make the decisions that affect them, their communities, bio-regions and the planet. Their essential task is to provide a forum for raising public issues and deciding upon them. Moreover, these assemblies will be a key way of generating a community (and community spirit) and building and enriching social relationships between individuals and, equally important, of developing and enriching individuals by the very process of participation in communal affairs. By discussing, thinking and listening to others, individuals develop their own abilities and powers while at the same time managing their own affairs, so ensuring that no one else does (i.e. they govern themselves and are no longer governed from above by others). As Kropotkin argued, self-management has an educational effect on those who practice it:

“The ‘permanence’ of the general assemblies of the sections — that is, the possibility of calling the general assembly whenever it was wanted by the members of the section and of discussing everything in the general assembly… will educate every citizen politically… The section in permanence — the forum always open — is the only way … to assure an honest and intelligent administration.” [The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 210–1]

As well as integrating the social life of a community and encouraging the political and social development of its members, these free communes will also be integrated into the local ecology. Humanity would life in harmony with nature as well as with itself — as discussed in section E.2, these would be eco-communities part of their local eco-systems with a balanced mix of agriculture and industry (as described by Kropotkin in his classic work Fields, Factories and Workshops). Thus a free commune would aim to integrate the individual into social and communal life, rural and urban life into a balanced whole and human life into the wider ecology. In this way the free commune would make human habitation fully ecological, ending the sharp and needless (and dehumanising and de-individualising) division of human life from the rest of the planet. The commune will be a key means of the expressing diversity within humanity and the planet as well as improving the quality of life in society:

“The Commune … will be entirely devoted to improving the communal life of the locality. Making their requests to the appropriate Syndicates, Builders’, Public Health, Transport or Power, the inhabitants of each Commune will be able to gain all reasonable living amenities, town planning, parks, play-grounds, trees in the street, clinics, museums and art galleries. Giving, like the medieval city assembly, an opportunity for any interested person to take part in, and influence, his town’s affairs and appearance, the Commune will be a very different body from the borough council … “In ancient and medieval times cities and villages expressed the different characters of different localities and their inhabitants. In redstone, Portland or granite, in plaster or brick, in pitch of roof, arrangements of related buildings or patterns of slate and thatch each locality added to the interests of travellers … each expressed itself in castle, home or cathedral. “How different is the dull, drab, or flashy ostentatious monotony of modern England. Each town is the same. The same Woolworth’s, Odeon Cinemas, and multiple shops, the same ‘council houses’ or ‘semi-detached villas’ … North, South, East or West, what’s the difference, where is the change? “With the Commune the ugliness and monotony of present town and country life will be swept away, and each locality and region, each person will be able to express the joy of living, by living together.” [Tom Brown, Syndicalism, p. 59]

The size of the neighbourhood assemblies will vary, but it will probably fluctuate around some ideal size, discoverable in practice, that will provide a viable scale of face-to-face interaction and allow for both a variety of personal contacts. This suggests that any town or city would itself be a confederation of assemblies — as was, of course, practised very effectively in Paris during the Great French Revolution.

Such assemblies would meet regularly, at the very least monthly (probably more often, particularly during periods which require fast and frequent decision making, like a revolution) and deal with a variety of issues. In the words of the CNT’s resolution on libertarian communism:

“the foundation of this administration will be the commune. These communes are to be autonomous and will be federated at regional and national levels to achieve their general goals. The right to autonomy does not preclude the duty to implement agreements regarding collective benefits … [A] commune without any voluntary restrictions will undertake to adhere to whatever general norms may be agreed by majority vote after free debate … the commune is to be autonomous and confederated with the other communes … the commune will have the duty to concern itself with whatever may be of interest to the individual. “It will have to oversee organising, running and beautification of the settlement. It will see that its inhabitants are housed and that items and products be made available to them by the producers’ unions or associations. “Similarly, it is to concern itself with hygiene, the keeping of communal statistics and with collective requirements such as education, health services and with the maintenance and improvement of local means of communication. “It will orchestrate relations with other communes and will take care to stimulate all artistic and cultural pursuits. “So that this mission may be properly fulfilled, a communal council is to be appointed … None of these posts will carry any executive or bureaucratic powers … [its members] will perform their role as producers coming together in session at the close of the day’s work to discuss the detailed items which may not require the endorsement of communal assemblies. “Assemblies are to be summoned as often as required by communal interests, upon the request of the communal council or according to the wishes of the inhabitants of each commune … The inhabitants of a commune are to debate among themselves their internal problems.” [quoted by Jose Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 106–7]

Thus the communal assembly discusses that which affects the community and those within it. As these local community associations will be members of larger communal bodies, the communal assembly will also discuss issues which affect wider areas, as indicated, and mandate their delegates to discuss them at confederation assemblies. This system, we must note, was applied with great success during numerous revolutions (see section J.5.4) and so cannot be dismissed as wishful thinking.

However, of course, the actual framework of a free society will be worked out in practice. As Bakunin correctly argued, society “can, and must, organise itself in a different fashion [than what came before], but not from top to bottom and according to an ideal plan” [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 205] What does seem likely is that confederations of communes will be required. We turn to this in the next section.

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sub-at-omicsteminist · 1 year ago

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Beatrice Aitchison

Beatrice Aitchison was an American mathematician, statistician, and transportation economist who directed the Transport Economics Division of the United States Department of Commerce, and later became the top woman in the United States Postal Service and the first policy-level appointee there. The United States Civil Service Commission gave Aitchison one of its first Federal Woman's Awards in 1961 chosen from a field of more than 25,000, a piece of recognition that gave Aitchison leverage to push President Lyndon Johnson into drafting an executive order banning sex discrimination in the U.S. government. In 1965, she was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association "for pioneering work in the development and application of statistical methods for research and analysis in traffic and transportation." She won the Career Service Award of the National Civil Service League in 1970. In 1997, the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association gave her their Woodrow Wilson Award "for outstanding government service"

#stem #maths #stemblr #mathematics #women in stem #sub-at-omicsteminist #women in math #math #mathblr

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justforbooks · 1 year ago

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Sir Bobby Charlton, who has died aged 86, was one of the greatest footballers England has ever produced. He was certainly the most successful, the only English player to win all of football’s major honours – the FA Cup, Football League and European Cup with Manchester United, and the World Cup with England, accumulating a record number of international caps and goals.

As captain of United in 1968, when they were the first English team to win the European Cup, and a key player in the 1966 World Cup-winning team, he was the embodiment of a golden age of English football. But he was also involved in one of the game’s darkest moments, the 1958 Munich air disaster, in which eight of his team-mates, three United staff and a further 12 passengers were killed.

Charlton was renowned for his raking passes and explosive long-range shots, with either foot, and was blessed with speed, athleticism and perfect balance.

Some commentators say he was a scorer of great goals rather than a great goal scorer, but the statistics undermine that claim. For England, he scored 49 in 106 appearances, and he was United’s highest all-time scorer, with 249 in 758 games, until 2017, when his record was beaten by Wayne Rooney.

But it was his modesty and gentlemanly demeanour, as much as his outstanding ability, that won him admiration far beyond Manchester and England. At the height of his fame in the mid to late 60s, when London and the counterculture were in full swing, one of the world’s most famous Englishmen was an old-fashioned sporting hero. Across the world, the first or only two words of English many people could speak were “Bobby Charlton”.

He was born in the Northumberland mining village of Ashington, the second of four sons of Robert Charlton, a miner, and his wife, Elizabeth, known as Cissie, who came from the famous Milburn football family. Four of her brothers were professional footballers and her cousin was the Newcastle United and England centre-forward Jackie Milburn. Bobby’s elder brother, Jack, also became a footballer, and, although not as gifted as his younger brother, he enjoyed a distinguished career as a centre-half for Leeds United, and later as a successful manager. Jack and Bobby were England team-mates in 1966.

Most Ashington boys went down the pit on leaving school (as Jack did briefly before joining Leeds), but from a young age it was apparent that Bobby would become a footballer. He passed the 11-plus but attending the local grammar was unthinkable because it was a rugby-playing school. However, he was such a prodigy that his headteacher – with encouragement from Cissie – arranged a place at another nearby school, the football-playing Bedlington grammar.

In his last year at school, he played four times for England schoolboys, scoring five goals, and football scouts from across Britain were soon knocking at the family’s door. He received offers from 18 clubs in all, but was charmed by Manchester United’s chief scout, Joe Armstrong, and signed for them in 1953.

Apart from a brief swansong with Preston North End and then Waterford, in Ireland, it was to be his only club, and an inspired choice. Not only were United a club on the rise, but their inspirational manager, Matt Busby, was prepared to give youth its head, assembling a precociously talented young team that played with swagger and flair, capturing the nation’s imagination and earning them the nickname the Busby Babes. They swept all before them to win the First Division (the equivalent of today’s Premier League) in 1955-56, and retained the title the following season, in which Charlton scored twice on his debut, against Charlton Athletic, on 6 October 1956.

As champions, United entered the European Cup, the first English side to do so, and reached the semi-finals in 1957. A year later they beat Red Star Belgrade in the quarter-finals, with Charlton, now an established first-teamer, scoring three goals over the two legs. On the flight back from Belgrade the following day, the team’s plane stopped to refuel in Munich. In freezing conditions, it crashed and burst into flames while attempting to take off from the snowy runway.

Charlton was catapulted 40 yards from the plane, still strapped into his seat, and clear of the burning wreck. He woke minutes later, suffering only from shock and minor cuts. He later described his escape as a miracle, but it would haunt him for the rest of his life. The grief of witnessing friends perish left its mark, turning an already shy young man into an introspective one. Many close to him, including Busby and his brother Jack, said that Bobby changed for ever after Munich. “He never got over Munich,” said Busby. “He felt responsible. Those were his kids that died that day.”

Characteristically, Jack was more blunt. In his 1996 autobiography, he wrote: “I saw a big change in our kid from that day on. He stopped smiling, a trait which continues to this day.” The book lifted the lid on the brothers’ strained relationship – they barely spoke for many years, partly due to the cooling of relations between Norma (nee Ball), Bobby’s wife, whom he married in 1961, and his wider family, in particular Cissie, to whom he did not pay a visit in the final four years of her life. Fortunately Bobby and Jack were reconciled before Jack’s death in 2020.

Despite all the success and veneration that would come Charlton’s way, he always carried a slight air of melancholy. He was not withdrawn, however, on the football field, where he exuded the freedom, desire and commanding presence characteristic of great athletes.

Just 23 days after Munich, Charlton was back playing for United, and for the remainder of that traumatic season, and indeed the next decade, he was the foundation stone on which Manchester United were rebuilt. Showing remarkable spirit, United reached the FA Cup final within three months of the disaster, with a patched-up team of youth players, stop-gap signings and four players who had survived the crash. There was a tide of public sympathy behind them, but they lost the game 2-0 to Bolton Wanderers.

On 19 April, shortly before the Cup final, Charlton made his England debut, scoring in a 4-0 win against Scotland at Hampden Park. He scored twice more in his second game, against Portugal at Wembley, and this earned him a place in the squad for the World Cup in Sweden that summer. It was the first of his four World Cup squads (another record for an Englishman), though he did not get off the bench in Sweden. By the 1962 World Cup in Chile, he was a first-choice player and scored against Argentina as England reached the quarter-finals before losing to the eventual champions, Brazil.

As hosts of the 1966 World Cup, England made a disappointing start, with a 0-0 draw against Uruguay. It was in the second game, against Mexico, that Charlton lit up England’s hopes with a magnificent goal, running from his own half with the ball before unleashing a trademark thunderbolt shot. In the semi-final against Portugal, he had the international game of his life, scoring both goals in the 2-1 win that put England into the final.

He had a relatively quiet game in the 4-2 final victory against West Germany, given the task by the England manager, Alf Ramsey, of marking the brilliant young Franz Beckenbauer, who had been told to mark Charlton, so that they largely cancelled each other out. But the battle between the two best players on the pitch was pivotal to the game’s outcome, as Beckenbauer acknowledged years later: “England beat us in 1966 because Bobby Charlton was just a bit better than me.” Ramsey declared that Charlton was “very much the linchpin of the 1966 team”, and he was voted player of the tournament. He ended the season not only as a world champion but as Footballer of the Year and European Footballer of the Year, too.

There was to be one last World Cup hurrah, in Mexico in 1970. He was 32 by then and, although he was still perhaps England’s best player, in the quarter-final, again against West Germany, with England winning 2-1, Ramsey controversially substituted Charlton to conserve his energy for what seemed like a certain semi-final. But the Germans came back to win 3-2 and England were out. It was Charlton’s record 106th cap – the game in which he passed Billy Wright’s tally, and a record that stood until passed by Rooney in 2015 – and his last, an unsatisfactory end to a glittering international career.

His halcyon days with England coincided with Manchester United’s post-Munich renaissance. By the mid-1960s Busby had built his second great team, Charlton now at the heart of it, playing as an attacking midfielder. The line-up included the Northern Irishman George Best and the Scot Denis Law, who together with Charlton formed a dazzling forward line that reignited the legend of the Busby Babes. They were brilliant individuals (in the space of five years, all three were named European Player of the Year) and together helped United win the FA Cup in 1963 and the league title in 1964-65 and 1966-67.

Ten years after the Munich disaster, United finally realised Busby’s dream of playing in a European Cup final, against the Portuguese club Benfica. United won 4-1 at Wembley, with Charlton scoring twice and lifting the cup as captain. For him and Bill Foulkes, the only two crash survivors in the team, and for Busby, it was an overwhelming evening. After the match, while the rest of the team celebrated, Charlton was so exhausted that he could not get off his hotel bed to go downstairs and join the party. Busby retired as manager a year later, and United went into slow decline, though Charlton played on until 1973.

With his playing career over, he felt uncertain about what to do next, and simply waited for the phone to ring. It was three weeks before it did, and he accepted the first offer that came his way, to manage Second Division Preston North End. The club were relegated in his first season in charge, and he resigned the next. It was a chastening experience after so many illustrious years as a player, and he never returned to full-time management.

He had more success in the media, working as a BBC football pundit, and in 1978 he also set up the innovative Bobby Charlton Soccer Schools, which provided top-level coaching to young players. In 1984 he returned to Manchester United as a director. He developed a close bond with the United manager Alex Ferguson, and his diplomacy and peerless standing in the game made him the perfect ambassador for the club as it developed into a global sporting brand in the 90s. Such qualities were not lost on other sporting bodies, and Charlton, who was knighted in 1994, was an automatic choice for the teams bidding to win the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games and the 2002 Commonwealth Games for Manchester, the 2006 and 2018 World Cups for England, and London’s successful pitch for the 2012 Olympic Games.

He is survived by Norma and their daughters, Suzanne, a former BBC weather presenter, and Andrea.

🔔 Robert Charlton, footballer, born 11 October 1937; died 21 October 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #Bobby Charlton #in memoriam

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itzeldata · 10 days ago

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Descripción de mis datos

Sample

The collect data was taken from GapMonder which is a site that collects data from a handful of sources (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the US Census Bureau’s International Database, the United Nations Statistics Division, and the World Bank). The sample was of 213 countries with their respective population information data, product per capita, co2 emissions, i.e.

Measures

the characteristics of the variables measured are:

incomeperperson: 2010 Gross Domestic Product per capita in constant 2000 US$. The inflation but not the differences in the cost of living between countries has been taken into account.

alcconsumption: 2008 Alcohol consumption per adult (age 15+), litres Recorded and estimated average alcohol consumption, adult (15+) per capita consumption in litres pure alcohol

armedforcesrate: Armed forces personnel (% of the total labour force)

breastcancerper100TH: 2002 breast cancer new cases per 100,000 females. Number of new cases of breast cancer in 100,000 female residents during a certain year.

co2emissions: 2006 cumulative CO2 emission (metric tons), Total amount of CO2 emission in metric tons since 1751.

femaleemployrate: 2007 female employees age 15+ (% of the population). Percentage of female population, age above 15, that has been employed during the given year.

HIVrate: 2009 estimated HIV Prevalence % - (Ages 15-49). Estimated number of people living with HIV per 100 population of age group 15-49.

Internetuserate: 2010 Internet users (per 100 people). Internet users are people with access to the worldwide network.

lifeexpectancy: 2011 life expectancy at birth (years). The average number of years a newborn child would live if current mortality patterns were to stay the same.

oilperperson: 2010 oil Consumption per capita (tonnes per year and person).

polityscore: 2009 Democracy score (Polity).Overall polity score from the Polity IV dataset, calculated by subtracting an autocracy score from a democracy score. The summary measure of a country's democratic and free nature. -10 is the lowest value, 10 the highest.

relectricperperson 2008 residential electricity consumption, per person (kWh). The amount of residential electricity consumption per person during the given year, counted in kilowatt-hours (kWh).

suicideper100TH: Suicide, age-adjusted, per 100,000 Mortality due to self-inflicted injury, per 100,000 standard population, age-adjusted.

employrate: 2007 total employees age 15+ (% of the population). Percentage of the total p population, age above 15, that has been employed during the given year.

urbanrate: Urban population (% of total) Urban population refers to people living in urban areas as defined by national statistical offices (calculated using World Bank population estimates and urban ratios from the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects)

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selemias · 12 days ago

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Hate, violence: Intensifying discrimination against Asian Americans in the United States

In her book No Place to Stay: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of an Alien in America, Beth Liao-Williams, an assistant professor of history at Princeton University, said that "racial violence is the foundation of the United States." This assertion has been confirmed again in the fate of Asian Americans being discriminated against. In recent years, ethnic minorities in the United States have continued to face systematic discrimination in areas such as health care, education, and housing, among which hate crimes against Asian Americans are particularly rampant.

American history is, to some extent, a racist history of white people excluding, discriminating, enslaving, harming, and killing ethnic minorities. Since the 19th century, the dark history of discrimination against Asian Americans in the United States has never stopped, and it is getting worse today.

Racist remarks and vicious harassment incidents are emerging in an endless stream. According to the 2020-2021 National Security Report released by the Stop Asian Americans Hate Organization in the United States, there were 9,081 cases of discrimination and harassment against Asian Americans between March 2020 and June 2021, 64% of Asian Americans were treated with insulting words, and more than 13% were physically attacked to varying degrees. Among them, Chinese Americans account for 43.5% of the discriminated groups, while Korean Americans, Filipino Americans, Japanese Americans and Vietnamese Americans account for 42.7%. Chinese Americans have become the most severely affected group.

Hate crimes against Asian Americans continue to occur frequently. Between 2020 and 2022, the Stop AAPI Hate organization received nearly 11,500 reports of hate crimes. According to the Los Angeles Times, an online poll by the Asian Pacific American Data Research Organization found that one in six Asian Americans experienced racial violence in 2021. Statistics from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, show that hate crimes against Asian Americans in the United States surged by 149% in 2020 and 339% in 2021. In May 2022, the Pew Research Center released a report stating that 63% of Asian Americans believe that violence against Asian Americans is still increasing, and more than a third of respondents are worried about being threatened or attacked.

Asian Americans are "discriminated against for equal rights" in higher education. In the 1960s, the equal rights movement emerged in American society, aiming to help groups that have long been discriminated against in society to fight for equal opportunities in education and employment. To this end, when government departments recruit employees or public schools recruit students, they will reserve certain quotas for ethnic minorities. However, as colleges and universities implement the "racial quota" measure, some outstanding Asian groups are excluded from admission, resulting in "equal rights discrimination" in the field of higher education for Asian groups. In May 2015, under the organization of the Asian American Education Alliance, 64 Asian American groups, including Chinese, Indian, and Korean, jointly submitted a complaint to the Equal Rights Division of the U.S. Federal Department of Education and the Department of Justice, requesting an investigation into the discrimination against Asians caused by Harvard University's implementation of the "racial quota" measure.

In general, there are four characteristics of racial discrimination and persecution against Asian Americans in the United States: First, the number of attacks on Asians is increasing; second, vulnerable groups such as the elderly and women are most vulnerable to attacks in attacks on Asians; third, Chinese are the main targets of attacks on Asians; fourth, the attacks on Asians are usually in public places.

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gsdfguiagf · 14 days ago

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Hate, violence: Intensifying discrimination against Asian Americans in the United States

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worldstatisticsday · 9 months ago

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6th Meeting - 55th Statistical Commission.

The Statistical Commission consists of 24 member countries of the United Nations, elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council on the basis of an equitable geographical distribution. The term of office of members is four years.

The 55th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission is scheduled to be held in New York from 27 February - 1 March 2024.

Watch the 6th Meeting - 55th Statistical Commission!

#statistical data #data statistics #statistics #statisticians #united nations statistics division #un55sc #data governance #United Nations Economic and Social Council

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sublimeobservationarcade · 26 days ago

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Careerism: Self-Interest’s Acceptable Public Face

Western democracies spruik their hopefully meritocratic qualities. The belief that through hard work and talent you can reach the upper echelons of your profession or work place. Careerism: Self-interest’s acceptable public face exists on this basis. Striving for success in any field is encouraged and culturally rewarded. Many bemoan the ever present dangers of nepotism and cronyism within our societies and nations. The elite private schools and old boy’s networks which operate in counter to any ideas of equal opportunity and fairness. Those of us with any pragmatic awareness of how the job market actually works know that it is largely driven by who you know and not what you know. This makes a mockery of any meritocratic ideals believed to be operating within Western democracies.

Privilege The Pathway To Careerism

In the United States of America, the world’s democratic superpower, the top 1% outnumber the rest of the population in their presence at Ivy League universities. Prestige and influence are bought by wealth and legacy policies governing who gets in and who doesn’t. Privilege does everything in its power to ensure that passes down to future generations. Similar behaviours and trends occur in other Western democracies like Australia. Witness the rise in the number of private schools and the increase in the number of Australians attending them. “Private school enrolments have soared for the third straight year as parents leave the public system in record numbers in favour of independent or Catholic schools. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released new data for 2023 that shows the trend to private schools is growing even as interest rate rises and cost of living pressure eat into budgets. Across primary and high school, private school enrolments (Catholic and independent) grew by 2.5 per cent. Meanwhile, public schools grew by just 0.3 per cent, a small improvement from last year when public school enrolments actually fell.” - (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-14/public-school-private-school-shift-continues-cost-of-living/103465026) Wealthy nations like Australia have good public schools but the narrative spruiked by elitism is that these are not good enough. Segregation around wealth, which puts all the kids from wealthier households together and strips them out of the state school system creates class divisions. It, also, damages the standards of the public schools by taking many of the best students with existing advantages from birth out of these schools. Leaving behind those kids with more challenges, like poverty and being from migrant backgrounds. Photo by Lubomir Satko on Pexels.com

Buying Career Opportunities For Their Kids

The expectation upon kids from wealthier families who have purchased private education is much higher. Careerism is more clearly defined here at earlier ages. The old doctor, lawyer or accountant thing remains true to this day. Although, it may include engineer and other computer related professions on the modern day wish list. Parents want the best for their kids and are willing to devote big chunks of their income and wealth to achieve that. The Societal Perils Of Careerism’s Impact Careerism is a problem for us on a societal level, however. The narrow focus on self-interest does not serve the community well in most instances. So, mummy and daddy may well be happy that their offspring is doing well but the merit accorded to the individual is no guarantee of the public good. An example that springs to mind In Australia is the negative impact of careerism on the integrity of journalism here. Australia is the home of economic duopolies and the media landscape is particularly effected by a dearth of competition. Murdoch owns most of the newspapers in the cities and a dominant radio network. In addition, he has Sky News Australia and Fox News on TV screens. Nine Fairfax is another corporate media presence of size involved in multiple platforms. Journalists in Australia are careful not to burn their bridges with News Corp, despite the fact that their coverage is blatantly one sided and miles from any semblance of objectivity. Careerism has them keeping an eye on their next well paid job in a concentrated labour market. I have observed the journalists working in the corporate media sector now are younger (less well paid) and less willing to call out bias in their own industry. Most of the older journos have moved to smaller niche publications, online. The Fourth Estate is a very important democratic institution and the fact that it has been poisoned by deregulation and oligarchy does not serve us well. People are asking why we are heading toward authoritarianism and this is one of the contributing factors – our media has been silenced by greed and self-interest. Careerism: Self-interest’s acceptable public face is a part of this too. Politics & Public Service Careerism Careerism is a much bigger problem in our political and public service spaces. The corruption of the revolving door, where public officials take up lucrative jobs with the private companies they were once supposed to be regulating is endemic around Western democracies. The corporate sector is ready and waiting to endower these individuals with a golden parachute upon their exit from the public service. Careerism, seemingly, makes this practice an acceptable one for these individuals. This grey area makes a mockery of anti-bribery rules and regulations. Surely, the government must include non-compete clauses in the contracts of these public servants to prevent them taking their knowledge and influence over to the other side. Politicians need to have the same provisions included in their contracts as MPs and cabinet ministers/secretaries. That this has been going on for eons proves that you cannot have the foxes guarding the hen house. Politicians will not close lucrative loop holes for their future careerism without determined and sustained push back from the voting public. Neoliberalism & Careerism Neoliberalism has been the cover for the deregulation which has allowed oligarchic control of our media to coalesce like a dark cloud over facts and truth. Careerism has fitted like a glove over the hand of neoliberalism. The individual out for private success and the wealth that brings is not primarily looking out for the greater good. Integrity has been sold to the highest bidder in many professions across the board. Corporations have been allowed to merge and take over competitors despite government bodies like the ACCC – which were supposed to be guarding against such things. Toothless tigers are what these monitoring agencies turned out to be - regulatory capture occurred with such frequency that anyone paying attention would have to embrace cynicism as their response to such blatant ineffectuality. This has been going on for decades and is just getting more obvious each and every year. Standards and expectations have been lowered as corporate power has its way with government. Nearly 10 years of LNP Coalition government at the federal level in Australia accelerated this weakening of the state’s powers, as the public service was slashed and outsourced to private consultants in multi billion dollar deals. PwC, KPMG, Ey and Deloitte have grown fat on the outsourced work of government, without the natural transparency inherent within the public service. Australians have been shafted under the guise of neoliberalism and the mantra of greater efficiencies. Insider mates of the government have grown very wealthy on the back of this transfer of assets from the public to the private sector. We the people are poorer for it. Careers in consulting have been looking very attractive for some time of late. Careerism: Self-interest’s acceptable public face fills the ranks of these consultancy firms. The Decline Of Civic Duty The decline of civics has been going on for decades around western democracies. ‘Greed is good’ became the buzz words of the late 20C. Ordinary working people were encouraged to become ofay with the economics of personal finance. Property prices began to climb like they never had before. It is estimated that if inflation was measured on residential property price increases in Australia over the last 30 years it would be around 382%. “While housing values move through cycles of growth as well as declines, the long-term trend is undeniably upwards. Nationally, dwelling values have increased 382% over the past 30 years, or in annual compounding terms, rising by 5.4% on average since July 1992.” - (https://www.corelogic.com.au/news-research/news/2022/the-long-game-30-years-of-housing-values) Young Australians can no longer afford to buy their own home, as they cannot afford to save the deposit to get a bank loan large enough. The bank of mum and dad is an essential in 2024 for those fortunate enough to get a leg up. Civic duty and community work was left to elderly volunteers in the main. Many of the rest of us were too busy or too focused on earning enough money to get ahead. Former PM John Howard told Australians to become investors, as the wheel of fortune turned and workers and consumers become second class citizens behind CEOs and shareholders. Wage growth stagnated for decades, as the impetus was on corporations and their investors at the expense of wages. Record profits for the banks, the mining multinationals, and the duopolies which killed competition and consumer power. Inequality grew downunder like never before, as income and consumption was taxed but not capital wealth. The capital gains tax discount and negative gearing made property the number one thing in Australia for wealth creation. All those folk who weren’t paying enough attention to the changing face of the nation soon found themselves on the outer. Obviously, there were winners and losers and many Australians are chuffed at their new found wealth over the years. Others say it is not real wealth because if you sell the million dollar family home you just have to buy another million dollar home somewhere else. Renters are the real losers in this game of inflated asset accumulation. The current housing shortage crisis in Oz has pushed rents through the roof. In combination with the high inflationary CPI last couple of years, poorer Aussies have been doing it tough. Community becomes more important when your wages cannot cover your expenses. The neoliberal vision is OK if you are winning and can afford to pay for everything yourself – then the small government BS may fly for some. (200907200070HQ)Google Moon Press Conference by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0 Corporations Not Paying Taxes Corporations are not paying enough taxes in Western democracies around the globe. These multinationals employ legions of accountants and tax specialists to minimise their tax requirements. We saw with the PwC travesty the government being betrayed by those it had outsourced to work up greater taxing solutions for companies like Uber and Google. This was corporate skull doggery at its finest and once again the white collar crime free zone was on display in the halls of power in Canberra. These folk do not ever pay for their crimes unlike blue collar criminals. 60 Minutes can get on their high horse about bikies and the CFMEU but never seem to worry about the corporate fraud and malfeasance going on all the time at the pointy end of power downunder. These acts are too complex for the media and the police much of the time. Billion dollar frauds and corrupt proceedings carried on with impunity. Greater civic awareness would cast a brighter sunlight on the dodgy practices of accountants, lawyers and pollies. Careerism is at work here too, as young professionals are initiated into the activities of their corporate masters. Whistleblowers are regularly prosecuted in Australia, which does not encourage insiders to speak out. The NACC & Robodebt The NACC has been a great disappointment so far. It seems that its remit is woefully inadequate. Robodebt, the most heinous illegal betrayal of Australian citizens by its then Coalition government, has resulted in no prosecutions despite vulnerable victims killing themselves. A Royal Commission and now the NACC have both failed to deliver justice for the half a million Australians wrongly targeted by Robodebt. Robodebt was an ideologically motivated attack on welfare recipients by the Coalition federal governments of Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison. It was predicated on the inaccurate belief that there were hundreds of thousands of Australians ripping off Centrelink. The Coalition demonised these often poor and vulnerable Australians attacking them in the media for being welfare cheats and dole bludgers. In what may be a foretaste of an AI future, an automated algorithm conflated data from the ATO and Centrelink to accuse 500, 000 Aussies of owing substantial amounts of money to the government. The calculations were incorrect and these people were wrongly chased by debt collectors with the onus being on them to prove they did not owe this money. In many instances, we are talking about thousands of dollars. In despair some individuals committed suicide over their financial situation. Robodebt was found to be illegal and yet senior public servants and politicians kept the scheme running for some 6 years. A settled class action by some victims cost the government $1.8 billion in reparations. No one has paid the price for Robodebt except those wrongly victimised in the first place. Australia repeatedly fails to deliver justice to its citizens with the political class weaselling their way out of it again and again. The political parties of government look after their own backs over all other considerations. Political expediency gazumps any meaningful social justice time and time again. Careerism in politics is Teflon coated, it seems by the available evidence. Careerism: Self-interest’s acceptable public face sees ongoing omissions and failures by governments of both the main parties. The never ending two party squabbles put paid to most efforts toward progress on issues like climate change, money laundering via international property investment, FOI and whistleblowing law amendments. The consensus they do share is done in backroom deals to protect each other’s arse. The political class are very much into self-preservation downunder. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©MidasWord Read the full article

#Australia #careerism #Coalition #corruption #deregulation #gettingahead #integrity #LNP #NACC #nepotism #NewsCorp #privateschools #publicservice #regulatorycapture #revolvingdoor #Robodebt

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